The Tears are Flowing

I sit typing this blog at six in the morning listening to God Bless the Rains Down in Africa and drinking Rooibos tea. I love this song right now, but I’m sure I’ll love it even more when I get home and it brings back all the good times I’ve had down here. Slowly, bit by bit I’m starting to realize that I’m going home soon. It’s a little bitter sweet. I’m pumped to see my family, friends, and Zach. I missed a bit from being in Africa: my high school best friend’s wedding, preparing with my sister for her wedding, another good high school friend’s bachelorette party, in addition to the ins and outs of daily life, but I guess it’s give and take. I wouldn’t have traded this opportunity abroad for anything. Oh yikes, I’m starting to get sentimental. I’ll stop right now and save that for my last blog.

Friday May 1st (I can’t believe May came so fast) we redeemed one of our purchases at our auction: A Wine and Cheese Party hosted by Joe and Simon. They made the nicest display of cheese, crackers and fruit! They bought five bottles of wine for us too! We actually only went through three of those though. I’m still not quite a wine connoisseur yet, so I still refer the sweet rose wines, but we tried some different ones and they were really good. We had a lot of fun chatting, but what ended up being the main topic of discussion was GHOST STORIES. I know, random, but it was a lot of fun! I love them and I hate them. Joe and Simon had a few that were really good because they lived in the old apartment of Joshua, the St. John’s student that disappeared from St. John’s a few years ago. It is said that his apartment is haunted and if you believe Joe and Simon’s stories than you probably would say it is too! They were pretty creepy. If you also didn’t know St. John’s is one of the most haunted universities in the country, so we have a good share of other stories. How creepy. I was lucky to be able to fall asleep that night.

Saturday morning, a few of us volunteered to go do some tutoring with students at a high school near Pendla. The program is called Masinyusane and it was created by an American guy just recently. A lot of students attend to get tutoring so they can pass their high school exams or in some cases so they can actually learn a subject. Like I’ve said before, the schooling in the townships is quite poor, but Amina was even talking to one girl and she was getting tutoring for math because they didn’t even have a math teacher at their school. They divide up classrooms into different subjects such as economics, physics, math, biology, and math. I volunteered for the math classroom because I love math. Problem is: I haven’t done it in forever. I assumed these kids would be doing a bit easier math, but no, the kid I was helping was totally doing calculus. I remember some of it and was able to help him out a bit, but I felt bad because I don’t feel like I was that much help. I did the best I can, I guess. That evening Brooke and I headed over to the Boardwalk, a sort of shopping complex with a casino and movie theater. I bought a savory pancake (crepe) with egg, ham, and cheese to eat for dinner and then we met my roommates at the movie theater to watch 17 Again. It was a good movie! There was plenty of cheese, Zach Efron, and a few funny moments and all for 29 Rand! I’ve never been super huge about Zach Efron fan because I wasn’t ever very huge about High School Musical, but he totally redeemed himself in this movie. Oh, what a heart throb (just kidding Zach, haha).

Sunday I spent most of the day working on my last 4,000 word Politic Science paper. This one is comparing two political parties in South Africa. I choose to do Congress of the People (COPE) and the Democratic Alliance (DA) because they are going to be the biggest oppositions to the ANC in the future. COPE is actually recently formed. It was formed as a break-off of the ANC who didn’t like the direction the ANC is going or the leadership they choose. They got about eight percent of the vote in the recent election, which isn’t too bad considering how new they are. Their policies are the same as the ANC, they just plan to implement them better. One of the greatest problems citizens here have with the ANC is its corrupt leadership with Jacob Zuma. It also has slow service delivery to fix the huge amount of poverty and unemployment still here fifteen years after the fall of Apartheid. COPE is actually a pretty popular party among young people, especially at NMMU. We find that many of the older citizens will vote for the ANC because of what it represents. It was the party lead by Mandela when Apartheid fell, so many feel loyal to it. The DA is actually headed up by a white woman, Helen Zille, who was previously the mayor of Cape Town. In the last election, a lot of black people were wary of it being the “white” party, but this election, the DA had a good amount of diversity. They have a bit different of policies, but they have experience and have shown positive results of service delivery in Cape Town. The DA was quite successful and won over the Western Cape. They might be a threat to the ANC in the future.

Monday (4th) at Pendla wasn’t too exciting. Same old, same old. I guess Mrs.Kadi assigned the kids a project to do over the weekend, but very few actually did it. One of the girls who did complete it is an orphan. Mrs. Kadi was telling us that she is bussed to the school every morning from a house with other orphans. She is really a hard working girl, so I hope she makes it far in life.

On Tuesday we did Hygiene Day at Pendla. The kids often do not wash their hands it seems like which is most likely due to the lack of soap. We’ve decided through the request of some teachers that we’re going to provided soap and toilet paper to the school with the remaining fundraising money we have left. The bathrooms don’t look too bad, I guess, because last year’s group really fixed them up, but they do not have any soap dispensers or toilet paper. If the students want toilet paper some teachers do have a few rolls in their classroom that they can use. Therefore, we decided to provide it, but in order to implement it we also did Hygiene Day to teach some lessons on the importance of hygiene. The little kids had an all morning lesson which focused on hand washing. Our students bought some glitter and pretended it was germs and they had to wash it all off. For the upper grade students we gave five different lessons including Nutrition (I taught this with Amy), Body Hygiene (showering, etc.), teeth brushing (led by our pre-dentistry student), neatness and organization, and hand washing. Kirby had a really awesome demonstration on teeth brushing that he gave us on the bus. He had a student put on rubber gloves and then he smoothed shaving cream all over them. They were supposed to represent the teeth and plaque. A student would then “brush” the plaque off and another student would floss out all the extra stuff out between the “teeth”. It was super creative. For my lesson, we made a poster of the U.S. food pyramid and had the kids give us examples of food in each of the areas. The funniest was when we asked them to give us animals we get meat from. Some kids in the 6th grade classroom said, “elephant” and “snake.” Haha, those kids are hilarious. We also talked about eating more of some foods, less of others, exercising everyday, and drinking plenty of water. In all it seemed like a pretty fun and successful day.

Wednesday morning we had our last Community Service Learning class. It was really a time of reflection on the work we’ve done at the schools. I think that’s what finally spurred me on to start reflecting on this semester. We had a really good time and reflected on the moments and people who had the most impact on us. I’ll give you a little insight into my answers.

Conversation that had the most impact on me: Specific conversations are hard to target because I had so many with so many kids. The one I told was one I had just recently heard that week at Pendla. I went into the classroom towards the end of break and I was talking to one of the girls. She was telling me about her siblings and told me that her brother had died two years ago in a house fire. That morning Mrs. Kadi had also just told us that morning about one specific girl who was an orphan and was bussed over to the school with other orphans every morning. Death is a pretty common thing in this culture and that has really impacted me.

One of the students from House was in my group and they told some pretty awesome stories. They’ve recently had a few new kids come to the Haven. Two are older girls. Shannon was telling us that the story of one of the older girls is that she contracted HIV/AIDS because her father raped her and also used her for prostitution. She’s seen examples of her former lives in her actions too. One of the girls when she had to pee would just squat in front of a tree. She also would sort of hoard and protect their food when they would get it. Some of the newer little kids have also grown tremendously since they’ve been there. They used to be shy and quiet and now they give huge smiles and run to our students when they arrive on site.

We also talked about the impact we made on the school this year. We think the school is growing a lot since previous years. This year we volunteered two days a week which is more than previous years. We’ve also set up a good system where we rotate with the teacher and therefore have been able to form a bond with them. Previous years have had huge problems with teachers leaving them in the classroom alone, this year we’ve had very little problems with that unless we have planned lessons. The degree of organization let us really focus on the things that really need to be changed within the school. This year we decided to distribute our fundraising money to pay the salary of two new positions for the school: a maintenance worker and an assistant gardener. They previously only had a grounds keeper and one gardener. The maintenance worker will be really beneficial to the school because the principal who is also a teacher won’t have to leave the classroom to call in workers to fix things when they break. The school structure is really quite poor. There are broken windows from previous break-ins. The ceiling in some rooms is also falling apart and tiles are coming off the floors. The students also sit on broken chairs, so though we didn’t have enough money to get them new chairs we’re hoping this worker can fix some of them. The gardener will add help to the garden and that food will supplement the government provided food that the students receive during break. Both of these positions will also help community members by providing them jobs to support their families. The remaining money will go to soap and toilet paper that I already talked about. Through family night we’ll also give the students much needed supplies like pens, pencils, glue sticks, erasers, etc. Looking back on our semester, our group has really has been successful.

Thursday night, my roommates and I went over to the church nearby for dinner with the priest, Fr. Noel. He was having another American over who volunteers down here to have dinner and thought he would enjoy hanging out with other Americans. We ended up having dinner with Fr. Noel, the American, Jim, and Fr. Matthew, who lives with Fr. Noel. Fr. Noel is an older capuchin priest who just recently came to this parish in February (same as us). He lives a house with other Capuchin priests including Fr. Matthew. Both Fr. Matthew and Fr. Noel are Irish and came over here from Ireland. Jim was really interesting to talk to. He is originally from Pennsylvania, but then most recently attended college and lived in New York. He went to school for engineering and even though he liked his job, he left it to come here and work for the poor after talking to a priest from this area. He ended up down here last September and started the tutoring program that we volunteered at last Saturday. When he arrived a priest gave him a flat and a car and he’s just been volunteering and working for the poor. It was pretty cool to here his story. Dinner was great. Fr. Noel served us salad (which had chips in it), pizza, and wine. Brooke and I were especially excited because one pizza had jalapenos on it. Fr. Noel kept pushing food on us. He claims every time he saw me praying in church he knew I was praying for food. So he claims he is the answer to my prayers. He is a pretty funny priest and we had a really good time getting to know him

Friday we had class for the first time this whole semester. We had a makeup music class. Class wasn’t too exciting, but we listening to a more recent pop song released by an Afrikaner. It’s actually pretty catchy. If you want to listen to it look up De Le Rey on YouTube. Afterwards, almost the whole group headed to a braai organized by Andrew and his choir friends. We actually went to one of the most famous townships in South Africa- Motherwell. Motherwell is known so well because of how horrible the conditions were here. It had its own development program after Apartheid fell. Mundi’s was the name of the place we went to for the braai and it was quite authentic, many of the locals go there. We had a really good time just chillin out and waiting for our food to be done. Two hour later, lamb chops, pork chops, and sausages were served. After we left Mundi’s we drove to New Brighton (the township Pendla is in) and dropped of some of our group at a shebeen. I decided not to go because I didn’t know what time we would eventually get home and it looked a little crazy in there.

Saturday morning, I had to wake up bright and early to get ready to SCUBA dive. We had been rescheduling our dive for the past two weekends and the conditions on the ocean were finally right. We got bundled up in our gear and headed out on the boat. We were supposed to go around the coast to where I had previously been at Cape Recife, but as we got around that coast it got really rough. We drove past part of a ship sticking up from a ship wreck. Supposedly we were supposed to dive near this wreck, but the waves would have pushed us into it, so we switched locations and instead dove near a buoy. We saw tons of colorful coral and six sharks! They actually were pretty little sharks about 1.5 meters long called reggies, but they were really cool to see. The water was cold, but it was definitely worth the money to do that dive. After I got home I spend the rest of the day writing papers as I had three due in the next week.

Sunday was pretty low key also. A few girls and I went downtown Port Elizabeth to go to Mass at the Cathedral. It was a much livelier parish than the church we usually go to. They also had all of us stand up at the end of Mass and welcomed us Americans. From there I went to a soccer game on campus. One of the girls in our group plays soccer at St. Ben’s and decided to play soccer on their team here. It was a pretty low key game and our team won 7-2, but it was fun to watch. After the game the team did a cool down while singing a very African sounding song. Everything down here is so much more fun because they sing!

Monday (11th) was our last day of volunteering and it went so well! A few of the kids gave us little cards they made and we chatted with them a lot during class. They kept saying they would miss us and we’re gonna miss them too! I was talking to a few of the students and one boy was asking me what he had to do to come to American. I told him to work really hard at school and graduate from high school and then go to college in the U.S. or here. I think a lot of South African’s think the U.S. is some kind of magical place, but if they went to a state school like St. Cloud, it’s pretty much the same as NMMU. In all though, being here has made me realize how easy it is living in the U.S. and how nice it is. We are very privileged to be Americans. For the last half of the day, Amy and I were told by Mrs. Kadi to give the students an English project. We decided to have them design their own advertisement for soap. When explaining this project to them we really felt like we came far in the time we have been volunteering here. The kids were really quiet and attentive when we were explaining the project. Then when we gave them time to work on it they were so creative! It’s really nice to see them come up with their own ideas and think “outside the box” a little. One boy made Ironman Soap. They all made us so proud! That night, almost the whole group was working on our last Senior Seminar paper which was due the next day, but we actually got it extended. Laura’s mom sent her chocolate chips earlier in the semester and we were planning on making cookies almost the whole semester. They are probably the food we miss the most. I found all the ingredients and made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies that night. We delivered them warm from the oven to all of the rooms. We probably made about five dozen cookies and they were all gone by the end of the night. Monday nursing students from St. Ben’s also arrived. They’re here for about three weeks. One girl was my neighbor freshman year, so I got to met up with her. It’s so nice to see a familiar face that isn’t from our group. Catching up with her was a lot of fun.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we didn’t volunteer in the morning and instead had our last class of Senior Seminar. We had a really good class and told our own personal experiences of the racism that is still evident in this country. A lot of times over the semester we’ve been told not to do things or go certain places they are known to be “black”. An example of this would be the kombis we ride to class, volunteering in New Brighton, or even the “black” bar we sometimes go to near by called Captains. One kid was told he shouldn’t ride the kombis because he was told sometimes they take the steering wheel off and put a wrench on it to fit more people in. Our scuba instructor has made a few racist comments also. Once when a tank had not been filled he made a reference saying it was probably a black man who neglected to do it. When talking to others about this and the difference in the U.S. we have also heard “well, the blacks in the U.S. are different are different than the blacks here.” As depressing as that conversation is we also told our own personal experiences of where we’ve seen people counteracting the racism here. We also talked about how being in South Africa has affected us and how we will be changed when we get home. I think for majority of us, we realize how our country has grown especially as we have recently elected our first black president. Racism still does exist in our country, but we have noticed that the disadvantage black have in South Africa is very similar to the struggle Latinos are having back home. I was really reflecting on back home in Duluth. Duluth obviously does not have a very diverse population, but in my experience volunteering at a soup kitchen, I did find that most of the people coming to receive food were Native Americans. In Duluth, it seems the population really at a disadvantage is the Native Americans. I can’t really project how I will be changed when I get home, but I think really just learning about politics here has really motivated me to learn more about that at home. Since I’m pursuing a major in Nutrition I really want to learn more about this area and the programs in it that can serve the disadvantaged in our society. After class ended we had an hour for lunch and then headed immediately over to Pendla to prepare for Family Night. We made huge pots of vegetable bean soup, spread peanut butter over 1,200 pieces of bread, and made gallons of orange drink. At 4:30 the children and their families started filtering in. For the first half I was helping out with grade R (kindergarten). They were the first to do their performance which was so adorable. They basically just followed their teacher. After their performance we ushered them to their classroom and delivered them food. They were so quiet and cute as they ate. It’s so weird to have a quiet classroom when I’ve been in 7th grade all semester. After a while I ran over to my classroom and chatted with the kids over there. They were all loud and crazy. We had supplies for each teacher in the school such as contact paper, pens, pencils, sticky tack, and a pencil sharpener. We also had prizes to raffle off to the kids too. I guess there was almost a mob when one of the kids won a soccer ball. Our kids were one of the last to perform and eat. They did a dance, but we weren’t able to get into the classroom to see the kids. The room was absolutely packed and overflowing with parents. At the end all of us sang Lean on Me for the parents. That was soooo fun and I think they really enjoyed it. The parents went to eat after that and as they started to leave we went to pick up the school. These kids aren’t very good at throwing their garbage in the trash as it was all over the ground. Luckily, they did help us pick it up. After we washed all the pans the teachers met with us in a classroom and sang a prayer over us. They also pinned South African flags to our clothes. We’ll just say the tears were flowing. The semester is really coming to a close. I have nine days left in this beautiful country. I’m excited to go home, but I know leaving this beautiful country and beautiful people is going to be so hard.