The highs and lows of another week in South Africa

Hello lovely readers...I hope you are all still out there!

Please leave a comment so I know someone is reading this thing!! It’s hard when you are talking to a wall...or rather, ‘posting’ on one.

Well it feels like an age since I wrote on here, lots has been happening, both good and bad...so I have been rushing around. Firstly, the lovely shopping trip I wrote about last time...turned out to be not such a success. The next day, the Sunday, as I was on my way out for the day to a friend’s baby’s baptism, I realised my passport wasn’t in my handbag. I was out for the whole day worrying about it and when I got home at 9pm I turned my house upside down looking for it...unsuccessfully. I went to bed hoping it was just that I was too tired and searched again in the morning. I looked everywhere! All round the Home and in the cars, asked all the children...then I went to town and went to all the shops I had been to. By this point I had run through all my memories of where I had seen my passport and what I had done, playing it over and over again in my head. I knew that I had it on Friday afternoon, and that it was gone by Sunday morning.
Playing over the trip to town on the Saturday I realised that was when it must have gone. I remember that there was a bit of a strange encounter with a man just outside the Kodak shop where I was going to collect my photos. It was quite busy in the mall and this man was standing very close behind me, so close that he stood on the back of my heel, but I remember it was weird because he did it a second time and didn’t apologise. It was odd the way he was so close to me, it wasn’t that busy...I thought he was trying to get round me so I tried to move out his way but he stayed right behind me...he bumped into me twice. I was trying to get out his way and I kind of staggered into the Kodak shop. I checked my bag for my phone and purse and when they were both there I didn’t think about it again. But now I am positive that is what happened...he must have thought he was taking a wallet or money, little did he know that it was a passport which is pretty useless to him but the most essential thing in MY life! So frustrating!

So on Monday I went round all the shops and asked the managers and security guards but no one had found anything. Then I went to the Police station to enquire but nothing had been handed in, so I filed a theft report and got an affidavit. I had spoken to the British embassy and knew that I needed a police report number to register a stolen passport and get a new one. The police station was a bit of an experience...the one in town is probably the tallest building I have seen round here...it is maybe 5 stories high, that is a skyscraper in African terms! Inside it was like a tacky 80’s hotel lobby, lots of fake orangey marble, plastic plants and dodgy prints in chintzy frames on the wall...at slightly wonky angles. I had to join a queue of about 6 people which was leading to this black marble-topped counter, kind of like a bar! It didn’t look like a police station at all...it was like they had just taken over use of a hotel, just removed the room key box from behind the encounter and there you have it! I was called forward to see a man who was about 50, wearing thick plastic rimmed glasses and a black leather jacket. He looked like a crap car salesman, but I guess he was some kind of police officer...He didn’t say anything to me when I approached...and I didn’t know how to start this kind of conversation! So I tried the traditional Zulu greeting of ‘Hello, how are you?’ the reply to which was a blank stare and silence...so...not the way to approach a policeman apparently! Then I just rambled out my story and he gave me a form which was the affidavit, to fill out what happened. I wasn’t even sure if he was understanding my English...so I just went to write down what I had said.

I had to sit on this stool at a low black marble counter with three little kind of cubicles where you could write without anyone looking over your shoulder. It was facing a big mirror sunk into this strange bit of low wall...probably replaced the tropical fish tank that was there back in its days as an African Fawlty Towers.

So I filled it out and waited while the car salesman-police officer wrote out an affidavit with the man next to me. The experience was topped off when the two of them poked their heads round the marble slab to ask for my help in translating the man’s problem from Zulu. They asked me ‘what is a female cow in English?’ I was taken aback as I thought this was some kind of rude comment about me!..when I had recovered from the shock I managed to splutter ‘heifer’ whilst trying not to laugh my head off. Who knows how the car salesman would have reacted to that, considering ‘how are you?’ wasn’t exactly acceptable. I thought I had a problem having lost my passport...but at least it didn’t involve a heifer. Thank God for small mercies eh?

So anyway, I have now sent off to cancel the current passport number and to apply for a new one, I think it will cost about £250 altogether, hundreds of handfuls of my own hair, and about 24hours spent in police stations and home affairs. Hopefully it will take 2 weeks, though I have my doubts considering it takes much longer in the UK and I am on ‘African time’ now...!
After spending the first 3 days of the week depressed and stressed over my passport, the last 3 days have been doubly good to make up for it! The weather was horrendous for 5 days, from Sun to Sat it just wouldn’t stop raining night and day, and was about 8-12degrees, felt freezing though! Especially as I only really have summer clothes with me. Everyone else was wearing tights, boots, coats and scarves and all I have are sandals, summer skirts and cardigans! I had organised a trip for the teenage boys to go away for the weekend, to spend the day in a game reserve seeing the animals, have a braai and go swimming. But at 7am the morning before I got a phone call to say that the river had burst and it was too flooded to go on a game drive or even to walk around. So the man has rescheduled for this Fri instead. I had 24hours to try and salvage the situation and still take the boys away...

I had organised for us to stay the night in the youth centre at a catholic mission up in the mountains called Maria Ratschitz. I rang them and asked if we could come earlier and have our braai there and just let the boys play in the grounds, they said they were happy to have us but that the rains had made the sand road dangerously slippery and that we might find it impassable with a bus!

So I went to bed on Friday very concerned about what the morning would bring, and if it was more rain then our whole weekend would be ruined – and my first attempt at arranging anything here would be a failure. But the weather looked like it was turning for the better and by 10am it was getting hot, the boys were asking if they could still go to the game reserve but I told them that was going to be Friday, and they will miss school so they are even happier!
We piled on the bus and went to town to buy the last bits of food for the trip. We got lots of treats to make a nice braai with steak and wurst and then bought icecream and custard for pudding...absolute luxuries to these boys! When we came off the tarmac road onto the dirt track it was virtually completely dry and we had no trouble travelling the last 15km up to the mission. It was so beautiful when we arrived! It is really green and lush, on a huge site which is all landscaped and really cared for with flowers and trees...such a change from the surroundings outside St. Anthony’s...which is basically a shanty town next to a busy road. The boys jumped straight off the bus and were playing soccer and running round in the sunshine. It looked like we were going to be successful after all!!

Until the crazy old German nun turned up...It was a bit odd because no one came out to greet us and we didn’t really know where to go or even where we were staying. So I went to find someone and came across...you guessed it...a crazy old German nun. She was about 70 and hunched over, she was wearing a dirty white apron and these massive, clompy Dr Martin boots, almost like what a builder wears. When I told her who we were she started getting angry because she said she didn’t know the group had two ladies in it [me and one of the careworkers] and that we were not allowed to stay in the centre with the boys. She said we should have told her – but the person I had been speaking to on the phone knew full well that it was 16 male and 2 female, they just hadn’t passed the message on. So she rushed off to this other cottage and said that me and Tuli must stay there, we followed her round as she paced up and down the cottage opening and locking various doors searching for a key to a second bedroom. She was jabbering away in a thick German accent and me and Tuli smothered our giggles as we watched her bustle around, muttering angrily – but about what, we didn’t know! She wasn’t very happy to see us though, that’s for sure!

In the end we found the sister who had taken our booking and we asked her if it would be ok for me and Tuli to stay with the boys, because otherwise the one male careworker would have to do all the work, and plus, the whole point was that it was a weekend away together. She said it was no problem and that there was even a separate smaller room where Tuli and I could stay alone. So, reassured that it was all fine we took the key and headed down to see our new lodgings.
O dear...’youth centre’ is a phrase which apparently covers a multitude of sins. It sounds so modern and encouraging...my how we were mistaken! We approached a long low cement building with a tin roof and a number of smashed windows. I unlocked the rickety door to find ancient bunk beds with thin and sagging mattresses, no pillows or sheets, dirty floors and very suspicious smelling toilets. The place didn’t look like it had been cleaned in a good few months...and the holes in the windows meant that a good few birds, insects and other things had been the most recent visitors. I could have cried!! I was so sorry that I had brought them to this place, thinking it was going to be a fun trip away – not a nightmare we just had to endure until we could go back home the next day...!

Mlondi and Tuli [the careworkers] tried to hide their disappointment...we all laughed nervously and went to show the boys their place for the night with heavy hearts. Mlondi made light of it by telling the boys before they went in that it was the most luxurious place he had ever seen...the sarcasm seemed to work and we were all soon laughing at just how bad it was. It wasn’t really any worse than camping when you thought about it, and it was a real adventure at least! The boys hardly batted an eyelid at the state of the inside, considering many of their backgrounds I’m sure they had all lived in worse conditions...staggering really. It had running water and electricity at least, much more than lots of homes in SA.

We were all really hungry as it was 3pm and we hadn’t eaten since breakfast but before we could have any food we had to go out and collect firewood for the braai and the stove. The boys kept winding me up by saying they could see snakes and by trying to throw insects at me or shove them down my back. Most of the time they were really just holding leaves but it was enough to send me running around screaming. The problem was the more I protested the more they chased me! We got back and it was a real team building experience attempting to cook a really nice meal for 20 people only using fire! The kitchen was soon choked with smoke and we were all struggling with very itchy eyes, it was unbearable! We lighted the fire 3 times and then had to give up, we couldn’t boil the water to make Pap [mealie meal which comes from Maize, mixed with water. It is the staple carbohydrate here.] Thankfully I had arranged that the sisters would provide us with supper and when the boys went to collect it they came back with a pot full of pap! So we sat down to a veryyyy late lunch at 7pm, but it was all the more delicious because we had waited so long and all slaved away making it. We ate marinated steak, wurst, pap and this tomato gravy [it makes pap taste really good but without it, it’s pretty tasteless and gross].

Then after dinner we went outside and sang Zulu songs and I attempted to join in the traditional dancing, it was really fun, and all in beautiful surroundings under a starry sky :) We went in at about 10pm and the boys chose a dvd to watch on my laptop, they all agreed on Lion King even though they have seen it before they really like it! It has so much Zulu in it, lots of songs are Zulu, especially if you listen to the stage show. It turns out ‘hakuna mattata’ is Zulu too!! How cool is that!

The next morning we went to church then went to climb the mountain which overlooks the mission. There is a huge white cross which we were going to climb up to, it looked so close from the ground but it was much harder than I expected. It was so hot, maybe 30degrees, and it was ridiculously steep. We were practically on our hands and knees the whole way up!
When we got to the top we had a discussion about the year they have spent at St Anthony’s, reviewing the best bits, the challenges and what they are all thankful for. It was really enlightening to hear them all say what they were grateful to the Home for. Some said they thanked God for bringing them to St Anthony’s so that they had a home for the first time in their life. They were all thankful for the skills they had been taught, cooking, cleaning, washing their clothes – because they now know how to look after themselves. I was surprised to hear so many say they were grateful for being taught good manners, to live someone where people didn’t swear, to be disciplined and taught that stealing is bad. They were all so grateful for this discipline and structure. They obviously have lived completely without the parental guidance I take for granted. Some of them have come for the streets or from child headed families where they have never had a parent teaching them right and wrong. It showed me how much progress they have made and how mature they are, that they are thankful for discipline and being taught morals – most kids would begrudge being told off, I know I would!

I was asked to say a few words and so I told them I was so thankful that they had welcomed me so warmly to St Anthony’s and that they have become my best friends and even my family since I came. Then I tried to motivate them to feel positive about themselves by telling them that they are so strong because they have endured such difficulties in their lives. That they are much stronger than me and they must all dream big because I know they can achieve great things in their lives. The night before I had spoken to Gerry, one of the boys who is going to leave soon as he is 18 now, and I was so moved to hear he wants to be a paramedic! I really want to help him achieve this dream, it is inspiring that he wants to have a job where he saves the lives of other people. I would love to help him get to college so that he can do the course to become a basic paramedic, it only takes 6months but he needs to get a drivers license first.

We climbed back down, which was maybe even harder than going up, and Ben – one of the boys – helped me down, holding my hand all the way as I kept falling! On the way down we saw a scary spider, I’m not sure what it is called yet, I’m searching for it on Google now...but they said it was a poisonous one. It was kind of pinkish colour, with light blue on it too, it wasn’t hairy but they said it was a young one. Pretty scary though!

After having lunch – provided by the sisters – we packed up and reluctantly headed back. They were all sad to leave, they had had such a good time and were really excited and playing on the bus all the way home. It had clearly been a fun weekend for them and they were all hyper and happy, was such a nice feeling to feel like I was the one who had provided them with such a nice weekend. I can’t wait for Friday’s trip to the game reserve, I am sure it is going to be sunny and am really hopeful it will be just as successful as this weekend. I love these boys so so much, I am really going to miss them when I go on holiday and home in January. I will be eager to come back in January to see them all and to enjoy a whole year living and working with them.

The Choir Series 3: Zulu edition!

Hi friends and family...
Hope you are all well, I miss you all a lot! Had my first pangs of homesick last week when I was feeling fluey...but I honestly feel so settled now.

I have become really good friends [I think, I hope!] with quite a lot of the kids now...especially with the teenagers. That's probably because they are better at speaking English! I have homework sessions with them 4 nights a week, and sometimes they turn up on my doorstep unannounced asking for extra help with assignments. The other night I was just trying to have some dinner when there was a tap on my door and a girl wanting help with her science homework...I really had to rack my brain to remember what 'hypothesis', 'independent variable' and 'dependent variable' meant. In the end my GCSE science seemed to come back...which was a bit of luck when 5 more kids turned up, all doing the same piece of homework. I ended up teaching a chemistry lesson in my cottage!! It's really nice that I can be of help to these kids, the other careworkers don't really have the education to be of any assistance. I have really taken my education for granted until now. I have had so much more than people of my own age here, and especially those in older generations who grew up during apartheid.

The other thing that has really brought me closer to the kids is the fact that I have started up a Gospel Choir!! It has really taken off, the children absolutely love it and are always turning up wanting to practice. I have shown them videos I have downloaded from youtube of my choir at York, Revelation, and of other choirs. Their favourite was the one from The Choir BBC show with the boys' school who sang Stand by me/Beautiful Girl, they have seen it literally hundreds of times. Always it finishes and they say 'repeat again auntie Rebecca'!! They struggle with the words so I have made them copies of the lyrics and they practice all the time, you can hear 'dumdum dada dumdum' and 'staaand by meee' all round the Home, any time of day and wherever I am someone seems to be singing it! They bring their own zulu style to the songs and the most fun one is a version of 'amazing grace' I taught them. The boys' part has a really good rhythm to it and it fits their style of dancing. So they are always dancing along as they sing - a million miles from the struggle I had trying to make the choir in York just step from side to side and click their fingers. Now I only have trouble trying to keep them still!!

My cottage has really come alive in the last 2 weeks. Now that I have welcomed the kids into it for choir practice they have come to treat it like their second home. It is really nice because lots of other places in the Home, like the offices and the Principle's house, are kind of off limits. I have adopted an 'open door' policy. It seems whenever I leave my door open it attracts a visitor. So if I ever feel lonely I only have to leave it open and soon one of the kids will turn up, usually asking me to play 'dumdum dada dumdum' for them on the laptop! Today I was overun with about 20 kids coming in and out the house - that's because it's Saturday and they have quite a lot of free time. I had laundry to do so I just left them in the house watching tv, playing with my camera and laptop. I really like just letting them chill out and enjoy the kinds of luxuries that kids in the UK think of as everyday items and activities. For these children, it really is a different world. And they have so much discipline and routine here that when they come to mine I really try not to tell them what to do but just let them choose for themselves. They are so well behaved though, I don't worry about them taking something or damaging anything, they have a lot of respect for other people's possessions.

This evening I had a little video party at my cottage with the teenage boys. I borrowed a DVD player and bought popcorn and fizzy drinks for them. They all came round and 16 of them perched on my sofas, sitting as good as gold as I handed out drinks and food. It was so sweet, it seemed like a brand new experience for them. And yet for me, sitting down on a Saturday night to watch a family film and eat popcorn, is again, a regular activity for me that I have grown up with. It was so nice to give them that experience, I'm sure we will do it again soon. We watched 'Cool Runnings' - it was such a good choice, they LOVED it! Lots of the jokes transcend language barriers so even if they didn't understand most of the dialogue they laughed a lot and understood the general plot. There are lots of jokes which bascially involve people falling out of things/crashing into things - perfect boy humour!

Today I also went on a trip into the town with my friend Sthabile who works in the office and I took one of the boys, his name's Peter and he's 14. The day before Peter had to go to the hospital. The night before he had asked me to accompany him to hospital. It turns out they wanted him to go alone and to catch the bus home on his own, which he had never done before. He was nervous about going alone, that's why he had asked me. The problem was I didn't know when it was going to be...the next morning I was fast asleep when at 6am there was a taptap on my door. It was persistent so I got up and answered the door in my pyjamas..I still had no idea who or what it was. When Peter was standing there waiting for me I felt so bad!! I had to tell him to go without me... So at 9am when I was down in the office I asked if I could have a lift to meet Peter in the hospital and catch the bus back with him. Luckily when I got there he was already out so he just got a lift back with us, we didn't have to brave public transport!

It turns out the reason Peter is in the Home is poverty. He comes from a village in the Drakensberg Mountains and his family are too poor to care for him and his siblings. They had resorted to stealing in order to get money for food. Peter's older brother is in the same prison as Mark because he was caught for theft. Peter would be there too except he was only 12 when he was taught to steal by older kids. The reason he was sick and had to go to hospital was probably because of the water that he has been drinking in his home village. They do not have proper running water so there are a lot of diseases and ongoing health problems that have come from the bad water, including red eyes. It turns out there is another reason for the red eyes - nothing to do with HIV. In January they are planning to make a trip to Peter's home with all the teenage boys and spend a day digging an alotment and planting food for his family. The Home will pay for all the seeds and everything, and hopefully it could provide a lasting solution for Peter's family.

Because of Peter's family position he therefore has no host or foster family coming to look after him in the holidays or at weekends. In the holidays he still goes home to his village and he is given food parcels and weekly visits from the social worker while he is there, to check he is being fed. Lots of the other children have people who come and take them out for weekends, buy them new clothes and spoil them a bit. But Peter has no one like that, he only has the Home and what they can afford to give him. So when I was with Mlondi I suggested that I could take Peter out shopping at the weekend, and maybe buy him something which he needs, be it trainers or trousers or whatever. He said that would be really nice and that Pete was definitely the one I should take out and treat!

So today, the two of us braved riding the 'taxis' for the first time - a mini bus which picks people up when you stick out your finger. They just look like tins on wheels and the drivers drive like lunatics, speeding and overtaking all the time, then suddenly stopping with no warning to drop someone off or pick them up. They are also exclusively ridden by black people, so they were pretty wide-eyed when I turned up this morning! I'm sure they will be talking about me for years to come, the white lady who rode a taxi...! The first shop we headed to was 'Tekkie Town' tekkie means trainers, and we were there for about an hour choosing trainers for me as well as Pete. Really he wanted soccer boots but I had to persuade him that they wouldn't get used enough and that if he got astroturf trainers he could use them as normal shoes too.

Then I also wanted to buy him some new clothes, but being a teenage boy, he has a big thing for sportswear, which doesn't come cheap - even in Africa! I bought him a teeshirt of his soccer team, the Kaizer Chiefs, who play in Johannesburg and some 3/4 length Nike trousers. This was the very first time in his life that he had been taken out shopping and asked to choose what he would like to buy. I must have been on hundreds of clothes shopping trips for myself...makes me sick how much I must have had spent on me over the years. That's why I ended up going a bit over the top and buying him a whole outfit, but he was so so happy, it was worth every penny...and much more besides.

There really is nothing like the feeling you get when you know you have given a child the feeling that they are special. It may seem unfair that I was treating him when I can't afford to treat them all in the same way but that is what makes all the difference to Pete. All the others have more than him, they may have suffered in other ways, but in terms of material things, he is definietly the least well off. Now he has been allowed to catch up a bit! And the important thing is not what he got materially from it, but that special feeling he got, being singled out by me, being asked to come to town - his first time ever! It has given him a chance to experience something new as an individual, rather than as part of a big group of boys. Too often they must get the feeling of being lost in the crowd when they are living in a big group - 16 boys with just one careworker. This was Pete's chance to be singled out from the crowd and given the full attention of someone who cares for him and wants to see him happy. I know for a fact that he will remember this day for a long time to come. And if when he does he remembers how he was made to feel special and loved, then that is something which I believe you can't put a price on.

It really feels true to me today, that...It is in giving, that we receive x

Everyday life in Blaauwbosch...

Hello friends and family :)

I hope you are all well and enjoying the English winter! I am settling into an African summer...quite different from what I'm used to. Not only does it get hot suddenly and then cold again, but they have really strong winds and then sharp downpours that flood the pathways. It is strange being in a place where summer means hot and rainy! The hottest so far has been about 32degrees, and the hottest month is not until January. Sometimes you wake up and it looks cloudy so you dress a bit warmer and then by 9am the cloud has burned off and it's boiling! Then by 3pm a big black cloud appears, the wind is rattling the roof and it pours with rain. Then the next morning, bright sunshine again! I am trying not to be vain about clothes here but sometimes I can't help it, I have to change three times in a day to match the weather!!

Anyway, I'm just trying to paint a better picture of everyday life here. The food is not as bad as I remembered...I have basic ingredients but the only meat I like is the chicken. I tried cooking these sausages and they were so disgusting I had to throw them away. I have eaten other meat cooked by the kitchen but it always has bones and grissle in it. They don't seem to mind! I just want a piece of meat where I don't have to spit bits out or gnaw on a bone!! I will never take boneless chicken breasts for granted ever again...What else, breakfast I have peanut butter toast which is nice. Lunch I either eat what the kitchen has prepared for the staff or just some more toast. I tried making French toast and it was quite nice. But the house smelt like burnt food which was a bit embarassing when visitors turned up. They already think I'm a useless housekeeper because I don't know how to polish the floors! Then dinner, I make either roast chicken or chicken curry. Not very adventurous! It's been 4 weeks and I am already kind of sick of chicken and rice...2 years could take its toll, maybe I will have to branch out.

Now to tell you about African food...lots of it is totally alien to me! They ask me what it is called in English and I have to tell them I have no idea because I've never seen it before. Most of the carbohydrates they eat are totally weird...'pap' which they also call 'stiff porridge' but looks nothing like porridge to me! And some bean mushy stuff [actually quite nice] and they eat mashed pumpkin a lot! The worst thing [which I haven't even tried] is called 'sour milk' in English, I can't remember in Zulu. The name is enough to put me off let alone the smell! It comes out kind of thick and then they mix it with something else so it looks a bit like porridge, gross! The other weird thing I had the other day which was actually nice was a fish chilli! I thought it was beef at first then realised I had been eating fish, quite a surprise! They never waste anything here so often you find the meat they are eating is something which you would never see in England...like they had chicken feet for supper! They were actually gnawing on the claws of chickens, it looked so wrong! They said they eat the heads too! I guess all that stuff ends up in mcChicken nuggets and things like that, but here everything is in it's original shape, no hiding what it is! 'Processing' things is definitely not something which really happens in Africa, I've noticed that a lot. It's especially evident when you see the cow being brought in on the back of a truck, tied up and slaughtered, then served on the BBQ [braai] later that day. Freshest meat I've ever had!

What else can I tell you about my life...my house is very comfortable, not really any different to living in England. I have sofas, tv, fridge freezer, microwave, toaster, hot shower...the only thing which is hard work round the house is doing laundry. You have to scrub it all by hand and I always make my knuckles bleed by the end of a load! They you have to rinse it and hang it out. There is a rinsing machine which I can use sometimes, its basically a barrel which fills with water and spins round...pretty oldschool!! O and the toilet paper is really crap! And my electricity is always shutting off because it's too weak round here. So the fridge is turned off most the time, o dear. You have bars on the windows and doors here, and big fences with spikes on top surrounding the Home. That is normal here, houses always have security fences round them, no little picket fences or low walls like in England. At first I found it intimidating but it makes me feel safe now.

The township which I live in is called Blaauwbosch Catholic Mission...you won't find it on a map or on google because it doesn't officially exist. They have been trying to get it under the durastiction of one of two local councils, Madadeni and Osizweni, but neither one will accept responsibility for it. So apart from the Home and the Church which have built their own sanitation, none of the hundreds of homes here have running water or sewage systems. They have to collect water from taps to wash and cook, and they have outdoor hole-in-the-ground loos which are corrugated steel cubicle things that they have fashioned themselves. They do however have electricity...I don't know how or when this came in. It seems crazy to have electricity but no running water! The people living here are desperately poor. About 80% are unemployed and a similar number are HIV positive. The two often go together as they can't hold down a job because they are sick.

I had quite a scary enounter on the way back from church on Sunday which was held at the primary school, a 15min walk into the heart of the township. A crazy old man who was in his garden started talking to me, he was kind of shouting then I realised he was speaking English and was saying don't walk away from me when I'm talking to you! So I stopped and shook his hand and said hello to be polite but he wouldn't let go of my hand. He was kind of talking nonsense, half zulu half english, then he became more coherent and said he wanted my advice. He said he was addicted to drugs and wanted to know what he should do to stop. He kept repeating the question so I tried to make up an answer! I just said that it's a very hard thing to do but he must try to gradually take less and less because you cannot cut off easily in one go. But he must try and get medical help...I don't even know what the drugs were. The thought going through my mind was that they might actually be drugs for HIV which he needs to take. Often they have very anti-drug taking taboo, to do with their cultural opinions and they sometimes choose to stop taking the drugs which they need for HIV in favor of using traditional herbal healers. I was worried that he might be talking about his HIV drugs which ofcourse I want to encourage him to take! It was a very weird encounter...he let me go and said I must go with a smile on my face to eat my lunch! He was crazy but not a bad man...just very sick I think.

I've been thinking a lot about the children in the Home and wondering if they are sick. Details of the HIV status of all the children is completely private to ensure they are not treated differently or discriminated against. Sadly attitudes are still very misunderstood and families even disown family members who have the virus. My attitude is so opposite in that, I also want to treat them differently, because I want to love them MORE and spoil them! And give them more attention and love, and it is because I pity them. I know it's not a nice feeling to think that others pity you, you want to feel like a 'normal' person. But I just want them to have the best, most love-filled life they can. Maybe they will only live to be a young adult...it doesn't really bare thinking about. It is just so sad. As well as the drug treatment they should be undergoing HIV counselling here too I think...I have heard it mentioned, I'm just not sure what it involves or who conducts it. But the idea is to help them come to terms with their illness and realise that they can have a life past being diagnosed. But the resilience of these children is just stunning. If I knew I had HIV I would just curl up and wait to die...I couldn't carry on like they do. But if they are born with the disease...they have never known any different. We must just make sure they don't see that reaction of tragic pity in the way they are treated or spoken too, they must be given hope for their future, because they only have one chance at their future, they only have this one life...

Anecdotes and thoughts on my third week in Africa

Hello friends and family,

so again it has been a week since my last entry! It shows that I am settling in to a busy way of life...Sunday is my one day of the week when I can do stuff that I want to do. Mid-week is just a bit too hectic so the weekend is the time to get online and collect my thoughts on what I have experienced.

This week saw the start of my job as a Fundraiser for the Home, so far, one 25 page application down...only a few hundred more to go I should think! I have applied to the FirstRand Foundation which is a collection of 4 of the biggest banks in SA into a charitable fund which awards grants to NPO's [non profit organisations]. I emailed it off on the 30th, the deadline was the 31st! So hopefully they picked it up in the office in time on the Friday afternoon for it to qualify for consideration.

There is a lot of work to do here which we need funding for...the main thing being a new block which needs building. Currently the Home can take 100 children, but that means 50 boys and 50 girls. At the moment we have 89 children including 37 boys and 52 girls. The problem is...that we have too many girls in the 2 dormitories for aged 4-12 yrs girls. They are really cramped with 15 girls in one room! That room should really only have about 10 girls.

So they want to build a new cottage for the staff quarters so that those rooms can be made into children's rooms. That cottage will cost about R496,000 which is £49,000. The other big project we are looking to get under way is for an administration block and hall. At the moment there is no one room big enough to hold all the children and staff together. We had a mass on Saturday with just the staff and children and maybe 40 other people, and they had to hire a marquee and put it up outside. They have to hire a marquee maybe 15-20 times a year. If they had their own hall they could hold more functions and events, have indoor events when the weather is bad, and also rent the hall out to the local community to generate extra income. Also, this building would have the offices in so the current offices could be turned into another cottage for children. The two extra cottages inside the Home would accomodate approx. 40 more children! And the cost of building this hall is R1,600,000 which is £160, 000.

So I have a lot of work to do to fundraise this money! They have had the plans drawn up for over a year now and nothing has happened so hopefully we can get the ball rolling so building can start in early 2010.

Other than that, my week has included only 3hours of teaching at the school [that's just how my timetable works, I have 4 busy days at school this coming week] and just general playing with the children. They are getting more used to me now which is nice, and even the boys are becoming braver and talking to me. I just had two of the boys from Zanzibar who are 13yrs come round and visit, they are so curious to see inside the house because I have hundreds of photos on the wall which they can see through my window! So they came in and looked at them all, and I was explaining who all my family and friends are. I also let them go on my laptop so they could look through all the photos I have taken of them over the past few weeks. It's just really nice for them to be able to come in here and see how I am living and know that they are welcome in here too, its not a place which is out of bounds to them! I am hoping that next week the boys will be able to come round for a dvd night in my house! They have a dvd player which they can bring and plug in, and I could buy crisps and popcorn and stuff, make it like a cinema night :)

Yesterday we had a really nice celebration here to remember the founder of St Anthony's, Fr. Tate. He died 40years a go this year. It was really special because we had a lady come back who was the first child that Fr Tate adopted! He was left with 2 orphans when their mother died and there was no other family to care for them, they went and lived with him in his presbetry, their names were Nancy and Ernest. From there they were adopted by Dr and Mrs Khoza who ended up with 22 orphans! So it was a really nice day with food, dancing and zulu singing and lots of Old Atonians visiting again.

Today I got up and went to Church as always at 8am, it was a special service where the children went in their school uniforms and each of them received a blessing from the priest, in preparation for the start of exams. Some of them have already written some exams, others are starting in the next couple of weeks. I love mass here, it is all in Zulu but the singing is amazing, they all sing in harmony all the time and I am gradually picking up some of the songs. The one thing I struggle with every week, and causes quite a stir amongst the children, is my dancing!! Yes dancing, in church...it is compulsory and I can't do it!!! They all do this special sway from side to side and I just can't make my hips do it! And then you have to do some turns, and I keep bumping the kids with my bum by turning at the wrong time...it is so embarassing! After mass one of the girls said, we really need to teach you the zulu step. And I could see that these men in the row oppositte were laughing at me, I went bright red!!

After church I had arranged to go with the teenage boys' careworker, Mlondi, to visit one of the boys who used to be at St Anthony's but has ended up in prison. He was my favourite child when I was here last year! I was so shocked to hear that he had gone to prison. His name is MARK, he is 20yrs old now, he originally comes from Durban where he lived with his mother and sisters until his mother died when he was about 15yrs, then he went into an orphanage in Durban. He got moved out here, I think it was because he was too old, when he was about 18yr. When I came last year he was in my grade10 class and was the star pupil. Because he is coloured [mixed race] his first language was English so he obviously was a better english speaker than the other children. But he was also so keen to learn, and was really intellectual. One night he came round for extra help with his Shakespeare work that I had started with them, I hadn't even set any homework! We ended up having a really good discussion about the political history of SA and he told me that he wanted to study philosophy at university. So you can imagine, he was a really clever young man with big ambitions and a mind focused on learning as much as possible, and really wanting to move up in the world. When I left I told him I would come back, he just looked at me and said, 'people like you always say that, but you never do!' He really meant it, he looked hurt, like he had been let down by people making empty promises before. So when I shook his hand and said 'I promise I will come back' I really meant it, there was no way I was going to break it.

That was why I was so sad when I found he was not here when I returned! I absolutely had to go and visit him and show him I had kept my promise, and that I still support him and believe in him even though he made a mistake. I should probably tell you what he did...Like I said he was from Durban and had trouble growing up with a single parent family, I think he was involved in trouble on the streets. When his mum died he started stealing to help the family live, this was why they ended up in care. So when he came to St Anthony's he already had created a habit of stealing, it becomes like an addiction, when they see an opportunity to take something, they really can't resist.

MARK has a 2yr sentence in Ekuseni Prison - for young offenders aged 12-24yrs I think. It is about 30min drive from St Anthony's. You come out the town from the North and drive through some beautiful countryside, surprisingly it can be quite green and lush and there are some dairy farms out there. On the horizon you can see the hills that this area is famous for, flat topped hills just like Table Mountain, but not on that scale. There are not many houses for about 10k then you turn off the road to Ekuseni Prison...which is Zulu for 'in the morning'.

On the journey I had been trying to imagine what it would be like. I had heard it referred to as a 'young offenders' institute so was shocked to see it called a 'Prison' on the sign. I began to fear that it was more serious an institute than I imagine of a young offenders in UK. My fears were increased by the sight of the guard office, behind two rows of 20ft high steel fencing, the inner fence which it turns out is electrified. We had to go in, show our IDs, leave our cell phones behind, then be searched and go through a metal detector. The guards went to fetch Mark from the actual prison building which is separate from the area where visitors can meet. We could see him walking across the big open courtyard in his burgandy red prison uniform, that shocked me too. The sight of him actually in prison dress, with standard issue plimsoles and everything. One thing I didn't see any sign of were handcuffs, which was a bit of a relief I suppose...We were allowed to sit with Mark outside in the shade, not inside at tables like I imagined from TV, and definitely not through glass with a telephone! So that was good too, I could actually give him a hug!

He was predictably, very surprised to see me there, but good surprised! He didn't think I would be coming back, and one thing which did actually make him light up was when he realised that I will be here for 2years so he will get out before I go back. Maybe even after serving 1yr of his sentence he will go on probabtion. In many ways he was still the smiling, chatty young man I remembered, but he was definitely very troubled. He kept talking about the problems he was having within the prison, with the other prisoners forming what he called Gangs, and the tension with the guards. Apparently he has been getting trouble because, he says, he is one of only two 'coloureds' out of the 700 prisoners. It's been hard for me to understand but there does seem to be almost as strong a divide between coloureds and blacks, as there is between blacks and whites. Mark said that he has been accused of making chair legs into weapons by sharpening them, but he said it wasn't him, just someone decided to turn him in for it because he is different, so can be a scape goat for them. Apparently the whole 'drama' as he called it, started on Friday when he was accused, and they had just been questioning and beating him for it, just before we got there. It is illegal for the guards to beat them but he said they all do anyway. He was really anxious and talked about it alot, he was worried about what they would do to him when he got back. One good thing that came out of my visit was that he said the fact that a white lady had visited him might make the guards lay off him a bit. They would be wondering who I was, and he said he would lie that I was his lawyer, and that my husband is a magistrate!! I think he is right that my visit did have an impact and hopefully it will be a protective one for him.

Apart from telling me about his troubles in the prison, we did manage to talk a bit about his future and I tried to encourage him to continue with his studies. He is going to start an engineering qualification which will teach him how to do things like fixing a boiler, so when he leaves he will be able to get an assistant's job. Hopefully he can also find a way of getting back to school so he can finish grade 12 and matriculate [graduate from high school]. If he can do that then he will have the option of later being able to go onto further education, but he really needs to graduate from secondary school to have a hope of being something successful. The problem is that when he gets let out he doesn't have a home to go to, and St Anthony's won't be taking him back again. I just don't know where on earth he is going to be able to get accomodation from! Now that he has a criminal record he's not going to be able to find a foster home, and besides, he will be 21yrs when he leaves. But we will cross that bridge when we come to it. I say 'we' because I really feel like I have a duty to do my best to help this boy. If he was still in the Home I would be helping him through his last year of studies, just because he made a mistake and ended up somewhere else doesn't mean that I will just forget about him. He really does have no one. And I couldn't live with myself just cutting off all contact with him. I already think about him so to do nothing would be ignoring my conscience. Hopefully we can take things slowly and I will visit him every fortnight, maybe taking him some books and studying with him...just to keep his mind focused on the academic goals he used to have. He could be so much more than an engineering assistant, he should go into teaching or even social work. The best social workers are those who have been through the systems as a child and now what kind of support they needed when they were in that position.

I left him with a letter I had written last night, where I had tried to put into words everything I wanted to say to him, just incase it didn't come out right face to face. I'm really glad I did and I hope that letter will be the start of a friendship between us which will have a positive impact for Mark. This first meeting has left me quite shaken and again emotionally drained...but then all this I know is simply a reaction to what I see him suffering, and so what he is experiencing must be so many hundred times worse. Hopefully the little I can do and the support I can offer will be the start of a new future for him.
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