Rebuilding a Family: Brick by Brick

My gosh! This has been a very draining and troublesome 3 weeks...but it will all be worth it in the long run I hope.
Since my last blog, sorry again for the dry spell [that's Africa for you], but a lot has been going on here, as I have been attempting to launch a new initiative for St. Anthony's Home...the Brick by Brick scheme, Rebuilding Families :)

These are all my little taglines for it, officially it is called the Family Preservation Programme, but the Director has also been playing around with nice names for it, his chosen one is 'Insika' which is Zulu for 'Pillar', representing the strengthening of families which we want to provide, so that the can rebuild that 'pillar' which is the centre of the family and keeps them together. I also approve the name, as I tried to explain to him, my initials are RSJ, which in building terms is a Reinforced Steel Joist...i.e. the pillars which secure a house. So in a way...I feel like the scheme is named after me, haha.

So, it all began back in December last year, at the time when the schools were closing for holidays and we were delivering the children to their host/biological families depending on the situation. This was when I really started to realise that our children are here for very different reasons. Yes, some have suffered horrendous abuse, and they will never be returning to those abusive households. But others, actually come from families which they love, and who love them in return, but circumstances have become so bad that they have to be removed for their own health. The root cause of the problems in these families is invariably poverty...which leads to the age old problem of Alcohol abuse. 'Abuse' yes...but abuse to the body of the person who is drinking it, not necessarily to the children of that person. Yes, some people do drink which then causes them to abuse their children, but in other cases...especially in women who drink...the children suffer through neglect and lack of supervision.

I am still surprised when people come out with the question 'why do they drink?' and anyone who acts appalled at the idea of Alcoholism really, REALLY, just doesn't understand. Just one hour in the townships, seeing how these people live day after day, year after year, and you immediately know the answer to 'why would you drink?'. The question really is, why don't they do something worse. If there is any kind of life circumstance when you have a just cause to want to 'drown your sorrows', 'drink to forget' and throw yourself into oblivion...then living in a mud room, 2m by 3m, with no electricity, no water, no toilet, barely any furniture, and the most basic of foods...that is the kind of life you want to forget.

When you have lived this way for your entire life, you really cannot see any way out. It is not a case of, you're down now, brush yourself off and try again. When you are born at the bottom, in the worst situation known to humans, if that is how your parents lived, and your grandparents...there really will feel like there is no hope. The only way out of there is with the helping hand of someone else, and she hasn't seen one of those for decades. As far as she knew, help was NOT on the way, there was NO light at the end of the tunnel...so? Drink to forget. Block out the hell that is your life, with a blankness, the darkness of drunkness, when you can numb your pain, if only for a few hours.

In December, I visited the house of a child, a teenage boy called Pete. His mother is an alcoholic, his father and brother are in jail for theft, he was removed because he was also stealing to put food on their table. When I left him in a smelly, abandoned house with no furniture and mud floors, I just cried. When we asked if he would come back with us and stay at the Home for the holidays, where he would have food and a bed, he replied 'No, this is where I am meant to be.' He loves his family so much. He has not given up on them, even if his mother feels hopeless, he is determined that his family will stay together, will be united, he is the pillar. As we drove the 3 hours back, Mbogniseni and I had a good talk about what we could do for Pete. I said to him, I know I can raise the funds in the UK to fix his house up, money is just money, that is something I can get. This family needs a home. Pete wants to be with his family, if the only thing stopping him is the fact he has to sleep outside every night, that is something material which we can fix. We have to do this. Even if it is only one child at first, to that one child it is their whole life. We should be changing his life.

I spoke so passionately because I love Pete so much, and leaving him in that place nearly broke my heart. I didn't realise that what I said that day would have such an effect. But it did! Apparently that was the first time anyone had suggested helping in such a material way. Just saying, lets go for it, if they need a house, let's build one. Even if we can only do it once, let's just do it.

When I came back in January they had set a date for a house building project, 6th March, not for Pete's family but another very deserving one. Their mother also suffered from alcohol abuse but unlike Pete's mother, this one seems to have recovered and regained control of her life and the care of her 2 smaller children [10 and 3] and grandchild [1year]. We have not forgotten about Pete, but his social worker has been very uncooperative. But once this first house is done, we will be working on getting something done for him.

This is the story of a family, a mother and her 2 children, Fiona and Mike. It had reached the point in her alcohol abuse, where her 12 year old daughter and 10 year old son, were caring for her, rather than she for them. Understandably, they were going to be getting into trouble, not attending school [as where are they going to get the school fees and money for uniform?]and so social services removed them.
4 years later...and what have the social welfare department done?? Sadly, its the same story all over SA, sweet, sweet nothing. They have dumped 2 children with us, in the Home, and they have left their mother to continue to suffer in her poverty.

I beg the social workers forgiveness if I am not doing them justice but, as far as I have seen, they have made very poor progress with this case over the last 4 years. A family which was living in such poor conditions that they didn't have a tap, was still living like that until 7 days ago.

On Thursday 4th March Mbongiseni and I went to eMondlo, near Vryheid, to meet Mr. Mtshali the local principle of a primary school, who is also on the town council. He said he had arranged for skilled builders to volunteer their services in building the house, over the next 2 weeks. We met the main builder, Mr. Mazibuko, who is the brother of the Councillor for eMondlo [a paid position as a government official]. Together the brothers have been lending their services very generously in getting the build under way.

We drove Mr. Mtshali and Mr. Mazibuko to the site to see the current mud house and to meet the woman [the mother of the 2 kids] and to assess the site. Mr. Mazibuko was a very quiet, gracious Zulu man, who had very little English and a very polite, quiet respectfulness. The way he deferred to all 3 of us, very much reminded me of what it must have been like for him during Apartheid. He still behaves as if he is deferring to those above him, as a domestic worker would to their employer.

Once we were at the site, however, Mr. Mazibuko came into his own. You could see he felt at home on a building site and was happily giving directions as to where the best position would be, how big etc. We decided that we would build a 3 room house, each room 3m by 4m. This is pretty big for a house in the area! Just as we were about to leave, Mr. Mazibuko was looking around for something, and asked the Mother, 'where do you fetch Amanzi?' water! He had realised that he couldn't see a tap around, that is when we found she begs water from the next door neighbour. That would not do for Mr. Mazibuko. He spoke to Mbongiseni and then they translated for me, he was saying that he will come the next day, on Friday, and direct a line from the main pipe to make a tap in their yard. 'They will have water within 24hours' he said.

Mbongiseni said to me, this family has been without water for decades, social services have let them continue without water for another 4 years. Thanks to us they will have water within 24hours. That is a miracle.

My eyes welled up with tears in that moment. Realising that we really were going to make a physical change for that family, for the better. We went to the hardware store and bought the things Mr. Mazibuko needed for the water. 7m of pipe, an adapter, a saddle and a stand pipe: total, less that R240, i.e. just over £20.
TWENTY POUNDS! and 24hours. That is all it took. To give a family the miracle of water. Just £20. I could not believe it. It made me happy, yes...but at the same time you can't help feeling so angry that they have lived without it for so long when it cost so little, and was done so quickly.

The rest of the afternoon we spent in hardware stores and at the brick makers and quarry, buying all the necessary materials for Saturday, the big build day.

Saturday 6th March saw an early start for most of the teenagers who were travelling by our bus to eMondlo, I stirred at 4.20am when I heard the bus engine firing up...but rolled back to sleep! They were all up at 3.30am to get on the bus. Mbongiseni and I were leaving later, he was driving the nice 2007 Toyota Hilux...and I...the not so nice 1980s Ford bakkie...a real grandmother of vehicles. The gear box has aged some what, I have to let go of the steering wheel and use both hands to wrench it from 1st to 2nd gear...not the smoothest of rides! My passengers dont dare complain though!! We left at the much more reasonable hour of 6.30 and I pulled onto the hardware parking lot at 7.28 exactly, just in time to be the first customer.

I must admit, a young blonde haired white lady, in an ancient pick up truck, with 2 zulu teenage boys for bodyguards and an order for 26bags of cement...does raise a few eyebrows! After a few minutes they began to take me seriously and they loaded up the cement and we headed to the site of the build.
When we arrived, after getting a take away Wimpy for the boys ;), it was to find that a hive of activity HAD been going on, and in fact...they had all already crashed from exhaustion! They had been there since 6.30am and had cut back all the grass by hand and dug a large vegetable garden which they were ready to start planting. As we arrived, so did the huge truck delivering 1,000 blocks, so the kids had to get straight back to work.
3 hours and many sore hands later..we had unloaded the blocks and the work of digging the foundations had begun.
By 1pm they were mixing cement and filling in the base of the foundations. Some of the teenage boys had worked so hard! They had barely stopped for a break in over 7 hours and were still mixing cement, shovelling stone and pushing wheelbarrows.

As I stood taking photos of the foundations, one of the teenage boys, Sean, who doesn't have very good english, came to stand beside me. After surveying the scene and thinking for a moment, he turned to me, and talking about his friend who is the boy whose house it is going to be, said
'Mike has his dream today'.
The moment was just so poignant, and really expresses how great a thing we have done. I replied, 'yes he does Sean, he has his dream.'

The other children put so much effort into that day. They knew they were working for their friends, and they felt their friends really deserved to be given this gift. Another girl, Boo, said to me earlier in the day 'Auntie Rebecca, this is a really good thing that we are doing here. A really good thing.'
That is all the assurance and piece of mind I could possibly need. If the children believe we are doing a good thing, then no matter what problems we may have with the social workers, it is the children's opinions that matter, and which I value above every one else's.

The girl whose house it is was visiting me today and asked when we would be going back to eMondlo. She said to me, about the house, and what we have done for her family...
'Auntie Rebecca, you are a lifesaver.'
And that, right there, is all the thanks I need.
Ever.