A mother and her son

This week has been dramatic and emotional in many ways, just as I thought my focus would have been purely on Luke’s impending arrival, I have found my week full of action to keep me busy.

On Monday morning, following a disagreement about oversleeping and a punishment of dishwashing, one of the teenage boys decided to runaway...it happened to be one I’m very close to, my friend who I bought trainers for and collected the money from overseas...let’s call him Mikey today.

I didn’t find out about Mikey’s disappearance until Tuesday evening, I guess I had just been out and about so hadn’t visited the boys’ cottage. I was so shocked that he had done this as I had thought he was happy here, and I didn’t know the story about his ‘unfair’ punishment. I thought it was something serious to do with missing in his family, though I’m sure this must have also played a part. I went straight to the Director to ask if I could go the next morning to look for him. We also had planned to continue the search for some land for the family so that we can start building them a house. He was very happy for me to go and to also combine the trip with researching about some land for them, so it was agreed that I could go on Wednesday morning with the Reunification Officer - Mlondi.

Before we left, we tried to find out if Mikey had actually gone home. The family has no phone so we contacted their neighbour and asked her if she’d seen Mikey. She had, and she said that he had arrived on Monday evening. The family were aware that he had runaway. It was a relief to know that he had got home safely, and within one day, so he hadn’t slept out overnight at least. We also contacted Mikey’s social worker, whose job it is to return children who runaway. They promised us they would go and look for him and call us...but we weren’t going to hold our breath. I wanted to fetch him anyway so we weren’t going to leave it up to them.

By the time everything was sorted, we were finally on the road to Ladysmith after 11am. Ladysmith is 100km drive and from there, Winterton is about another 50km. As I drove it I couldn’t believe that Mikey had managed to make this journey with no money, hitching all the way. It is so dangerous, but everyone seems to do it! You are expected to pay your driver something but I don’t think Mikey had any money at all. Hopefully they let him off because he’s just a child.

It was after 1pm when we arrived at the RDP township at Winterton where Mikey lives. You take the road out of Ladysmith towards the Drakensberg mountains, a popular tourist destination. The landscape changes as you enter the area of White farms. The land is well managed and all the fields are full of crops, unlike around Newcastle where the land is just left to grow as it will, only with a few cows and goats grazing it. Suddenly the landscape becomes well managed and productive, as is seen by the large, attractive farm houses which nestle in the occasional field, the white farmer’s homestead. I have been here with Fr. Peter and we went to a very nice cafe and craft shop which had been created as a sideline business by a white farmer and was full of white families and tourists.

Just 10min drive from here is the RDP housing estate where Mikey lives, the family struggling day to day to put food on the table. You turn off the main road and cross a railway track, as you come over the crest of the hill I am all given a jolt of surprise at the sudden appearance of hundreds of identically shaped but different coloured houses, laid out in lines...like pieces of Lego from a distance. From the main road it was completely invisible, you could have drive by and never known that thousands of people were living here.

RDP housing, sorry if I’ve told you before, stands for ‘Rural Development Programme’ housing, and is the government initiative to build houses for the poor rural communities. There are many things wrong with this scheme, other than that it has appeared to make some people dependent on handouts and cultivated the mentality that the country owes them a house and they can just sit around waiting for one...there is also a lot of corruption going on. People get on the list for a house when they already have one...or they acquire one but remain on the list. Then when they are given their RDP house they start renting it to some poor family who are the ones who really need it! So you end up with all these landlords/ladies, making a living off of the back of the government! Whilst families like Mikey’s have nowhere to live and are struggling to find a job to pay rent on a place.

We arrived in the township and wound our way through the grid-like streets to the house where the family was staying just 2weeks before [it had belonged to the eldest daughter’s boyfriend and he let them stay there when they were evicted for not paying rent on their last house]. We pulled up beside the one room house but were unhopeful as the place looked deserted. We tried the door and it was locked. We tried ringing the neighbour who had told us Mikey was at home but there was no answer. We resorted to asking a woman outside a nearby house but she didn’t know the family. Instead she pointed across the road to a house where she said the grandmother had been here for years and knew everyone.

Clambering up the rocky and sandy slope to the house she indicated we found a man sitting outside on an upturned bucket. He was typical of the people in this township. At first glance you would have guessed he was a granddad, in his 60s. Then as you look at him properly you realise, with some anguish, that he cannot be much above 30. And the cause? Alcoholism. The skin on his face is sagging and almost swollen, his teeth are completely yellow and decaying, and he mumbles and slurs every word, his eyes unable to focus. His body was shrunken, the blue overalls he wore seemed to dwarf his thin frame, which has been fed only on locally produced alcohol every day for years.

Mlondi asked this old/young man if he knew Mikey and with the mention of that name he called over a young child. A little toddler walked over to us, dressed in a pink kind of kid’s boiler suit, with bare feet, and I immediately recognised them. It was Mikey’s youngest brother, and his little face showed a flicker of recognition when it looked at me. After a brief conversation Mlondi told me that we were going to follow this little child and he would show us where Mikey’s mother was staying. It turned out they had been evicted from the second house and were now staying in various houses with different relatives. Mikey was not around, the man did not know where he had gone.

Feeling that this whole situation was rather surreal, I found myself being lead through this RDP township by a toddler, on foot – mine were clad in leather boots whilst the toddler I followed was barefoot – on a mission to locate a runaway teenage boy. We had to seriously adjust our pace to that of this tiny boy’s who walked even slower because he kept staring up at us, clearly just as dumbfounded as I felt. He kept hesitating and looking back at where we had come from, with Mlondi continually reassuring him in Zulu and taking his little hand in his.

Just as I was thinking the boy must be leading us the wrong way, a cry to my right brought my attention and I recognised Mikey’s mother, sitting outside a house with a number of other adults and her baby girl on her lap. She was obviously surprised to see us and came straight out to meet us on the road. I was relieved to realise that this time she was sober and she even had a worker’s jacket on. She had found some temporary work and so at least has been able to get some form of income, a much more positive impression from the last two times I had seen her. She confirmed that Mikey had come home on Monday but that she thought he had gone to town as the bicycle that he sometimes borrowed from his sister’s boyfriend was missing. His oldest sister, who is the real backbone of the family and the one with her feet firmly on the ground, was also in town. This was a shame as we had been hoping to take her with us on the hunt for land.

Mlondi communicated our plan to her go to the nearby township at Estcourst where the family have relatives and may be able to find land, and so she followed us back down to where we had left the car. As we walked back down the hill however, we managed to gather a small band of followers...a drunken old lady who I think is Mikey’s great-aunt, and a trio of very grubby children, all under the age of 5 years. The good thing about this is the fact that the ones over 5 were attending school as it was still before 3pm. We all piled into the car and first we drove to meet the family’s Pastor who we were told, had some plan to help the family find land in that township. Unfortunately Mikey’s mother seemed to be expressing a changed view of leaving the township, perhaps because she knows lots of people in this township and is also comfortable with the drinking culture – which we are trying to remove them from for the children’s sakes.

Just over the other side of the township we came to a brightly painted crèche where Mikey’s mum told us her pastor stayed. We drove in and were met by a middle aged man, clean and smartly dressed with a kind face, and his wife. They led us into the far end of the crèche and as I entered the room I found myself in a tiny chapel. The walls were painted bright white, at the far end was a small altar with an appliquéd banner reading ‘Jesus loves you’ and in one corner a nicely kept, small piano.
We were invited to sit down on benches and the Pastor greeted us warmly. The contrast between his clean, composed, gentle manner and the drunken, dirty, dishevelled behaviour of the great-aunt was too large to not draw my attention. He listened calmly and his kind eyes evaluated the situation without any hint of judgement, whilst the great-aunt huffed and puffed and eventually spoke almost as if in a temper, without control or humility. I don’t know what she was saying but it was with a tone I had heard so often from people who were down and out, that they are in need and are owed help.

The outcome of the meeting was that the land spoken about by the Pastor is owned by the church and can only be lent to the family on a temporary basis whilst they look for a house or land of their own. The idea is that they can put a tent on this land and live their temporarily, not the permanent solution I had been hoping for! We thanked the Pastor and he gave us his contact details, left with the difficulty of whether or not to pursue the plan for land in a different area, even though Mikey’s mother now appeared opposed to moving. But the fact of the matter is, there is no land or houses available in this township in the foreseeable future [we’re talking a 2year waiting list]. Besides which, if there was, the township is a terrible place to raise children with alcoholism and crime out of control.

It was decided that we would pursue the search for land somewhere else, as there was not really any other option, and we may still be able to talk the mother round to the move. We had to politely ask the great-aunt and extra children to leave the car – which didn’t go down too well with her and Mlondi was worried he had caused her offense. The emotional relief we felt when she left was matched by physical relief at the removal of the unsavoury smell her presence had also brought to the confined air of the car. Mlondi pointed this out to me saying, ‘no offense to her, but I couldn’t have stomached that smell all the way to Estcourt and back!’ He also mentioned that he suspected the great-aunt was participant in persuading Mikey’s mum to stay at Winterton rather than move to Estcourt.

And so we made the 30km drive to the rural settlement near Estcourt where Mikey’s mother’s other aunt lives and where she sometimes visits for weekends. It was Mlondi and I, Mikey’s mother, her baby girl and the toddler boy whom we had found first. As we arrived in the new area it was to a very different sight and atmosphere than the RDP ‘housing estate’ style of township. Here, the layout was much more rural and in keeping with the culture and society of Zulus. It is not part of their culture to live in tightly packed identical dwellings, but to live more spread out, each family building their own style of homestead with separate rooms and round houses dotted on the plot with space to grow some vegetables or keep cows and goats. The feel of the place was much more homely and it appeared to be a healthier place to raise a family. I can see why Mikey’s mother may be reluctant to move there however. This rural community may be less lively and alcohol infused than what she has become accustomed to. I can’t help thinking she enjoys the type of socialising and drinking which takes place at Winterton and this community at Estcourt seems too quiet and remote – although it is only a few kilometres from the town and work on farms is also nearby.

We arrived and found the other great-aunt and her husband, both elderly and the husband was using an asthma inhaler. They stayed in a very basic and poor looking house but it had an outdoor toilet, water and electricity. They told us that the Mayor of the area [or a kind of Chief], lived opposite them and they pointed out his house, a collection of buildings newly painted a cheerful yellow. Mlondi, the mother and I crossed over to the Mayor’s house and approached somewhat cautiously – I was nervous about how this kind of informal meeting would go – literally turning up on their doorstep!

The contrast of this doorstep to the others we had seen that day was also enough to make me nervous – a large platform and steps of very slippery looking marble-esque tiles, led up to the front door. We were greeted by a middle-aged lady, rather plump, wearing a skirt and baggy t-shirt with a scarf wound round her head. Her face showed a mixture of confusion and intrigue as we came to the front door and she politely invited us in. We did make a motley crew...Mlondi, a tall, young Zulu man, Mikey’s mother, a clearly poor woman with a mud mask on her face to protect her whilst working in the sun, and her baby at her breast with flies circling round them, and me, a young, blonde, white lady with a bewildered look on her face.

The interior of the house was similar to that of a number of well-off Zulu houses I had been to. Marble-like tiles on the floor, a number of large pieces of furniture, large sofa and chairs and ofcourse...a widscreen TV. Sitting down, I couldn’t take my eyes of their coffee table, the stand of which was a manufactured over-sized shell with a fake pearl inside it the size of a small football, on top of which balanced a large oval of glass. I was fixated by this bizarre piece of furniture, at the status symbol it was intended to be, at what this Mayor’s wife was thinking when she bought it, how it is meant to make visitors to her house feel...and how it was making Mikey’s mother feel, sitting there in her overalls and mud mask, breast feeding her whimpering, sick baby.

I don’t mean to be judgemental of anyone, or how they choose to spend their money, but I am merely recording what I have observed, for you to understand some of the complex emotions and thoughts that I experience on a daily basis here. That a family would choose to stay living in a rural community where those around them stay in shack-like accommodation, and instead spend their money on expensive cars, furniture and electrical equipment. They themselves have marble floors and yet go to the toilet outside in a pit-toilet. The contrast of modern and traditional, urban and rural, wealth and poverty...can be staggering. It is the combining of two ways of life. Many aspects of the lives of their parents and grandparents are retained and are not considered at all undesirable – such as having a pit-toilet, whilst the attractions of the modern, westernised lifestyle also begin to work themselves in, but only very specifically chosen features – the decor and cars. It reminds me of that example of colonisation I hear repeated quite often...something about the white man giving the native Americans the common cold and causing hundreds of deaths. I feel like the materialistic aspect of our society has kind of ‘polluted’ zulu society. The huge proportion of Africans buying on credit and opening store accounts is another example of how the desire to have things – which you cannot afford – has gone out of control. All these widescreen tvs and fridge freezers are being paid for in monthly instalments, sometimes spreading over 2 or 3 years. The attitude of saving up for something and buying it when you have enough funds, appears to be completely alien.

Anyway, sorry for that tangent! So the Mayor was still in the office and instead we spoke to his wife, but as they say, if you want something from a man, just persuade his wife...she will do the rest for you. Mlondi told the story of Mikey’s mother and their family, how they have been evicted and are looking for land. That I have raised money from England to start a project to build them a 3 room house and that we just need the land to build it on. Her reaction was good and sympathetic, exactly what we needed. She told us that currently there are no spaces but that spaces have been allocated to people who never showed up to claim them, so maybe one of those can be reassigned. We exchanged contact details and will hopefully here more from them next week.

After this, we drove back to Winterton and were relieved to find Mikey standing in the doorway of his relative’s house when we got back. I had been worried that he would hear we had come and stay away to prevent us taking him back with us. The look on his face showed he wasn’t too happy to see us, but mainly I think because he was afraid we were angry with him. Mlondi negotiated with him and convinced him that he should come back. The eldest sister was also back from town, looking very nice, well-dressed and together, giving me a surge of hope that if she is on board with this project, we can really get this family back on their feet.

It had been a dramatic day, experiencing life in a very poor community, searching for a solution for a homeless family who have been evicted twice in 2 months, worrying about the safety of Mikey and the fate of his mother and siblings left behind. As we got Mikey in the car to take him back, his mother leaned in and took his hand, tenderly kissing it and saying something to him in Zulu. I don’t know what she said but the tears that welled up in Mikey’s eyes were enough to tell me they were words of love from a desperate mother, trying to do the best for her son and sending him away from her in the hope that he will have a better life than she can give him.

As we drove away I felt a surge of desire to do the very best I can for this mother and her children. I have the power in my hands to change their lives...by helping them to help themselves to turn their own lives around. This day has given new urgency to my project and my love for Mikey will help to keep me focused over the next few months towards giving them a new life as a family.

The Month of May

Dear Faithful Readers,

I hereby promise that I will never leave it 5 weeks before I blog again!! I will make it once a week again, as it should have always been.
I am in danger of letting my life slip by as I'm not recording what I am up to, and I want to remember this whole experience in years to come...

I will try and recap on the major things that happened here since April...
HOUSE BUILD UPDATE: we had a really successful trip with the teenagers again to the house build at Mondlo/Vryheid on Tuesday 27th April, Freedom Day! This was a public holiday and so we could take the kids. The builder was in need of man power to help him get the roof fixed on [as the other workmen are not prepared to work voluntarily...understandably!].

So I drove the ancient Ford bakkie and Mlondi took the brand new Quantum. The boys in the back with me were quite annoyed of course, as the girls got to ride in the comfy mini bus with a cd player and cup holders for every passenger...for some reason the cup holders are considered a real luxury here at St Anthony's!
We arrived and I had the fun task of getting the roofing sheets from the house they were being stored at, down to the site. When I had driven from the builder's yard on the day we bought the sheets, two expert guys had tied them on very securely, and it had still be a hairy drive!

This time all we had were 3 ropes, myself and some teenagers...it may have only been 1km but that was the hairiest drive I have ever made! I managed to insist that we didn't transport all 18 sheets in one trip, but took 9 then 9. Unfortunately I didn't go to scouts so had no idea how to tie a knot, other than 'bunny ear' shoe laces...and scouts doesn't seem to be big in Zulu culture either. So to make sure the load was secure I had 3 boys sitting in the back hanging on to the 4.8m corrugated iron sheets with their bare hands! But this was in very rural africa so if anything had fallen off the only thing we might have damaged would have been a roaming chicken or a stray dog..there were certainly no traffic cops around!We only had to go down the hill which was a grass track and then round the corner to the gravel road where the house is.

Needless to say, we all arrived in one piece, as did the roofing sheets. The boys were really helpful and with the builder on the roof, they passed up the sheets and logs and got everything in place for the builder to then hammer in the nails. Within a couple of hours we had literally 'put a roof over 6 children's heads'...not bad for a day's work!!

Unfortunately the house has come to a bit of a standstill as it still needs to be plastered and have the doors and glass fitted. Hopefully we will make a plan to get down there and help the builder for a day again and get the house finished so that the two children can be in it for the June holidays which start on the 9th. I am still hopeful that things will get a move on in the next 2 weeks and that the goal will be reached.

Then, the next thing to happen of note was a few days later on one of the girl's birthdays. It is the one I have become close too who speaks English as her home language and so this makes it a lot easier for us to be friends. She was turning 18 and I wanted to mark it as a special day for her and so asked mum to send me a present for her. I had the idea of giving her a silver necklace with '18' on it, and mum found a perfect one and posted it out.

Her birthday was on a Wednesday and so I couldn't take her out to the cinema or anything. So I decided to buy a cake from the supermarket, but I hadn't really thought through how to give it to her. I knew that I couldn't go buying cakes for every child's birthday so I didn't want to make the others feel upset or jealous. In the end I planned just to give it to the girl and let her take it and share it with the girls she lives with.

But when I went to find her, she was with the rest of her cottage girls, so I ended up saying, 'girls come with me to my house, I've got a surprise'. I sat them down and told them that 'today is a very special day, because there is a girl in your cottage who has become an adult today'. The girl whose birthday it was suddenly realised this was about her and her face was such a picture. The others reacted so well and were so happy for her, and enjoying it themselves. I knew straight away that I had done the right thing. They started really cheering and whooping and singing before I had even revealed there was a cake! Then the screaming really started! She opened her present and was so amazed by the necklace, she put it on and has worn it every day since!

And so the impromptu party began! They put on music and were dancing and taking photos, it was so nice. My one error was buying a cream cake...as we ended up having a bit of a food fight...and I was the number one target for cream in the face!! I went to bed with hair smelling of cream and slightly sticky but feeling like the girls had all appreciated this chance for really having fun and it made the birthday girl feel so special which was the main thing.

Then...I think it was that weekend that I had helped to organise a weekend away for the teenage boys. We went to the youth centre again...the one with the broken windows, wood stove and terrible toilets? I was pretty anxious about spending 2 nights there to say the least...especially when I found out the only other female care worker going had flu and so I was going to have to go it alone!!

We were running on 'african time' as per usual, and so left St. Anthony's 2 hours late, just as dusk was falling. We took the old bus, swaying round the rural roads in the dark and bumping over the 15km of dirt road up into the mountains. When we arrived I was sent to find the 'crazy' nun, the funny german one with the big workman's boots? Remember her? She's quite a character!

Well she is now officially my favourite nun EVER! and that's saying something as I have probably met about 50 nuns since coming here. I don't know whether it was pure luck, or coincidence, or if this nun actually grew to like us after our last visit...but it turns out there are TWO youth centres...one of which was completed in 2002, the other [which we had in Nov] looks like it hasn't had any maintenance in the past 30 years!

It turned out that there were 2 groups booked for the weekend, and the others had drawn the short straw and got the old place. We had the run of a newly renovated barn with a huge hall, dining area, lovely kitchen, two shower blocks, an upstairs dormitory and I had a room in the visitors cottage. It was 5* luxury compared to what we had come expecting! It was a complete reversal of Nov when we came expecting a decent place and got a dump. Now we thought we had booked back into the dump, and got luxury!

The weekend went great from then on...the next day I did a workshop with the boys about talents and overcoming challenges. We did an exercise where they got to draw on rocks with chalk then carry them up the mountain, was quite a good team building exercise I think. The afternoon had it's share of drama...

The nuns at this place love their dogs, there are about 10 all together I think [dogs that is!]. I don't know if it is something to do with Africans in general...or just this part of Africa...but kids and adults alike are terrified of two things...dogs and swimming! Neither of these things seem to come naturally to them so unless they have worked at having a pet dog or swimming, they seem to have an innate fear of these 2 things. Just like in England we are naturally scared of snakes and dancing...or in USA there are scared of chickens [which haven't been deep fried] and exercise. ...You get the picture!

Anyhow, I was outside playing with the boys when 3 dogs came barking and running over to us and the boys freaked out! They were running round like headless chickens, making the dogs go even more mad. The 5 boys took off running and went into the safety of the church, shutting the door behind them as the dogs barked madly outside. I was laughing and laughing!! I just stayed still and told the dogs to be quiet and they were soon laying down having their bellies rubbed. One of them was a sausage dog..small but noisy!...one a german gun dog, big but beautiful...and then, the one which terrified them most, was a massive St Bernard..looks like a bear but behaves like a teddy when you get it to be quiet!

After some gentle coaxing I eventually persuaded the boys to open the church door and let me in...they reluctantly did so. I tried to explain that running or screaming would make the dogs bark so they mustn't do it. Either they didn't understand or else the natural 'flight' reaction was too strong but either way they ended up running and almost screaming back to the hostel.

Meanwhile, 3 boys who had obviously had pet dogs in the past, came over to play with them and were very calm and good with them. As we sat on the grass stroking them a different boy came running up to us. The dogs were immediately on their feet barking as viciously as before. The boy immediately stopped and looked terrified! I was laughing but telling him to calm down, it's ok, come to me. But the dogs kept getting closer and he started running away, fast as lightning! They immediately took chase, seeing it as a game, the little sausage dog was yapping at his heels! Unfortunately, the other youth group was just walking past and so 20 other teenagers were there to spectate and we were all in stitches at his reaction. We had almost never seen someone move so fast!

It wasn't until about 15min later when another boy came to fetch me and tell me that this boy who had run away...had been bitten by one of the dogs! I went and looked and found it really was quite bad! I felt so terrible that we had all laughed, I had no idea they would actually bite! We took him to the surgery which is on the site and got him bandaged up. Later that week he had to go for a rabies injection at the hospital. I guess the lesson is, a dog's bark can be as bad as it's bite...when in Africa!

The last outing to report was the weekend after when I went to the prison with one of the boys to see his brother and I visited my friend. We went on the Sunday after church and first went to the supermarket to buy the boys some treats like deodorant, soap, tooth paste, crisps and chocolate. The day before I had an idea that I could take this boy to see his brother and then go horse riding! There is a place with a small game reserve in Newcastle and it also has horses, we took the boys there for swimming and a braai in Dec. This boy had told me before that he like horse riding and that he was good, he had learned on the farms near his home. So I rang the stables from the car and was lucky to find that had a space free for the afternoon. So we visited our 2 mates who are also inmates, and then rushed back to the game reserve. We were so excited!

When we got there they has saddled two horses for us, a big white one and a smaller bay pony. I insisted on the big one as I thought I would be too heavy for the pony! The boy got on first and as soon as he was in the saddle I knew he had been exaggerating his riding skills!! He looked completely out of his comfort zone, he couldn't hold the reins and was trying to get the horse to move by flapping the reins, rather than using his legs! That didn't hold us back though!

A zulu guy took us out as our guide and he was on a very highly strung arabian horse that could hardly be controlled! My boy was also fearless and so within 10 min we were trotting across the park, chasing buck and zebra! When it came to cantering I could hardly breath I was laughing so much at the boy's face as he hung on, bouncing around in the saddle. The guide thought I was crazy I think, I could not stop laughing! It was so much fun, we cantered and galloped loads, saw all kinds of buck, wilderbeast and zebra up close...felt like cowboys rounding them up!

We got back exhausted but very happy and my boy has been asking ever since when can we go again!! I'm sure he will be a good rider with a bit more practice, he certainly has got good balance and a lot of courage :)

Anyway, that's enough tales for one blog! Sorry for the delay, I won't let it happen again.

Now the countdown begins...SIX DAYS UNTIL LUKE ARRIVES!
I am so excited for his visit, I have lots planned and so will keep you updated on our world cup adventures!

love to you all, missing you xxxxxxxxxx