South Africa 2011-2012

Hi friends!

Now that I’ve been here a week I think I owe everyone an update of life in South Africa, so here it goes. I’ve never done a blog before and am honestly a bit leery of them. To me it has always seemed presumptuous to assume that people want to read all about your life. Granted some people’s everyday lives are so incredible that it makes sense that they would have a blog (though such people are generally not the types to broadcast what they do for anyone to read about) and some people are so glamorous and gorgeous that people are interested in reading their blog even if the contents thereof is actually very dull. Since I don’t really think I fit into either of these categories I’m going to try my best to hold your interest in describing my current life in this wonderful country.

It’s been a crazy week. After arriving on Saturday in the late afternoon (October 8th), going right to a barbecue with the other volunteers (“braii” is the Afrikaans word), and going to church and on a long hike/picnic/sight-seeing tour on Sunday, my first week began. But now I’m getting ahead of myself.     

I’m staying in the volunteer house at Give a Child a Family, aka The Place of Restoration, in Margate, South Africa, in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The POR is a place where orphans and vulnerable children from this area stay until a secure foster family can be found to place them in. The POR has been around since 1992 and was founded by a Swedish couple, Basil and Monica Woodhouse. Over the years it has become recognized as a best practice model for care of such children. Because the founders are Swedish, many of the young people who come to volunteer at the POR are Swedish. This particular group is entirely Swedish, with the exception of me (there are six of us girls and one guy). Their work consists of rotating between the various areas of the POR that need helping hands including the nursery, the primary school (older children attend local schools), the kitchen, etc. Some of the volunteers also work with another organization that grew out of POR and which POR still supports: Siyavuna Development Centre. It is here that I will actually be working until the end of the year, since POR doesn’t need new volunteers until then. Siyavuna was created in 2010 as a project of POR, and they still use some of POR’s office space, but they are now a separate organization. Siyavuna works on projects in Southern KwaZulu-Natal to teach poor rural farmers how to farm organically, and then to market what they sell to earn some extra income. That would seem to be a common type of organization in South Africa, where unemployment is extremely high, but there are actually hardly any organizations in South Africa that teach people to farm and also give them the tools and skills to market what they sell (there are, however, many organizations in South Africa that simply teach people how to farm).

In any case, this week I got to participate in the regular traveling to rural communities that Siyavuna does to help collect the vegetables from the farmers who have gone through Siyavuna’s training and have agreed to participate in the program. We pay them for their produce on the spot (after quality-checking and weighing it) and then resell it according to current mid-range retail prices. There are several locations where we sell during the week: a flea market, outside a shop called The Good Health Shop (a supporter of Siyavuna), and outside a chicken farm, where you can buy every chicken part imaginable (and even live chickens if you want to slaughter them yourself). Until the end of the year I’ll be working with and learning from Siyavuna in the hopes of later being able to help replicate their model elsewhere in South Africa with the help of the connection who told me about these organizations: an amazing South African woman called Marjorie Jobson.

I also had a few orientation things to do this week, like take the driving test (learning to drive on the left side of the road in a stick-shift car has been fun, shall we say), meeting most of the employees at POR, and spending some time in the foster care training agency located near POR. I’m getting used to the schedule here, which is very much a reflection of POR’s religious (Christian) roots. The period for devotions every morning (from 8:00 - 8:20 am or so) is quickly becoming the highlight of my day - prayers, announcements, Scripture readings, and Zulu women singing hymns in Zulu in a manner that could only be described as Sacred Harp-like. (If you don’t know what Sacred Harp singing is, ask me later and I’ll gladly fill you in.) There’s a church next door to POR which the volunteers usually go to (though there are many other churches in the area too - no Orthodox ones though) and there are also small groups within the church that meet once a week. I actually feel sort of overwhelmed with opportunities for spiritual growth and development, which really isn’t a problem at all. Overall I am doing well and I think I will be useful and engaged (read: very busy) during my time here, which is really all I could ask.

Thank you all for your interest in my adventure! As usual, comments and questions are most welcome.