Back in the United States

I have arrived home safely (although a bit tired). My last week in South Africa I was unable to report because my parents had come and we did some travel around where I was living, including a trip to a safari lodge. It was a great adventure being able to show my parents around where I grew up and the people I fell in love with. On the day my parents arrived I had a meeting with the school governing board in the village that we are working in, so they had the chance to see who we are working with on our after school program in the village. They were also sweet enough to take me back to Mary’s village to say goodbye to my second family. When Mary had told Mama that I was leaving she got very mad that I may not be coming to say goodbye and that it was just not right for me to come a couple times and not say goodbye; because of this my parents graciously agreed to drive to Mary’s village to say goodbye to everyone. While the language barrier made it difficult for both of the families to talk my mom could see the love that Mary’s mom had for me and why I considered her to be a second mother.

The safari adventure that we went on was a great experience to have and I got to see a leopard and lions along with elephants, rhinos, water buffalo, giraffes, and zebras. However, the experience at the lodge was almost a culture shock from what I had been doing and living up until then. Working in the villages and travelling with the people of South Africa had been my life and now I was in a luxurious hotel room, surrounded by people from all over the world, and being taken care of felt so odd, especially after seeing the despair in the village that I had been working in with Mary. However, it was a nice vacation and escape for my last week in South Africa before arriving back home. It was especially great to see all the animals, because when I originally left for South Africa I thought that I would be coming across them in the street on my way to work, I quickly learned that you would need to go to a game park to be able to do that, and so in my last few weeks between Kruger and the Game Drive I was able to finally see the animals that I thought I would be seeing all along.

On the day that it was time to leave Mary and her sister brought me to the airport to say goodbye. Not ready to leave the country that I had fallen in love with yet, and still feeling the need to work in the village that I had start the after school work in, I cried when it was time to go through the security. Mary and I held on to each other for a long time to say goodbye, feeling it hard to say goodbye to what had become my best friend, and a person that I felt I had known in another life. It was with this hard goodbye that I left my home in Limpopo Province and started my journey home, it was a long and hard trip, but now I am back home and trying to get ready to start the new school year.

Pictures from my Experience at Kruger National Park and the Drive through Blyde River Canyon

Because my words cannot explain what I saw this weekend i decided to just share images and video with you all.

Racism is alive in S.A

Occasionally I am reminded of how far behind South Africa is in regards to equality. Yesterday as I was walking with my very good friend after work we were confronted by a man in the car who glared at me and pointed his finger directly at me he then stopped his car and squealed around back towards us stopping and then zooming away. I have seen other things (such as the hotel manager being angry whenever I bring black people over which is about every day) but this was the scariest. What was interesting about it was that I got into protective mode and made myself ready to protect my friend from anything he might do. Let’s just say that my closeness with black people here has really thrown this town off kilter. I have made many black friends in town because of my “kindness” and have also created enemies with some Afrikaans people here. I have recently been getting in trouble for little things at the hotel because the manager saw me walking with a black man. It honestly makes me sad, and at times I laugh at the looks I get from people. However, just because they like to place fear in you doesn’t mean that I will stop going places I want to go with the people who I love.

Opening Up the Secret

I guess now that there have been new developments it is time to tell you about the secret mission I have been planning over here. Since coming to South Africa I have talked in past blogs about education and the treatment of women here. Having spoken with locals and combined forces with a few people we have started work on creating an after school program for girls in primary school that will address sex, puberty, HIV/AIDS, extra educational help and general support. The region that I am currently located in is very rural and most of the supportive programs for people in South Africa are run in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Pretoria. The rural area of Limpopo Province is largely forgotten as being a part of the country. Further, the region here sees about 40% of young women being mothers by the age of 19; teenage pregnancies is rampant here and often times these young women drop out of school to care for their children and often times rely on the men to care for the children who do not. Women here are often victims of what we would call “sugar daddies” in the US these older men want to take on the young women as mistresses and promise them an easy way to step up in society, but when they become pregnant the men often do not follow through and these young girls are left uneducated and penniless. To address this problem I have been working with the University of Limpopo here who created a similar program for boys that uses games to discuss HIV and how life decisions can affect the goals that you want to reach. Going a step further myself and a colleague have created a protocol for an after school program that will provide girls a safe space to go after school and discuss their concerns as well as get extra help with school work.

I am excited because I have found the village where we will be opening our first after school program once the program is finalized and we have enough funding. The area is Mohokone village where they just have a primary school with an average of 40 students per teacher; this creates a lack of extra support for the students who need extra attention, particularly when there is a low adult literacy rate making it difficult for them to seek assistance at home. Further, to go to secondary school the children must walk long distances where villagers have complained has resulted in many young girls being raped by thugs in the early mornings. Such problems have deterred girls from continuing with their education. 55.9% of the households in the area are headed by only females because many men have left the mothers to find other families and opportunities outside of the village which has resulted in extreme poverty as the majority of houses with no income are headed by just women. This village is in extreme need of help and I am excited to get to work with the local school and leaders and find a space where we can open up the program.

It will take lots of hard work, and time (the University of Limpopo is still waiting on ethical clearance for starting a similar girls program that we will use in our program). It is just the beginning and I would love help and suggestions from anyone who has them. This was not something I planned on starting when I got here, but felt moved by the local villages and people here who need the help. It is hard once you see something to turn a blind eye and not help in some way, and so began my journey on this project. The color of my skin has also been helpful in getting support from the villages as most have never seen a white person come to the village and so I get attention as being someone important and it makes it easier to hold meetings with people who are excited to see me. With this, and the local help I am ready to, hopefully, start making a change and when I return to the US I will continue my work from there with plans to return soon to build the project and work with the local villagers. Please, please send me some thoughts, ideas (particularly about fundraising), I look forward to them.

(we have started our work on getting Non-Profit status here in South Africa to make finances easier)


For More reading on the district we are working in and where I got my statistics from:
http://mfma.treasury.gov.za/Documents/06.%20Annual%20Reports/2009-10/02.%20Local%20Municipalities/LIM332%20Greater%20Letaba/LIM332%20Greater%20Letaba%20Annual%20Report%202009-10%20Draft.pdf
http://www.mopani.gov.za/docs/2007-2008IDP.pdf