As of yesterday I officially started as an employee of the JL Zwane Centre! My first day did not start out great, it was my first experience of a black out in Cape Town. I have made 14 trips to Cape Town and I have been fortunate to have escaped the experience, but alas, here I was wondering what to do. I live on the 8th floor so I figured that it was easier walking down 8 than 24 (remember New York Gretchen!). I decided to go running as planned and just as I was leaving the flat it came back on. I was very relieved but proud that I didn't panic! I drove to Gugs without much traffic, the good part about living in the city is the traffic going out is light but coming from the townships "'burbs" to the city is just crazy, much like any major city in the US.
The day went really well and very fast. I tried to get organized and familiar with the way they work. The transition with the employees won't be hard for me since I know most of them from previous visits. The big issue is learning their names. The majority of the people living in Guguletu are Xhosa speaking. Their language consists of clicks and different sounds. I have not mastered any of the sounds and can say quite honestly I probably won't. They think my last name is funny and hard to say and I just remind them of theirs. They stop laughing then.
Due to the fact that Open Arms supports the food program for people that are a part of the HIV/AIDS support group, there is a daily meal served, much to my astonishment I was delivered a wonderful lunch consisting of chicken, spinach, corn (when did I have corn last?, sorry) and bread. It was very good but I felt funny being served!
Today I had my first meeting alone, normally it would be with Kevin, with an organization called TAC. It stands for Treatment Action Campaign. It was established in Dec. 1998. They campaign for people living with HIV/AIDS and to help reduce new HIV infections. They have implemented mother-to-child transmission prevention and antiretroviral treatment programs (ART's). TAC also runs a treatment literacy campaign, it is a program on the science of HIV treatment and prevention. The positive news they shared with me was that the number of HIV positive people has stabilized in the last two years but they still have issues with education about condoms and STD's and Tuberculosis.
The reason they wanted to talk to me was actually about xenophobia, if you are not aware of this term it is the fear and dislike of foreign nationals coming to another country. For South Africa, the foreign nationals are from other African countries, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and Somolia, due to political unrest and war. To many you would think this wasn't an issue because they are all from Africa and black. The issue according to the residents of the black townships is that they are taking their jobs, willing to take less in pay, taking their women, disobeying the "rules of conduct" such as drinking in the streets during the day and using their money to sexually abuse the black women of South Africa. There is a lot of unrest that TAC is trying to help resolve. One of their foundations is for human rights and they feel that this is an issue they need to support much to the chagrin of the township residents. In May at least 50 people were murdered. TAC has over 2000 activists (volunteers) that have been working to stop the violence and to continue their work with HIV/AIDS.
The interesting twist to this is that TAC last year donated food parcels to about 45 people with the help of Tony Zappa (the Open Arms board member that spent a whole year away from his family last year and whose footsteps I am trying to follow in!) who were very sick from AIDS and/or very old. A gentleman from Somolia (yes, Somolia) has given funds to donate food parcels for 150 people. They are very happy but they feel that they are missing personal items from the parcels, eg. toothbrush, toothpaste, soap etc. So they asked me if I could help raise 3,000 Rand, which right now with the dollar so good (it really is here) it comes to about $400. Of course I didn't say yes right away, but to me it is a no brainer. I was very impressed that a Somolian was willing to make such a wonderful donation after all the heartbreak that has been happening in the townships. I will be getting back to them but their story was very powerful to me.
On a lighter note, after that I went to visit another good friend of Open Arms. Mary Sili (I will highlight Mary's story in a later blog) is a black South African who retired in December at 67 as a director of a senior centre in Guguletu. Instead of retiring, she started an after school food program in her neighborhood. There are 2 elementary schools near her. Most of the children go to school with out breakfast each day, pretty hard to study under these circumstances. She makes homemade doughnuts, sandwiches with mince (meat) and curried veggies, soup and juice. She charges one rand each which is about 8 cents. From what I saw, Mary gives the children food on credit, but she said they always come back to pay. She does not make a profit, it is actually at a loss, but it is strictly to supply food for the children that is reasonably priced. I decided it was free day, you should have seen these children, they were so happy, asking for 3 sandwiches instead of 1, 4 donuts to take home, one little boy came to buy his Gogo (grandma) a donut, so cute.
I am going to try to post pictures at this point, if they are not there I will try again! The pictures will be of the view of my apartment (don't feel too sorry for me after seeing my view), the centre, and Mary.
Thanks for reading this and not getting too antsy due to its length.
Bye for now.
