Wathint'abafazi, wathint'imbokodo!

10/26/11, 9:17 p.m.

                The Xhosa phrase in the title translates to “You strike a woman, you strike a rock!” and it’s very relevant to the day I had today. I am ready for bed and feeling very fulfilled. All of the volunteers skipped our normal placements today in order to help the CCS staff facilitate the “Art of Healing” workshop at the Athlone Community Center. Delegates from women’s shelters across Cape Town gathered together to participate in activities led by Themba, a good friend of CCS who works in healing and reconciliation and does a lot of these workshops in South Africa (a place that needs a lot of healing for multitudes of reasons) and even around the world. We did breathing exercises, a repeat-after-me sort of game, a story-telling activity, and we hung on to his every word when he recited a poem while accompanying himself on the mbira. I think his presence there was beneficial because it’s really important for men to also take up the cause of ending violence against women and children. Being a female is certainly not a prerequisite for being a feminist—it only means you support equitable treatment of others.

                After Themba’s portion, we were all broken up into smaller groups to have discussions about abuse against women and children. Each group had a poster with a tree labeled “abuse” on it, and we had to label the roots with causes and the branches with effects. My group discussed the different manifestations of abuse, like physical, sexual, emotional, substance, and even financial abuse. We found that many of our causes were also effects and vice versa, so we showed apples falling from the tree (people raised in a society where maltreatment is rampant) and creating new abuse tree seedlings. After all, a vicious cycle as odious as this can only be broken if people actively address it. That is why we spent the rest of the day painting signs and banners to hold during the march on November 25^th that kicks off the international “16 Days of Activism” regarding abuse against women and children. I paid homage to a good friend of mine with a Ph.D., one Dr. Seuss, by painting “A person’s a person, no matter how small” on my poster because I decided to focus on child abuse. All the posters were creative and beautiful, with phrases like “Real men don’t hit” and “Respect my mind, body, and soul.” Then I spent the rest of the time helping the Salvation Army, which has a women’s shelter in Athlone called Carehaven, paint their banner. I’m so glad I will still be here for the march, because I’ll get to participate and all the CCS volunteers will even be martials. What that entails, no one’s quite sure yet, but one of the directors, Tahira, has been appointed head martial of the entire shebang along with a woman constable from the police force. The police will be making a positive appearance because here especially they have a bad reputation when it comes to protecting the rights of the abused.

                I couldn’t be happier. This is a cause in which I believe with all my heart and I’m so excited to be playing a part in the 16 Days of Activism and its preparation. I met all sorts of beautiful women today whose particular life stories I will never know but whose feelings were shared by everyone in that little auditorium today. I loved laughing and talking seriously with the women in my tree group and I got to know the Carehaven ladies well. One of the directors was excited that I would be there for the march and took an interest in me. When I mentioned that I’d probably be studying neuroscience at Harvard and tossed off, “but who knows, I might even end up in social work after a trip like this!” she said she definitely see me as a social worker dealing with children. She’s not the first person who has said that on this trip, and not even the second or third. Who knows? Also, I’m sure the workshop meant a lot to those who have probably never expressed their thoughts on abuse—verbally, artistically, otherwise. I know it was even therapeutic for me. Considering my past and my “Too Nice Weary Gene” tendency to put everyone else’s happiness before my own, I truly felt like something strengthened inside me today. There might have been steroids in the burgers we had at lunch (our poor kitchen staff was working at a furious pace all day) or I might have just had a really special experience. I returned covered in paint and a little wiser. At this point, all I know is that on November 25^th, if you strike a woman, prepare for a rockslide.

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas

10/17/11, 8:54 p.m.

                As of today I have been Cape Town for a whole month, with two more to go. That’s good, because I can’t imagine leaving anytime soon. A new group of volunteers arrived on Saturday, bringing the head count in the CCS house from 7 to 19. It’s definitely a different dynamic, especially because some people in this group already knew each other, so factions have started to form. It’s a lot noisier in the house and you now have to wait in line for meals, but meeting new people and hearing their stories about why they found themselves here at this point in their lives is very interesting. Being a veteran volunteer is also novel, since we now have a new schedule (we don’t have to participate again in the activities that the new people are now doing) and also because there were no veterans when my group arrived for the first time in CCS-SA’s existence.

Being the compulsive overachiever I am (still have to work on that), I opted to start afternoon volunteering now that I’m a veteran and the mandatory cultural activities have eased up a bit. Four hours of volunteering each day before lunch doesn’t sound like much but it is tiring, especially when working with small children, so they wait to offer afternoon placement until you’re settled in your fifth week. I figured that since I’m here to volunteer anyway and I don’t take afternoon naps like most of the others, why not? I will be working in Sarah Fox, which is a children’s hospital in the township of Athlone, which is much closer than Khayelitsha. Many of the children there have HIV, tuberculosis, or are burn victims. Plus, because of the stigma around debilitating illness and also sheer lack of knowledge about how to take care of it, there are a lot of orphans there. Others go for months without seeing their parents if they can’t afford transportation or the like. For variety, I hope to work in the infant ward. After a morning of chasing 3- to 6-year-olds I am totally okay with holding babies for a few hours! My volunteering is in the process of getting set up and I am very excited for that to start.

Of course, I’m still in love with my placement at the Home from Home creche. I finally have the long-term project I’ve been looking for, because the older two classes are putting on a Christmas pageant before I leave in December! Since last week, I have been teaching the teachers carols they want to learn so the kids can perform them. I wouldn’t be able to count how many times I’ve sung “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” so far, and it’s only mid-October. They also have an adorable skit, and I’ve learned that a toy dog wrapped in a scarf makes an excellent Baby Jesus. I love my day-to-day activities at the creche but I feel more purposeful and useful now. Starting tomorrow, I won’t be the only CCS volunteer there since one of the new people will be joining me, and as selfish as it sounds I’m not looking forward to sharing my little angels with anyone! As of today I can add face painting to my resume since I brought that in for two of the classes, and will be doing the third tomorrow. Princesses, monsters, pirates, butterflies, rainbows, flowers, cats, stars, and a whole manner of other things scurried around the classrooms and playground. Our one 18-month-old, Olwethu, made for an excruciatingly adorable puppy dog.

The kids mean so much to me, and on Friday I found out that the feeling is apparently mutual. I found out from the head of Home from Home herself (not just the daycare but the entire organization) that the children really like me. Luann, the CCS-SA director, told me during lunch on Thursday that she was going to Home from Home’s AGM that afternoon, “so if you want to go, be ready to leave in 10 minutes.” Gasp! I inhaled my lentils and then rode there with Luann in my first ride in someone’s private car since leaving home. The meeting was held in a classroom in a church and some of it was dry like budget reports and thanking the board, but they also explained the Home from Home idea of “cluster foster care” in depth. Cluster foster care is where children are kept with their siblings in family-like environments in their own community, rather than in large, austere institutions, and Home from Home has received international non-profit awards for their work. They even interviewed one of the foster mothers, who cares for 6 kids who range in age from 2 to 14. When asked about difficulties raising these orphans, she said that they can be very defensive and withdrawn, especially when feeling the threat of punishment. However, when asked about the positive side, she did recount a story where her kids locked her in her bedroom and when they let her out some time later the entire house was completely spotless. Hearing about the organization as a whole really spurred my enthusiasm for my volunteer work there even more, and the fact that I’m on the president’s radar was quite the pleasant surprise. I’m a small cog in the wheel but it’s nice to know that the wheel turns a little smoother now. I can only hope I’ll bring as much to the table at the hospital once I start there.

Anything Not Safari-Related Is Irrelephant

10/10/11, 8:08 p.m.

                A trip to Africa is certainly not complete without a safari, so with that in mind several of us went on a daytrip to the Aquila Game Reserve yesterday in the hopes of spotting some of the famed “Big Five” animals (lion, elephant, black rhino, Cape buffalo, leopard) and to have a weekend adventure. Our driver told us on Saturday that he would pick us up between 6:15 and 6:45 a.m. the next day. We prepared for an early start, but you can imagine our surprise when the security guard told us our transport was ready at 6:05 a.m. We threw ourselves together and the van started moving at 6:25. Granted, we were 10 minutes late from the time we expected all along, but the driver accused us of making us extremely late for picking up the next people (we weren’t informed there were others) and even forced Melanie to sign a form when one party cancelled literally at the last minute. They must have had other issues because who cancels a safari because their ride is 10 minutes late?! He growled that he had to make up for lost time so he drove FAR too fast on surface streets and the freeway alike, and even sped through a blatantly red light. For those of us who thought they would get the chance to sleep in the car, it was now out of the question. Luckily most of the trip was spent winding through endless vineyards and noble-looking mountains.

                Much to our delight we arrived alive at Aquila 2 hours later, and the rest of the day was phenomenal! We were greeted with breakfast before heading out on a 2 ½-hour game drive through the reserve. I’ve been to the San Diego Wild Animal Park and seen animals roaming free, but it’s another experience entirely to visit them in their own home. It’s quite surreal to let two adolescent elephants cross our path (those pedestrians ALWAYS get the right of way) and then watch them dust themselves like giant, wrinkled chinchillas. We drove right up next to a mother white rhino and her three female children, one of which was only 10 months old, who blinked sleepily at us in the almost 100-degree heat. The hippos in the water hole had the right idea for the weather that day and only surfaced their noses every so often.  We passed herds of buffalo, zebras, elans (antelopes), and springboks, who were all pretty glum because their rugby-playing counterparts lost to Australia that morning and will not be advancing to the World Cup quarterfinals. The best part was when we went through two levels of security that was oddly reminiscent of Jurassic Park in order to see the lions. Right as we entered we were welcomed by four lionesses sunning themselves like the big kitties they are. Well, big, bloodthirsty, kitties with fearsome incisors. Two males, the father and son, were astute enough to recline in the shade of some bushes. Heck, I wouldn’t want to have a full, luscious mane during the African summer. Sometimes it’s hard being sexy.

                On the way back to the main building for lunch, we stopped at Aquila’s Animal Rescue Center. There were a couple of warthogs, who seemed to be fond of pineapples judging by the stems littered around, some alligators attempting a dog-pile, and two lions rescued from a company that was illegally raising wild animals to be hunted. My favorite was the female cheetah. She was scrawny but beautiful, and only there because they were trying to breed her with a male that we didn’t see. Apparently he was a jerk or something because they weren’t having much luck and were actually in search of another suitor. Part of me says, “Yeah, girl power!” and then I remember that cheetahs are very endangered and too genetically similar for their own evolutionary good. I suppose if the human population bottlenecked (due to some zombie apocalypse-related catastrophe, of course) we wouldn’t be allowed to be choosy either.

                Before heading home to Cape Town, we stopped at the Karoo Ostrich Farm, which is a lot more interesting than you might think. For one thing, our guide had a pet year-old springbok named Chantal who he had since she was 3 days old, and she followed us like a faithful dog for awhile. For R10 (a little over a dollar) you could purchase food pellets with which to feed the ostriches, and even if you only put one in your palm they have quite good aim. We saw the incubators, where the eggs are kept for 42 days until they hatch. Not only are the eggs enormous, they are very strong because the shells are so thick. Our guide dared us to stand on two unfertilized eggs and even put all our weight on one, and sure enough they held everyone up! We saw the hatchlings’ room, where some of them were only 2 days old, and even got to hold a soft, little baby before he got too skittish. We passed the pen with the adolescents (which are awkward in every species) and the pens with the giant adults. The breeds have names like Zimbabwean Blue and Kenyan Red because of the color of their skin. However, the legs of all males turn reddish during this time of year because it’s mating season and they’re excited. Cue the Barry White. I learned they certainly are bird-brained, with their eyes weighing 60 grams each and their brain only 40, but one can already tell that from their dopey smile. Plus, the common belief that they stick their heads in the sand when scared is a myth, because it only looks like that from a distance when their heads are lowered. They do get stressed easily, though, and it can even kill them. That combined with their brain size explains the lack of representation of the ostrich community in our world’s surgeon supply.

                At the end we poked around in the gift shop for a bit, but after a tour like that I don’t see the appeal of then buying an ostrich skin wallet. “Oh my God, I’m buying a slow learner.” I’m sure on a farm like that, though, they use the meat and everything else too, and from this trip I do know that ostrich steaks are quite tasty. Afterwards, we piled into the van again with our driver for the long drive back to Cape Town, and thankfully it was much more civilized than the first time around. I stepped back into the CCS homebase sometime before 5 p.m. filled with good memories and astonishingly without sunburn. It finally dawned on me that I was actually living in Cape Town on other side of the Prime Meridian AND the equator about a week ago, but because of the Aquila trip it now really feels like I’m in Africa. And it’s an awesome feeling.

What I've Learned Thus Far

Inspired by the poetry at the District 6 Museum, I decided to compile some deep thoughts I've been having lately. :)

1)      Dear Teenagers:

If sexual feelings

Have you in a hold

Go work in a daycare

With a three-year-old.

(Or perhaps 15.)

2)      An Elegy for a Missing Sock

When “by weight” laundry fees

Cause you to shriek

Wear half as much clothing

Or the same pants for a week.

(I’ve tried both.)

3)      Transport

Ride those packed, speedy minibuses

If you’re feeling brave

But which—your life or wallet—

Are you willing to save?

(Price check: 5 rand.)

4)      Fish for Lunch or Lunch for Fish?

When the surfers get mangled

By sharks out in Fish Hoek

I stay here at Homebase

With some rooibos tea and a book.

(He had it coming—they told him to get out of the water.)

5)      Nurture

If you’re feeling homesick,

Tired, lost, or unsure,

Remember the love, trust, and awe the kids have for you—

It’ll help you endure.

(Not that I’ve felt this way yet, but it’s nice to think about.)