High’s and Low’s

One of the special routines our Reach Out group has at the end of our “daily” wrap up meetings is our High’s and Low’s session. We go around the room and each share his or her high and low moments for the day. Some hate it.  Some love it. But I think all of us have become accustomed to it and agree that it is very much a ROSA (Reach Out South Africa) tradition, so I’m going to use it as a template for my reflection on my 1.5 week experience in Cape Town so far.

High’s

1. Kindergarteners at Power Child. Power Child is the name of the children’s home that we volunteered at for the first week.  Every day around 11am, anywhere from 0 to 130 kindergarteners come and spend a couple of hours using Power Child’s facilities (soccer field, playground, toys, etc.) and playing with Power Child staff. After four days of interacting with these absolutely adorable little 5-year olds, I’ve come to realize that we don’t necessarily need language to communicate with one another. Many of these kids knew minimal English if any and spoke Xhosa, a language I definitely cannot speak. But I could tell when they were thirsty, when they wanted to be held, or when they pooped in their pants (actually, that one I couldn’t tell until someone else told me, but still). Their facial expressions, body language, and actions were things that are found universally in children and adults all over the world. The purity and innocence of these kindergarteners highlighted the significance and beauty of these universal qualities.

2. Soccer “Sista.” It was one of those days when there were very few kids at Power Child and there was nothing for me to do besides sit on the bench and stare out the window at the elementary school boys playing soccer. I was super bored though so I decided to just walk out to the field and ask if I can join (actually, I asked if they can teach me how to play). It must have been weird. There I was, a pale Asian girl, definitely a decade older and at least a foot taller than they, asking if I can join in their game of soccer. But one kid laughed and answered okay. He claimed he was a professional and would take me on his team so he can teach me to play soccer. Of course, I barely improved, but it was the best game of soccer I’ve ever played. The kids called me “sista” and gave me high-fives just for kicking the ball in the right direction. The very next day, while passing by Power Child’s soccer field, one of the kids shouted “Sista! Remember me?” and yelled his name while pointing to himself. And I thought, how could I forget them and our short but meaningful friendships that overcame differences in age, race, gender and soccer abilities?

3. Coaching Soccer. The only sport I’ve ever played is field hockey freshman year of high school, when they didn’t hold tryouts; after that, I stuck to marching band. I am positive I can’t run a mile in under 10 minutes. At Power Child, I lost soccer matches against both a 7-year old and 10-year old. But the second to last day of volunteering, the soccer coach made me his assistant and the little children followed me around calling me “coach.” It was an awesome feeling.

Low’s

1. An Almost All-Nighter. The second day of Reach Out, I stayed up until 6:30am working on a paper. I then went to bed until 8 to get up in time for a huge breakfast before the first day of volunteering.  Surprisingly, I wasn’t too tired during the day (someone told me it has to do with adrenalin or something), but then I crashed later that night.

2. Sun-burn. Do not let the clouds trick you; the sun can still get you through them.

3. Departure. This may sound corny, but I don’t care. I cannot believe how quickly the time flew by and hate hearing that our Reach Out group has only three days in South Africa before returning to New Haven. I want to keep playing with the 5-year olds at Power Child; I want to keep being the least talented soccer coach in all of Africa; and I want to stay in 80 degree weather! ROSA has been an amazing experience and its biggest low in my opinion is that it has to come to an end… Again, I apologize for the corniness.

- Yoonie Hoh

The Little Things That Count

In my very first sociology class at Yale, we read a passage that said that every student goes into the major wanting to change the world. Every student then leaves the major more aware of how the world works, of how complicated the world’s problems really are, and realizes that it’s not that easy to change things. Despite the pessimistic introduction, I kept my (naïve? misguided?) hopefulness and studied societies and their problems. But there is only so much you can read and this Reach Out trip has allowed me to get out from behind my computer screen and books. Working here in South Africa, I have come to face everything I only thought about in theory. Also, and more importantly, it has been a wonderful opportunity to give back.

When I first got to Power Child and Women for Peace I really didn’t know what to expect. By volunteering on the ground level rather than in an NGO or in some type of administrative body I got to see how development work actually looks like on a day to day basis for the people receiving aid. Most of the day involves simple tasks like peeling fruits and vegetables or throwing a soccer ball back and forth with a group of kids. And it’s the little things that count – and that are sometimes surprisingly hard. One day, I spent an hour trying to get a little girl to read a short book, fighting my urge to yawn and always trying to sound encouraging. Another time I tried, in vain, not to fall as six or seven three-year-olds all jumped on top of me, each one wanting to be carried. I really wanted to pamper all of them but at times I was absolutely overwhelmed and exhausted.

And yet – call me corny – it’s also the little things that have made this experience so enriching. A couple of little boys showed me that puzzle pieces are not actually puzzle pieces but make for great steering wheels and imaginary car races. I gave paper and crayons to a group of giggling kindergarteners who all drew funny cartoons of me. On another day, we all learned how to play duck-duck-goose in Xhosa, the language spoken in the township we worked at. Actually, we didn’t learn it that well, we were all teased hopelessly for mispronouncing things and getting the clicking noise wrong. Still, it was the cultural similarities more than anything else that made this experience so special. I was struck by how easy it was to relate with and get close to the children at both the institutions we volunteered in. The world may be complicated and messy, these kids and I are incredibly different which is unfair and unjustifiable. But on the ground level, in the day to day, we’re all so similar that I feel less embarrassed to admit that I’m still optimistic that the world can change.

- Isabel Jijon

Contradictions of a Country

Looking back at our week of volunteering in Mfuleni, a lot stands out in my mind.  South Africa is a country of literally polar opposites and Cape Town illustrates this better than any other city in the country. I have spent a significant amount of time in South Africa and Cape Town specifically, but it was pretty much completely one-sided. I have spent almost all of my time in South Africa in relatively wealthy suburbs, with the only reminders that I am not in California being the occasional beggar on the side of the road and the barbed wire fencing surrounding all houses.

Mfuleni was eye-opening because it was a reminder that the South Africa that I know is not the South Africa that most South Africans know. The townships are a good 45 minutes to an hour away from the beautiful city center of Cape Town with its imposing beaches and and stunning mountains. The gorgeous views from Signal Hill, sundowners in Camps Bay, or summer concerts in Kirstenbosch are completely foreign to most people in townships and it seemed unfair that we, as seventeen foreigners, were able to experience the best parts of the country, while the residents of townships like Khayelitsha or Mfuleni would never or rarely share such sights.

Spending time in Mfuleni put the contradictions of the country into perspective for us. Every morning we would leave our comfortable hotel for a forty-five minute bus ride into the townships, where children would speak little English, wear mismatch clothing and no shoes, and cattle would roam freely throughout the soccer fields. In the evenings, we would return to Cape Town, where the surroundings were enough to fool us that we were in some  European country where people would speak English with ambiguous accents.

In the townships, we would spend the day keeping between sixty and one hundred sixty young children occupied, teaching them our games, while they would share with us bits of Xhosa and their schoolyard songs. I spent a lot of time working in the kitchen helping prepare meals for the over one hundred young children, adults, and seniors who came in and out of Power Child every day. Preparing healthy food for such a large number of people is a production to say the least. Every day, it would be a mad rush to peel and cut vegetables, boil rice, and wash dishes for the hungry mouths patiently waiting for their meals. The food was always simple- a scoop of rice and a spoonful of some type of vegetable stew. It was not uncommon for food to run out and haphazard preparations to be made to feed the unlucky twenty-something children who were last in line. The people who we worked with at Power-Child were always patient and took such challenges in stride. It was amazing that they went through this process day in and day out and never seemed tired or exhausted.

As the week progressed and we each learned the names of specific children, I could not help but wonder where these kids will end up in ten to twenty years down the line. Unemployment for 16-25 year olds in South Africa is over 50% and most of the unemployed come from townships or similar backgrounds. There would come a time when these kids would have to make life altering decisions-should they get involved in the profitable trade of crime, would they make risky choices that would result in HIV-AIDS, or would they resort to other paths, such as drugs or alcoholism? With their poor English skills, high university fees, and living in the isolated townships, all factors seem to be stacked against them. There are so many structural problems in South Africa that keep people like the children we met down that it seems almost impossible for them to overcome it. It is hard to be optimistic when looking at statistics on South Africa's poorest, but I am hoping that in time some of the biggest problems will be slowly ameliorated.

We went to Parliament last week, and the Chairperson on Human Settlements assured us that universal housing will eventually be achieved and movements have been made to place government housing closer to the cities, in order to combat the legacies of apartheid. The Committee on Higher Education also unveiled their plans to increase the number of Africans from poorer households in universities and to provide support for them once they are in university to ensure their successes. Despite robust legislation and policies, gaps remain and South Africa is still the most unequal society in the world. I suppose baby steps are necessary, but when looking at the townships and thinking about the almost seventeen years since the end of apartheid, I cannot help but wonder how long most South Africans are going to have to wait for the end of these extreme socio-economic inequalities.

- Tasnim Motala

Thoughts on the Week

It’s the Monday after we completed our week of volunteering and I wonder if the kids remember us. Over the course of a week, we played with hundreds of kids, picked up at least fifty each, and had countless endearing moments that only situations with children can produce. But, again, we were only there for a week.

It is perhaps difficult to justify voluntourism to some extent. Our trip leader was very open about the fact that this trip was, in many ways, more selfish than not. After all, we left each morning for the township from our beachfront hotel after a filling breakfast. Even my thoughts are selfish. I wonder if the kids remember us, not whether or not we affected them positively.

The one major benefit of voluntourism that I think me and my 16 tripmates have experienced is exposure. For almost all of us, it was our first time in South Africa. For all of us, it became a country we fell in love with and a city we will not forget.  Maybe we will end up back here in a few years – and this time to make a real impact.

- Shahla Naimi

Express Yourself

The first day at Power Child Campus Matt, Shala, Yoonie, Rick and I got to sit in on the Campus drama program. The program is lead by a local resident Monabise who began acting as a means of social protest during the Apartheid-protest era in the late 1980s, early 1990s.  Monabise told me his story: he would go to political protests in Cape Town where movement leaders would be speaking. Monabise started miming out what the leaders were saying which was both amusing and instrumental for those in the crowd who did not understand the language the leaders were speaking. Monabise began doing this at more and more rallies, traveling around the country. While he has no formal training in acting, he has picked up many performance skills and exercises along the way. Physical communication is second nature to him. Many times in talking with Monabise he would break off his sentence and begin to express his meaning physically or indicate how he or another person was feeling through exaggerated facial expressions. I can easily see how he applied this same method to expressing the concerns of the anti-apartheid movement and the oppression of apartheid itself.

Monabise now applies his method of expression to his work at Power Child: working with children who are victims of domestic abuse. Monabise opens the vocabulary of the body to help these children express themselves, open their eyes to new creative outlets, and even get into specifics of the abuse they experience at home. The children have written a play based on their own experiences of abuse and the challenges they observe in their community including drug abuse, domestic strife, and unemployment. While I was not able to see all of the play itself, watching and participating with the children in some theater exercises was amazing in and of itself. These kids fully opened up: expressing themselves with theater, song, and dance. It was clear that the children had found not only something they enjoyed, but also a creative outlet they could use to express and explore themselves.

- Sigrid von Wendel

Lessons Learned at UCT

Before arriving in South Africa, I had not realized that the extent to which the legacies of the apartheid continue to permeate society.  According to Professor Nattrass, the University of Cape Town, along with most other institutions in South Africa, practices affirmative action.  Unlike the United States, however, affirmative action in South Africa intends to elevate the majority race rather than the minority.  The competition for white students is therefore apparently very harsh – only white students with top credentials are accepted, while, in Professor Nattrass’s words, B-grade black students may gain seats.  This trend holds true even at the graduate school level.  Yet most of these students, irrespective of race, are from economically privileged backgrounds.  Thus, affirmative action merely appears to punish the white population for their apartheid policies rather than attempt to extend opportunities to truly disadvantaged populations.  Though I can understand the rationale behind such affirmative action, I’m not sure if this is the best way to address the racial divides.  These policies have actually seemed to elicit more interracial tension and resentment than reconciliation.  And despite efforts to integrate the races at UCT, as Marieme and I observed, black students predominantly talk with black students, Indian students with other Indians, and whites with other whites.  The divisions of society are thereby perpetuated, even in an institution that actively attempts to combat the repercussions of apartheid. 

Nevertheless, the South Africa I experienced is markedly different from the South Africa I had learned about in class.  I could observe the immense progress since the apartheid and Mbeki’s notorious AIDS denialism just by walking the halls of UCT.  In the corner of a bathroom at UCT stood a dispenser bearing the words, “PREVENT HIV/AIDS , WEAR A CONDOM.”  The black packets, each adorned with a red ribbon, contains ten condoms each – evidence of the university’s tireless efforts to curb the pandemic.  Posters that advertised lectures on “HIV/AIDS and Masculinity” and “HIV/AIDS and Religion” seemed to indicate that HIV is no longer a closeted term, but rather a common acronym in public discourse.   This openness was a refreshing and promising alternative to the bleak picture of stigma painted in my classes at Yale.  It was tempting to believe that my professors had exaggerated the controversy surrounding the disease, and that South Africa as a whole was ready to not only accept the biological basis of transmission and control, but also achieve universal access to preventative measures and ARVs.  Unfortunately, one look outside the UCT bathroom window, at the fashionably dressed students with their evidently expensive summer dresses and shades, reminded me that I was only observing the educated upper crust, in stark contrast to the impoverished children with whom the rest of the Reach Out group volunteered.  It troubled me when Professor Nattrass told me that even this cohort had difficulty accepting their own chances of HIV infection.  The university’s previous campaign, in which signs that read “the Face of an HIV(+) Student” hung above mirrors lined with condoms, was aborted because students were too uncomfortable with the idea that HIV could strike anyone.  If this was the case in an elite institution, what was the reality of HIV prevention in other impoverished or remote areas within South Africa?

- Pooja Yerramilli

"With You I Am Well Pleased"

I’ve only been in Cape Town a little over a week yet I have truly fallen in love with the beauty of this city. I had the chance during our time here to work at the University of Cape Town for Rebecca Hodes, Deputy Director of the AIDS and Society Research Unit. The campus itself was gorgeous—set at the base of South Africa’s famous Table Mountain with buildings covered in beautiful vines (the way Morse and Stiles were originally meant to be) and complete with a stunning view of the entire city of Cape Town, UCT was a welcome respite from Yale’s blustery winter.

My work for Rebecca involved researching the literature on the changing attitudes of medical professionals towards the reproductive rights of South African women from apartheid to the present. Reproductive rights encompass contraception, abortion, sterilization, etc. Pooja [Yerramilli] was the other student working on this research project along with me and the two of us got to spend the first week of the trip working from 9am to 5pm in Room 4.29, the office for the Leslie Center for Social Science Research. The work would have become monotonous if it weren’t for the fact that Rebecca herself was so knowledgeable and excited about the topic. She had assigned us readings to do before we arrived and when we spoke about them upon first meeting dubbed them “lekker interesting”. After so much research, I can speak with confidence on the topic of reproductive rights of South African women and the policies, laws, and attitudes that have affected those rights.

The work we did was incredibly interesting and very relevant to some of the pressing issues facing South Africa today. One of the biggest problems, however, is still the legacy left behind by apartheid. Comparing Cape Town—located entirely between a gorgeous stretch of beach and picturesque mountains and bringing to mind California in many ways—to places like Mfuleni, the township housing the children’s home and Power Child campus that all the other Reach Out participants on our trip worked for, you can’t help but notice the glaring disparities in housing, SES, jobs, etc. The fact that such large inequalities still exist in 2011 is demoralizing, and those who just stand by and passively allow them to continue are the people who I personally hold the most accountable.

The title of this post comes from graffiti I saw as we drove to Mfuleni on the first (and only) day that Pooja and I went to work with the children instead of working on our research. I was boiling with anger at the conditions that people were being allowed to live in while others live comparatively peaceful lives in giant beach houses with no worries and no thought to those less fortunate, but that graffiti was able to calm me in a way that I don’t really understand. I do not kid myself with the idea of “sustainability” that people throw around because those kids are not going to remember the “smile I put on their faces” one year from now, let alone when a decade from now when they’re teens and adults, but I know that I won’t ever forget meeting them. Maybe it’s selfish, that I got more out of our crossed paths than the children did but I hope to return the favor in the years to come by journeying back to South Africa (and Senegal, the place of my own heritage) when I know that I can make a truly sustainable difference.

- Mariame Mbaye