Township Stay 2

Wednesday, June 4

Today was the second day of my stay living in Gugs and apart from the multiple shacks surrounding Lisiwe's house and the fact that I cannot walk out the front door alone this home stay is exactly like living in MPLS. I still hear the dogs barking incessantly, cars speeding by on the road and the occasional shouts or laughter.

This morning for breakfast I had corn flakes with whole cream milk - I only drink skim at home so I was basically chewing the milk along with the flakes. To make it more out of my comfort zone of eating a simple cereal breakfast, my host mother's neice, Heartbreak (I called her that throughout the week because 1, I couldn't pronounce her name, and 2, she's having some relationship problems), warmed up the milk then poured on the steaming thickness into my bowl. It was surprisingly good, but I think I'll stick to my cold skim and lucky charms...

Noxie, another host mother to two others in the program then picked us up to go visit her school where she teaches 1st grade. The school blended right in with the harsh looking shacks which surrounded it. Noxie said the students in her class are primarily coming from these shacks. It was a rainy morning so students trickeled in throughout our visit. Every expression I saw was of "Who the hell are these white kids???" The government pays for the students to attend school and also they get funding for 2 meals per day while in school. The hardest part for these students, however, is that they don't get fed on the weekends or during their 2 month break between terms. The kids are on there own which means they'll eat maybe one meal per day and chances are that meal will be the size of the typical amount of scraps left on your and my plate that we easily and unconsciously toss into the garbage.

When we arrived in the classroom, Noxie had previously informed her students that guests would be visiting. These kids were on speed times 5 witha mountain dew to top it off - even before we took out our cameras. Side note: kids in the township think cameras are the coolest thing. They like to get their photos taken - they even strike some interesting poses - then look at themselves on the screen. Makes me think how much I take my nice computer, iPod, and cell phone for granted. We played games and sang songs including "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" - in English and Xosa - the Hokey Pokey, Itsy Bitsy Spider, and the Wheels on the Bus. They loved it but I think we loved the songs they sang in Xosa more so. Xosa is a language of clicks. The words that have x's and q's have two distinct clicks that are part of the word. I'm getting pretty good at clicking, as I am told by many of my new 6 year old friends at JL Zwane.

After visiting they school we went back to the community center to meet back up with the rest of the group. Our lecturers for teh day were Paul (one of the hosts) and Zatu, who works in the department of health in the Western Cape. Paul talked about his experience being in a gang in his younger years, how he was arrested for hijacking a car and sentenced for 15 years in prison. He talked about his struggles in incarceration and the even harder struggles after he was released. The stigma attached to being a criminal in Gugulethu is so strong he stayed in his house for 4 months after being released. He talke about how he finally became involved with JL Zwane, Kevin Winge, and Open Arms of MN. His life is completely turned around - just another amazing story we've heard throughout the course of this program...

Here's a picture of the 1st grade class we worked with:

And a picture of Kate, Lisiwe, and I.