prayers needed.

I want to take a minute to thank all of you friends and family for keeping up with my blog this long, especially since I have been home from South Africa for almost two months now. It was very hard to leave, and even taking the effort to choose a photo to post each day is almost heartbreaking.  But one of the best things about the Augustinian Volunteer program is its sustainability, and I took a lot of comfort in the fact that after Meg, Mary-Kate, Becca, and I left South Africa to come home, another group of volunteers would be taking over for us as the new year began.

Though I have only met Erika and Damien, they, along with Jenny and Tyler, are incredible young people with a passion for service that will do them well in their year ahead.  But unfortunately, this group of people has already encountered more hardship than I think I faced all year.
Your prayers are needed.

One of this year's volunteers, Jenny, who replaced me at St. Leo, is in the hospital and about to undergo very serious and risky open-chest surgery.

And in addition, Tyler, another community member, has a brother named Kyle who is currently in hospital in Johannesburg with a brain infection.

During my year in South Africa, I learned a lot about the unexpected turns that life can take, but I have to say that since being home, these tragic surprises have been much more numerous and much more unexpected.  We just have to keep trusting that we will be taken care of.

Please keep this AV community and their families in your thoughts for the next few days, and, most especially, in the next few hours.  Having a strong network of good people sending positive thoughts their way may just be the magic touch.  Thanks.



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"hello is so easy... but goodbye? goodbye is very hard miss sinead"

I've been through a few break-ups in my life, but saying goodbye to South Africa feels like the worst one of them all.  It's a lump in my throat when I wake up in the morning, the echo of my bare walls and empty closet, the pain in my heart when I go through my photos to pick a couple to print for the people I love.  It's tight hugs from the boys at St. Theresa's, one last bunny chow with our feet in the Indian Ocean in Durban, handmade cards from the learners at St. Leo's who, in January, couldn't speak a lick of English.  It's that inevitable knot in the pit of my stomach on the final drive to St. Theresa's, St. Leo's, Gogo Gloria's house, church in Kloof, passing the Siyakwamukela eThekwini sign on the drive into Durban.




Pinky, in Grade 4, said it best.  "Saying hello is so easy!  But goodbye?  Goodbye is very hard, Miss Sinead."


South Africa has shown me just how much love my heart is capable of... but there is no doubt that I will be leaving a large piece of it here when I go.




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at a loss.

I've been sitting here for about an hour, scrolling through the hundreds of photos I've taken over the past few weeks.  With this fancy new camera and very little time to read a multipage manual and actually figure out how to take good photos, I've just been taking craploads and hoping that some turn out okay.  There was Heritage Day at St. Leo's and St. Theresa's, various community outings (and spider sightings in our house), and the day I brought my camera to school "just in case".  I ended up spending twenty minutes doing a Grade 7 boys' photo shoot, and now, looking through these pictures, I'm meditating on the 23 days I have left here and wondering to myself how I can possibly feel so excited and relieved to have the end in sight... but also, feeling so sad at the prospect of leaving these kids, most of them probably forever.

A selection:

I'm feeling a little short on words tonight.




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pineapples in heaven.

Mlungisi Mzobe was buried on a Saturday in October, in between the morning sunshine and afternoon storms of springtime in South Africa.  He was just eighteen years old.
I only spent a few scattered hours with him here and there; the funeral was the most time Mlungisi and I ever spent together.  During the strike, when Becky was visiting, we helped Mary-Kate bring a few of the healthier patients from the Respite Centre to the shopping centre for ice cream.  Becky and I sat with two guys, both named Mlungisi- one older and one younger.  They both insisted on large plain vanilla soft-serve but with the chilly August wind blowing in through the door of the shop, were too cold to finish.  We got lids and they brought their ice creams back to put in the fridge for later.  Mlungisi was happy to answer the simple questions we asked him about where he came from and his family, and when he asked about my life, he could not for the life of him understand why I would want to be a teacher in Molweni.
The next few times I saw Mlungisi, he was in bed at the Respite.  I remember he had the most graceful, slender fingers that would rest on the blanket of his bed.
When he got moved to a private room, he knew the outlook wasn't good; patients didn't just get moved to private rooms for increased privacy.
I would run in to pick up Mary-Kate or Meg from work and go to say hello.  Once we had to run out to Spar to pick up some Sprite for him.  He never failed to request food or drink from the careworkers-- there was the time he asked for a pineapple and just kept it by his bedside.  I don't think he ever ate it.  Or when someone would make a run to KFC; he couldn't eat fried chicken, but he'd order something and just have it next to him on the bed.  It always reminded me of a book I read as a child, where a man who couldn't afford food would satiate his hunger on the smell of dinners being prepared in the alleys behind restaurants.
A couple of weeks ago, after he'd been moved out of the private room and back into a regular bed, Mlungisi was discharged from the Respite and transferred to St. Mary's Hospital.  I was sad that I wouldn't get to see him anymore, but hopeful that the transfer meant that all his hard work was paying off; that his CDC count was climbing, that his TB wasn't the dreaded MDR variety and that he was finally back in control of his own body.
He died on October 14th.
All the other people who had come to say goodbye were doing so to a body they no longer recognized.  Though his smile and those long, slender fingers were the same, the sickness had sunken his eyes, shrunken his skin, and worst of all, frightened such a kind, caring young man.  That's what upset me the most-- Mlungisi was terrified of dying.  I think that's what kept him fighting and hanging on.
In the photo that his family placed on his beautiful coffin, I hardly recognized Mlungisi's face.  I'd never seen him look so healthy.  But it served as a reminder that no matter how sad I felt at Mlungisi's funeral, my grief was minor in comparison to that of his gogos and siblings, the friends he grew up with, his fellow students who came in their uniforms.  School uniforms don't belong at a funeral.
Mlungisi Mzobe will never be a father, never watch another soccer match, never run around causing trouble with his friends again.  And he never did eat his pineapple... but I'm pretty sure that they have pineapples in heaven.

Phumula no thula, Mlungisi.



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schizophrenia.

All I've been asking is to work.  I came to South Africa to forge relationships with people across racial, cultural, and economic boundaries.  I came to work, to be a teacher and attempt to teach vowel sounds and strengthen English speaking skills.
And with the World Cup, and strikes, and holidays, and the laziness of the government, I've been sitting at home far more often than I'd imagined, writing letters and applying for jobs.
Then school reopens, and instead of brimming with joy to be back in the saddle again, I find out that someone attempted to break into the library over holidays and spend half the morning being deafened by the sounds of Sir Sibisi and some of the Grade 6 boys (who should have been in class) busting open the locks so we could get inside our classroom.  Then three-fourths of Grade 6 didn't show up for class and Bec was feeling really sick, poor thing, and the whole day was such a disaster.

And, to top it off, it's been raining since I woke up.

I am aware that this blog makes me sound like a textbook schizophrenic-- elated to be here one moment, depressed the next, and flitting from emotion to emotion day after day, minute after minute.  But I might be a schizo at this point.  To feel "get me outta here" mixed with "ohmygod two months left" and "i can't believe i actually have to say goodbye", with a generous splash of "hanging out with my family and friends is going to be paradise", I just feel so mixed-up and over saturated with every sort of feeling that I'm completely exhausted.

I'm going to bed.  Goodnight.


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struck.

The beach in Durban where the FIFA Fan Fest was set up just six weeks ago.

It's been eleven days since I've worked at St. Leo's.  In that time, which started out as a Friday I'd wanted to take off to spend time with Becky in Cape Town, all public servants in South Africa are on strike.  Government schools (and some private ones) are closed, as are government hospitals and most clinics.  The sick can't get treatment, and more importantly, those with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis who depend on regularly scheduled medicine have no access to their prescriptions.  Children enrolled in government schools  sit at home or at a relative's house, bored out of their minds, because their families cannot afford to send them to private school in the first place.  Sadly, many of these kids depend on their biggest meal of the day coming from the school kitchen, and they will go hungry unless they find aid elsewhere.

Themba is in hospital with a stomach ulcer and other complications, and when Becca and I went to see her today, she told us that she'd had a phone call from Smangele Khumalo, a learner in Grade 5.  All Smangele told Themba was that she was very hungry; Themba did her best to convince her that the strike would end soon, then hung up the phone and cried for the rest of the night.  We also spoke about how fortunate Themba is to be able to afford care in a private hospital-- otherwise her ulcer would go untreated and the fibroids they found would have gone unnoticed.

I've been talking a lot with people, both in South Africa and at home, about everything going on, and the general consensus is that the issues causing this strike are so deeply rooted in South Africa's turbulent and segregated history that it's really hard to be hopeful about the outcome.  There has been very little said on the government's part, and the president is no better; Jacob Zuma's latest announcement was that he had attended the highly anticipated Springboks/All Blacks rugby match in Soweto last Saturday with his cabinet members.  For people who suffered through centuries of being powerless to now have as much influence as they can get is a recipe for disaster (see: Julius Malema, and also the ANC's recent announcement to enact a media tribunal on all journalistic coverage of government policies and activity).

And the poor of South Africa cannot win.  Those who wish for higher salaries are using the only advantage they have-- their ability to work-- to change the minds of those they elected to power in the first place.  And those affected by the strike are equally annoyed at the government.  The ANC was elected to power in 2009 by the very people it is now turning its back on.  The blame game turns into an endless cat-and-mouse chase with lots of pointed fingers and not much progress.

But no matter who is to blame, the fact of the matter is that people are starving, children cannot attend school, and the sick will die without access to proper treatment and medication.  The results from matriculation exams (the equivalent of the Leaving Cert, GCSE, or other final exams to graduate high school) in this country were already abysmal, and now with exams so close, there is a very good chance that South Africa's meager 15% pass rate will dip even lower.

And all this in a country that just six short weeks ago played host to one of the most widely-viewed sporting competitions in the world.  In Durban alone, trillions of rand were poured into the construction of a beautiful airport and magnificent stadium, as well as the complete and much-needed renovation of the Golden Mile along the beach front downtown.  People were hired as "beach guards" to look after worried tourists' buckets and spades while they took a dip in the balmy Indian Ocean.  Peace Officers strolled along the road with municipal police to keep people's minds at ease.  In the fan parks, people gathered in the warm Durban winter to watch soccer together, regardless of nationality, race, economic status, or age.

But now it's over, and garbage collects on the beach while police officers busy themselves with forcing the homeless off benches along the promenade.  Now that the strike is in full force, they've been dispatched to places like Addington Hospital in the city, where they were forced to fire rubber bullets into a crowd of protesters.  Parents of some of the learners at St. Leo and elsewhere have lost their jobs, and the scar that runs so deeply in this achingly beautiful country cannot be covered up any longer.

In one of Durban's newspapers called The Mercury, a piece by someone named Danie Joubert was published in yesterday's Opinions section.  Though the column was striking in many ways, this passage in particular stood out to me:
It is obvious we have our social investment priorities wrong.  We can convince ourselves to spend hundreds of billions on sports stadiums and infrastructure that had a one-month emotional impact and a limited future utilisation return value, but we cannot convince ourselves to invest the seed capital in human capital formation that assures future harmony and prosperity for a nation.

I can only hope that some sort of agreement can be reached, and soon.  With the lives and well-being of the poor, especially children and the sick, at stake, a resolution needs to happen before things get any worse.




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in the line of duty.

When the end of a month approaches, I often find myself feeling a bit down.  I don't know where the feeling comes from, but I do know that unfortunately, I'm not the only one in my community who gets the end-of-the-month blues.  And July was no different.  With the World Cup over, the weather much chillier, and work back in full swing again, we were all feeling a bit blue as July came to an end.
And then August arrived, but instead of perking up, the weather took a turn for the colder and my mood didn't improve much.  There are the usual frustrations that accompany work, and anyone who has volunteered in a program like mine (or who has lived with a group of people he or she cares about) knows that living in community isn't always a walk in the park.  But something about the past two weeks has really made me feel exasperated, and after a tear-filled conversation with Mum on Saturday night, I decided that something needed to be done about it.  I'm not the type to count down the days until this year is over, though when December comes, I think I'll be ready to hand the job over to someone else.  I scribbled down a list of things that make me really happy here, and thought I'd share a few thoughts.

Things Worth Smiling About

1.  Walking through the schoolyard at St. Leo's and hearing children of all ages call out, "Hi Miss Sinead!" when I'd expected having to change my name when I started teaching.  Even if I sometimes get called Shanela, which means "to sweep" in Zulu, I'm okay with that.

2.  Seeing the sun rise in the morning-- yes this does remind me that my wakeup is very early here, but the colors in the sky over the valley at 6:30 in the morning are just breathtaking.

3.  Moments at St. Theresa's like on Tuesday, when Philane was in charge of cooking dinner. I peeked my head in the kitchen every few minutes to see if he was okay, and not long before I left for the evening, he presented me with the finished product: a small dish of rice, tomatoes, potatoes, onions, and pilchards (with a little dab of mayo on the side; it's all about the presentation) to try.  I can't even remember what it tasted like, but the look on his face when I broached the topic of culinary school was something worth remembering ("You mean a kitchen?  A big one?  Of my own?")

4.  When teaching grammar and sentence structure seems to be futile, and then Mary-Kate and I are standing in the classroom, teaching nouns.  We divide them into people, places, and things, and ask the class to give examples of each.  When trying to get the kids to say "learners" two weeks ago, the following happened:

Teacher: Okay, so what are you guys?

Thabiso: People!

Teacher:  Good, that's right.  Now, what kind of people?

Thabiso: Black people!

5.  Seeing Visa/Vie and Altiplano at the Durban International Film Festival (we also saw My Hunter's Heart but it was absolutely atrocious).  Getting to participate in the film festival was really unexpected and a pleasant surprise for the most part.  If you have Netflix, I recommend adding Altiplano to it immediately.  Amazing film.

And last but not least, Becky, my best friend from college and former roommate extraordinaire, is coming to visit... and arrives tomorrow!  She's en route from LA to Atlanta right now, and then flies to Johannesburg.  She'll meet me in Cape Town tomorrow night, and we'll be spending the weekend there, before coming back to Durban for ten days.  It'll be so nice to have a familiar face around for the next two weeks.  Becky was a Jesuit Volunteer in San Francisco until the end of last week, so having someone here who has an idea of the volunteer lifestyle will be great.  I went to visit her in SF in November of last year; I can't wait to show her my life here in South Africa!
The past couple of weeks have been really draining, especially because there was a massive strike brewing for all public workers, including teachers, at the beginning of the week.  It looks as though things are operating as normal now, but police officers visited St. Leo's on Tuesday to make sure we were safe-- as the only school remaining open in the Molweni area, we were at risk when the wrath of other teachers threatened us.  Hopefully settlements will be agreed upon soon, and schools and hospitals won't suffer too much.
That being said, I still feel as if there's nowhere else I'm supposed to be.  The above are just a few of the reasons I get up in the morning, and though it's easy to get bogged down by the rough patches, making an effort to stand in the winter sunshine every once in a while is really worth it.

back to 'ubuntu'.

You know you live in South Africa when you go for your Saturday morning run and see what you are convinced is yet another pesky monkey... but upon closer inspection, it turns out to just be a cat.

And then you go two days without running water because "the reservoir is empty" and have to fill up buckets, jugs, anything you can find-- just to be able to wash dishes and brush your teeth-- when the eThekwini Municipality water truck trundles down the street.  You learn why Zulu women carry their heavy loads on their heads; who knew it would be much easier to walk back up Warwickshire Crescent once you learn to maintain balance with a couple of kilos on your head?  And then, after dutifully accepting that you'll have to suffer one more day before trekking to the parish at Kloof for a shower, the water spurts out of the taps and for the next couple of days, every time you turn on the tap you'll be thankful for the gift of running water.

Amidst homesickness, frustration, even fatigue, it's hard to forget where I am. Constantly being reminded of my surroundings has helped to bring me back to the reasons I decided to sign up for this crazy experience.
I stand at morning prayer with my students at St. Leo's, basking in the smiles on their faces, humbled by the devout way they close their eyes and fold their hands while they pray.  I watch the boys of Cottage 4 at St. Theresa's Home for Boys struggle through the choreography during a dance class, and can't help loving them even when they won't sit down to do homework.  They're getting ready to perform at Moses Mabhida stadium here in Durban during the World Cup, and the prospect of seeing them on TV might be the thing I look forward to most during this FIFA fever craziness.

I share frustration, sadness, and laughter with the three other girls in my community-- even sometimes sharing silence too-- and our level of comfort and closeness with one another is such a good thing to have.  We may spend every waking moment together, but we can't be completely tired of each other yet, and we're not, if our excitement about a weekend away together is anything to go by!

It's not easy to be a volunteer, and I have to admit that May has been the toughest month personally so far, but with the midway point in sight, I'm trying really hard to keep in mind the fleeting nature of time.  Before I have a chance to absorb all my experiences and feelings during my time here, that time will have passed and I'll be back in the US, heartbroken to have left my year here in the past.

And so, I'm repositioning myself and getting back to where I was before-- excited, motivated, and feeling very lucky to be able to nurture the friendships and relationships that South Africa's ubuntu has given me.
I am, because we are.

"A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed."

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

the land of the free?

Today is Freedom Day.  How ironic is that.

We woke up at the normal time, all set to spend the day at 1000 Hills Community Helpers, where they host a baby clinic on Tuesdays.  St. Leo's is closed (yet again) for the public holiday, so I'm not starting my week there until tomorrow.
Just as we were about to pile into the car, we got two phone calls-- the first from Meg, who was being sent home from the Respite Center to have a day off for the holiday, and one from Karen, telling us that 1000 Hills was also closed for Freedom Day today.
So there we were, four volunteers who'd cried off early from a party last night because we had to work today; "Volunteering never takes a holiday!" we'd said as we excused ourselves.  And we had nowhere to work.
I decided there was a good opportunity to get my missing invoice from my toe procedure back in early March and then I'd finally be able to send off my insurance claim, so with eager roommates in tow, off I drove to Pinetown, where the process was shockingly painless.  With form in hand two minutes later, and it now being only 8:17 am, Mary-Kate suggested we drive to Wyebank to visit Sbu, an 11-year-old who had been released from the Respite Center a couple of weeks ago.

Sbu was admitted for TB and thankfully tested negative for HIV, even though he lives in a child-headed household because his mother died of AIDS.  He lives with his siblings and young cousins in a one-room shack managed by his 16-year-old cousin, who herself has a baby boy just 10 months old.
They were pleased to see us, I think, though the presence of an umlungu, or white person, always comes as a surprise in the valley.  We had brought them a cake to share that the priests had given us, so we left that in the one room they call home and headed out to the yard to play a very pitiful game of soccer, though Sbu showed some pretty impressive moves when he wasn't coughing.
We played for twenty minutes or so, then got ready to leave.  As we said our goodbyes, Sbu and his older sister Pamela approached us.  Pamela goes to an Indian school up on the hill with a very good reputation, and her English is excellent.  She drew close to Mary-Kate and then said, "My cousin (the 16-year-old head of the house) has asked me to see if you can get us some bread.  For breakfast."
There we were, three people trying to say our goodbyes, and then suddenly, we're hit with the question.  Several other questions began to run through our minds: If we buy them bread, are they going to expect us to provide bread every time we visit?  What if we can't visit sometimes?  What about the food parcels they're supposed to be receiving from the Respite Center and the Islamic Center up the road?  And then, the hardest question of all... How are we, in our right minds, supposed to walk away from a household run by a mere child feeling like we did absolutely nothing to rectify the situation?

 My image of poverty has shifted a lot because of things I've seen here in South Africa.  The Sinead on a Villanova mission trip would have demanded that we get some bread immediately.  But unfortunately, though those seven children would have eaten bread instead of cake for breakfast, that would have just been today.  What about tomorrow, or the day after that?
The question of sustainable aid in situations like Sbu's takes center stage now.  Their poverty is so much more than just no bread for breakfast.  And I really don't know what hell I'm supposed to do about it.

As we drove home in silence, the happy buzz from an unexpected day off had long since evaporated into the humid air.  Back in Hillcrest, people who had more than bread for breakfast yesterday, today, and tomorrow, donned bright white shorts and t-shirts and played a rousing round of tennis on their day off.

After all, that is what Freedom Day celebrates after all...... isn't it?