Feeling patriotic as the World Cup begins.  Durban, June 2010.

Andrew and his patriotic pants.  Durban, June 2010.

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.




.

the view from here: the 2010 world cup in photos

You've seen the matches on TV, heard "Waka Waka" and "Wave Your Flag" more times than you can count on the radio, and I've shared articles with you about South Africa's struggle and success in hosting this year's FIFA World Cup... so what now?

I thought I'd do something a bit more exciting, and give you a peek at what June 11th to July 11th looked like from where I stand.  I left the United States on January 11th, making the opening day of the World Cup a five-month marker, and the closing ceremony our six-month anniversary as AVs here in South Africa.  And what a month it was.

We decorated the St. Leo's library (our classroom) with projects about the World Cup...

... and went a little crazy as the term came to an end.

I got to judge a World Cup art contest-- no easy task, I promise you...

... and also banned vuvuzelas from the classroom.

We had friends in crazy flag trousers (and vuvuzelas)...

... and strangers in crazier flag UNITARDS (and more vuvuzelas)!

Then the world became that much smaller when we met a fellow Villanova alum (Class of '97 anyone?) at the fan park on the Durban beachfront.

We refereed intense soccer matches during our holiday programme at St. Leo's, complete with future Bafana Bafana star athletes...

...and taught Kwazi, Kwanele, and our 45 other campers how to make yarn bracelets in their favourite team colours.

We watched Bafana Bafana beat France with some of the boys from St. Theresa's, in one of the stickiest, most sugar-laced afternoons yet...

... and decked ourselves out in red, white, and blue to hit the beach...

... twice.

And last night, we wrapped up the festivities with some of our closest friends, feeling sad and relieved and proud and very, very exhausted, all at once.

And now we have fresh crayons, a return to routine, and five more months to make the most of our time here in South Africa.

the spectrum.

When I signed up to be an Augustinian Volunteer, and even during my time as an undergraduate at Villanova, I became accustomed to "reflection" pretty quickly.  Whether it was at AV Orientation, during a service break trip during college, or even in some of my classes, the idea of "reflecting" on my experience was something the Augustinian mindset got me very used to.  So when I came to South Africa as a volunteer, and an Augustinian Volunteer at that, I was fully prepared to "reflect".  I didn't know it would be so hard, and I certainly had no idea that it wouldn't be just frustration, or guilt, or sadness, or joy at one time-- I didn't know that my head and heart would take on the gamut of emotions every single day.

After a week and a half of a really successful time with the St. Leo's kids and our summer programme, we had to end things early.  There had been kids showing up that we didn't know-- the word was out that we had soccer balls and sandwiches and so these other children from Molweni began to outnumber our own kids.  Themba and Ayanda, two coworkers from St. Leo's, were both a great help to us during the camp, but last Tuesday, Themba pulled Mary-Kate and I aside and told us that she didn't think continuing the camp was safe, for us or for the children.  She pointed to one of the teenagers wearing a Bafana Bafana jersey and playing netball in the grounds and said, "That girl's family lives here in Molweni... and I know for a fact that her father and brother are professional thieves.  Who's to say that they didn't send her here to get information for them?"  While it's hard to believe that situations like that arise, they do, and putting ourselves in the middle of them compromises too much.  We also heard rumors that the older kids who showed up to play soccer were stealing sandwiches from the younger St. Leo's students, which made me more upset than anything.  It's hard enough to dole out food to hungry kids, but dealing with these older kids taking advantage of our learners was really hard to hear.
We went ahead with the movie screening we'd planned for Wednesday-- nothing beats hearing Zulu kids singing along to High School Musical like any good pre-teens would-- and then said goodbye to everybody until we see them again next week, when school restarts.  I'll be really relieved to get back to seeing them all every day again.

With the camp ending early, I had to find some other way to occupy my days, so I decided to work a day at the Hillcrest AIDS Respite Centre this past Friday.  Though I'm not cut out for that kind of work on a daily basis, I often feel like I should put more pressure on myself to be challenged-- and that's how I found myself standing over one of the patients, giving her a bedbath.  I'd never done something like that before, and it was hard.  Really hard.  She was in a lot of pain, and even raising her arm so I could wash underneath was a huge effort, but I tried to make lighthearted conversation, even telling her that her legs were long enough that she could be a model.  I realize now that the comments were just to keep myself distracted.
I spent the remainder of the day on Friday holding Bianca, a one-year-old who had just been admitted, with her mother, the day before.  She's HIV positive, has TB, and looks more like a 4-month-old than one whole year.  Although she's sick, she's happy just to have attention and be held like any baby, and I really enjoyed spending time with her.  She has the most beautiful eyes-- and is so curious!  All I can do is spend time with her and hope that she gets better soon.

Then the weekend came, and with it, more World Cup festivities.  These past few weeks have flown by (it's already July?!) but all this waving of flags and blowing of vuvuzelas has gotten really tiring.  I'm happy with how South Africa has handled all this commotion so far, but I'm really nervous for the aftermath.  That being said, we had a nice weekend, spent some time at the fan park and down around Durban-- even enjoying a Greek lunch on Saturday in the gorgeous winter sun.  After a long afternoon nap in the sunshine yesterday, we invited a few friends over for a small 4th of July celebration... and we even conquered lighting the charcoal barbecue all on our own!  And, even though the USA is out of the World Cup, I had another excuse to don my soccer scarf last night-- once the sun goes down around 5 or so, it gets really chilly up here!

And now it's Monday, and already today I woke up exhausted after another restless night of sleep.  I laughed with the kids at 1000 Hills, as we played games and sang "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes".  I vented frustration to Becca after another failed attempt to pick up a pension for Gogo Gloria, who lives at the bottom of a steep hill in kwaNyuswa and can't walk thanks to infected skin grafts, the result of terrible snake bites on her legs.  I heard from Mary-Kate that the patient I bathed on Friday died over the weekend, and consequently went for a run to clear my head.  I sat on the hill and cried.  I met an Irish woman named Mary who is on a silent retreat at the center next door.  I caught up with my family back at home via videochat, and laughed at their jokes.....  all in one day.

My work here is tiring, and challenging, and stressful, but it's the emotional work that is most grueling.  My roommates and I often joke that our friendships have been put on overdrive-- we have one year to become roommates, community members, and hopefully, friends.  But every day here is overdrive.  Every single day, my emotions go from one to the other and back again, and before I know it, the day is over and I lie in bed, completely overwhelmed at the thought of my life here.  And that is why blogging is hard, writing letters is hard, talking to people on the phone is hard-- the process of reflecting on my daily life seems sometimes to be a task too gigantic to undertake sometimes.
But I'm trying.  Thankfully, Becca, Meg, and Mary-Kate are incredibly understanding, patient, loving people who deal with me on a daily basis... and vice versa.  We've made some really good friends with South Africans as well, both our age and older.  The Augustinians we live with are fantastic, and even my students at St. Leo's seem to have a sixth sense about my emotions.
So even though it's hard to be here, and be present, and process everything all at the same time, I'm forced to be held accountable for how I feel, and that's a challenge I really value as the sun sets at the end of the day.

some further reading...

If you want to read further about the effect of the World Cup on South Africa, here are a few articles I've been reading over the past few weeks-- some positive, some negative, but all really interesting.

Andrew Harding on Africa: Will the World Cup transform SA?

NY Times Op-Ed: Freedom's Blaring Horn

NPR: South Africa Hides Its Homeless Ahead of World Cup

NPR: Deford on South Africa: The Big Stage is Pricey

The Guardian: The Real Test for South Africa Comes After the Final Whistle

The Guardian: Africa Doesn't Need the World Cup to Change Its Fortunes

that's not the humidity you feel... it's AYOBA!

Today is the shortest day of the year... or the longest, depending on the hemisphere.  Down here, the sun set around 5pm and the thought of the days getting longer gives me a lot of joy.
Though the South African winter is heavenly, the short days sometimes make me feel like hibernating... which is what I did for the majority of last week, when my annual bout of coughing, sneezing, and general unhealthiness took over.  Those kind of symptoms usually rear their ugly heads come October at home (my brief encounter with pneumonia last year?  Anyone?)-- which makes me right on schedule, on southern hemisphere time of course.  Luckily, with some rest and TLC from my roommates, the World Cup holiday provided an excellent opportunity for recuperation.  As a bonus, I also got to spend some quality time with the Fitzpatricks, our longtime family friends.  They're here in South Africa to see some World Cup matches and to revisit a country they left behind back when my parents left, so it was really nice to have an adopted family for a little while.  They stayed at a friend's house in Umhlanga Rocks, a northern suburb of Durban that I hadn't visited yet, so I enjoyed seeing another part of the city.

The World Cup has been a very unique aspect to being my year as an Augustinian Volunteer here in South Africa thus far.  It's colored everything I've done, from geography lessons at St. Leo's to weekend plans to rearranged schedules and new safety precautions.  Though I was apprehensive about South Africa's readiness to host such a massive event, and though I still have some reservations about the impression that people who visit are getting of this country, I've been overwhelmingly impressed by the festivities thus far.  It hasn't been easy to be away from the kids we see five days a week ordinarily, but the sense of celebration that has taken over the city, the country, and most likely the world at large, is hard to ignore.  Even if "Wave Your Flag" and "Waka Waka" are played on repeat on the radio (or at clubs in Durban), I still feel a wave of emotion when they come on during half-time down at the fan parks on the beach.  I'm happy to deck myself out in South African gear for Bafana Bafana games, or drape myself in red, white, and blue to see the US play.

Meeting people from all over has been an amazing experience as well, especially when we get asked, "Oh, are you here for the World Cup?"  Though they could be pure social interactions, these encounters offer us an opportunity to explain our work here, and just last weekend we met a Yale graduate who is also a full-time volunteer, up north in Mtubatuba; his organization uses soccer as a vehicle for HIV/AIDS education in the bush.

It's hard to be a volunteer with a full-time job when the rest of the country seems to be on vacation; the influx of visitors to Durban alone have really boosted the energy of the city, and it's made it very difficult to return to our jobs come Monday.  Today was the first day of the holiday program we're offering to our learners at St. Leo's, and after a restless night last night and feeling generally apathetic about the prospect of working this week, I was so happy to see some of my students and spend the day with them, playing soccer, doing word searches, and feeling relieved knowing that at least some of them were keeping themselves occupied during this extra-long break from school.  Becca was a star and led the kids in a paper mache project which they all loved!  The camp will continue for the rest of this week and next week as well, and we've been assured that the numbers of kids will only increase over time.  It's nice to interact with our learners outside of a teacher/student relationship.  I only hope they'll remember who the teacher is when July 13th rolls around!

All in all, I continue to hope that this World Cup will result in more positive than negative for South Africa.  I'm nervous at the prospect of all the jobs that have been created for the month-long event becoming obsolete, and reports of missing children in some of the areas we work in have started to surface, but I hope that they come from misinformation and are no more than rumor.
In the meantime, all we can do is make an effort to keep the people we serve safe and happy, and let the rest of the month unfold as it will... and maybe enjoy a little ayoba on the side.

it thrills me right down to the marrow

I can't count the number of times I've sat down to post an entry here and share my crazy life over the past few weeks.  One appendix surgery, water and electricity outages, a midyear retreat, and a World Cup later, it's almost mid-June and sometimes the speed with which time passes is scary (especially when I mark my time according to blog posts!)

So, I'm going to cheat now and write a list of things that are important to mention, and write a real entry soon, hopefully with photos!

• We had two visiting groups, one from Villanova University and one from Malvern Prep, at the end of May... and they got the real African experience when we didn't have water and then didn't have electricity in the space of five days!
• My roommate Mary-Kate had to get her appendix out a few weeks ago, very suddenly, but with a couple of days in the hospital, lots of rest, and some good old-fashioned TLC, she's on the mend and is back to work for the most part.
• We had our midyear site visit from Pat, our supervisor back in the US, and though we had to rearrange plans because of MK's surgery, we had a really nice retreat and took some time to reflect about reaching the midyear point in our year of service... thank goodness we live next-door to a retreat house and got to get out of our house for a weekend!
• School closed last Wednesday for winter break, meaning a four-week break for the World Cup holidays which is a bit longer than usual.  We've organized a holiday program for some of our learners, which starts next Monday-- and I've been taking the time without the kids to organize the library!  It needs lots of work, but I'm happy to have some time to do it before our two-week camp starts.  I miss the kids a lot already.
• I got to go and see Johnny Clegg with some of my roommates and our South African friends last week, which was a really cool experience-- he had a band called Juluka during apartheid with a Zulu man named Sipho Mchunu, and was banned from playing in public spaces and things... now he tours mostly as a solo act, but seeing him the night before the World Cup kickoff was a big thrill.  How can you not love an artist who has a song with lyrics like I'm sitting on the top of Kilimanjaro; it thrills me right down to the marrow?!
• Last but not least................. the World Cup has arrived!  Everything is in full swing here, and while I had and still do have some reservations about South Africa hosting the event, we spent a lot of time at the fan parks down in Durban this weekend, standing on the beach overlooking the Indian Ocean, deafened by vuvuzelas and sharing the excitement with people from all over the world-- and the significance of such a momentous event being held in this country is overwhelming.  I just hope it continues without a hitch, and that I can find some time to enjoy it and still keep working hard.  Some good family friends, the Fitzpatricks, are flying to South Africa today for some of the games, and I'm really looking forward to meeting up with them and seeing some friendly faces later this week.  I also ran into a guy who went to my university while at the fan park on Friday night; sometimes the world is a very small place!

Hopefully I'll find time to concentrate on some more reflective writing soon, but for now, I'll go on feeling very lucky to be in South Africa this year.