Visiting old friends

Am writing this from Cape Town, I cannot believe how fast the past 10 days have gone. I´ve been logging all of my dealings with people and progress this week in a book and on Monday I had to just stop and write a list of things to do when I get back because I just ran out of time!!!

It was a great week for networking and for travelling round to see friends all over the Valley of a 1000 Hills, most of whom have expressed a desire to work for me and get involved with Grapevine projects, so when God provides the funding we´ll have no shortage of Zulu helpers.

The most fantastic thing about working in rural Africa is that when you have a question, there´s always someone who knows someone else, who can put you in touch with them. I´ve spent some time visiting other local projects and everyone is willing to offer help and advice.

On Friday afternoon, I took 2 Zulu friends right down to Maphepheteni to visit Mdu´s family. For those who followed my blog before, this was where I filmed a local choir singing and dancing. It´s a stunning drive down past Inanda dam and along some questionable dirt track roads peppered with rocks and mud. My Hyundai Atos did better than expected under pressure!

We stopped en route to chat to another friend of ours who used to be in YZW choir. He was leading a small team of young men building a rondavel (traditional Zulu round house). Only the night before had I been in discussion with friends about how we were going to get British volunteers next year to build rondavels when they had never seen them before, and here was our answer!! The boys offered their expertise in helping out so we´ll see if we can get them up when the time comes. According to them, rondavels are much easier to build as there is only 1 wall (it´s just round that´s all!)

Mdu is not well. He was really very ill at one point and now is slightly better but has something else. As the family lives miles away from the nearest taxi point, it´s incredibly difficult for him to get to the hospital as he could hardly walk at one point. Their homestead that was once incredibly vibrant with lots happening was eerily quiet and showed the beginnings of falling into serious disrepair. The goat pen had gone and so had the chicken coop, although the chickens roamed free over the land. There were no vegetables growing. There were only women, children and Mdu at home. It was hard to see them as they are, this is the reality of poverty, illness and lack of employment. Ironically Mdu had just got his truck driver´s licence a few weeks before falling ill, so his hopes of travelling the country and providing for his family were dashed before they really got started.

We couldn´t spend much time with the family as darkness was closing in and it was a trek back, but we left them with some food and I prayed with Mdu and his mother (who is also bedbound with a broken foot!). Please pray for healing for that family and that things would turn around for them. I´ll visit them again in January.

I also met up with my ex-boyfriend and he told me that his niece Nolwazi passed away last year. She was 7 years old. I´d spent Christmas 2006 with that family and will never forget Nolwazi leading the family in a song of praise and thanks for the gifts that I´d taken. She sang terribly out of tune but it was precious all the same!

So, since I left this area, some things have changed for the worse, and some things for the better. Some, like Nolwazi, have left us, and others have grown up and are making good progress, like the children at GGA. This is life, I guess, and the happy times far outweigh the sad moments. Through it all God remains constant and I´m more and more feeling lead to pray with people in the Valley as they share their story and to encourage them on their walk with Him.