Ekhaya - home visits

Finally on Monday I managed to start visiting the homes of my children officially.

I took a teacher from the school as interpreter and general bodyguard and went with 2 sisters to visit their home. Their carer was at work so I couldn't get certain information but it was good to see where they lived and to find out a bit more about them.

The girls live in the area not far from the school which is about 10 minutes walk across the soccer field. The whole area there is a minefield of illegal electrical wires and they live about 3 houses away from where Sanele was killed. Right outside their home there is a post with electrical cables up high and a red wire obviously tapping into the power, blatently on show. Some people have got official electricity whereas others have lost it because they didn't pay their bills. maybe it's these people who are stealing it. After all, they have the power boxes in their houses and it makes it easier to just tap into what is all around them...

Anyway, where the girls live there are all sorts of houses. The view over the valley is incredible, but I expect they don't see that the same way as I do. To them it's just normal, the valley. I wonder if they ever pause to admire the beautiful creation laid out in front of them?

Most of the homes in this area are wattle and daub mud huts, like the Elizabethans used to build back in the day. Inside their home it might look a bit higgledy-piggeldy but it feels warm and organised. It's a proper home despite the somewhat rugged exterior. The girls sleep in the main room in a decent sized bed that they share and there's a small sofa, chairs and a kitchen area as well as neatly presented ornaments all around. There is no doubt that the carer is using whatever she has to give these girls a decent home, despite having very little. You have to look beyond the exterior poverty and see the love that is shared within this community. Some people just see a crumbling building but I see warmth, care and love. And this is all good.

Kids' Club - penfriends

Kids' Club this term has been slow to get started for various reasons. I'm used to this and it's not a problem as I get to see the kids in the playground and out and about and am keeping up with them. It's taken a while to come to terms with Sanele's death and to recover from the sheer exhaustion after all of that. Then, when I arrived in school last week ready to go, the kids were busy preparing for school trip to Moses Mabhida stadium and that was the end of my class for that day.

Today I'm grounded as my car is being fixed, an essential service to get it back to perfect working condition again. Not a day goes by when I am not thankful for this vehicle and the generous donations that enabled me to buy it. It truly is a blessing from God and a reliable machine, despite outward appearance.

However, on Tuesday I managed to gather 6 of the younger children for a session and they started work on some letters to send to a school in the Isle of Wight. During the Lionsraw project one of the team members gave me some letters from his daughter's primary school and my children are preparing replies. Mostly for these children it will be assisted replies as they can't write much in Zulu let alone English, but the pictures that they are producing are beautiful (and I'm not just saying that because they are my children!)

Progress may be slow, but the end results will be worth it!

Sustainability

On Sunday night in church a guy preached about taking 'good news to the poor' not just being about benevolence but about helping people be transformed and empowered in the situations they are in to make a difference. And this furthered my thinking on the topic.

There is a long-standing argument that food parcels are not the way forward except in an emergency, as they encourage dependence. Unfortunately in this area of the world, there are too many small children who have no food and would count as an emergency case. When I'm taking food into school and a small child says they are hungry I'm not going to send him or her away with nothing, but I'll give them whatever I have.

However, in the school where I'm working there are currently 350 children who have been orphaned and often go hungry. Given that this part of the country has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS infections and poverty, the situation is unlikely to be solved overnight. There will be many children for many years to come who pass through this school and need help. On one hand the sheer number of children is overwhelming. Thankfully the school receives donations to feed these children twice a day during the school week. It's not enough, but it's much much better than nothing. Whatever we manage to raise and buy for the the 40 orphans with whom I work closely also gets added into this and it's exciting when we're able to make a real difference by giving a child some food.

Following on from this, and in discussion with the School Principal, I'm coming more and more round to the idea that it's not just about feeding the kids, but also about training and providing for the older children to help themselves. The smallest children, like in Grade R, can't go out and find their own food, they are dependent on whatever we can give them. However, the older children, from about age 13-18, they could be helped to help themselves. Many of them are managing a home outside of school as well as studying. Basic and essential skills could really benefit them.

So I'm in a researching phase right now. I'm thinking about projects such as vegetable gardens, or chickens, where the children are given a starter and training to look after their project and they then sell on the surplus of what they've tended and produced. There are many projects like this and I want to choose the one that would work best with my children. My thought is to set something up with perhaps 10 of my older children, mostly boys, and then if this works we could expand it for the rest of the orphans in the school. It's an exciting time as we look into the possibilities. If anyone has experience of these projects or can recommend anyone to help out, please get in touch. Otherwise, please pray for the way forward in this, that the appropriate projects can be found and established at the right time.

Ice cream!

Last Friday I took one of Russell's kids over to visit her Gogo in the valley near Hillcrest and 4 of the smaller kids with Bo came along for the ride. They were super excited about being in my car and going for a ride and they loved pointing out the cars we passed en route to town.

On the way home I took them to Milky Lane for an ice cream. They were very excited and sat patiently round the table as I went over to the counter to order their ice cream. The shop is near the car park in a popular shopping centre and quite a few people were passing on their way back to the car. Many of them gave us big smiles when they saw a white woman with several cute zulu children eating ice cream. The kids loved the attention. Someone even gave them each a balloon.

The kids were so excited to get ice cream and Siyanda kept telling all the passers-by that it was 'imnandi' which means 'tasty'. They all managed to get faces totally covered in ice cream! It was lovely to make their day and spend time with them.

Mzansi, Thanks for making it Ayoba!

The World Cup has come and gone and the third school term of the year is now underway. What a month or so it has been! To be honest, I'm still processing the many many things that have gone on over the long holiday. I think that's why I'm so exhausted this week. The photo is from the Fifa Fanfest on Durban beach just before the South Africa - Uruguay game, when hopes were high, vuvuzelas were on form and everyone was waving their flags high. It's also a bit of a blur, kind of like my life these past few weeks!

I wanted to write an account of the whole Lionsraw / World Cup experience, but I think it would take too long and I'll still be remembering things for a long time to come. Here are some highlights then instead (in no particular order):

• taking many many thousands of photos of building sites and football pitches, with small and big children running all over the place. I'm now an expert on the perfect moment to snap a soccer game to portray the intensity of concentration on the players' faces. I've also documented from start to (nearly) finish the building of a new house, changing rooms and toilets and a preschool roof.
• the walk from the beachfront to Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban - especially pre-Nigeria v S.Korea when me and Steve's Dad Derek enthusiastically joined in the chorus of vuvuzelas whilst Steve and Geoff Burns tried desperately to disown us by walking 10 steps in front of us and Mike and Sean hid 10 steps behind us. ;-)
• discovering the hotel served Starbucks coffee ;-)
• watching the BBC reports on the internet and realising how much of a difference the new house will make to Russell and Precious and the kids. The BBC took our home here and shared it with the world (well the UK at least!) See how amazing it is here!?!
• driving the media team around the valley and introducing them to the wonders of rural Africa, although Andrew Swanson's smelly socks in the back of my car after he gave his trainers away at the deepest point in the valley is a memory that both me and his wife are desperate to forget!
• the highs and lows of the England games, watching with the entire Lionsraw team on the beach front, in the pool bar, in the hotel bar... (sorry, did I say 'highs' of the England games??)
• welcoming 40 or so team to help feed my kids on a Tuesday morning and watching the faces of kids and adults alike as they shared a moment together.
• Shakira, Waka Waka, dancing and celebrating the greatest show on earth.
• The sense of National Pride for the South Africans having hosted a near perfect World Cup, after so many doubted beforehand! Well done Mzansi! 'Football Friday' has now evolved into 'Fly the flag Friday' as from this week.
• spending time with my children in the school and also in the valley near the new preschool building. This holiday has taken me to deeper relationships with my children, as we've laughed and cried together.
• knowing we have made a difference to Sanele's family by being there to help them in a moment of need.

There is so much more than these few snippets. As I said before, I find myself exhausted this week and am taking it a little bit easy for a change. I took lunch in to my 40 kids on Tuesday and managed to catch up with 30 of them, which is good. It was the first day back and some of the them would have lost track of time and not remembered to turn up! As Steve's car is currently being fixed (again!) the boys are needing to be dropped off and picked up from their building sites and I'm still taking lots of photos of their work for Lionsraw. That's ok, though, I love photography and am constantly looking for a good shot.

Tomorrow I'm taking Brian and Thad, 2 American guys who've been staying with us before, during and after the Lionsraw Project, to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve, one of my favourite places in the whole of Africa. We are hoping to see at least one big cat this time. They return to the USA on Saturday and a sighting of a lion, leopard or cheetah would end their stay perfectly and make me so happy in the process. I'm looking forward to a day off and away from this area, although the main music for the road trip will be none other than the World Cup soundtrack...

Ayoba!

Sanele - photos

with the other boys in my younger kids' club

cheeky little monkey, but always ready to give a hug and a friendly welcome

Sanele loved my hilux and everytime we saw him he tried to catch a lift

A sad day - Sanele's Funeral

Funerals are always sad but today was particularly hard for the local community in Inchanga as we laid little Sanele to rest. For the past couple of days I've spent time with Xolani, Sanele's 16 year old brother, shopping for groceries and other necessary items for today's event. Yesterday we took Nonto, his sister, with us too. The family were extremely grateful for my help but I have to say a huge thank you to the people who are donating money to enable me to help this family at such a tragic time. People here often get funeral insurance to help but obviously at 7 years old, Sanele wasn't thinking of that yet. We are all truly grateful for those donations which have made today possible and brought comfort to the family as they are extremely poor.

Yesterday I took a CD of photos of Sanele to Kodak and let Nonto and Xolani choose the best ones for an album for Nonto to keep. They only had one photo of him previously and he wasn't smiling in it so it wasn't a true representation of what a cheery little boy he really was. The kids were amazed by the machine in the shop and the technology to see pictures of him on screen. Nonto also chose a nice little album to keep the photos in.

Today we headed down to the family home at about 10am. Sanele's body had been brought home yesterday afternoon and the family had kept an overnight vigil in the front room of the crumbling mud-hut home. This morning when we arrived I was ushered into the same room where the coffin was hidden behind a white sheet suspended from the ceiling. The Lionsraw boys came with me, there are 7 here at the moment, and they were escorted into the marquee tent hired for the occasion.

Nonto was, as usual, bucking the trend and refusing to wear her school uniform. Instead she had chosen the most beautiful sparkly pink dress and she looked beautiful. Watching her throughout the day I thought in a way how she is reflecting the place Sanele is in now, and although she shed some tears and is mourning the loss of her brother, maybe in some ways she understands he is in heaven. Many of Sanele's school friends and local children turned up too and a few of them came into the funeral service in uniform and performed a little song and dance dedicated to him. It was really precious but also tragic. Tragic too to think that quite probably this isn't the first funeral that these children have attended and it certainly won't be the last.

I had to take a couple of people up to the burial ground in my car and when I returned, everyone had moved into the marquee and the service had begun. A local minister from the Zion church was there and also the leaders from the Mosque that is situated in the same area. Pretty much everyone from that small area had come along it seemed. As I parked up, the lady in Sanele's family who was leading the funeral rushed over to me and told me I must say a few words. I was glad to be able to share with the family and community just how much Sanele meant to me and the boys and that we all share in their loss. It was a brief speech and thankfully I managed not to break down (although it was very close at the end). Others gave speeches after me including Xolani and one of Sanele's teachers. I understand enough Zulu to feel the love that these people have to him and I shed a few tears then.

A representative from the ANC came too and spoke about the electricity problems in the area of Inchanga. Again, I didn't follow it all, but I think Sanele's death has highlighted to many people just how dangerous the whole business of stealing electricity through illegal wires is. All day long I've seen them in the road and all around. Even at the burial ground there were wires going across the field. The women in particular were careful to point out where those wires were to the children to make sure they didn't walk on them. It is a huge problem and I hope that the local government will learn from this tragedy and do something to improve the situation soon. This being Africa though, nothing happens very fast.

At the end of the funeral service, a man came in and opened up the top of the coffin and everyone walked past and said goodbye to Sanele as they did so. He looked like he was asleep. Women sang beautiful harmonies as the congregation moved outside.

The funeral service actually brought a car back and transported Sanele up to the local burial ground. Lots of kids flocked to my car and I ended up transporting about 20 up there. As we drove round the corner the children started singing. On the way back they all sang the National Anthem, it was really special.

The burial ground is a depressing place, and today, it being Saturday, there were at least 7 graves being dug and small groups of people hanging around. As we walked the final few steps over to Sanele's resting place, the women's singing seemed to take on a different level of tunefulness and, standing there in the beautiful sunshine, there was a sense of peace and acceptance amongst the sadness. Sanele was buried with a beautiful leopard blanket that his brother had chosen, and several other items were put into the grave, some of his clothes and what we think were sweets too.

As we walked back to the car, the children all started to run to get into my car first. 2 of the smaller boys, who were Sanele's best friends, just wailed and were almost inconsolable, I just hugged one of them, there were no words. He understood the situation. Bless him, school will be hard next week. Sanele was a class prefect and always in the middle of any scheme going down in the playground. Everyone will miss him there.

I didn't take any photos today. I didn't need to as this will remain in my memory forever. However I will put some pictures of Sanele up when our internet starts behaving and lets me!

Today truly felt like a fitting tribute and good send-off to Sanele. Although we will acutely feel the loss over the next few weeks and months as we go down to the school and he won't rush out to meet us, we know that he is in a better place and it has been good to be able to help the family as well at this time. Please keep his family in your prayers, especially his sister as she comes to terms with having lost one of her best friends and playmate.

Rest in Peace, Sanele. Hamba kahle. xx

Sanele

Last night I received a call that I never wanted to hear. On Monday Sanele, one of the children we are all close to over here and the first child I met from my programme, died suddenly and tragically near his house.

I went to his family's house today to find out what had happened and also to pay my respects to the family. The story is that he had been playing football with some friends just up the track from his house and the ball had gone over a wire fence into a neighbour's plot. Instead of walking round the one-sided fence, Sanele had pushed his head through the wire to try and retrieve the ball. Unfortunately for him, an illegal electrical cable was near the fence and not buried as it should have been and it was touching the fence. As Sanele put his head through the fence he got an electric shock that killed him instantly. He didn't cry or suffer.

News of the tragedy spread quickly and many in the community are devastated by what happened. The local newspaper ran the story and the police came to make sure the cables were buried underground.

Sanele was 7 years old. His home is right next to the school and him and his sister used to rush out every time we drove past to wave at us. His sister is 9 and hasn't really understood what is going on yet. Today, she rushed out alone to wave at me as I drove up there. He was the loveliest child who was always keen to hang out with us and shouted 'Auntie Caroline!!!' from the other side of the football field before dashing across for a hug almost every time we went to the school. He was the first child I noticed on the photo of the 40 before I committed to coming out here and I visited his home last August. Since then, both him and Nonto his sister have loved spending time with us. Steve, Mike, Sean and I all hold both of them very close to our hearts. The news yesterday was a huge and devastating shock and also to those from Lionsraw, many of whom had met him and loved him instantly too. He was that kind of cheeky kid who got in all the photos and gave out love to all who crossed his path.

We'll never know why God allowed this to happen and why Sanele's short life was cut short, but when I was praying about it late last night I felt the Holy Spirit say 'I've taken him home.' and I felt a real sense of peace about it. It doesn't make it any easier for his family. The funeral is on Saturday. I've spent the day with members of the family sorting out things for the funeral on Saturday. That's going to be a sad day indeed.

World Cup Holiday Feeding 4

On 22nd June, Neil from Lionsraw arranged to bring a busload of Lionsraw guys up to help out with feeding the kids. There were 4 building projects for Lionsraw and a lot of the guys on that wanted to do something direct with children and as it was a day off for them, it was fairly easy to sort out.

I got down to the school about half an hour before the bus and explained to the excited group of expectant kids, making the most of a mix of Zulu, English and gesticulations, that a bus (steering wheel impression) full of white people was on its way to help them. The girl translating for me described them as 'abantu hlophe' which literally means 'people who are coloured white', which I found amusing as the word for white people is 'abelungu'. They were quickly shouting 'abelungu' however as the guys walked up the track to meet the kids about 20 minutes later and the kids certainly gave the guys a friendly welcome to their school playground.

I set up a production line for a few of the guys to cut polony, make sandwiches and make up some juice. In the meantime, others gathered with small groups of kids, or played with a football or frisbee. There was a good atmosphere as volunteers and children engaged in conversations about life.

There were about 48 kids turned up and about 40 volunteers, which was also funny to see. The children weren't in the slightest bit phased by so many adults though. The kids lined up politely and moved along the line collecting sandwiches, crisps, fruit and juice and were very grateful for it all. They sat down on the other side of the playground and scoffed the sandwiches and extra polony. When they'd all had one, I told Michael, one of the volunteers, to take the tray of extra sandwiches over to give them more. As he approached the children, they lept up and ran towards him to try and grab the food, such was their hunger. We managed to get them sitting in some sort of order and a few guys helped the rather startled Michael give out the remaining sandwiches.

There were also some children's books for the kids to take home, which the kids loved. I then gathered them together to get a group photo and one girl said she'd like to sing a thank you song for everyone. She came out to the front of the group and started a beautiful song. However, she must have looked up and seen the row of white people with cameras pointed at her and she got a few lines in and started crying. I think any remaining hearts that hadn't been touched by these children probably melted at that point. After a few hugs and encouraging words, she was fine again and has been a delightful girl to catch up with at every session since.

It was a great time together with the children and the volunteers, but it was soon over and the group moved on to their next appointment, playing football in the valley against Russell's boys. What a great experience though for a 'day off''. Thanks to everyone who came along and I hope you'll remember these kids for a long time to come!