First Week in SA

Note: I'm awful at spelling and not that great at grammer.

I landed in Port Elizabeth, South Africa last Saturday afternoon after 36 hours of travel. AS it turns out, the main organization that's run here is not the one I signed up with. It's called something that starts with a U (I'll get the name later). The program I signed up with is a smaller group that just feeds volunteers into the larger organization. For the next 2-3 weeks, there are 21 volunteers living here (including me) - 13 males, 8 females. Most of the them are from the UK, but 3 others are from the US and there's 2 Swiss girls and 1 German girl. After that time, 2 of the boys will leave and then, 5 weeks from now, all but about 7 of us will leave. We'll have a couple weeks together before the next group arrives and I'll finish my time here with them.

So far, almost everything has been different from what I expected. The majority of the volunteers are going into some schools in the townships and providing the PE for the schools by coaching and teaching different sports. Only one of the other boys, Chris, will be working at the clinich for severly disabled children with me in the mornings. About 5 others will be working at a place called The AIDS Haven that's for children with HIV/AIDS, have been abused, or in some other way, can't be at home. My plan right now is to work at the Haven 2 days a week and then at the clinic 3 days a week, but it's only in the mornings. In the afternoons on those days, I'll go to the schools and help with the HIV/AIDS lessons. I might also help with the sports lessons. It all depends on where my help is most needed.

We all took a tour of the townships we'll be working in with Kurt, one of the main staff people we work with. It was amazing to go through there - a little overwhelming to see what exists only a 5-10 min drive away. We first went to the Black township called Red Location - named for the color of the metal the government originally gave the Black Africans they forced to live there. There's a few different sections to the townships: the shacks, which are just small, metal structures; a nicer area with housed provided by the government; the nicest area where Blacks with degress and higher paying jobs live.

Driving through, I saw so many people walking about in the streets. Kurt said there's about a 75% unemployment rate in this whole area (not sure if he meant the city or the township or the province), so there's always a lot of people around. A lot of the peiople smiled and waved at us because we were in a huge, brightly colored and detailed van. Kids would run to try to keep up with us at times and shout out a line from this song-type thing that the organization uses with them at the sports lesson ("How funky is your chicken?") Women walked down the streets with babies strapped on their backs, bags on their shoulders, and containers balanced on their heads.

We stopped at an Arts and Crafts Center that has artwork and the such by local artists. The Center's run by an organization called Ubuntu, which also works in the schools and runs a clinic that focuses on HIV/AIDS in the community. However, at the moment, no one (including us) is doing work in the schools because the teachers are on strike. Hospital workers have striked too, so hopefully no one here will get too hurt or sick.

The Arts Center is located in one of the shacks area and when we got there, all of the children came over to us, but stayed back for the most part. They were all a bit shy, but some were willing to do the funky chicken dance for us. But when we left, they all shouted, waved, and ran after the van, trying to get high fives from us. The teenagers and adults who were outside also waved at us, but forgo the running. While leaving there, I felt such love from the community and from those kids. No one knew who we were exactly, but they knew the organization and were therefore immediatly friendly and kind. I was also struck by the liveliness of the communities. It seems like everyone was just out and about. We also passed by one of the main shopping areas in the townships with a local delicacy: whole sheep's head. We didn't stop and try it, but some of them might later on.

Because of the strikes, I can still work in the clinic and the Haven, but since most of the others can't do the coaching, we're going to Jefery's Bay for the weekend. I'll try to post next week after a few days of work.