After tearful goodbyes with mom and dad and a 20 our plane ride, I find myself here in Johannesburg, South Africa. I am here for the next three months with two other MSU students, Rachel Frank and Alex Hill. We will be interning at Vumundzuku Bya-Vana Our Children’s Future (VVOCF), working with children and youth made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS. I really have no idea what to expect, but I’m excited to get started!
We went from Detroit Metro to Amsterdam, then to O.R. Tambo. We arrived late last night, so we had to rent a car and stay in a hotel for a night. We packed 6 huge suitcases and the three of us into a small Ford focus, which I thought was quite impressive. Rachel drove the car from the airport to the hotel. I’m really glad she did because I wouldn’t know what to do with the car—in South Africa the steering wheel is on the right hand side of the car, and you drive on the left. She did really well, except for the part where we drove almost a mile down the road with our parking break on… but anyways! We checked into our hotel and passed out, or at least I did after having pretty much zero sleep on the airplane.
We woke up early the next morning, and made our way to Zonke! The directions we had pretty much took us right there, but we got a little lost once we got into the Township. When we got there we met Gogo, which means grandmother, Phindile, the neighbor who works with the pre-school aged kids at the center, and two little ones, Thandeka and Nkosana. Nomusa (who’s real name is actually Celumusa, but we Americans are hopeless and pronouncing it correctly), the director of the center, hadn’t expected us so early, so she was down the street getting her hair done. We moved our things into our new home, which was one room with a few tables, a fridge and a futon. Rachel and I would be sleeping in this room, and Alex would be sleeping in the office. Even still, it was a nice sized room to use for a common room. While we waited for Nomusa, we played with the curious kids, having our first taste of trying to communicate with young children speaking Zulu. Soon Nomusa came to greet us, and we all got acquainted. The children would be coming home from school soon, and I couldn’t wait to finally meet them.
Around 1:30pm children started to trickle onto the property. As I was helping Nomusa and Phindile make sandwiches for our lunch, several of the children came to our room and introduced themselves. I was trying my best to remember their names, but it wasn’t easy. My ears had never heard names like Nkosikhnoa, Sphe, Zinhle, Sandile, Thabang, or Samu before (it took me almost a month to learn all the names of the 50+ children we worked with three times a week). When the majority of children arrived, we went into the center for the welcoming ceremony. We introduced ourselves with Nomusa translating for the younger ones, and then the children greeted us individually. All around the room were signs of welcome; the children had spent quite a long time making banners, window curtains, and chalkboard drawings welcoming us by name. As everyone was yelling and running around we handed out VVOCF T-shirts and tried to meet the many demands of “Shoot me, shoot me!” from the children, who are fascinated by digital cameras. The rest of the day was spent trying to talk with the children over the noise and being human jungle gyms for the smaller ones. It was no wonder that one of the first words in Zulu I learned was the word for “spin me!”
During the rest of the month we got acquainted with Zonke, the system of the center, and tried to get to know the kids. Bongani, Nomusa’s brother, took us on a few tours of Zonke with the car, and soon we were venturing out by ourselves. We tried some of the local food such as fat cakes, chicken dust, and my all time favorite, Kota. Kota is a sandwich on thick, soft bread with fries, cheese, several kinds of unidentifiable meat, and sometimes eggs and a spicy carrot sauce called chakalaka on it. We had it at least one a week after that, and became regulars at a Kota place down the street. We made our faces known at the library about once a week to use the sometimes-working internet. We also made trips to Germiston and Natal-Spruite, two cities close to Zonke, and learned how to use the taxis. People in the family we are staying with an many of the kids are teaching us Zulu. I think I’m doing pretty well with basic greetings, but I really need to work on my clicks. Out of all of us, Alex is the only one who can do it right, but Rachel and I are trying. We developed activities for the kids to do on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays along the lines of art, sport, and English instruction. I started off working with the pre-school aged kids with Phindile, and eventually moved to the middle aged kids we deemed “the middles,” who range from ages 8 - 13. I did a lot of arts and crafts with the kids using recycled materials the interns collected. In Zonke there is a big problem with people just throwing their trash on the ground because there aren’t any public trashcans. When the garbage gets to be too much, people just burn it. Because of that, I really tried to think of things to do with as many recycled materials as possible to teach the kids to reuse when practical.
There are several things people do in South Africa that are already extremely practical. They used prepaid cell phones for the most part, paying only for what they use. When they go to the grocery stores they also use these big, strong plastic bags, that they bring with them instead of using the disposable plastic bags. If you use the bags at the store, they actually charge you for them. Townships, where most of the poorest South Africans live, have small stores called Tuck Shops or Spazas within walking distance where people can get most of their basic food needs. People will also sell baked goods and other foodstuffs, so there is no reason to have to pay to travel outside to get groceries. Also, many people in South Africa exclusively use taxis to get around instead of everyone owning their own cars. Though the taxis can sometimes be dangerous, for the most part they take you where you want to go for a reasonable price. It’s amazing to me to see how some people adapt when they don’t have access to many resources.
Zonke is definitely one of those communities with an extreme lack of resources. The unemployment rate here is something around 80%, and most people are surviving off of government grants. The schools and clinics have very basic set ups and little funding. Many people are living in tin shacks, built extremely close together. Some of the lucky ones live RDP homes with bricks provided by the government’s Reconstruction Development Program. The bricks are free, but the process to get them is long and arduous. In order to get the bricks, one must go to the library and apply for them, wait several months for their delivery, then wait almost a year before someone will come out and actually build the house. Despite the hardships in Zonke, however, the spirit of resilience is alive and kicking. VVOCF is proof of that!
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