Whirlwind...

Greetings from Mthatha. This is a long overdue post, but that’s mostly due to the fact that there’s been quite a lot happening in the past month. Here are a few more pictures from adventuring in Cape Town, and some updates from this corner of the Southern Hemisphere…

I am so thankful for the two weeks I was able to spend in the "Mother City" of Cape Town. Being able to share Christmas and celebrate the start of the New Year with good friends was truly wonderful. Amanda and Ann who are YASCers in Cape Town were gracious hosts and great tour guides to Jessie, who flew down from her YASC post in Maseno, Kenya, and myself. I arrived on the 23^rd, just in time for Christmas Eve preparations and to share the holiday cheer in a new place with some familiar faces. We had a tasty and unique Christmas Eve experience when Mari, one Amanda’s co-workers at HOPE Africa, invited us over for a traditional Finnish meal. We shared some delicious food, danced, swapped gifts, and laughed a lot. Then we journeyed over to the St. George’s Cathedral for their midnight mass. Sitting there as the service started, I couldn’t help but miss my family and the late night service that would be taking place a few hours from then at St. Paul’s in Chattanooga. This was my first Christmas away from my homes in Chattanooga, Los Angeles, and Sewanee, and I felt the absence of the traditions that each place holds. However, I realized sitting there in the candlelit darkness of St. George’s and singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful,” what a truly a miraculous event we were celebrating in community worldwide in a way that I never have before.

We all spent the night in the cozy home of Rev. Suzanne Peterson (and her wonderful pup Thembi) who has been living and working in South Africa for over a decade. Her house became holiday central on Christmas Day. We spent most of the day cooking, eating Jessie’s monkey bread, listening to music, trying to master the paddle ball that Amanda’s mom sent to her, and just being together. My role in all of the cooking was mainly to chop this or wash that, so I can’t really take much credit, but we ended up with quite a feast for Christmas dinner with Ann’s leg of lamb as our center piece (check out the picture from my last post to see more of our delicious spread).

The rest of our time together in Cape Town was spent exploring and sharing with one another. One of our first adventures was to the top of Table Mountain via the cable cars on a very windy day. We also made our way out to Boulder’s Beach where we could hang out with some penguins, and dip our toes into the verrrry chilly waters. Wine tasting was also a must, and a fun evening out with the staff of HOPE Africa made for many memories including a midnight visit to Clifton Beach. We also ventured to the Castle of Good Hope and the District Six Museum, which the history nerd in me loved. The District Six Museum stood out especially as a place where stories are preserved, honored, and shared in a very community driven way. I appreciated this and how it pushed me to think about memory, storytelling, and the power of the human voice in new ways. Our time together also allowed us to share our stories with one another and talk about where our journeys this year are taking us. I felt so much joy being there with Jessie, Amanda, and Ann. Ringing in 2011 with these amazing young women will not be forgotten, and I’m so grateful we had the opportunity to share this time together.

Flying back to Mthatha, I was filled with happiness both from the memories of Cape Town, but also in feeling that I was coming a home. I was coming back to people and places that are no longer so new and unfamiliar. Getting out of the truck on our first day back at Itipini, I was greeted by Wee Mama, who has one of the best smiles, and engulfed by a big hug and “Molo Sarah! Unjani?” (“Hello Sarah! How are you?”). I was happy to be back and hear how everyone was doing. It was good to see the kids and some of our regulars in the clinic. My first day back and these first few weeks since our holiday break have such a different feel to them than my first days in Itipini. I’m so very glad to be back.

School started last week, and a lot of our time has been spent helping sort out their registration fees and paperwork. It’s a busy time, and I’ll have more to share soon. Thanks for reading, and let us walk together.

Peace be with you.

p.s. To learn more about what Amanda, Ann, and Jessie are doing in Cape Town and Maseno, please click on their names and you’ll be taken to their blogs.

On the universality of fascination with fire trucks, juice stains, and other thoughts.

Friday was one of my favorite days so far. It was field trip day for the preschool. All week the anticipation had been building in the community about the big day, and I was getting excited about being the “support car” for the day. I was to follow the big bus in our new AMM volunteer car, carrying the all important picnic supplies, helping chaperone, and available to run ahead to let each location know we were on the way.

The road leading to Itipini can be quite rough in some places, but the big passenger bus wound its way slowly into the project. Upon its arrival, the children’s departure soon became a community wide event. As we walked down the hill to the bus, the kids and their parents sang and danced in celebration. People peered out from their homes, and soon quite a crowd had gathered to send the children off for the day.

We made our way to the fire station first, where Chief Le Kaye met with the kids. We learned about “Stop, Drop, and Roll” and how to dial “112” in case of emergency. There I saw that fascination with fire trucks and firemen seem to stretch beyond borders, and reminded me of how much I looked forward to Fire Safety Week at Alpine Crest Elementary. It meant a visit from the fire station, drawing colorful evacuation plans for our houses, and fire drills that seemed to me kind of like a recess bonus round as we filed out into the sunshine of the playground. The Itipini preschoolers looked on in awe when the sirens and lights flashed on the truck, and we all laughed as one of the little boys was dressed in fire gear that enveloped him.

The next stop was the Nelson Mandela Museum. There the kids were led around, looking and listening to the story of a man who was once a young boy raised in the same part of the country where they are growing up. One highlight from the museum was seeing the kids react to the recreation of the cell where Mandela lived on Robben Island. All of the kids tried to squeeze inside the tiny cell at once, and imagine life in such a small space. In the last room of the museum there is a video playing with scenes from Mandela’s 90^th birthday celebration, and at one point a choir starts singing the South African National Anthem. Without any prompting, the preschoolers all started singing along.

The National Anthem of South Africa is unique in that it contains five different languages and combines lyrics from the old national anthem, the Methodist hymn/song of defiance under apartheid “Nkosi Siskelel’ iAfrika,” and some original lyrics. This hybrid song asks God to bless Africa, bless her children, end conflicts, and concludes with a call to, “Let us live and strive for freedom in South Africa our land.” Hearing and seeing the children from Itipini spontaneously sing these words in the Nelson Mandela Museum was really quite something. In that moment I saw hope for their future, and for further reconciliation in this nation. The children from Itipini are living examples of the economic disparity that still exists, but in their singing, they were also it seems to me, showing that they are not bound to this identity only. They are children who are learning what words like “freedom,” “reconciliation,” “unity,” “hate,” and “love” mean for their country and in their own lives. And for me, they were strong reminders of the power of the human voice…especially in song. It brought to mind this quote from Eduardo Galeano’s The Book of Embraces: “When it is genuine, when it is born of the need to speak, no one can stop the human voice. When denied a mouth, it speaks with the hands or the eyes, or the pores, or anything at all. Because every single one of us has something to say to the others, something that deserves to be celebrated or forgiven by others. "

From the museum it was on to Nduli Nature Reserve. Nduli is right outside of downtown Mthatha. We made the winding loop around Nduli, seeing some antelopes and wildebeest. Gathering in the picnic area, hot dogs were cooked, apples were eaten, chips were crunched, and juice was spilled. There I observed that just as little kids’ fascination with fire trucks appears to be universal, so too it seems is the ability for the juice from juice boxes to some how end up all over white t-shirts.

After lunch and playing at Nduli it was time to head back to Itipini. Much like our send-off, the community was waiting for our arrival. Mothers greeted their children as if they had been gone for a year, and songs were sung in celebration of our return from a day full of adventures. As the kids disembarked, it began to sprinkle, and then as if right on cue, a rainbow appeared. It accompanied the preschool teachers and me on the way home. All around, it was a very good day.