This week has been quite a challenging one for the team at Village. If you go the Village of Hope blog (which comes up if you type it into Google) you can read about Tim's experiences and feelings as the project manager, and also just simply as a human being with his struggles here in Grabouw. There have been a number of things which have happened this week, the first being that one of the little ones had to go to hospital as he was diagnosed with pneumonia. Thankfully they caught it in the early stages, as it's quite common in Grabouw with air being more damp and poor living conditions for many. He was admitted overnight, and me, Kat and Lauren drove down the mountain on Tuesday night to bring home one of the house mum's who with him at the hospital, whilst Mel had to stay overnight at her friend's and come back in the morning. Fortunately he was able to come home after several days, and he's making a good recovery- he's currently pottering around the garden in the sunshine, looking very perky to say he's been poorly. Me and Mel had taken him to Tygerberg hospital the day before for a routine appointment to do with his ears, so I think he's had quite enough of hospitals for a while!

One of the things that shocked Tim this week was discovering that the lady who I help run Rainbow Smiles, the support group for children with HIV, lives in a house the size of a garden shed, with a leaking roof and no water and electricity. I've been meeting with this woman every week for the past four and a half months, and I would never have guessed that she was living in these difficult conditions, because she's always so well-presented and she never complains. Perhaps there's an underlying assumption that I've made which is wrong, which is to think that because someone is poor means they simply won't be able to present themselves as well as they'd like to, or that they'll aspire to less because they expect less of life. Not everyone is like this, and this lady is a prime example. After seeing her house, Tim wanted to do something to help her fix her roof, which hasn't been placed properly, and so he was going to sort out the materials and pricing for it. However, a few days later, he had an email from a guy who owns a roofing company and has many many sheets of corrugated iron which he doesn't need. So God's provided us with the resources to help her fix her home, and hopefully many others will benefit from these free resources as well.

On Tuesday I went along to help out at sports in Hillside, an area of the townships which is renowned for sexual abusive and an aura of spiritual darkness. At the end of the sessions the girls and boys are divided and the sports team runs a short lesson and discussion on the theme for the week. This week we were talking about HIV awareness, and the girls answered intelligently and had obviously been educated about it at school. The boys, however, were unsettled and rude and Tim had a hard time trying to engage with them as some of them showed little respect and made it difficult. As we drove back, we stopped to collect another sports mentor who'd been running another sports session in another part of the township. He was downcast on the way to sports and told Tim that one os his school friends had been stabbed and killed. When we drew up, the children were sat side by side in a line, listening attentively as he talked, and as we watched we saw a real leader in the making. I don't know him that well at all, but I can sense that he is a person of integrity and strength who God will use to influence and lead in Grabouw and maybe further afield. Only the previous day one of his schoolfriends who was a couple of years below was stabbed and killed, yet he was still out there mentoring, trying to bring the balance back and make a difference.

I'm mainly relaying the experiences of other people in the team. In all honesty, my own experiences come with a mixture of feelings- still there is the lingering guilt and helplessness when I'm confronted with what is the reality of life for many people in Grabouw and in poor communities around the world. Also, although I've been here five months I still experience culture shock...sometimes this foreign place that I'm living and working in still feels so alien- or rather, I feel like an alien! My faith in Jesus has helped me relate and connect to the people I've met, but at other times I still feel like an observer, which is a surreal and disquieting experience. I feel that there is still much more I could do, and that sometimes my heart is still not fully engaging with all the different things I see and hear. That life here is so different that I only manage to the catch the surface with my finger tips, and just as the reality begins to sink in, I lose it and find myself once more bewildered and disorientated. I don't know whether this is normal or not!

Anyway, this week an American team  of 12 have arrived, 8 of which are staying in the volunteer's unit so it's a full house! They're going to be helping to paint the baby unit, which should be interesting as we'll probably spend most of the week trying to keep lots of little sticky hands away from the walls. I'll keep you updated!
xxx

A little adventure

Tradouw Pass

It's taken me a while, once again, to write on my blog, but two weeks ago the four of us (me, Grace, Heather and Katia) set off from the Village on a week of travelling along the Garden Route. We had a great time, and we had no major disasters (unlike the time we managed to break down halfway up the mountain pass in the pitch dark, at midnight, on the way back from a football match and the two Tim's had to come and rescue us!). One of my highlights would be the walk in Wilderness National Park, where we hiked to a beautiful waterfall and swam in it! The landscape in South Africa is incredible, and so vast and spectacular, not to mention varied. One part of our journey took us into semi-desert, with dusty orange plains and scrubland, whilst the Tradouw Pass was full of beautiful soft green mountains dappled in sunlight.

We travelled up the Route 62, stayed over one night in Oudtshoorn, and then went on to stay in Wilderness at a backpackers for four nights, before travelling onto Tsistikamma National Park. We also did some amazing things, like an safari, staying in a safari lodge for the night with two evening game drives as well as a morning one, an adventure tour in the Cango Caves, a canopy tour in the trees, and an elephant interaction at Bufflesdrift Game Reserve!

I feel uncomfortably aware of how lucky we were to go away for the week and have these experiences. With me all the time is the knowledge that we enjoy priviledges all the time, every day, that many people will never have. It makes me appreciate everything more, but I also battle with guilt and confusion.

We returned back to the Village on Sunday, minus one, as Grace left us at Port Elizabeth to continue her travels. We've settled back into Village life- Lauren, who arrived a few weeks ago, has had an interseting time with the paper shredder, which refuses to work for more than a minute, and then needs a twenty minute break! I've been spending time with the children, working on their one-to-one development time, doing the school run, planning for Rainbow Smiles, and helping out with sports. On Tuesday we went to Iraq, one of the poorest informal settlements and Grabouw. It's in Iraq that I sense the presence of God most strongly- I see His Kingdom being built there in a way I've never seen before. Some people would argue that surely, in the face of such poverty, God isn't be present, or how could He allow it? I don't know- all I know is that I see Jesus in the faces of the children, and I feel Him there. There were about forty younger children bounding around the sports area who couldn't play sports as the outreach is for 9years +, so Lauren and I took them over to one side of the pitch, wondering what we were going to do with them all! I was humbled to see that we didn't need to 'do' anything...it was enough for the kids that we were just there. We sang the okie cokie in a big circle, and then the chidren took the lead and sang their songs, and we were all dancing. It was amazing. They clamour for your attention and fight over each other to hold your hand, which is heart-breaking. They just want to be loved.

I came back to the Village, had a hot shower (it's now cold and rainy a lot of the time in Grabouw), put on some warm clothes, made a cup of tea, sat down on the sofa, and read my Kindle, thinking of the children we'd left behind who have none of these things. They inspire and humble me beyond words!

The unexplainable

The weekend just gone has been an extra long one, as there was a Bank Holiday on Friday, and there's another one tomorrow! Today is still a working day, and so I've tried to keep busy and productive as I'm feeling guilty about the numerous days we've had off!

On Thursday I accompanied Grace to Cape Town to get her Visas for her travels. We ended up scuttling backwards and forwards between the South African and Mozambique Embassies, looking very harassed (which we were) as we tried to complete the ridiculous requirements of governmental bureaucracy. When we finally returned, we had a quick lunch before heading out to Sports. We drove to one of the farms, which I won't attempt to try and spell, and played some games with the kids who turned up. Some of them are young adults, and it must be very boring for them at times, because although the area in which the live is breathtakingly beautiful, there isn't a lot to do for young people. The sports team are hoping to join the children from the two different farms where the project works into one big group, so that they can mix and also because larger groups work much better.

The Elgin Valley where Grabouw and the surroundings farms are situated

Since it was a public hoiday on Friday, Grace, Heather, Katia and myself drove to Cape Town and visited the Green Market, before walking to a very long street, called (unsurprisingly) Long Street! After our meal, we were walking back down when a lady approached me, and said that she didn't want any money but could I buy her some food. It's not like it is in Britain, where it's easy to be suspicious of people who ask you for money, because here it's much more likely that someone is telling the truth about being very hungry :-(( We went to the shop and she picked up some groceries and thanked me, but as I was coming out, another man approached me, asking me the same thing. He looked just as ragged and desolate as the first lady, but I felt like I couldn't help another person, partly because I was a little suspicious, and partly because I was worried I'd have a whole line of people next. What made it worse was that he had his little girl with him.

I still find it really difficult living in SA, moving between one extreme to another, and feeling like the two are irreconcilable. We do lovely things on the weekend, like eating out and visiting a beautiful winery, but so many will never get this chance, and I feel guilty, not to mention very aware of my own selfishness at times.The injustice in the world rears its ugly head each time we pass the huge township along the N2 as we drive into Cape Town, where people are packed in like sardines in their little patched up houses, trying to hold onto their dignity and their pride. The truth is that injustice is everywhere, I just notice it more here. What's even more startling is that we're part of a human ecosystem which is saturated in it, and so even without realising we play a part in contributing to wealth of the minority and the poverty of thousands.

I know why we let it happen; because our hearts have dark places where selfishness and greed breed exploitation and discrimination. But I don't know why God lets this happen- there's no one, cohesive, encompassing answer to explain and reconcie a loving God with all the pain and hurt...but when I see Jesus, hanging on that cross, the living God manifest in a living body, I know down in my soul that God is in it all, right down to every molecule of the dirt and sweat, the tears and the blood:

He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor.

1 Samuel 2:8

Potterings

It's not been a particularly action-packed few days, but I thought I'd try keep up the blogging anyway. On Friday me and Grace ran our usual pick up for Rainbow Smiles, driving through the townships and collecting the various children. The kids decorated some cup cakes that Grace and I had made, boys on one table and girls on the other, and you could tell which buns came from which table!

Assisting running Rainbow Smiles with Grace has been eye-opening, because I've caught a small glimpse into the lives of the young people who attend. As well as going through the usual growing pains of puberty (oh the joys of being a teenager :-s) they are trying to come to terms with being HIV+ positive, taking their medication, and the fear that comes with the condition. But sadly, I've only seen a tiny slither of their lives. As well as the language barrier (unsurprisingly, I can't speak Afrikaans!) there is the fact that my upbringing, schooling and surroundings have been so different to theirs that it's difficult to imagine their day to day lives- what do they do in the evening?; what's their home-life like?; what are their dreams, what are their hopes? It's difficult to reach across that divide, and to communicate openly with them. However, they still seem to enjoy coming to the sessions, and Rejioce, who directs the group, is amazing!

This week I've just been pottering around, doing bits and bobs. The four of us (me, Heather, Grace and Katia) went into the unit yesterday evening from 5-7pm whilst the house mums and the rest of the team had a staff meeting. It was chaos...with occasional moments of order! We also celebrated Heather's birthday by going for a meal at a lovely lunchtime restauraunt called Fresh, which serves delicious, freshly-produced food, for very reasonable prices.

The other day we returned a DVD to the video-rental store, and as I walked back to the car I spotted a young guy, who I'd encountered the previous week, asking for money. That time, I didn't have my purse on me so I couldn't give him anything, and it was awful because he was very thin, with haunted eyes and his face drawn in misery, and I knew he was very hungry. This time I gave him some money and asked him his name, but as we drove away I felt I could have done more, by speaking to him for longer, and praying for him. What was worse was that we'd just been out for a lovely meal, and so I had a tummy full of food. You always feel, when confronted by the enormity of the problems, that you could do more, but at the same I know I'm not Superwoman, just Jess. It's difficult to know where to drawn the line between being brave enough to reach out to people and help them, and on the otherhand using discernment in how you help them. He's in my thoughts and prayers often.

The swing of things

I've settled back into Village life following Mum and Dad's departure, and I'm enjoying again being with the children and trying to work constructively in the unit. This week I've planned some more weekly activities, including making some sparkly spiders with the children out of pipecleaners, glitter glue and foam. I also tackled some drawers in the unit which had turned into a jungle of papers and random bits and bobs.
On Tuesday, the four of us girls went along to Grabouw Day Hospital to help the Community Policing Forum (CPF), and organisation which Tim is involved with. We handed out soup in the TB clinic, where people come to receive their medication, some daily and some weekly, depending on their reliability to take their pills on time. I learnt quite a lot about TB, such as the fact that if if the course of medication for initial TB is not taken properly, the disease can then progressively degenerate into Multi-Drug Resistant TB, from which there is no hope of treatment or recovery. TB medication is also best taken with food to help the drug to be absorbed into the body, so the CPF is running a soup/food parcel scheme to encourage people to take the drugs with a meal. Grabouw has one of the highest rates of TB infection in South Africa, which is heartbreaking because it is a preventable disease. The Day Hospital now caters for a town of 60,000 people, whereas only fifteen years ago Grabouw only had a population of 50,000. So it's stretched to its full capacity, daily.

The soupy/rice concoction!

An informative flip-chart about TB

After a few hours at the Day Hopsital we still had quite a lot of food left over, so Tim drove up to Iraq, one of the poorest townships in Grabouw, where we handed out the remainder of the food to the children. We dropped in at a creche, which I've been wanting to visit for some time. It's constructed, like the majority of buildings in Iraq, out of corrugated iron, and the walls inside comprise of opened out cardboard boxes. It's approximately 12 feet by 10 feet, and there's usually about 20 children in attendance, looked after by a lovely lady, her grandchildren and another man. It's quite dark inside, and the pungent smell of stale wee and damp greets you as you step through the doorway. But there are also lots of little beautiful, excitable children, with brown shiny eyes, who also greet you, wanting to take pictures with the camera and to sit on your lap.

inside

wooden platform outside the creche

I've tried to be informative about what I've seen, but the emotional and spiritual effects are really what I want to write about. I think volunteering or working for a charity at grass-roots level can sound really quite heroic, but in reality it's different. I've found, to my discomfort, that my emotions have not responded the way I expected them too. The cold, hard, drudgery of poverty and sickness fills me, not with overwhelming compassion or love, but with a helplessness and depression, and above all a bewilderment about how to respond next. To witness the hardships here and then to return home, and for those memories, people and experiences to slowly fade from my memory as time passes and life settles into a more comfortable pattern, cushioned by so many privileges, is not what I want. But faced with the enormity of the problem, it's difficult to know which way God wants each of us who comes here to go, and how to respond. Ultimately it's not our sole individual efforts but the collective efforts of a community working for Jesus that matters, but a community is made up of individuals who each have their part to play. What part do we  play next?! And even after being here for over three and a half months, I still experience a strange feeling of disconnection when I leave the corrugated iron, pots and pans, the bustle of people, chickens, dogs, the dust, sickness, and colours behind to return to the comfort of The Village. God is equally present within both, yet I struggle to reconcile these two vastly different ways of living out life. I expect it'll be even more difficult to do so when I return home. These are the thoughts that run through my mind regularly.

Easter

For the past few weeks Mum and Dad have been out in South Africa visiting me in the Village of Hope. It was lovely to have them here with me, although very surreal at the same time as I've been used to seeing them only on Skype with thousands of miles between us. They really embraced South African life and had an amazing time exploring the beautiful landscape, as well as getting to know the children, staff, volunteers, and the project leaders and their friends and family who also came out over Easter.
On Tuesday 3rd we took the children to the Aquarium at the V&A Waterfront in Cape Town. There ended up being 9 children and twenty five adults, and I don't know who was more excited! The children loved seeing the jewel-bright fish flitting through the water in all their different sizes and shapes, and it was a great interactive place for children with lots to see and do.

One of the little girls entranced by the fish!

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During the rest of the week the girls did some other Easter activities with the children, making little Easter baskets and eggs which were then filled with chocolate on Easter Sunday!

Easter festivities!

A very shy bunny

The idea was to 'ration' the chocolate that the children received, as there was loads, but unfortunately I think the spirit of frugality wasn't exactly embraced! It rained all of the Easter Sunday, so we had a very wet braai which Tim prepared in the wood shelter and which we all ate in the children's unit.

Another highlight was the Thembacare service which Tim, Maz, their family, friends, Kat, Pauline  and me, Mum attended, alongside the usual group of Themba nurses who gather every Wednesday afternoon for worship and prayer. Thembacare, if I haven't already explained, is another Thembalithsa project, and is a medical unit and hospice for people in the community suffering with TB, HIV and cancer. The women hold such a deep musicality within them, when they praise God you can feel their souls and the Spirit of God reverberating in the room.  It was an honour to gather with them to worship.

On the first Saturday that Mum and Dad were here, a group of us visited Robben Island. After a pretty choppy boat half and hour boat ride across the to the island we were taken on a guided coach tour around the main sites, before joining our tour guide around the Maximum Security Prison, a man who used to be an ex-prisoner on the island in the 70s. Robben Island is closely associated with Nelson Mandela ofcourse, who was an inmate for nearly two decades, but it functioned as a prison from the 1600s when the Dutch settlers arrived. It was used to isolate severely marginalised groups who posed a risk to society such as those suffering with leprosy, the mentally ill, and in more recent times, political activists. We were shown the solitary confinement house; the limestone quarry where the prisoners were forced to work, and which later became known as 'The University', a place where the men pooled their ideas and where their visions and aspirations were fed by their shared fight against racial, political and economic injustice ; the tiny cells, barely 8 by 7 feet, which until 1975 contained no beds.

Nelson Mandela's cell

South Africa's political history over the last fifty years is a myriad of racial prejudice and tension, most of which I can barely apprehend, but from living in this country for several months, it's clear that there is so much more work to be done. The vision that many of the political prisoners were working towards  was one where there would equal economic opportunities for all- where skin colour would not determine the opportunities a person has in life. I believe it is only God who can bring this vision to the 'Rainbow Nation' in it's entirety, and He is already doing so in many ways. However, the change that is required needs everyone, and not everyone is willing to change!

Peace descends

Oh dear I don't think I've got the hang of blogging- I think it's supposed to be short regular updates rather than fortnightly essays! Well anyway, last week was the Germans final week here, so the Village was a hive of activity, with the whole team beavering away from early in the morning until late at night in their attempts to complete the house they have been building for the last six weeks. It's an eco house, and they've done a great job and put in many many hours of hard manual work. I'm not sure whether the bits of grass sticking out of it are there on purpose or not, but it looks pretty cool. The house will be most probably be used to accomodate volunteers and hopefully it will free up some space in the current volunteer's unit. After one final braai/party on Saturday they left in the dribs and drabs over the weekend, and now it feels very quiet.

Perhaps the peace is also more noticeable because last monday there were riots in Grabouw. There were intiially some riots several weeks back over a school for black children, but last week the issue was tension between the black and colored community. The 'blacks' speak Causa whereas most of the 'coloured' speak Afrikaans, and there is a division between the two communities which I'm afraid of oversimplifying by my limiting understanding... but I think part of the mistrust and tension is residue from the apartheid era, where coloureds were given more priviledges than the black community because of their lighter skin tone. The roads were blocked and the police were out on mass, but I didn't witness any of this as we stayed at the Village all day. It was oppressive knowing that there was violence going on down the road from us, not because we were worried for our own safety (because the Village sheltered at the top of the valley, and is protected by gates, and by God!)but because of our concerns for the people of Grabouw. Since then there hasn't been anymore trouble, but it once again raises awareness of the fragile relations between different races. Riots such as these reinforce the idea that the townships are dangerous and crime-ridden, but the reality is more complicated. Many people smile and wave as you drive through the community, and they are just ordinary people living out their lives. There's a family who we drive past every week when we pick up the children for Rainbow Smiles, who sit outside their house playing dominoes!- mum, dad, aunties, uncles, children, grandparents, and friends. The townships are vibrant, buzzing, close communities, and as with any other community, there lies within a minority of people who express their frustration through violence. The violence and crime is more prevalent and noticeable however because of SA's history :-(

Since then it has calmed down, and the Easter holidays have arrived. The children are off school, so we're trying to keep them entertained with easter activities and some outings. Yesterday they made bunny ears which they enjoyed, although the little ones weren't so keen on wearing them and one little tot accidentally sat on hers. Squashed bunny ears. This morning we took the children to an indoor play area which they loved. I put one of the baby boys in the ball pool and a minute later I could only see two round eyes peering back at me over the balls! Last week Grace and I also took the Rainbow smiles children to the country club, where we played some games and spent time together, which was fun. We're still bumbling along with the club as best we can, but the children really enjoyed last week and we're trying to make it fun for them.

There's now just six volunteers as Lance and Travis, the two Canadian guys who were here for a month, left on Monday. I'll really miss those guys as they felt like brothers- brothers in Christ, and brothers on an emotional level. Homesickness has also often hit me quite hard these last few weeks- sometimes I long for familiarity, and to be able to see my friends and family. I find myself thinking of English fields, little yorkshire pubs, sheep, and drystone walls! But I know I'm in danger of idealising home, and idealising the past. I'm learning to live in the present, let go of what has gone before, and to accept change as the place where God brings new life and growth. I know I'm very lucky to be able to have this experience and I want to be able to make the most of it.

Anyway, another long blog post. For now I'll say bye bye xxxx