This post was uploaded at may 18th
The longer I’m here, the more I wonder how I really feel about this
country. I really don’t know. I don’t want to leave this place anytime soon,
I’m enjoying every single day and everything is so beautiful. Then you hear how
the politics really work, how the top brass destroyed the wonderful work that
Nelson Mandela did, how lots of children don’t know how to get the most out of
their lives (how can you blame the parents) and how ‘positive’ people slowly
start losing their faith to improve this country.
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| KwaMashu |
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| Problem Solving workshop by Lindiwe |
We first went to the office of
the L.O. teachers (life orientation) who were chilling here. It was raining, so
you obviously can’t teach any sports. After five minutes they brought the
children back to a classroom, what else could they do? After escaping the
netball coach, who was desperate to add me and Wilma to her team, we went to
one of the classrooms. There are only children at this school who have been
disadvantaged in the previous regime and mostly girls were pretty nervous when
they saw us, white women. They would hold each other and giggle. When we
entered the classroom, most of the children were laughing and they were pretty
impressed and excited about our camera’s. At first they were hiding for the
pictures, but later on you can see some kids secretly posing. The first
workshop was about problem solving. The class (60 learners) was divided in four
groups and each group received a problem that one of the group members had to
read in front of the class and together they would think of solutions for that
specific problem. For example: Pregnancy under very bad circumstances; who are
you going to tell about this and how? ; You have an STD; Are you going to tell
this to your girlfriend/boyfriend and how are you going to take the step to do
some tests? It was very interesting to see how serious the children handle
these kinds of subjects at this age.
Suddenly they all started to scream,
laugh, sing and dance and I asked one of the girls who was sitting next to me:
“What’s happening?” She replied: “ARE YOU CRAZY!? IT’S LUNCHBREAK!!” The second workshop was about TB and how this
disease relates to HIV. It was mainly in Zulu so I couldn’t understand
everything but the kids were so focused and they asked lots of questions about
this subject. Afterwards, a little boy asked the facilitators if it was okay if
he would shake our hands. I shook his hand and everybody started to scream and
laugh. Then the rest followed and they were all waving. So sweet. It was an
amazing experience and I hope to visit another school anytime soon!
Another
quiet special experience was our visit to home affairs to extend my visa. I
came here on a tourist visa which is valid for three months. In the plane, I
indicated that I’m here on vacation, because they are very strict when it comes
to work and internships. Yesterday, Marlijn picked me up at 07:45 and at 08:00
I wrote my name on the list. The man pointed us to a bench where we had to sit
down, because there were several employees for different visas. Okay fine.
After about 45 minutes I found it all very strange that anyone but us was
moving so I asked again if we really didn’t have to sit in the cue just to be
sure. “Why didn’t you get in the cue?!” was his answer. “But many people came after me”, “I know..
there’s nothing I can do about that I’m sorry.” Okay great! Thank you! In the
room were three benches which work the same way as the cues at rollercoasters.
The only things missing are the expected waiting time boards. One of the
benches wasn’t joining our smooth lovely cue and this cue wasn’t moving at all.
These people were waiting even longer than I was and after a long time a guy came
in and shouted: “ZIMBABWE” and they all stood up and walked in. Maybe you
should’ve been there but I thought it was very funny. After an hour and a half
it was finally my turn and prepared as I was the man told me that I needed to do a
medical test including x-rays and all and why I didn’t do it in Holland. I
never heard of this before and after 10 minutes he thought it would be better
to just extend my tourist visa, because then I only had to write a motivation
letter. So I wrote a letter about how beautiful this country is and that I
still want to visit lots of places and that I need more time to do that. It
should be all sorted in 6 to 8 weeks from now so until then I’m allowed to stay
here so at least I’m a legal citizen for the next period of time.
As you
know, I’m traveling by taxi busses. Yesterday after work, I was waiting for a
taxi to come for more than 30 minutes. I called Marlijn and she was luckily
able to pick me up and it turned out that the taxi drivers were striking. That
happens here without any announcement which is a disaster; because they dropped
people everywhere in the morning but they refused to bring them back home. I
only have to travel for 3 kilometers but some people have to travel for 2
hours. People were fighting in town and the shops had to close. Some people even died.
Unbelievable..
Marlijn
took me to her boyfriend’s house to have dinner with them. His name is Sjorn
and since he is from South Africa he could tell me lots of stories about the
history of this country and its politics. In his opinion, the country would’ve
been way better off if Nelson Mandela had been president for another 8 years
and I think I have to agree with that. Marlijn told me that one day the government
promised that houses would be build for everyone. That is of course a mission
impossible, but when the ‘black’ people ran the country a part of this
population truly believed that they could just take over the white people’s
houses. People have been knocking on Marlijn’s door, because they were promised
a house so here they were! You can imagine that it was a huge disappointment
for these people. The country’s politics are not always transparent and without
conflict our suspicion and there are a lot of stories and opinions about what
really happens within the government, for example the rape of the HIV-positive
woman by the current president Jacob Zuma. When I hear and read about this
(whether they’re true or false, whatever happened there isn’t right anyway) I
catch myself on shaking my head. At these moments I ask myself how this nation
should develop and change into a prosperous community and I can imagine that
this hope gets lost sometimes. I believe that I’m blessed about working with
Marlijn who shows me that there can be start when you start at the beginning
and that is the children. If your parents never taught you that you have to
throw your waste into the bin, how should you know? And that’s where we come
in. I got to experience it myself and I am convinced that OneVoice South Africa
and her facilitators really can make that difference.
It’s
another long story isn’t it?! I should go and get myself some lunch and I will
move to a Bed & Breakfast this afternoon right across the street. Now I can
still hang out with my friend at Tekweni and have some more time for school.
Sounds wise huh? (Now it seems as if this choice is made voluntarily, clever as I
am). I’ve been teaching my colleagues some proper Dutch already and they’re
doing a good job I must say!
Thank you all for reading!! I miss my friends
and family a lot but as you may understand now, I like the fact that I still
have some months left here…
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