Our first full day

This morning we toured Missionvale Township which is comprised of about 120 000 people with 60% HIV infection rate and 80% unemployment rate.  The service site located there is a community center with at least nine departments some of which include sewing, carpentry (for coffins), nutrition (similar to a food shelf), Father Christmas (gifts are donated and wrapped for a yearly Christmas celebration for THOUSANDS of children at the community center), and a school.  The Queen of England and Mother Theresa have visited the remarkable nun, Sister Ethel, at Missionvale.  She has received a whole wall of plaques for the last twenty-three years of work.  Her only condition on being sent to Africa only a month after she returned home to Ireland from another mission was that she be able to work with the poor.  Since then she has worked with the people of Missionvale to create a place that they can call their own, and it is very full of hope which one may not expect in a place so rife with poverty, sexual crimes, HIV/AIDS, unemployment and the like.  One of the ways that people contribute is that they must bring in recycling in order to get the components of a meal.  Missionvale never gives cooked meals, because they want the mother to still act as a provider so she can bring the flour, sugar, beans and whatever else is in the bag home and cook a meal.  There is also a lot of little, plastic bags, and trash all over the roads and hillsides, so picking up recycling allows the people to take care of their surroundings while earning something to bring in for their food.  There are NO handouts at Missionvale because the people have dignity, and they don’t need hand-outs, they just need access to resources.

Next, we visited House of Resurrection AIDS Haven.  This is a much smaller site dedicated to caring for orphans from AIDS causes.  There are thirty-nine children of which twenty-two are infected.  Because they have no parents or grandparents to care for them, House has six “house mothers” that foster these children as their own.  They live in the main building or cottages that surround the main building and receive government funding for fostering and for ARV treatment which costs $150 a month per child.  We stopped in the pre-school at House, and there were sixteen young children that we were able to play with.  Many of them don’t speak English, but they are so lovable, and that is what they need most.  Inside House we were able to see five-month-old twins who are the newest members of the community.  

We won’t choose what site we would like to serve at until tomorrow afternoon, but it would be great at either of these places.   At Missionvale we would have the chance to work in each department at an expertly-run facility.  We would even get to go with nurses into the townships to visit patients.  At House we would work with the children in pre-school, playing with them and working on development, especially English.  We could also do maintenance on the grounds and help with tasks in the main building as needed.  Tomorrow we will visit Pendla Primary School which is the third service option.

After the tours we got our student cards, toured the sports facility and asked about joining teams, and had a workshop on volunteering.  I had no idea what we were in for, but I learned so much this afternoon.  South Africa makes up 0.7% of the world’s population yet contains 28% of the people with dual TB and HIV infections.  Sub-saharan Africa holds 22.5 million of the world’s 33.3 million people with HIV/AIDS according to UNAIDS 2009 information.  There are still high rates of newly diagnosed people each year in South Africa and 5.6 million of South Africa’s 40 million residents live with HIV.  There are also 1.9 million orphans due to AIDS.  I know these are just numbers, but try to imagine the impact of those statistics.  The AIDS problem is HUGE here.  Just one million is big.  If it was your full time job to count to one million and each number took one second, it would take you 35 8-hour days to get there.  That is five weeks at a full-time job.  That is BIG!

Learning a bit about AIDS in SA helped to put the poverty and unemployment into perspective.  AIDS is taking out the most productive people in society, leaving children and the elderly to contribute to society.  So, we are here for four months, working only a few hours two days a week.  What can we do to make any kind of impact?  Natalie, our service mentor for the semester, brought us through some community development theory that can help us have the greatest impact at our sites and to give us some tools to problem-solve on site.  She told us that true perspective sees what people don’t have but also recognizes what they do.  And, the South African people are innovative and resilient shown by the informal work such as growing their own fruits and vegetables to sell (which they can do with plots in the garden at Missionvale) or any other way to make money.  The reason that this situation is not hopeless despite the poor conditions in the townships is that the people are motivated and talented and when encouraged and have self-confidence, they can break the cycle of poverty.

After a long day physically and emotionally, Taylor and I took a refreshing run along the boardwalk and came home to relax the rest of the evening.  I am getting somewhere on my lit project that I present on the first day, but the internet has become an essential resource due to the proximity of my last literature lesson (it was a LONG time ago… at least four years).  So, I am searching on the difference between literary analysis and literary interpretation and deciphering what the South African prof really wants not having met her before.  It will all be okay.  Buttttt, I am up a bit than I planned because of my loyal dedication to my blog and followers.  Love you all and pray that I make the decision that fits best for my service site.

Peace and bu-lessings!