Child Aid, Tubatse, South Africa

I have three weeks to sum up in one entry and to be honest I have been putting it off because I don’t know how best to sum up how I feel about this project, the people here, and South Africa as a whole.

I’ll start with the project. The project is Child Aid, a Humana People to People project which aims to improve the lives of children by building the capacity of the families and communities around them. To do this, 8 Area Leaders work with 3,000 families around 10 ‘lines’ of improvement, ranging from education to health and sanitation to income generating projects. Tubatse is a village in Limpopo, the northernmost province in South Africa and about a 2 hours drive west of Kruger National Park. I am currently living in the projects DI house with its current DI, Zama who is from South Africa herself. She is very nice and has not only been very friendly and helpful, she has underscored the diversity of people in South Africa, since her background is different from here and she is sometimes as frustrated and confused as we are with the way things work around here. The house itself is attached to the landlord who is a bit of an arrogant man but he’s not here all the time. It is situated in its own little compound behind locked gates. The house is much more comfortable than the one in Mozambique, with tiled floors, satellite TV, a fridge, and running water in the bathroom (but not the kitchen). There is a bathroom with a bath and a toilet for # 1’s and an outhouse outside for #2’s – don’t ask. And there is a resident rat. Yes, a rat. I am incredibly brave. The house is a five minutes walk to the project down red sand roads.

All in all I am very impressed with the project. To be sure, within our three week stay here Brian and I have both identified many areas that could be improved and encountered many frustrations, but many of these things can be put down to two factors: 1) Humana’s insistence on hiring management from their own pool of people, even though they are often maddeningly unqualified and incompetent, and 2) local customs and attitudes. Both a running theme throughout this year, I am sure. However compared to Cidadela, this place is run like clockwork. This is mainly because the project leader, Nondumiso, is really very good. She is passionate, motivated, and intelligent. As a result her project is well organized and functioning well. After all of the uproar I caused before leaving Mozambique about equality, etc. I am ashamed to say that in my two weeks correspondence with her before coming to the project it never occurred to me that this person named Nondimiso could be a woman, and my ignorance was brought home to me when she picked me up from the bus station. What an idiot I am.

We came to this project knowing that they were in the process of building an ‘innovative’ community centre designed by an Austrian architect. We assumed that Brian would help with this while I would slot in wherever. Things don’t always go to plan. The building is all but at a standstill and while Brian has tried to help where he can, for example getting planning permission sorted, in the end he has had to wash his hands of the project. In the sagas and joys of non-profit world, there are severe communication problems between the architect, the money (Humana Austria), and the people on the ground (Nondumiso). Two days ago the architect finally arrived for a site visit and effectively put an end to Brian’s participation. He was hands down the most arrogant man either of us has ever met. Within five minutes he swore at both Brian and Nondumiso, refused to answer any questions, revealed that he had not done any of the drawings he needed to have done, and showed an alarming disregard for South African laws. We found out the next day he was drunk.

Our first week was Easter holidays and was dominated by our funeral/wedding roadtrip. Last week Brian worked on planning permission for the construction project and we both fought off stomach problems – Brian’s a reaction to and a reminder that not all water supplies mean us no harm and mine either an intestinal infection or an ulcer, who knows. This week we have been busy preparing and giving courses to the project’s staff. Monday we gave a day long business course. The aim of the course was to teach the staff how to teach microloan applicants how to both start and run their businesses, since most of the businesses begun with Child Aid microloans have failed. Today we gave a course on computers (basic Word, etc.) and the internet. It was hilarious and fantastic to see the ooohhs and aaaahs when they started to see how much the internet could do for them – the wonders of technology. Monday we will give an HIV/AIDS course.

So I’ve rambled on and I still don’t know how to sum up my experience in South Africa. The truth is I don’t really like it here but I am loath to admit to such a bias. I have tried to look around me with “wonder, rather than doubt”, openness rather than judgment but that is harder than it sounds. Or no, it is as hard as it sounds. On the one hand I know that I came to this country with a bit of a bias. I liked Mozambique, I was invested in the project there, and I had the added advantage of not understanding half of what everyone said.

Here, I do understand at least half of what everyone says and this is not always to my advantage. In general the people here are very nice, and warming to us every day we remain, but at the same time they can also be a little rude and aggressive as well.

Right or wrong I find myself continually cranky and annoyed here, mainly because of differing values that I am being confronted with for the first time and the mind-numbing noise. Chauvinism is commonplace here and has led to me abandoning the TV during South African soap hours (3 hours every night!). It seems all male characters are wife abusers, alcoholics, homophobic or chauvinists and in every story line the woman is blamed even if it is her husbands fault. Worse, these themes seem to be in line with the countries thinking because I sit next to Zama watching her agree with what is going on on the screen.

If my prevailing memory of Maputo is the reams of garbage piled everywhere, my lasting impression of South Africa will be the volume. Everyone in this country seems to be a bit deaf, or else they will be soon. There is a permanent soundtrack of house or techno music in the background, creating a nightclub atmosphere in our room even when we are three blocks away from the source which is often still going strong at 5 or 6 am. While house and techno seem to prevail during the night, religious music does not seem to be designated to the church but rather is listened to on TV as if it is the Top 10 Countdown. Even Brian is mildly disturbed by this. This morning in the office we overheard what seemed to be the staff fighting loudly amongst each other in their local language. We asked Zama what they were fighting about and she looked at us bemused, “No, they’re praying” she answered. Oh.

And so there is the long and short of it. I haven’t gotten nearly as invested in this project as Cidadela in Mozambique but that is partly because it doesn’t need us as much, which is a good thing. I am glad that I will have gotten to see a variety of projects before I leave Africa and I am interested in comparing how some other, non-Humana projects are run once I get to Namibia. I don’t hate South Africa but I also am also ready to finally start my Namibian adventure.

Namibia here we come!