Friday Night Lights

My goal for my second track meet was to simply do better than the first and have some fun. We drove back out to Durban and had a very small meet under the stadium lights on a Friday night. Awesome. 
Working off of spontaneity, I signed myself up for 4 events to relive my high school days were I would be competing the entire time the meet was happening. It was tiring, but a lot of fun. I can't wait until my spikes get here! Then my competitors should be scared.
I first went over to run the 200m. Ha! 200m is a surprisingly far distance to sprint when you aren't ready for it. My goal was to run in the 26s, and I was incredibly happy when I saw that I had run a 25.90 in sneakers. That was much better than I had expected. In fact, I am going to pat myself on the back for that one.
From the finish line I next went to accompany my teammate Phuti at high jump [as she was the only one competing]. The women there really had no idea how to officiate high jump, so it was a mess. I was also just running towards the bar and jumping with no set steps or method so I am sure I looked pretty silly, but I think I actually did pretty well concerning the circumstances. I am not sure where I finished, but I think I jumped at least 1.50m, which is 4'11", which is pretty cool considering that was around where I started high jumping back in the day when I trained for it.
Right after the high jump I watched the end of the mens long jump and got ready to long jump against my 5 competitors, all girls between the ages of 13-17. Most all of them were Afrikaans and they thought I was the coolest person ever. They couldn't believe that I long jumped so much farther than them, and I kept explaining that I am also 22 years old so I should be long jumping farther than them... haha. I wanted to do better than the last meet with my 5.34m... and I wanted to jump at least 18 feet. I had 3 jumps and on my last one jumped 5.51m, which is almost an inch over 18 feet. Cool. And yes, I beat my competitors and later even let them swoon over my American accent.
Lastly, I went to run the 100m. My legs were exhausted but my spirits were high! I was a little sad to not have any starting blocks for a race in which starting blocks are so crucial, but I wasn't wearing spikes either so I couldn't care too much. I was once again burned by the India national team [they are training here in South Africa or something], and have absolutely no idea what my time was. But, it was a fun ending to a long day and I still love track and field.

Happy Halloween!

Well, I know today is not Halloween, but it is the closest to Halloween my office is going to get.
Every other Friday everyone comes in for staff meetings. Today when they went into the board room for the meeting, everyone was delighted that there was candy on the table between the minute printed from the last meeting. I could hear grown people squealing for joy over the candy from down the hall.
I had put candy on the table and written "HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! trick or treat" on the white board at the head of the room, and today the meeting opened with me explaining Halloween [they don't really celebrate it here] and letting them know that there was going to be a pot of candy at my door all day today-- if they wanted some, they would have to say "trick or treat" to me first. Over the course of the day I got to watch was grown-ups fought over pieces of candy in my pot.
October has been a hard month for those working here, as it is the first month of several where they will be feeling the burden of a 20% paycut due to economic issues. Today they get their paychecks and they will realize this big cut... but hopefully me putting a little more goofiness [and candy] in the day will make things a little brighter!

Neighboring Realities

My neighbors are quite an eclectic bunch: on one side I have a veterinary clinic/Christian organization of some sort, with a sangoma [traditional healer] towards the back. I was told that my sangoma neighbor only does healings on the weekend, but considering that I have been listening to the sounds of beating drums and loud singing for the past three days, I do not think this is the case. 

My back window looks directly into the yard of the neighbor behind me... I keep that curtain closed because I feel that is awkward on both ends. 

On the other side I share the street with a night club [apparently infamous for weekly stabbings] that I am blaming for the glass all over the sidewalk every weekend. Then there is a tall apartment building and right next door to me is a vacant house-building-thing.

The vacant building next door is a little eery... the gates usually wide open at the street and obviously run-down and not kept. Since I have been here I have never seen anyone at the property just over the wall from me... that is until last week. Last week I was walking down the street and a boy said hello to me as he was locking the front gate. I said hello back, because he didn't say "Heeelloooooo" with the I-am-trying-to-hit-on-you kind of tone, it was just a "Hello." as in a normal greeting. Cool, neighbors are moving in. But I never saw anyone move anything in, I never saw anyone cleaning the place up, I never even saw that boy again, but I did notice the gate was getting locked at night.

Fast forward to last night: I am sitting next to Klaske and as we drive away she says, "Oh, you live next door to the street kids." "Excuse me?" "That building next door to you, many homeless older kids started living there about last week." Klaske, from Holland, does street work with Youth for Christ, and mentioned she had just been there the other day looking for a boy they were taking to rehab. "Yeah, it is disgusting in there and it smells awful. There are wires coming out of the walls and the condition is very poor, but they have water."

I then asked Klaske tons of questions, trying to figure out who my new "neighbors" are. Apparently they are all older kids who live on the street. When she was there she saw about 4 girls around 16-18 years old, who apparently weren't wearing any tops and when Klaske told them they shouldn't walk around the property naked they responded, "It doesn't make a difference what we wear, the boys will do the same thing to us anyway." There are some older guys there, 18-early 20s, who take alcohol bottles, break them and use the top to smoke dagga [marijuana], and "whatever else it is they smoke." Klaske doesn't think that it is one group of kids, but rather people always coming in and out, especially when the weather is bad [which it currently is because it is "rain season" here]. 

I asked how most kids end up on the street. "Orphans. Or they are orphans and try to live with their other families, but it doesn't work out. Or maybe a step-father comes to their family. Or they get in a fight with their granny and leave home. For the older ones they might get fired from their job and are too ashamed to come home. There are a lot of reasons, though." There are a lot of children who live on the street in South Africa, many times due to family issues revolving around deaths. I don't see very many of them, though... sometimes I see one dancing in the middle of the street for money or food, but I guess where I live you would have to go looking for them to see where they are. (I noticed as soon as I got here that although there is such a high homelessness rate, I have never seen beggars [unlike Harvard Square, which is beggar central]. How is this possible? Maybe it is a cultural thing, or maybe in a country where everyone is poor, who exactly is going to give you money? It is not like anyone else has anything to spare.)

This morning I see two boys hanging their clothes outside the window. They see me see them.

Yep. 

They are definitely living there.

They are living on the other side of the brick wall, the only wall I have that is not topped with barbed wire.

I feel bad saying this-- but this is terrifying. I don't like living by myself next door to this. At one point Klaske said, "They are nice kids.They wont hurt you, but lock up everything you have because if they figure out that you are living there they might try to steal your things." The only thing that is known is that they sleep there and do drugs there, everything else we can leave to our imagination and hope for the best.

I kinda feel torn. 

On the one hand, these kids who don't feel like they can go home finally found a shelter, somewhere to sleep during the rain, a place to share with other kids they find on the street. This is an excellent find for them: shelter, community, if nothing else a place to call home that isn't the street. I don't want to take that away from them.

On the other hand, I don't really feel safe at all. I could care less if these young men are smoking weed inside that building, if they drink themselves silly, but what do the girls do in that building? And what if boredom or necessity leads them outside of that building and over into my area, into my room. I am the queen of freaking myself out with "what ifs," and this is truly no exception. Chances are they know or will figure out that I live here [by myself], and chances are that that wouldn't be a good situation to have.

I told some of the people I work with at Thandanani about the situation. Therusha anonymously called the Umgugundlovu municipality [not the police] and they said tomorrow they are coming to act as if there is a "routine check-up" of the building. They will find the kids, or at least the signs of kids living there, and hopefully act accordingly.

I feel really bad. I really do. I either compromise my personal safety or the safety of the 10+ people who might be living there. I feel selfish [although I did not know Therusha called the municipality until after she told me she had done it-- if anything, it is to protect the office so they don't break in]. But what if these are the nicest kids in the world and I [indirectly] just had them put out? :::sigh:::

Storming

I kind of like thunder and lightning. I find it exciting and thrilling.

But this? This series of nearly-nightly bouts of thunder that rocks the ground and lightning that fills the entire room like a strobe light?

This is just scary.

Laundry Faux Pas

My clothes smell nasty. I don't really know what to do about them, other than walk around town carrying a breeze of rancid clothes with me, sharing my misery with everyone who passes by.
So on Saturday morning I woke up early in the morning because I was just too hot to sleep. Saturday was a very, very hot day, 95+ degrees and it was even 80-degrees at 6:30pm. Waking up to intense sunlight, I thought it was a great day to do my laundry.
I don't have a dryer... and I don't have a working washer, either. I felt so independent as I went to the store a bought some detergent made specifically for handwashing clothes [most people in South Africa hand wash their clothes, at least in the townships]. I thought I was so clever when I constructed a clothes line out of a phone line that I had found, tying two phone lines together around trees and fences. Voila! Clothes line.
I scrubbed and washed my clothes... basically ALL of my clothes because I was on my last pair of undies, and worked hard to rinse the soap out of them and ring them out. It is tough, especially when coming to sweatpants, jeans, and towels... my arms actually hurt in the end. I strung out all of my clothes on the "clothes line" and was happy to have so much sun out.
Then I went on that picnic with the YFC kiddos. Then the storm came. Then I came home the next morning to find my clothes mostly all off the clothes line, wet in a large pile of mud. Awesome. Fortunately at the market I also bought some clothes pins along with my $1.11 cookbook. I took the clothes, soaked them again, rinsed them again, and hung them outside. And then it rained again. So then I put my clothes in my room, hanging them anywhere I could. Now my clothes and my room have that awful smell that comes with wet towels stay on the bathroom floor too long. Ughhh!
Maybe I should just walk into town with my dirty clothes, use the laundry mat and hope that no one steals my underwear. So much awesomeness and independence.

Saturday Adventure!

This Saturday I went with the Youth for Christ volunteers to Tala Reserve for a picnic lunch. I loved it! Anyone who has hung around me too long might know how much I love picnics-- not only does it involve food [a big plus to any situation], it is also so much fun, relaxing, and incredibly cute. We all [there were 8 of us representing USA, Australia, Germany, Holland, and Belgium] sat down and ate a big lunch in the park-- there was a group of guys playing great music and the weather was great... it was perfect.

After we finished eating we took a ride through the park. It is a game reserve, so we drove past zebras, ostriches, yak-like animals, deer-like animals [I don't know what these animals were], warthogs [like Pumba in The Lion King], giraffes, etc. Unfortunately I don't have too many awesome pictures because I spent much of the time in the back seat behind tinted windows that you couldn't roll down. Womp womp. But I did manage to get a few shots.

Look at the skyline!

Giraffe, zebras, and yak-things all in one shot.

[we had to coerce the zebra to get out of the road!]

We were driving up and down the hills and it was starting to get a little dark. We decided it was time to go back, especially because we were running out of petrol/gas. We could hear booming thunder in the distance and saw some lightning over the hills. After doing the best we could to read their map, we realized... we were lost. No idea how to get out and we couldn't wander around anymore because our gas tank would leave us stranded in the park. We called the front gate to ask how to get out, but that just left us more confused. We then went up a private drive to ask someone who may live there... Marita and Jaquomin [Jackie] went up to knock on the doors but there was no one there. It started to rain. The park was going to close soon. Marita and Klaske started freaking out [I was perfectly relaxed because I somehow was incredibly certain we would be okay]. When all hope was lost, a caravan pulled up with guys from a local Christian orphanage. They were very helpful and gave us a shortcut out of the park through the orphanage and we got to the gas station quickly. All was well.

On the way home the rain started to clear up a little bit and the sun was shining through the clouds. Rain + sun = perfect opportunity to go rainbow hunting. And what do you know-- I actually found a rainbow in the sky. When we got back to Pietermaritzburg the rain started pouring again. POURING. The thunder was shaking the entire building, the power was going in and out, the lightning was filling up the sky at less than 15-second intervals. The wind was tearing branches off the trees and blowing the heavy rain in under the doors. At one point when Klaske and I were walking back in the house from the movie rental place, there was a huge roar of thunder immediately followed by a bright burst of lightning and suddenly the tree 15 meters in front of us was cracked in half. Klaske thinks it was hit by lightning, but I have no idea because I jumped at the sound and ran into the house. The storms here are quite terrifying but incredibly awesome!

The sun peeping through the clouds after the rain.

I found a rainbow!

You should never blindly stick your camera outside the window of a moving car... but if you have the guts to do so, you might get a show like the one above.

That night I decided it was time for a little cultural exchange. I am usually at a loss as to what I can do to share my culture, seeing as MacDonalds and KFC are already all over South Africa and I don't find America to be too "culturally rich." But tonight I had a great idea! We popped in the movie Marley and Me [great movie, by the way], lit some candles, stuck some marshmallows on forks and put them over the fires. After roasting the marshmallows I showed everyone in the house that the proper next step was to put it on a biscuit and add a large piece of chocolate. That's right, I gave a s'mores tutorial. Everyone loved them!

That night I ended up having to sleep over at the YDC [something I was totally unprepared for] because someone had taken the car keys to bed with them and it was too dangerous/wet to walk back by myself. The next morning I introduced Mona to the wonders of french toast [my favorite breakfast meal] and later went to the outdoor market where I bought a 1973 Better Homes and Gardens "Cooking Encyclopedia" from an old woman for a little over $1. It was just the first volume of the encyclopedia so I only have recipes that start with the letter A, but I am excited for all the apple and asparagus [do they even have that here?] dishes I can make!

T.G.I.F... part 2

So I walked into town for 20 minutes to buy some groceries and get some bug spray to stop the ant parade in my kitchen. I would not necessarily say that I am the neatest person in the world, but I really don't like bugs and I really don't like messy kitchens.

My roommates were kind enough to leave me some parting gifts.

1. The first would be the before mentioned ant parade through my kitchen and another ant family journeying into my living room to eat whatever food that is smashed in the middle of the floor. I felt a bad that killing the ants while saying "die! dieeeeee!" was so incredibly gratifying. Muah ha haaaa I'm evil.
2. Another would be a small ball of braided extensions out of one of their heads, just chillin' on my windowsill. Plus my scissors that was use to cut them out of her head when it got tangled in her hair tie. I am so lucky to find such precious clumps of hair in my room.
3. I also got my Zulu dictionary back! The one I let them borrow and then they temporarily lost it in training center/held it hostage until I did their homework.
4. My one good pan. It's handle was a bit wobbly, but it was the only pan I had and it had no holes in the bottom! I found it on top of the stove with leftover oil and sausage gunk from the morning still in it. When I cleaned it I saw that my non-stick pan had gone to battle with a metal fork and came out with large battle wound scratches... my pan, nonstick-no-more. :::sigh:::
5. Lastly, oil stains and splatters all over my kitchen. Everywhere. Aren't they kind? I actually had to borrow a stovetop from someone at work because the ones I had were so low-powered I couldn't cook anything... and now it is caked with oil and the once-shiny silver coils are an oil-splottered black. Ugh! Anyone out there know how to fix this so I can return it as I got it? Oil is absolutely amazing-- so resilient. I tried a sponge, then tried steal wool... but it perseveres. I just can't get it off of my stove, and didn't even attempt the yellow splotters on my white wall.

After I was done cleaning as much as I could, I was too tired to cook dinner. But! I had splurged and bought the new multi-grain Cheerios that just made their way to South Africa! So I had Cheerios for dinner... and then when I got up to get some more I vomited the Cheerios back up. Oops... too much information? Sorry. I think I hadn't had milk in so long that my body freaked out a bit... needless to say, I didn't go for seconds.

I need to stop being mean. I am mean. I do understand that this was the first time that these young women had been out of their township and I was the big, bad intimidating umuntu omhlophe ["white person"], so of course there was going to be a bit of culture clash. And I am still not bitter, it is just a funny situation!

T.G.I.F...

Today is Friday... meaning that the NACCW [National Association for Child Care Workers] training is over... meaning that the four volunteers who have been living with me all week will probably go home today. Awesome.

I feel really bad about being happy to see them you leave. All this time I wanted someone to live with, but last week when they told me I was going to have four volunteers from Richmond living with me, I already knew I had a problem. Just from life experience, and I guess a little from studying Sociology, I know that if you get 4 people from the same area who all speak the same language [which is not your language]... they are probably only going to talk to each other and blatantly ignore you. My prediction was correct for the most part. It is like I can't win.

Day 1: volunteers arrive. they fight over who is going to have to be the one person to sleep in the same room as the foreigner. i introduce myself and they just stare at me blankly; i realize they don't speak english. i show them where the bathroom is and one just pulls her skirt down and uses the toilet as we are still standing there; i realize they are from a very rural community. i try to show them some of the projects i have been working on and they just talk amongst each other; i realize they do not care.

Day 2: apparently i am living with people who wake up at 5:30am [with the sun] and feel the need to turn the television on its highest volume and then talk loudly over it... i refuse to get out of my bed, despite the fact they are shouting in zulu over my head. and chicken bones cause ants to come inside. i hate ants. they are around the same age as me, they should know to throw the chicken bones far away. i can attempt to engage in friendly chit chat because i know what strikes up conversations with all girls: boyfriends. i show them a picture of andrew and tell them he is my "isoka." they are amazed that 1. i am dating a black person, and 2. somehow this black person is not from africa. they say he is handsome-- we at least agree on something.

Day 3: i am awake in my bed at the crack of dawn, once again. i fancy that they feel comfortable enough to just walk around shirtless after bathing, so i must not be too intimidating. they are unhappy that i have an ironing board, but not an iron [people here iron their clothes every single morning]... somehow an iron later appears in our room. cool. they like me now because i did their homework for them... i tried to read the whole thing and explain it in simpler terms, but they don't really speak english so the question "please explain a negative influence in the child's physical development" is a tough one. the fact that they graduated from high school, which is supposed to give english instruction, and they cannot even carry a conversation with me just shows how awful the school system is here. i offer them some homemade mashed potatoes a la brittan and they decline.

Day 4: i dont like being woken up at 6am to do your homework. they must think that i am nasty because i only shower once a day; they bathe in the morning, before ironing, and at night. i am quickly learning that there is no such thing as a "personal item" because if they see it, they use it. your hair spray, conditioner, food... not my toothbrush, though [that i know of]. i forget how communal people are here and everything is family style, everyone shares. unfortunately i was not as prepared to share but i guess i can deal with it. i learn some zulu phrases to tell them and they love that i am trying to speak zulu-- they think i am pretty goo! but they don't like me as much today because i made them do their own homework-- how am i supposed to write about their personal experiences? they asked me to just write down general answers to the questions and they will change the names.... umm, still not going to work if everyone has the same story. i give them my zulu dictionary and say that i am around if they want me to check their answers or explain the questions.

Day 5: more ants! and someone has my keys so i cannot get into my office or unlock my bike. please give me back my keys. and i am going to ignore the oil splatters all over the wall next to the stove... somehow they can't manage to properly throw away their leftover food, but they make their beds perfectly every day; i am not making my bed, so now i am the nasty [shower only once a day], lazy [refuses to get out of bed at 5am] and untidy [my bed sheet creases are not perfect and i don't iron my clothes] foreigner... what a label. i came home late and was greeted by a note on my bed, "B. SMITH PLZ DO THIS HOM WORK." ugh. so i write a note in return saying that i can't really answer these questions because it is about their training that they have been getting all week, but i have some ideas and i will write them down, they can ask for more help in the morning and we can go through it together. i also ask them to not wake me up at 5 o'clock in the morning since i am staying up late to do their homework.

Day 6: i can barely open my eyes, i am so tired... but i can't sleep with all the noise. what time is it? oh, 5:45am. awesome. that is only two hours before i was planning to get up. i say good morning and thank God that this will probably be the last sleep-deprived morning i experience for at least a little while. i greet them with a smile, and think my usual thought that i cannot be mean or bitter about the situation because it is just a case of cultural clash and a huge language barrier. tonight i sleep in peace.

I swear I am not impossible to please... it is true that before I wanted someone to live with and it is also true that as soon as I got some people to live with I started counting down the days until they left. Fortunately I am not really angry or bitter [although it may sound like it]; I actually find the situation to be more comical than annoying. I guess you just have to be careful what you wish for!

I love babies.

On Tuesday I had the pleasure to serve as a human carseat to a 2-week old baby as we traveled to Richmond and back. It had been a long time since I had held a baby that young, but we quickly became comfortable with each other and I loved looking at his tiny, tiny finger nails. [It was weird to realize that the crown of young babies' heads actually are a bit soft; I was afraid that I was going to poke his brain or something.]

Yesterday I went to the Willowfontein ELC again to delivery groceries to them. Remember that adorable baby that I took a picture of last time? [Probably not, because I take pictures of many adorable children.] Well he is starting to walk and walked right over to me. I picked him up and every time someone tried to take him away from me he would cry and hold on to my shirt for dear life. Yep, we're friends. And he is absolutely adorable. When it was time to leave I had to give him back [sad!], but it was so cute when all the children lined up against the fence to say bye. I love how young children will do whatever you do-- I blew them kisses and had about 30 sweet kisses blown back at me! As we drove away some of the kids ran along the fence to keep saying goodbye to us... It makes it hard for me to leave.

The kids here are so cute! All of them. How are they all cute? I stumps me. They are just so innocent and content with what they have, just happy to have someone to give them attention and a rock to play with. I hope my kids are cute and happy kids. :)

God Cast his Vote

And then God cast his vote on the bike situation and He said, "Brittan. Don't ride a bike," and completely flattened my tire.

:::sigh:::

To Bike, or not to Bike?

I had been asking around to see if I could borrow someone's bike to make the trip to track practice a little less time consuming. On Monday I was pleasantly surprised when someone told me I could borrow their bike until December! Awesome. It is a pretty nice bike too, with awesome gear changers.

I tried out my new trick-mobile on Monday and cut the time in half-- from an hour+ to about half an hour. Sweet.

Come Tuesday, I realized the situation I had put myself in. Sitting in the office I could barely keep my bum to the chair because of the incredible amounts of pain-- that stupid, tiny, skinny bike seat actually made me sore and bruised. It wasn't as if walking was any easier than sitting, because my thighs were completely dead. After getting on that bike on Monday I quickly realized that I basically lived in South Africa's San Francisco: the biggest, steepest hills imaginable... maybe that is the reason why I have never seen anyone ride their bike around here, because it is impossible unless you have thighs made out of superman-quality titanium. Even in my 4 years of weight training and doing monster squats in the giant Harvard weight room, or doing stadiums or even hill runs, my thighs have truly never felt a pain like this... I am dead serious. Imagine how stupid I felt when I had to get off the bike and start walking up the hill. Pretty stupid. I could barely walk yesterday evening, let alone do anything remotely athletic while I was at the track.

Sooooo maybe the bike wasn't the best idea. Maybe I will give myself a week, telling myself that the the bike ride is a great replacement to weight-lifting or something. Maybe I will be able to sit down without feeling immense amount of pain in my rear from the bike seat, or walk without cringing in pain.Or maybe I will decide that I would rather take twice as long and speedwalk with cramped calves instead of biking/bike-walking with cramped calves, dead legs, and a sore bum. 

Cast your vote.

I tag along and find myself in intersting places...

I got a text message from one of the Youth for Christ volunteers inviting me to some black-and-white attire event that they were invited to... and that was all the information I had. We didn't really know where we were going or what exactly we were going to, but the I ran down the street to a cheap Chinese shop to buy a 100-Rand dress and 100-Rand shoes (about $27 total) for the occasion. I was happy to dress up a bit. We paid 40 rand at the door and when I walked into the gym of this high school I was surprised at how beautiful it was. Twenty-eight tables decorated with beautiful candles and place settings. Apparently I had stumbled into a year-end party for the young adults at a nearby mega church. Other than the group that I came with I didn't know anyone so the funny skits and references made on stage were not as funny to me, but I was really happy to be there. My legs hurt like crazy from wearing heels the night of a track meet-- but this is a feeling that I am used to after 4 years of college. It was the first time I got to dress up, eat a nice dinner, and dance a bit since I had been here. It was fun! 

Mona, YFC volunteer from Germany,

and Marita, YFC volunteer from Australia

Isabella [Germany], Brittan [USA], Marita [Australia] and Mona [Germany].

There are other girls from Holland who are not pictured.

My First Track Meet in South Africa

I know, I know, this is the post that you all have been waiting for... haha.

So I traveled for an hour to Durban to compete in the first meet of the season at King Park Athletics Stadium, right next to the new Durban World Cup soccer field that is currently under construction. It got off to a rough start: first I am told that I am supposed to bring my own starting blocks, but I don't think our team even owns any... I panic a bit. A half-hour waiting in the registration line [it is pretty inefficient to have all the athletes go up one by one in a large mass to tell you what events they are doing] I am told that the 400m and the 100m races are switched-- meaning that the 100m race was starting in about 4 minutes instead of at the end of the meet. I run to the front of the line, do a half-warmup, and then I am on the track and ready... but then it takes an hour for me to actually get into the blocks as we then wait for the heats ahead of us... it was a mess.
As I try to figure out what is going on, I look at myself: I am wearing an over-sized top made for marathon runners with the bottom half of it being nothing but mesh/net material, my belly button peeking through and saying hello to the entire world. Below that are some flappy distance-running short-shorts with nearly zebra-like rainbow stripes on one side and the UKZN symbol on the other. And on my feet are some takkies [sneakers] that I kept from Harvard last year. I didn't quite look like someone who was going to be sprinting and long jumping that day. It had been raining all morning, so the track was slippery and my teammates told me that running on a wet track in takkies for a 100m race was just going to make me slip and I would be really slow... they recommended running barefoot. Considering that falling on my face at the starting line is not a new experience for me, I decided it was worth taking the risk to run in takkies instead of shredding my feet. I watched the girls in my heat dig their spikes into the rubber surface with every stride they took getting farther and farther in front of me as I crossed the line at a laughable 13.30 seconds.

I then waited at the long jump pit, watching Wale jump and wondering when we would actually start-- they were jumping 36 guys simultaneously without any flights... it was a slight mess. The girls started long jump over two hours after the scheduled start, but there were only about 7 of us so it went pretty quickly. I jumped against 4 high schoolers, a 50-year old woman, and an annoying girl who was about my age. With such stiff competition, I didn't know how I would stack up. Wale bet me that I wasn't going to jump over 5meters trying to jump in takkies on a slippery surface and no coaching... seriously? If I did anything, I was going to jump over 5 meters. Oh please. So that was my goal-- to make Wale feel stupid for saying such a thing. I left the meet with a 5.34m mark, which is still over 17 feet and considering the circumstances I am not too angry about it. One of the high school girls jumped a 5.15m and the older woman never made it to the 4-meter mark... so it was a pretty solid victory [not that it counted for anything].
It felt weird not wearing spikes. It felt odd not having anyone there [no coach, no teammates] to watch me jump and give me advice as to what to work on. It was weird to not even see a rubber track the 5 month prior to competing on it. But I will admit-- I loved it. I had so much fun. I was surprised at how comfortable I felt on the long jump runway and how running to the board, no matter how unprepared I was at the time, felt so familiar [and I only fouled one of the six jumps, which is quite an accomplishment if you know me]. Between my events I ran around the field cheering for teammates competing on the track, even though I don't know most of their names... I just kind of also wanted to show them how important it is for teammates to support each other. I was very lucky to always have a group of teammates to watch me long jump the last couple years and although I didn't have that this time, by the end of the meet the whole team was on their feet cheering for our last runner. :)

In the beginning you would have thought I was competing for Harvard still.

In the middle is Wale, my grad student "training partner"

I was not about to long jump in those shorts because the sand would... well, you know.

We got in a team picture!

The South African track meet shoe breakdown:

85% spikes, 10% barefoot, 5% takkies

On the way back home we stopped for lunch near a beach...

check out my new BMW!

Ugogo Isibusiso

Doing these evaluations for Thandanani is a bit terrifying. My first evaluation session was with the volunteers on Tuesday, and after I had thanked them for their time and participation, I left the room to put the dirty cups in the sink. When I came back, they were still there. "We need our money." What? Apparently I was supposed to reimburse them for their transportation right there on the spot, an important detail that I didn't know about. After running around the office and trying to figure out the situation, they left with some money 20 minutes later.
Today I did my first round of caregivers. I was already slightly terrified because I knew it would be much harder to communicate with this group as most of them knew no English at all. I walked in to see rows of elderly women with stern faces waiting for me. How intimidating. I know angry old women can be vicious, so I just didn't want to make them angry.
Thinking about it now, I cannot believe I was that afraid of these women. They aren't intimidating at all-- in fact, I think these might be the nicest people I have ever met. Once they started talking I could see how nice and gentle these women are. I loved their smiles and couldn't help but to notice how beautifully they had aged. I really believe what made them so beautiful is how appreciative they were of all the small things-- this was so apparent that even though I didn't know exactly what they were saying I could see the gratitude in their eyes. After the evaluation finished one of the women stood up and asked everyone to thank God for all that he has provided for them and for the help of Thandanani... immediately the women were out of their seats and all saying their own prayers out loud, thanking God over and over again [that is some of the Zulu that I understand]. They all ended together in the Lord's Prayer and then continued to sing Halleluia together. They had turned the evaluation session into a small church service. On their way out they all gave me a hug and thanked me [even though I didn't really do anything], asking God to bless me. The experience meant a lot to me.

Nearly everyone told me that I would need tough skin to work with the poor in South Africa, that it would be hard for me to hold back tears as I walked through the townships. After being here for a month and a half and having seen children with no clothes and houses with no roofs, I kind of feel bad because I haven't had the urge to cry at all... until today when I got a bit emotional watching these women. These are elderly women living off of pennies every day, doing all they can to raise orphaned children to live happy, healthy lives. They live in deteriorating mud buildings that leak when it rains and have trouble finding food for dinner... yet they are so happy and so grateful. Nothing is taken for granted. They have so little when it comes to worldly resources, but when it comes to what you can't put a price on... they have so much.
I really admire that and I only hope that one day I can also be that person that can teach by example the power of gratitude to others that I meet.

The Plight of Education in South Africa

[Warning: this is a long one, but something that is important to me]
Last Saturday I reunited with Jean Junior [the other Harvard 2009 grad who studied Sociology and is also working at an NGO in Pietermaritzburg] and joined her with two American UPenn medical school students who are currently doing their residency here. They were the first Americans I have hung out with since I have been here!
Anyway, we drove to Durban to go to the Kwa Muhle Museum... I wasn't too excited to go to a museum, but I was happy to be going somewhere with company so I went in smiling. There was a huge room in the museum that just had walls covered with the American flag... I thought, Really? I come all the way to South Africa to end up in a museum featuring American history??? I soon learned that I could have stayed in that room forever. It just so happens that this room was dedicated to outlining the struggle for equal education in the United States, something that coincides very well with all the school work I did on race and education in college. It was very interesting to see how closely the struggle for equal education in the United States parallels with trying to give equal education to blacks in South Africa. If I had the time I would have stayed there to read every single panel on the wall; after feeling a bit unfulfilled and useless the last couple of weeks, this room was a great refresher that reminded me what I am passionate about and why I came to South Africa.

In 1953 the Bantu Education Act basically ended any opportunity for black children in South Africa to get adequate education. In 1954, Brown vs. The Board of Education created an opportunity for black children in the United States to get an equal education. It is almost as if everything was ending for children in South Africa just as things were just starting in the United States.
The Bantu* Education Act ensured that the syllabus for black students was designed to prepare pupils for an inferior role in society. Basic skills was all that was given to blacks in order to beat down their independence. This quote that I saw on the wall at the museum was incredibly striking:

"The Natives will be taught from childhood to realize that equality with Europeans is not for them... What is the use of teaching the Bantu mathematics when he cannot use it in practice?.. There is no place for the Bantu child above certain forms of labor."    - H.F. Verwoerd, 1953

Another South African politician agreed, quoted:

"We should not give the Natives any academic education. If we do, who is going to do manual labor in the community?"

Hearing these statements makes my blood boil. It infuriates me to know that people are capable of reducing human beings to this not based on their work or effort, nor based on their actions or attitudes, but based on their race, something they have no control of.

It is incredible how closely the American and South African education evolutions parallel... the biggest difference is that the U.S. got a 40-year headstart. There used to only be vocational training for blacks, Mexicans and Asians in the U.S., just as the Bantu Education Act legally forced in South Africa. In some cities of the American southwest, there was three or four-way segregation of white, black, Mexican and Indian children, similar to the segregation of white, African, coloured and Asian children in South Africa.
And just like the black students who needed to be escorted by federal marshals into their schools (such as Ruby Bridges from New Orleans in 1960, above), 16 black South African students were escorted into their primary school by police in order to deter the white public from violently revolting.
It wasn't until 1996 that the South African Schools Act was created to give equal education rights. 1996. That means even people my age were still in segregated schools learning Bantu education until 4th grade... And as someone who is living here, I will be honest and say that the schools are still very segregated. This could also be an effect of residential segregation, considering that for the most part all blacks, whites and Indians live together.
I truly believe that his unequal education era has really set the blacks here behind... it is impossible to even compete for the same jobs because they never had a proper education. I feel like this is partly responsible for the high unemployment here, the low literacy rate amongst blacks, the poverty. Education really is everything, especially when competing against others for the same resources. It will be decades until things can even start to level out. This is so unfair. You cannot deny a child their education.

I really wish I was still in school so I could write my thesis on this, to compare the parallel struggles for equal education between the United States and South Africa, and look at the after-effects of years of enforced segregation and how it has played out in the two countries. It would be something like "The United States and South Africa: The Fight for Equal Education" and I could spend months on researching it because I find the similarities between the two fascinating. I wondered why they had that whole room dedicated to the race struggles in America [they had panels on lynching and the KKK, etc.]... but maybe it was to give hope, to show South Africans that another country struggles with similar issues and turned out okay... maybe we give them something to look forward to.**

*The word "bantu" simply means "people," but it was often used to refer to black people in South Africa.
** I know for a fact that education in the United States is still not equal and that many minority students are still suffering, but I think that from an outsider's point of view and looking at the big picture, it looks like we have reached equality, therefore giving them hope. I know we are not done, but we sure have come a long way.
*** The facts about the Bantu Education Act listed here all come from what I learned in the Kwa Muhle Museum... I really look forward to reading more about this and understanding it more, and I cannot pretend like what I have said here will paint a complete and accurate picture.

Obama-mania

I am in this little bubble-- because I am overseas, I am not really aware of all the things that happen in the United States... South Africa has enough news on its own to try to keep up with. But just a few minutes ago Cristiana Strava [another Rockefeller Fellow doing her year in Morocco] told me some amazing news: U.S. President Barack Obama just won the Nobel Peace Prize. I had no idea! This was very unexpected to hear, and I will admit I was a bit surprised. I don't even know if I completely agree with it... but this is big news! I just ran around and told every person in my office and we all celebrated together.
Now I have no idea what kind of work Obama is doing in the US right now because I am over here and I don't see the affects of it... I also know I have a very great mix of pro-Obama and anti-Obama readers to this blog. Either way, I will tell you one thing: Having Obama as president has made traveling internationally much easier. No, no, getting a visa to go overseas is just as hard, if not harder than it was before. What I mean is that people from other countries really like Obama, and I am saying this objectively [this post has nothing to do with my personal views].
When I went to Indonesia I was once stopped by university students who asked me why all Americans think that Muslims are terrorists. What? Who gave them that idea? "But your president, Bush, that is what he said." It is terrifying to know that is the misconception people had about Americans, especially while living in the most Muslim country in the world. Even when I went to the UK to compete with the track team, the people there had major issues against Bush.
Coming to Africa, I had a feeling that Obama was very well-liked here. A man of African descent holding the most important position in the world? Yes. And the people here are thrilled. One man told me, "When Obama was elected, South Africans where jumping over the moon." It also happened to be a happy election year for people here in KwaZulu Natal because for the first time since the start of their democracy a Zulu was elected into office [it was always a Xhosa before... tribal affiliations are still very strong here]. Phumlani said, "It was an amazing election year for South Africa!" [pictured below is U.S. President Obama and S.A. President Zuma]

But Africans were not the only people happy about our election results. The volunteers from YFC that I spend some time with on the weekends were very keen on asking me about whether or not I liked Obama. Sarah, an Australian, said that when he was elected Australia had their own celebration. The German girls agreed, and the volunteers from Holland said it was also a happy time for them. I remember reading about how when November 4th rolled around, the entire world was watching. The next day I read that the entire world was celebrating. Everyone celebrated Obama's victory.
If nothing else, I will just stand by my [experienced] opinion that it is a lot easier to be an international traveler when the world doesn't think that your president is trying to ruin their lives... and for that, I love Barack Obama.

"Ooh Sexy, Sexy..."

As summer rolls around, it is getting pretty darn hot over here in South Africa. Knowing that I was going to embark on hours of walking the other day, I decided to finally break out my shorts. As I was walking around I noticed that I didn't see any other women wearing shorts... although not all, most of the women here wear skirts. But some still wear pants and on rare occassion I will see younger women wearing shorts.
But today, I didn't see anybody. This made me a bit self-conscious. I already rolled down the hem of my shorts to make them as long as possible... Maybe no one else was wearing shorts because they knew the afternoon was going to end in pouring rain.
During my long journey I had to walk faster and faster to avoid eye contact with all the men calling to me, asking me where I was from, trying to get me to walk with them. Because I am obviously foreign I get this often... but this time it was ridiculous, almost frustrating.
I thought it must have been the shorts. Man, was that a mistake. At the end of the day I was talking to someone and realized that yes, my issue was the shorts. You see, to the Zulu the thighs are the most sexual part of the woman's body. Showing your thighs is a huge turn-on as they are seen as highly private and beautiful. You could walk around completely bare-breasted and people probably wouldn't care. Boobs out? No problem. Thighs showing? Well, then you have a parade of men following you around town. Go figure.

Addiction

I fear that I have just done something stupid.
You see, addictions make you do stupid things. They force you to go great lengths just to get a taste, forcing you to compromise what you already have in order to be that little bit happier. I do not know what I have just gotten myself into, but I am feeding into my apparent addiction. Pray for me!
Yesterday I walked for an hour and a half to the University of KwaZulu Natal rugby field. It was there that I met the 6 members of the UKZN track and field team. It was the first day of practice, and we had a fitness test that was running for as far as you can in 12 minutes-- at the very end I caught up with the one girl in front of me, a distance runner who doesn't wear shoes. The "track" is a set of lines drawn in the grass around the rugby field. There is no coach and there is barely a team. But, there just so happens to be something that resembles a long jump pit [or a randomly placed sandbox], although there is no runway and someone else referred to it as a "gravel pit." My three female teammates are funny; I asked one what her event was and she said, "Oh, field events. I don't like running. I don't know what I'll do yet, but I know I don't want to run."
Then I met Wale [pronounced like "Wall-ay" and not "whale"]. He walked up in spandex leggings and a Nike dry-fit shirt, his iPod blaring. He actually looked like he was going to track practice. Not only did he have takkies [running shoes], he even had spikes... and muscles! He looked like a serious athlete... and I am fortunate that this Nigerian long jumper just so happens to be my training partner. He, like everyone else on the team, is also self-coached and he seems to keep a bit to himself. After the 12-minute "fitness test" the rest of the team left while Wale and I stayed and did run-throughs well until the darkness, leaving at 7pm [he has a car, so he said he would give me a lift home]. I came home sweaty and dirty, my body achy and sore, and my shoes and socks filled with sand... but with a huge grin on my face. I just signed myself up for a commitment that is over an hour away and a constant reminder of how painful this sport is... and how much sand you can manage to bring home when you are a long jumper.

Ugh. Why have I done this to myself? I am almost angry that I couldn't stop myself from doing something so silly. It really is an addiction. I don't know who to blame for this. Maybe I should blame the doctor who corrected my club feet or my mother who always walked so fast that as a little kid I had to run to keep up. Or maybe I should blame my high school for forcing me to try an organized sport when I knew I was destined to play my flute [because a flute does not come flying at your face like balls tend to do in sports]. Maybe I should blame Mr. Hogarth for spying on me my freshman year of high school during JV soccer practice [my way of fulfilling my "organized sport" requirement] and telling me to join the track team. I should blame Paul Turner for entertaining my idea of being a collegiate track athlete and letting me join the Harvard team. Or maybe it is Coach Gee I have to blame, for turning me into a legit long jumper and teaching me how good it feels to be on the awards stand. Or at least I should probably blame my teammates for being my best friends and a constant network of support and fun.

There are many people I can blame for nurturing this addiction and driving me to [speed]walk for miles just to run in some grass and jump around in a sandbox. I definitely do not expect to be jumping the 6m that I managed at Harvard, but there is still something oddly gratifying about just competing at track meets that I am not ready to give up, not yet.

Calendars for Kids

As October begins, many of you may be thinking about Halloween or Thanksgiving... and since neither of those are really celebrated here, I am thinking all the way to Christmas.
If you were wondering, Wow, Brittan is over there all by herself... what should I get her for Christmas?, well I have the solution! I want you to buy a 2010 Calendar.

http://sites.google.com/site/calendarsforkids/

A few weeks ago I had the idea of making a photo calendar that could be made and sold in the United States to raise money for the projects here. After trying to work out all of the complicated logistics of doing such a thing, I have finally figured it out. The site may be a little messy, so if there are any problems just let me know. I would not be making much profit from each calendar because I didn't want the price to be ridiculous, but the profit that is made will be going towards making a new Early Learning Center in Pata. All extra money goes to getting school shoes for kids-- a great Christmas present.

So buy a calendar for you and your friends and your family and your pets. I will start shipping them in a few weeks if not sooner. And because I can customize calendars on an order-by-order basis, if you have any small requests let me know! And please forward this link to every single person you know. :)

Proud of Myself!

I am proud of myself. I did it.

Two days after being here I was told to make marketing materials to be hung up at the Natal Museum for Thandanani's 20th Anniversary... and that was the extent of the instruction that was given to me. I was given no computer with poster-making programs, I had no idea where to get the posters printed or laminated... I had two weeks and I feared that I would have to cut out pictures and glue them onto taped-up pieces of computer paper like I did in 3rd grade. Although I was feeling around in the dark, I did it. Fortunately I brought my old laptop with me, which has a stolen [by Anna's brother] Photoshop program on it. I don't really know how to use Photoshop, but I have played on it extensively. It took me a long time to figure out how to make these posters, but I did it. I even remembered to go back and edit all of my American spellings [from color--> colour, center--> centre, etc.]. I made all four of the posters, asked around until I found a printing place, got it laminated, called the museum director and had them hung up for the NGO celebration that launched this past Saturday. These four fine works of art will be hanging up until the end of March.

Headache

So I have had a headache for the last few days because it feels as if every single hair follicle in my head is being pulled on... it seems that way because it is true. On Monday night I went to Fikile's flat where her sister spent two and a half hours putting my hair in "platts," or braids, or cornrows, or whatever you want to call them.

Fikile jokingly told her young son and nephew that I was Alicia Keys, and playing along with it I started singing bits of her songs. Apparently after I left her nephew said, "But what is Alicia Keys doing here? Why was she at our house?!" Haha, they actually thought I was Alicia Keys.

It took a few days to get used to-- I couldn't get past how white my scalp was and how the new 'do accentuated my stick-out ears. But it has grown on me a bit. When I walked into the office the next day everyone kept saying, "Oh! Now you are a real Zulu woman!"

Finding the Beautiful in the Ugly

I spent all of yesterday hiking through mud and brush in the small village of Mgxobeleni in the Richmond municipality. It is a very rural community-- to get there you had to drive through miles and miles of open farm land... the perfect rows of vegetables backed by the plush green mountains were beautiful. You could see how rich the soil is here, and it is a shame that all the big farms are only owned by white people-- with a nation that is so diverse and so much for the land to offer, it saddens me that others are not benefiting from it. Yet another residual effect of the apartheid.

Anyway, we got to Mgxobeleni early enough that the morning dew was still caught in the spiderwebs and I was happy to take a breath of fresh, mountain air-- a big difference from the pollution that fills my lungs in the city. There was green all around and a certain sense of tranquility here-- no loud honking or pushy vendors, just people living their lives.

But then the American tourist pops in, the one that can't help but to think about all of the awful things before my eyes. As I walked around I saw houses in even worse condition than I had seen before and children with even less resources offered-- before the kids did not have any shoes, but many of these kids didn't even have pants. The women were doing their laundry in the dirty river water and as we interviewed the orphans the stories of deceased parents and runaway fathers were repeated over and over again. It was sad, yes, but it was also nice to hear of the children's hopes to one day become social workers, doctors or professional netball players despite their situations now. I like how the children here can find fun in creating their own toys and running around through fields and climbing trees [this goes for most all the children I have seen in South Africa]-- they don't need a TV or the newest video game in order to be entertained.

I think it is too easy for people from the outside to only see how sad and impoverished these communities are. It is the first thing that we look for-- the ugly, the bad, the things we need to fix. But I really enjoyed my time sloshing through the mud and looking at the fantastic horizon and eating berries off trees. I loved the smell of trees and the absence of noisy cars that pollute the city air. I imagine that being so separated is a problem for them making it difficult to go to stores and get valuable resources that they need-- it causes seclusion. I can see how this can be a problem, but I also value the peace that living in a valley of foresty mountains can bring. Now I will admit that I am still a city girl at heart and would have a tough time living somewhere like this without access to a car, but it was beautiful nonetheless.