So Nice You Have To Say It Twice

Monday, September 20, 2010

On Friday I finally arrived in Mtubatuba, part of the Umkhanyakude district in the KwaZulu Natal province of South Africa and a beautiful place that I am excited to call home for the next year.  Most of the municipality is rural, with dirt roads leading up to small, brightly colored circular or rectangular houses spread across dry, rolling hills outside a crowded town center (no, I am not spelling it centre just yet).  The vast majority of the people in the town and surrounding area are Zulu, South Africa’s largest ethnic group.  Mtubatuba is a half-hour drive from both St Lucia (part of the famous iSimongaliso Wetlands Park) on the coast to the East and the Umfolozi Game Reserve (Kruger’s smaller rival) to the West. 

The KZN province has one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in the entire world.  Roughly half of 20-25 year old females test HIV positive here, and almost as many 25-30 year old males are positive as well.  Umkhanyakude is considered one of the most deprived districts in South Africa.  There’s plenty of work to do.  To make matters worse, Mtubatuba currently suffers from a drought, and public water supply was cut off several times over the past week, hitting the local sugar cane mill and other agricultural enterprises hard.

As I mentioned before, I’m teaming up with the local health and education organization Mpilonhle, which implements the Grassroot Soccer curriculum in the region.  I’m living at the Mpilonhle guest house on a macadamia nut farm with Mpilonhle’s American intern, Jessica, who recently finished her third year of med school.  Michael and Christine, who founded the organization, live at the main house next door.  Today we picked up a new addition, a small Zulu puppy named Nduku, who will join our other 3 dogs, Mutombo, Iche, and Shrek, in keeping us company and watching over the farm.

I’ve enjoyed meeting the Mpilonhle staff over the last couple of days and got to hang out with many of the GRS coaches at a camp at one of the schools on Saturday.  The camp consisted of groups of students rotating between the GRS prevention curriculum, Mpilonhle health classes, counseling, and testing, and pick-up soccer.  These camps are crucial now, since the government labor strike in South Africa, which includes many teachers, has made it difficult to reach kids and carry out the curriculum during normal school hours.

On The Road

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I found my new favorite stretch of road.  For about 130 km, the R61 snakes across the mountainous terrain of the Wild Coast on its way to the beach village of Port St. Johns from Nelson Mandela’s hometown of Mthatha.  While rain was the biggest challenge for me and the maroon VW microbus on the first leg from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth yesterday, today I fought the wind and avoided scores of cattle, sheep, and uniformed schoolchildren, most of whom paid little attention to passing traffic.

Tonight I’m staying at a backpackers’ called Jungle Monkey, which also serves as a watering hole for an interesting local crowd.  I met one of the owners, Papa G, who told me about the shark problem in Port St. Johns.  Apparently, 3 people have been killed and many more injured by sharks over the past year in the small town.  Potential explanations range from sharks mistaking surfers for seals to swimmers failing to heed extensive but undetected warnings from the great whites to bloody animal sacrifices on the beach.  Serious Jaws 5 potential.

On Wednesday night I was lucky enough to enjoy a home cooked meal and spend time with the Port Elizabeth interns.  We shared stories of our experiences working for GRS thus far in South Africa; many of ours were similar, but some were unique.  The PE site, like Cape Town, was hurt by the government workers strike, but a new challenge emerged when many of the students at one school staged an aggressive protest in response to having to take final exams despite having been teacherless for the preceding few weeks.

Last week, I got to be part of a fascinating, eye-opening experience: the very first coaches training for GRS’ brand new curriculum, Generation Skillz, which caters towards 15-18 year olds and is designed to get kids to discuss and contemplate pertinent gender issues such as domestic violence and rape.  One out of every four South African men admit to having raped at least once.  These issues are very present here, including among the coaches who were participating in the training.  Alarmingly, some of the male coaches were not at all on the same page in terms of gender violence, and some of the female coaches were reluctant, perhaps too intimidated, to be heard.  In listening to the coaches, I began to understand the culture of violence, with Xhosa men making large bridewealth payments to their brides’ families and thus often viewing their wives as possessions or with children growing up seeing their fathers abuse their mothers without resistance and concluding that such behavior was acceptable.

Despite it being a training of coaches, we got to see the GRS teaching philosophy applied firsthand; behavior change results from intense, interactive discussion, rather than simply importing ideas through lecture, and children take after their role models.  While there is still a long, long way to go, including for many of the coaches themselves, I believe that they will be able to positively influence their students and generate very necessary conversation.  I think all of the staff and intern participants felt very good to be part of GRS this week and the broader fight for gender equality and respect.

On a lighter note, we’ve continued to take full advantage of our weekends, from camping at an outdoor electronic music festival to relaxing and surfing at Cape Town’s pristine beaches.

Last but not least, a big thanks to all of the Cape Town interns for putting up with me over the past month.

Drive My Car

Good news: GRS freed up some budget space for a vehicle for me drive in KwaZulu-Natal.  Fortunately for my adventure-seeking side, my latest assignment consists of finding a suitable (and reasonably priced) used car to buy and then driving myself across South Africa to the one and only Mtubatuba.  I still can’t seem to figure out why GRS vetoed my first find, a posh BMW 3-series, despite it fitting the budget constraints.  It looks like we’ll end up settling for a make that’s a bit easier and cheaper to service here, like Toyota, VW, or Mazda.  Keeping my fingers crossed for an old maroon VW minibus I saw yesterday.

I’ll need the car to check up on all of the rural schools in KZN that use the GRS curriculum, called Skillz, and help transport coaches to and from events.  In addition, I’ll be driving a bunch of bags and boxes full of new soccer gear (donated by GRS sponsors) out to Mtuba that will be distributed, bit by bit, to the coaches.  While these hand outs seemed trivial to me at first, as I start to better understand South African volunteerism, I’m now realizing that Nike or Adidas gear is actually used as a medium of exchange in certain parts of the country. 

In the US, we typically think of volunteering as giving time, money, or expertise from a position of privilege.  The GRS internship program I am participating in would be a good example: young college graduates taking a year away from their various career pursuits in order to contribute to a cause (thanks to generous help from family, friends, etc.).  However, many South Africans volunteer partly because it is the most financially attractive occupation available, often due lack of opportunities for paid full- or part-time employment.  For instance, many of the GRS coaches support themselves with volunteer stipends provided by GRS. 

           

Unfortunately, the current financial arrangement between GRS and our partner Mpilonhle in KwaZulu-Natal does not allocate monetary stipends to coaches in that area.  This is especially tough given the rural setting, as transportation often proves very difficult.  So donated apparel from companies like Nike, whether cleats, shoes, shirts, shorts, or warm-ups, is a major form of compensation for them.  In addition to routine handouts, the gear can be used to incentivize high-quality coaching.

GRS has even used Nike gear to barter with local school systems in Zimbabwe, where children have to pay tuition to take classes.  We hand over product to a local school, and, in return, the school counts the gear towards full-year tuition for a certain number of students.

I’m picking up more interesting cultural nuances.  Tumi, one of a handful of GRS coaches who work at the Cape Town headquarters, has been teaching me some introductory Zulu phrases.  Yesterday she told me not to make eye contact when speaking with older Zulus, as this is considered disrespectful.  By contrast, avoiding eye contact might be interpreted as rude back home, where I was taught to ‘listen with my eyes’. 

I’ve also learned that the word “now” does not usually convey the same immediacy in Cape Town as it does in the US.  Here, the phrase “now now” can mean 5-10 minutes from, well, now.  And “just now”?  That’ll be about 20-30 minutes or more.  James, one of the people I report to at GRS, joked that Cape Town is known as the Mother City because everything takes nine months to happen. 

Cheers and sizobonana (see you later).