As I am getting more comfortable and getting used to things here, it was a less hectic week. I printed some pictures of my visit to Cinderella on Monday for Mbali to take back to the township kids. The next day she brought back a hand-written letter from some of the kids:
To: Shanna
We greet you in the wonderful name of our lord & savior Jesus Christ, hoping that you are fine. Thank you very much for the photos you sent to us. We received them. We wish we could meet again. It was really good spending time with you. We wish you a good journey hoping that you will enjoy it. Good luck with everything you are wishing for this year. We can’t wait to see you again. Please take care of yourself. We will miss you very very much. THANK YOU.
From: Zimkhitha, Alithamsaqa, Abongile and Nolubabalo.
Swazi said we may be able to take an afternoon off and go visit Cinderella once more before my departure for Port Elizabeth so hopefully I’ll get to surprise them.
During the past week I have cooked multiple meals in the YMCA kitchen with Swazi, Lindie, Reinhardt, and Fish. Last Sunday I tried “pap” for the first time with some beef stew. Pap is corn that is mashed/ground up in grain-like pieces and it looks and tastes similar to mashed potatoes. As Swazi showed me, the Zulu way to eat it is without cutlery so we ate with our hands. We also played a little soccer with the street kids and ate some meals prepared by Rrrrrita (her name is pronounced with a strong roll of the R).
Monday night I had a different sort of experience. I was hanging out with Fish, who was the on-duty security guard, when Shannon came by not looking so good. Shannon is a 50-year-old Indian man. He is the nicest man, but he is extremely frail due to alcoholism. He was looking quite sick as he was just coming off of a bad streak of drinking so Fish and I helped him to his room where we were joined by one of Shannon’s ex-drug-dealing friends. Fish ended up calling for an ambulance. Emergency response is a bit different here. It took about 45 minutes for the ambulance to get to the YMCA. When it arrived, a few paramedics strolled into the room at their own pace and asked what was wrong with Shannon. We asked if they were busy tonight and they said yes, but they acted as if they had all the time in the world. They took his blood pressure, poked his finger, and asked if he wanted to go to the hospital. He said no but after about 15 minutes, Fish and I finally convinced him to go. When Shannon arrived back at the YMCA the next day he explained his awful hospital experience. He hardly slept at all –they didn’t have enough beds for everyone so there were many people sleeping on the floor. They put him on a drip and stuck him in a wheelchair for the night. At one point he fell out of the wheelchair onto the floor and could not get up himself. No doctor or nurse helped him up – another patient who was on the ground ended up helping him back into the wheelchair. After hearing this, I am going to try to stay EXTRA healthy!
The two Shannons enjoying an afternoon at the YMCA.
On a lighter note, I got to brainstorm camp games and activities on Tuesday which brought me back to du Nord! Even though I will not be here to help run the camps, it was so fun being able to bring my du Nord experiences to Pietermaritzburg and imagining the kids enjoying new activities. I typed up a detailed sheet of all of the name games and other activities that I could think of as well as a schedule and theme for each session, so hopefully those things will be implemented in the upcoming camps. I also secured a R500 donation for paint from a local hardware store this week so that we can give the main Y-Zone building (the after-school program for teenagers) a makeover. I am hoping to have this mostly done by the time I leave so I am spending much of my Saturday cleaning out the building getting it ready to paint. Since I have been here, no Y-Zone kids have shown up yet. I thought this was unfortunate so I made some posters both for a “Y-Zone Open Day Event,” which is free for everyone and also for the general Y-Zone program. With the help of the two interns here, we distributed them around some malls in Pietermaritzburg. I am hoping that some crumpers will show on Friday so that I can meet them and see them perform. I also made advertisements for renting out the chapel and the sports center because they are great affordable spaces for events but few people know about them. Reinhardt, Swazi, and I are going to an evaluation training session at Marienhill Monday through Wednesday so we will be staying in a hotel for a few days. Because of this, I really don’t have much more time here at the Pietermaritzburg YMCA – I can’t believe how fast the time has gone! I miss the US YMCA family so much and trust that everything is going well. I’d like to give a HUGE thank you to Skip, Peter, Lisa, Ben, Niki, my parents, and everyone else who has helped to make this whole opportunity possible for me.
I bought a cheap cell phone this week. Here, one must buy “airtime” separately, which allows you to call and text message so I loaded it up with R12. Also Reinhardt and I went to Checkers to pick up a cake, candles, coke, and cream soda and we had an office party for Thys, the CEO because it is his birthday on Saturday. On our way to the grocery store, we had to slam the breaks for a chicken darting across the road in front of us so we yelled out the window, “Why are you crossing the road?!” While we were in the office, Swazi showed me pictures of a previous intern eating chicken heads and chicken feet – yep… that’s right. It is one of Swazi’s favorite dishes and she vowed to cook it for me before I leave. Looking horrified, I told her I don’t know if I will be able to stomach something like that, but she insisted that I try it.
After work one day I went out and set up the volleyball net! It looks great – the grass is freshly cut, there are beautiful mountains and trees in the background, but there is one problem: there are no Blazers here to play with! In fact, I haven’t been successful in finding anyone to play yet but I told the street kids that I want to teach them volleyball before I leave so we are substituting volleyball for their usual soccer game next week.
When we were setting up the volleyball net, I noticed a ring of rocks with a ton of weeds growing in it. Those weeds couldn’t hide it – they couldn’t hide from me the fact that it was a fire pit! Obviously it had not been used in years so the following night I gathered all of the workers who live on site and we had a “marshmallow braai.” As I mentioned earlier, braai is basically the South African word for barbeque – it means to cook over an open fire. No one was familiar with the concept of s’mores, so I bought some Marie biscuits (like graham crackers), chocolate, and marshmallows. Since the fire pit is such a wonderful and open space, I suggested to Swazi that they have a bonfire or marshmallow braai for the teens in the Y-Zone program but she immediately explained that it would not work due to safety constraints. Since this YMCA includes accommodation, they are not allowed to let people into the YMCA grounds after a certain hour. It reminded me that there are many limitations that make it particularly difficult to run a YMCA especially here in South Africa.
All of the essential s'mores ingredients.
Swazi's first s'more!
We got off at 1pm again since it was a Friday. It was sunny and hot so I spent the afternoon at the pool across the street with Fish. Though it is still a little weird, I’m getting used to being stared at. Last night Fish and I were playing cards outside and all of the sudden we heard tires screeching against the pavement. Fish started laughing as we walked over to the front gate to see what was going on. He said, "All right just watch - when the light turns green those two two trucks will spin around and drag race." Sure enough. Ten seconds later the light turned green and two tow trucks did a U-turn and sped away as fast as they could. They both had just heard on the radio of an accident in town and whoever got to the scene first would get the business. On Friday evening, Reinhardt and I went to see the casino and a few other places around town. Other than that, I have been going to the gym most evenings and reading lots. Oh! I finally took the braids out too!
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