16 July 2010

Please help my friends in South Africa




everyone asks how they can help my friends in South Africa and this is how:

One of my job placements is at an AIDS Respite Unit, a place I have fallen in love with. A co-worker of mine, Cwengi Myeni is one of 15 women nominated to be South Africa's Woman of the year. She is by far one of the most outstanding women I have ever met and deserves this honor.


If she wins our program gets R100,000 and she herself gets R30,000 That is aprox 12,500 US dollars for the program and close to 4000 US dollars for her. THESE ARE HUGE AMOUNTS OF MONEY TO BOTH THE PROGRAM AND TO HER AND HER FAMILY.

Please take one minute to vote for her all you need is an email address.

go to:
www.womenoftheyear.co.za

vote under "Educators" for Cwengi Myeni (You can click on her picture and read more about her)

Please pass this on to anyone and everyone I would greatly greatly appreciate it!

11 July 2010

Five months

Being half way though a volunteer is both exciting and frustrating. On Thursday I realized that I had exactly five months until I was boarding an Emirates plane headed back to the States.

There are days that I love being here, I love the culture, the people, I adore my roommates and I am thankful for the distance from everything I have ever known. In those moments five months seems entirely too short.

I scoff at people who tell me that I’m lucky to be able to ‘take a year off from reality’ a sentence that I surprisingly hear quite often. Volunteering is not taking a year off, but rather a year on. In fact I would bet that as a volunteer more work is completed, more hours are put in and more challenges are faced. And to say that we are taking a year away from reality is making an uneducated statement. Reality surrounds me in its rawest form.

There have been days where it takes all my strength to pull myself out of bed. To know that I have to face yet another long day filled with frustration after frustration, death, exhaustion and putting the needs of my roommates before my own. It is in those days that the prospect of five more months is suffocating.

Just as the mid year slump was starting to really take its toll on me I was blessed to have three of my good friends from home visit. Christine, Meg and Liza were a large blessing in disguise. Of course for very selfish reasons I was happy to have them here, but their trip turned out to be much more than just being surrounded by people from home.

They were able to witness my life, something that words on a blog, sentences in an e-mail or conversations on skype can't quite fully capture. They were able to work at all three of my work sites and visit the homes of former patients who have since turned into friends. Through them I was able to remember a side of volunteering that I have recently shuffled under the rug; the joy that this opportunity provides me with.

While the girls observed my interactions with a patient I became embarrassed and frustrated that in her state of confusion it took me 20 minutes to get her to take her medicine at the Respite Unit. To later hear them say that they were impressed with my patience made me re frame my day to day interactions.

During our safari I was beyond irritated that our safari guide was chugging whiskey while driving us back to our hostel, an action that caused us to leave a night early, but to hear the excitement as they recounted seeing elephants five feet from our vehicle was priceless.

I was intimidated by their exhaustion and felt bad that I kept their visit jam packed with activity after activity, but sitting outside under the stars on their last evening in South Africa and seeing their tears when talking about how changed they felt and how sad they were to be going home made it all worth it.

I don't want to lie and say being a volunteer is easy, because it’s not. Every day I struggle. There are moments where I am bored with feeling useless at work, I’m sick of being polite, I’m annoyed I’m not making money and I’m over feeling guilty for spending money I don’t have on a chocolate bar just because I want one. There are moments when I hate coming home after a long day and feeling forced to be present within our household, or feeling like I can’t take the car to just get out of the house because someone else might need it. There are moments during each day (many more then I should so readily admit) that I want to take the easy rode and give it all up and head for home. Every day is a struggle of emotions, love, frustration, sadness, grief, heartache, passion, and contentment, but my friends visiting reminded me that is those emotions which make my time here such a special experience.

I am so thankful that I have roommates like Sinead, Becca and Mary-Kate who allow me to feel the way I feel and to be present and supportive every second of every day. And I am so thankful that I have friends like Christine, Meg and Liza who are willing to spend an outrageous amount of money, take time off from work, travel half way around the world, put up with exhaustion though my crazy itinerary and still find time to love me, to listen to me and to remind me why I am here.

Five months is a number. One that will ultimately approach faster then I can imagine. Just as my friends said before leaving, good day or bad day I am lucky that I have five more months at my disposal deciding where the next five months will take me is the hard part.

Ubuntu rolled out

Today, Sunday July 11th the day of the final 2010 World Cup game I am overcome with emotion. The 2010 World Cup in all of its grandiose scale has managed to take my June and now a good portion of my July days hostage. With do and partially undue intention, being a faithful spectator has taken prescient over numerous other daily factors.

The past five weeks have jostled every aspect of my previous idea of what it means to be a volunteer; I have struggled with balancing the act of working with the poor and then spending a night on the beach front watching games on the largest tv screen imaginable. The past five weeks have flipped my work schedule upside down and then for good measure shaken it around a bit. They have put strain on my bank account and sleeping patterns and pulled my community in a million different directions.

The last five weeks have also encouraged a special unity within my community; nurturing our relationships with each other and the friends we have met here. They have also made me fall even more in love with the Ubuntu Nation and the ease and grace with which South Africa has completed the task of being the host city.

I had initial reservations about the challenges that went behind hosting such a large scale event. Despite a few hiccups, whose importance I do not miscalculate [namely the death of three local children and the missing report of another] I give a hearty congratulations to South Africa for a job very well done.

I have fallen in love with the fans of this sport. Their allegiance to respective countries, their fervour for the game, and most visible- their devotion to dress.

From German fans sporting the ever interestingly tight lederhosens or Australians in good Steve Irwin fashion donning all khaki everything and hats with corks hanging from the brim. Or fans from Ghana wrapped in four piece elaborate patterned traditional beaded outfits, Japanese men and women with full white body paint and a red dot on their forehead, Mexicans and Brazilians hidden behind elaborate (and borderline scary) facemasks , South Africans in a sea of yellow and green or in a unitard showcasing the South African flag colors and Portugal’s dedicated fans with little to no clothes on despite cold temperatures.

On numerous occasions I myself had the honor of wearing red, white and blue

or turning the United States flag into a dress (the thought of prison time and defacement of the flag was a fleeting thought, but was overridden by my desire to be a loyal fan.) I was able to sing alongside hundreds of other fellow Americans as our National Anthem played a moment that as a proud American I will forever cherish.




I was also able to proudly support South Africa, wearing my yellow and green Bafana jersey and dancing like crazy with hoards of other fans as "Africa" (I bless the rains down in Africa) by Toto played.

The people regardless of the team they were supporting have made this experience magical for me. There is a word in the Zulu cuture, “Ubuntu” which has come to define my year here. Its literal meaning “I am because you are” has been showcased over and over though out these five weeks.

In conjunction with a theoretical FIFA red carpet being rolled out on opening day, it is my opinion that on June 11th South Africans also unveiled the Ubuntu carpet and have kept it in the spotlight since. It has been emotional to witness my neighbors come together as a country. Not as self titled white South Africans or black South Africans or Indian South Africans, but rather as unified peoples under one name: South Africans.

I have fallen in love over and over with the unity present. From the South African flags adoring every side mirror on every car, to the Bafana Bafana Fridays where every single person myself included has been adorned head to toe in yellow and green.

I feel so proud to tell people that NO I am not here just for the world cup, I live here or to join the masses at the fan park as the National Anthem is being played. I was overwhelmed with pride as Bafana Bafana tied Mexico in the World Cup opener. I cried tears of joy alongside white – black – colored- young – old – rich –and poor as they beat France and tears of sadness as they were defeated by Uruguay.

I fell madly in love with South Africa as I saw more then ever, Ubuntu at its finest when South Africans after not qualifying to move on continued to be a part of the tournament and united behind Ghana as a continent of proud Africans.

Being here I have often found myself reading Wayne Visser’s poem “I am African.” On an average day his words put me at ease giving me meaning and connecting me to this continent. During the last five weeks of the world cup his words resonated in me everything I feel about my time here.

“I am an African
Not because I was born there
But because my heart beats with Africa’s…
I am an African
Not because my skin is black
But because my mind is engaged by Africa
I am an African
Not because I live on its soil
But because my soul is at home in Africa

When Africa weeps for her children
My cheeks are stained with tears
When Africa honours her elders
My head is bowed in respect
When Africa mourns for her victims
My hands are joined in prayer
When Africa celebrates her triumphs
My feet are alive with dancing

I am an African
For her blue skies take my breath away
And my hope for the future is bright
I am an African
For her people greet me as family
And teach me the meaning of community
I am an African
For her wildness quenches my spirit
And brings me closer to the source of life

When the music of Africa beats in the wind
My blood pulses to its rhythm
And I become the essence of sound
When the colours of Africa dazzle in the sun
My senses drink in its rainbow
And I become the palette of nature
When the stories of Africa echo round the fire
My feet walk in its pathways
And I become the footprints of history

I am an African
Because she is the cradle of our birth
And nurtures an ancient wisdom
I am an African
Because she lives in the world’s shadow
And bursts with a radiant luminosity
I am an African
Because she is the land of tomorrow
And I recognise her gifts as sacred”

Today, Sunday July 11th the day of the final 2010 World Cup game I am overcome with emotion. Awe at the execution, fondness for the game, pride for each culture, love for the people and beyond everything I feel blessed for the opportunity to say that I was there, in South Africa, in the stadium, on the beach front at the fan park.


(Durban on the left, stadium in the middle, ocean and pier on the right)