First Day on Project

Today was the first day on project. All of the volunteers in my house were picked up by Mary at Kinrae at 8:30am and Brian and I were dropped off at Erica to meet our driver, Remi. Holly was still too sick to join us so Brian got a final briefing from her and then we left for the township. The place where I'm working is called Masiphumelele, South Africa, but everyone calls it Masi.

Masi is not too far outside of Fish Hoek where we are staying but economically these places are miles apart. This is a genuine slum in a somewhat rural part of South Africa. It's like nothing I've ever seen before or ever could have imagined myself standing in. The houses are made of corrugated metal or plastic and stores are in old shipping/freight containers. There are stray dog and chickens everywhere and people walk around all day. If children or even toddlers don't have somewhere to go during the day then they just wander the streets.

Remi took Brian and I to the site that GVI has worked at before, Kiddies Corner. Here we met with Patricia, where she runs this educare out of her living room. Patricia came in the van with us to lead Remi to our site. Brian and I worked at the Masiphumelele Educare Centre which is in a really nice building compared to the rest of the township that I've seen so far. We met Shirley who is the principal and runs the centre. She also happens to be Patricia's neighbour. There were four female carers and only seven children because Monday and Wednesday are both holidays so most people stayed home on Tuesday as well. None of the people I've met so far in the township speak English other than Shirley. The children and other carers all speak in Xhosa. Shirley gave us a tour of Masi and showed us the outline for the day that they typically use for some structure while the children are attending the educare.

Each day the children arrive by 9am and then start what they call Morning Ring. For an hour every morning the carers that work at Masi lead the children through various songs. Some of the songs are in English and some of the songs are in Xhosa. After Morning Ring, at 10am the children have a snack. I was very impressed by how well the children eat, given that many of them have parents who are unemployed. Shirley tries to make sure that everyone who attends Masi gets adequate food while in her care.

At 10:30am the children are typically divided up by age and moved into different rooms to work on their education. Rather than calling it kindergarden, in South Africa the children start school in grade R. However, it is not uncommon for the schools to have admission into grade R based on the child already knowing their alphabet, numbers, colours and shapes in English. Families send their children to an educare like Masi in order for them to have a safe environment to learn and qualify for admission into grade R.

If the weather cooperates, at 11am, the children have the opportunity for outdoor play. If the weather isn't so kind, the children stay indoors and are read stories, play games, make puzzles or have some sort of alternative creative activity. At noon the children eat their lunches and go down for a two hour nap starting at 1pm. At 3pm, the children are all woken up and allowed to play, read books, etc. until someone comes to get them.

Today Brian and I helped lead their songs during Morning Ring. Then they ate their snack where I helped feed one girl who was eating spoiled milk, warmed up. It looked like cottage cheese and smelled horrific. A common meal for people where I work is called Masi (after the township) and it's a mixture of spoiled milk and bread crumbs.

After lunch Brian and I took turns reading books to the kids, played Duck Duck Goose, and then watched the children practice their colours, shapes and numbers in English. The librarian from the local township library came by before lunch and read the children a book in Xhosa. I think I was just as fascinated as they were by the story because I've never been so immersed in a foreign language like that before. The children then had their lunch and Brian and I ate ours outside when the children had finished and went down for a nap.

Brian and I started the first lesson which was given to the carers while the children slept. Shirley is the only person at the Educare who spoke English. Brian and I took turns leading the lesson and Shirley would translate to the other carers. Shirley seems so genuinely interested in learning, stopping us to ask a few questions, and took notes throughout the lesson. Today's lesson with the carers was about the basics of the immune system and germs.

The children started to wake up from their naps around 2:00pm and some parents, mostly other school-children around 8-10 years old, came to pick up the children. Although our day on project was supposed to last from 9:00am to 3:30pm, all of the kids and carers had left by 2:30pm so Brian called Remi to have him pick us up early. While waiting, Brian and I walked around the centre and visited the back garden. For safety reasons we are not allowed to walk around outside the barbed wire fence that separates the Educare from the rest of the township.

Once everyone else had returned back home from project, we had a debrief in the living room at Kinrae. Because everyone else works in a different township, called Westlake, it was great to hear how each of them had spent their day. In this meeting we elected Iris as the volunteer rep who will write a blog post and plan our weekly social night for next week.

We ate a really god vegetarian chili for dinner before going out to a bar called The Brass Bell in Kalk Bay. This bar is on a pier on the beach and the waves from the Atlantic Ocean crash right up against the windows. Unfortunately it has been on the rainy and cold side since we arrived and since the windows didn't reach the roof, water easily got inside. There was a fire pit inside the bar that we all gathered around while karaoke went on nearby. We met a bunch of Americans who were on exchange from a Christian University in California. Iris and I went home around 11:30pm and everyone else who'd gone out went to another bar nearby called Polana.