It was a crazy busy third and fourth week of orientation
which is why it’s taken until now to post about our community stay. Apologies
for the delay! To those inquiring minds, here’s a little recap of a truly
incredible weekend from two weeks ago. On Friday morning, we left for a 2.5
hour trek to Oshoek and, on Monday afternoon, we returned with our hearts
filled and deeply humbled. Where to
start …
Our family:
73 year-old Gogo
19-year old boy – Mancoba
17-year old girl – Nomthandazo
15-year old boy – Sikhulile
13-year old girl – Colile
9-year old boy – Clement
7-year old girl – Nonhle
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| The kids, in order from oldest to youngest |
(FYI: C’s before vowels in Siswati are clicks. Have fun
sounding out the names!) The family is made up of two separate sets of
grandchildren whose mothers were sisters (and the Gogo’s daughters). Mancoba,
Nomthandazo and Clement are from one mother (who passed away in 2003),
Sikhulile, Colile and Nonhle from another (who passed away in 2010). They live
together on a large property in the very remote and rural town of Oshoek, in
the northeast region of South Africa that borders Swaziland.
On the property is a gate that leads to the entrance of the
house. On either side of the dirt path beyond the gate stands a mud hut, one
divided into three rooms, the other into two, that can only be accessed from
the outside. On one side was Sikhulile’s room, Mancoba’s room, and the kitchen.
On the other side was Nomthandazo’s room, and the room where Gogo, Colile,
Clement and Nonhle stayed. See the picture below and see if it matches up with
what you envision an African mud hut to look like. The huts were literally made
up of sticks, patched together with mud. There was no electricity or running water. The kitchen,
about the size of a typical powder room in a Canadian house, had a wood burning
stove and a counter to prepare food. At the front of the property were two
gardens that apparently grew sweet potatoes, although it more closely resembled
a compost than a garden. Around one side of the property was the outhouse that
contained the “toilet” – a bucket placed over a hole in the ground, with four
wooden planks nailed together to form a seat over the bucket.
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| The mud huts |
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| The kitchen |
In 2007, Gogo moved the six grandchildren from Swaziland to
Oshoek. Swaziland, a small country of about 1.3 million, is essentially bankrupt.
Anyone that has the capacity to work leaves the country. The unemployment rate
is through the roof. The government can ill-afford to provide grants to children
for schooling, hence, the reason for Gogo being forced to leave the country
with the children. This is not an uncommon story for many of the residents of
Oshoek. Unfortunately, even though it is cheaper to attend school in South
Africa, the South African government does not provide school grants to children
that are not born in South Africa.
Gogo makes the trek to Swaziland by foot about once a month.
While there, she receives money from an “uncle” that she uses to put the
children through school and for food. You can imagine how much money they have
for anything else. Who this uncle is, exactly, we're not too sure. Gogo had 6
children, all of whom have passed away. How regular these payments are and how
much he gives them is also something we did not think appropriate to ask. All we
know is that, in many cases, it’s not quite like it sounds, i.e., it’s not a
loving uncle that ensures proper provisions are sent on the first of every
month. We were hoping that, for our family, it would be one of those rare
cases.
There, in a nutshell, is the background of our family and
their situation. Because we tend to experience things differently, and because
we experienced so much, we thought it better to recount our weekend
individually…
BYRON
I originally started writing this post as a recap of the
entire weekend. I soon realized that it would take forever and no one would
bother reading a 10-page post (instead, it's merely an 8-page post!). So, to spare you, I’ve decided to write about a
few of the highlights during our weekend:
Rapping!
We were told beforehand that Mancoba is an aspiring rapper.
That was an understatement. Within minutes of us arriving, he didn’t hesitate
to bust out his notebook full of rhymes and show off his stuff. The problem is
that Mancoba’s English leaves a lot to be desired. As he rapped, we had trouble
understanding what he was rapping about. It didn’t actually rhyme, nor did it
actually make sense. One thing, however, that we did manage to clearly decipher
was this beauty of a line midway through the verse of one of his songs: “Motherf*#@
Motherf*#@ up!” … I see …
After he finished, he would look earnestly at Diane and I for
approval. This is a guy that was passionate about his rap. He spent the
majority of his free time writing rhymes. A decent soccer player in his own
right, he quit playing on his soccer team so that he could concentrate on his
music. Was I, as a foreign stranger in his house, supposed to crush his dreams
and tell him to focus on something else? On the flip side, was I to encourage
him and give him false hope, thereby encouraging him to spend more time on his
music at the expense of perhaps more important things (i.e., schoolwork)? I
eventually found middle ground in complimenting his talent and his passion but
encouraging him to work hard at his English and study hard in school. I then
promised that I would spend parts of the weekend helping him with his spelling
and grammar so that his rhymes would be better. This turned out to be a taller
task than I imagined but it was an experience that broke the ice and allowed us
to bond almost instantly. Who knew hip hop could be relational? At one point, I
even taught him how to “Dougie”. He thought my moves were pretty sweet. Little
did he know that I had absolutely no idea how to do it.
Sikhulile, likely through the influence of his older
brother, was also a big rap fan. He also had a notebook full of rhymes that he
wrote himself. As a duo, they referred to themselves as “Homeboyz”. It is their
dream to one day make it to North America and introduce their brand of
“Swazi rap” – rap that is a combination of English, Siswati and Zulu. I was
worried that there may have been a misunderstanding at the beginning of the
weekend. I felt they were under the impression that I was going to find them a
recording deal. They even asked me to return so that I could take their CD to
Canada and sell it in stores there. I tried to explain to them that I didn’t
have any connections to the music industry and that, more importantly, I wasn’t
here for that reason. I'm not sure if they really understood but they did ease up
on me over the weekend.
Gifts
Before we set off to Oshoek, we had the opportunity to buy
some stuff at a superstore to bless the family with. We were instructed not to
actually come bearing gifts – this was not the exercise of the weekend and it
doesn’t send the right message – just small stuff that we could use to play
with the kids and help break the ice. We ended up buying a soccer ball, a
tennis ball with velcro paddles, a deck of playing cards, a stuffed animal,
nail polish, coloring books, crayons, a drawing pad and some plasticine. We
brought out our gifts gradually over the weekend, so as to not shower them with
so many new things at once. It was difficult to not want to give them more.
These kids basically had nothing. The only toy Clement had was a “moto” – a frame
of a car made out of wire attached to a stick, with screw-on, makeshift wheels
– that he would wheel around the property.
I just kept thinking to myself that these 6 kids will, collectively,
have less toys in their lifetime than my nephew, Tyson, has received on one
birthday.
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| Clement with his moto! |
The Little Ones
Clement and Nonhle, like any other young children when first
meeting a stranger, were extremely shy at the outset. They would stare at us
intently until we made eye contact and then immediately hide behind their hands
in embarrassment. Once we whipped out the soccer ball and tennis ball/velcro
set, their faces lit up and the walls fell down. After a short while, they
couldn’t leave either of us alone. They wanted to play constantly. They craved
attention. More than anything, though, they just wanted to be held. Each would
regularly wrap their arms around our legs and just stare up at us. It was
endearing and sweet but heartbreaking at the same time. Without a mother or a
father, I wondered how often these two were held or kissed or told they were
loved. The way that they latched on to the two of us after only a couple of
hours led me to think the answer was pretty clear. Admittedly, their constant
need for attention/affection grew tiresome at some points. There were times
where Diane and I were exhausted, overheated, and just wanted to be able to
relax with a book. I know … we’re terrible people. But in those moments, we
would try to remember that we were put here to be a blessing for this family
and did our best to suck it up.
African Church
Prior to us going, the information sheet about our family
indicated that they did not go to church. Jackpot! (insert subtle fist pump
here). Again … I’m a terrible person. Let me explain. The weekend before, we
had gone to African church. I don’t know if any of you have experienced African
church before but it is long. Very long. Most services run somewhere between
3-4 hours. I know most people, myself included, have trouble sitting in
services that approach 1.5 hours! There is a lot of time allocated to worship
and singing. This is the enjoyable part of African church. The African people
don’t really have any inhibitions when it comes to music. Each member of the
congregation sings and dances their heart out. The men sing in bass and, when meshed
together with the powerful female voices, it creates a beautiful and worshipful
noise. It’s quite a contrast to Western churches, where we’re often too
self-conscious and self-aware to allow ourselves to worship freely. The pastors
are usually very charismatic, emulating the African pastors we see on TV. They
shout, “Hallelujah!” at every available opportunity and the congregation
responds with “Amen!” The problem is that, with these pastors, it’s difficult
to ascertain how genuine they are. There are an abundance of churches in rural
South Africa. Seen in a role of great power and authority, pastors are treated
with a sense of deference in this society and are rarely challenged. Often, men become pastors without any formal training
and just get thrust into the role. Many ignore the mandate to care for the most
vulnerable in their own backyard and, instead, use their position of authority
for personal gain.
On Saturday night, Sikhulile told us that we were going to
church the next morning. It turns out that while Mancoba, Nomthandazo and
Clement don’t regularly attend church, Sikhulile, Colile and Nonhle do. Despite
my enthusiasm, or lack thereof, to sit through a 3-hour service, I was actually
excited to have something to do with them. The walk to church was 45-50 minutes long
(uphill both ways!), which is not fun in scorching heat, but it gave me an
opportunity to speak with Sikhulile (who I quickly found out has the best
English of the six children) about the family and its history. When we walked
to church, the kids pointed out the pastor’s house located next to the church.
It was, not coincidentally, quite a bit bigger and nicer than most homes we saw
in Oshoek. It made me wonder where are all the tithe money went.
The congregation was made up of about 20 people, the majority of them being quite a bit younger than Diane and I. The worship
started when three young teenage girls in the congregation just started
singing. The rest of the congregation soon followed. No worship leader. No
lyrics on an overhead. No instruments. Just straight worship. It wasn’t the
best singing (in fact, there was a very audible, tone-deaf African, which I didn't think existed!), nor the most intimate worship, but it was really neat to
experience. What wasn’t as neat was listening to the sermon. It was given by an
18-year old guy who, apparently, wasn’t the pastor. He must have dished out 250
“Hallelujahs” in the span of his two-hour sermon, mostly in escalating series
of five. I found myself getting increasingly annoyed each time. What didn’t
help the cause was that I wasn’t agreeing with a lot of what he was saying, nor
did his sermon seem to have any Biblical basis. On top of that, there is a 100%
chance I will struggle to stay awake during any sermon that long, especially in
an environment that hot. But in a congregation so small, I wouldn’t allow
myself to be caught sleeping, especially as the foreign Chinaman in the community.
To stay awake, I read the entire book of Esther and some parts of John. I knew
bringing my Bible would come in handy! I was this close to attempting the
two-hour fake prayer but figured that my violent head bobbing would have given
it away.
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| The church |
Byron the
Handyman/Lecturer
Gogo is a truly amazing woman. At 73-years old, she does
everything for her family. Often, she does too much. When we walked home on the
Sunday from church, we found Gogo bent over at the waist, using a shovel to mix
water with a pile of dirt to create mud. I don’t know if I can ever recall
seeing a 73-year old lady bend the way she did. Regardless, it wasn’t right. I
told her that I would take over and told her to teach me how to do it. She would make a crater in the dirt to pour the water in and would then mix the
dirt into the water, being careful not to let the water seep out. Of course,
when I took over, the first thing I did was break the crater and all the water
went spilling out. I felt terrible, as I’m sure I was creating more work for
her than I was helping. After I finished mixing the mud, Gogo climbed up on a
wheelbarrow and used the mud to patch up the mud hut. Again, seeing a 73-year
old grandma climb up on an unstable wheelbarrow to do handyman work was not
acceptable. I called over Mancoba and Sikhulile and asked them why they weren’t
the ones doing this. Mancoba said he didn’t know how but Sikhulile said he
knew. I told them to change into work clothes. It was time to get our hands
dirty! Now, there was nothing fun about rolling up a large ball of mud in my
hands, slinging it onto the wall, and smoothing it out over the wall repeatedly.
But did I feel like a man? Damn rights I did. Ask Diane ... She had never been
so attracted to me! More importantly, I was hoping that I was teaching these
guys that they were the ones that needed to be doing this work, not Gogo. Maybe
I’m idealizing the whole situation a bit but I felt like there was also some
serious man bonding during our mud slinging.
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| Gogo hard at work! |
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| Not the most comforting sight ... |
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| Byron showing the boys how it's done |
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| Proof of getting their hands dirty! |
The lecturing didn’t end there, though. On the day we left,
Gogo spent the entire morning sitting down with her face buried in her hands.
She had started feeling ill on the Saturday and, on the Monday, it had progressed
to the point where the suffering was almost unbearable. Diane and I felt so
helpless. There was nothing we could do except arrange to get her a ride to the
clinic when we were to be picked up. During the day, she was getting visibly
frustrated at Colile. I wanted to understand what was going on so I called in
Mancoba to translate. Apparently, Colile was disobeying Gogo’s requests to
clean her room and to clean the dishes. Seeing Gogo in her condition, and
seeing Colile’s nonchalant attitude towards the whole situation, drew my ire. I
called Colile over and had Mancoba translate a rather stern lecture for me.
After I was done, I spoke with Mancoba and Sikhulile and said something to the
effect of: “Gogo is very old now and very tired. She has spent her life taking
care of you. You are now both young, strong men. You need to help her around
the house. She shouldn’t be working on the house anymore. You guys should. She
shouldn’t have to cook and clean anymore. Nomthandazo and Colile should. Please
promise me that you will do this from now on. You need to take care of your
Gogo.” They nodded in approval. I hope they meant it. At that point, I wasn’t
sure if I was overstepping my boundaries or not. But after having been in their
home as an adopted brother for 3 full days, I felt like I had gained some
ground to stand on, if only just a little bit. I realized that these are kids
that have grown up without any sort of male influence. If I could do anything
to portray a positive male role model, I was going to do it. Regardless, it was
the right thing to do. Gogo was visibly wearing herself out. These kids needed
to step up!
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| Gogo suffering with her illness |
In the Dark
Usually, in South Africa, or any other African country, for
that matter, the dark represents danger. We’re told to never walk around at
night or even to drive at night. But when we were staying with our family, the
most special moments occurred in the dark. On Saturday and Sunday night, we
would all gather in the kitchen, which was barely big enough to fit all 9 of
us, and just be together all the way through dinner until bedtime. With the
only light provided by a couple of small candles, it was an intimate setting.
It wasn’t planned, nor was it forced. It just happened. On Saturday, the main
attraction was our iPod, which we hooked up to a mini-speaker we had borrowed
from another volunteer at Hands. Mancoba and Nomthandazo shuffled through our
music library and selected all the hip-hop songs they could find, while
scrolling through all of our photos. Every once in a while, cramped up on our
little wooden benches, we would bust out into dance (especially during, “All I
do is win, win, win, no matter what!”). Even Gogo was getting into it! Periodically
throughout the night, Gogo would tell us how happy she was.
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| Dance party with the iPod |
On Sunday night, I was getting Mancoba and the rest of the
family to teach me certain Siswati phrases, which brought them so much joy.
Africans LOVE it when they hear you speak their language and attempt to learn
it. They would laugh at my pronunciation (much like Hong Kong people do when I
attempt to speak Cantonese) and get super excited any time I said something
right. Later on, Gogo asked Sikhulile to read a chapter of the Bible. He read
it in Siswati and Mancoba translated. At first, through Mancoba and Sikhulile’s
broken translation, we tried to make sense of what was being read. We gave up soon
after and just started pretending like we knew what they were saying. After the
Bible reading, I asked if I could pray for the family and, again, Mancoba
translated. It was an incredibly special moment. By this time, Gogo and these
kids felt like our new family. There was so much on my heart that I wanted
to pour before God, that He would truly bless this family.
Not a lot was said on either of these nights; nothing deep,
nothing overtly spiritual. But being together, in the dark, as a family, and just
genuinely appreciating being in each other’s presence, was something truly
special and something we will never forget. Meeting this family and having them
open up their home and their lives to us was truly a blessing. I can only pray
that we were able to be as much of a blessing to them.
DIANE
What a blessing it was to Byron and I to stay with this
family and to get to experience, if only for a few days, the way they live
their lives. I must say that although there were some difficult moments, the
experience, as a whole, truly did bless us so much more than we could have imagined.
We had no idea what to expect going into the community stay, but we prayed hard
for God to give us the heart to feel what our family feels and the eyes to
truly see not only the deep wounds that this family lives with, but also the
blessings that they could pour into our own lives. God was definitely working
through us that weekend because our hearts were broken so many times in those 3
days and we both felt a deep connection to our family.
First off, I’m very glad to report that I didn’t see any
mice, rats or cockroaches all weekend! We did have a spider incident in our
bedroom, but Byron quickly handled it (he has become quite the spider killer
since being in Africa!). A part of me knew that if I looked hard enough I would
find some unwanted visitors in our bedroom or the kitchen so I just adopted an
out of sight/out of mind attitude and made sure not to look down too much!
The first night of our stay, Byron and I slept in separate
bedrooms – which was a little unnerving, to be completely honest. It didn’t
help that a neighbor was stripping the land and had set the grass around us on
fire. All night, as the flames drew closer and closer to our house, I kept
waking up fearing that our huts were on fire! Luckily, the winds were blowing
in our favour and the fire didn’t blow over onto our land. They did get pretty darn close though as the fire had basically burned within a few feet of the property! The next day, we got
permission from the family to sleep in the same bedroom. We zipped together our
sleeping bags to make one big, two person sleeping bag and had a much more
comfortable sleep on the second and third nights.
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| Nomthandazo's room, where we slept |
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| Mancoba's room, where Byron slept the first night |
Being a female, I had the pleasure of helping out with all
the house chores that African women are typically responsible for, one of which
is cooking! Before we arrived at our family’s home, we were given a bunch of groceries
to bless the family with. The groceries were meant to cover everything that
Byron and I would eat that weekend plus some extra for the family. Our
groceries consisted of a bag of carrots, a bag of onions, a bag of potatoes, some
tomatoes, a head of cabbage, a bag of maise (ground up dried corn that is mixed
with boiling water to create pap, the starch of all their meals), canned beans,
3 loaves of bread, canned pilchards and a few other items. On the second day, Hands dropped off a live chicken for us, which the family killed and cooked on the Sunday! After we arrived, I got
busy by organizing the groceries in the kitchen. The first thing that I noticed
was that there was no food in kitchen aside from half a wilted cabbage and some
maise. I remember wondering when the family’s last hot meal was and even how
often the family goes without food.
That
night, I helped Nomthandazo prepare dinner for the whole family (minus Gogo who
had gone to a funeral). I followed her lead and just started chopping up
veggies. I had no concept of how much of anything to use so I made sure to run
everything by Nomthandazo. When I realized that our dinner for 8 would consist
of only half a head of cabbage, two carrots, one onion and a potful of pap, it
was a reminder of how little these families survive on. Traditional African
meals like this one are enjoyed using your hands. Note: be sure to eat with
your right hand as, traditionally, the left hand is used for all other things,
including the bathroom! You grab a chunk of pap, take a bit of your veggie and
then shovel it into your mouth. The trick is to ration your veggies properly so
that you don’t run out of the flavourful stuff before your finish your pap. I
was much worse at this than Byron. No matter how hard I tried, I would
inevitably end up with a heaping portion of pap left over and no more
flavourful veggies. I would then proceed to pawning off my pap on Byron while
taking his veggies so that I could finish my plate! By the end of the weekend,
I learned that I had to request much less pap than would normally be dished out
in order for me to be able to finish off everything on my plate. At this point,
you might be wondering how Byron, the shameless, bottomless pit, fared with
this lack of protein. Luckily, pap is super heavy and fills you up like a brick
in your stomach. Despite not having any protein for a few days, we weren’t as
hungry as we thought we would be.
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| Pap! |
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| Rice with pilchards (very unappetizing canned fish) |
I did a lot of house chores during our stay – tidying around
the hut, sweeping, fetching water, cooking and doing dishes. Without
electricity or running water, I was astounded at how much time it took to
complete even these simple household tasks and realized how I completely take
for granted all the conveniences we have back home. Once a day, we would go and
fetch water by walking to a nearby stream (which was about 15 minutes away) and
would carry liters and liters of water back with us by hand (Nomthandazo would
carry the largest load of 20 liters which she would balance on her head, true
African style!). Because we had to go down a rocky path through the forest, we
couldn’t even use the wheel barrel to help us with the water runs. Everything
had to be carried by hand, which was so exhausting in the scorching heat! However
much water we fetched for the day, we had to make sure that it was rationed
properly to ensure there was enough water to cook with, clean with and then to
bathe with, as we only fetched water once a day.
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| Colile doing the dishes |
My favorite times throughout the weekend were the moments
when we were all huddled in the kitchen after dark, around the wood stove which
kept us warm, talking or listening to music. It became clear t us that after night
fall, when you have no electricity, you don’t have much to occupy your time or
your thoughts outside of your immediate company. As Byron described above, the
small room was lit by a couple small candles. The setting was so intimate and was
truly a precious time for us where we felt such a deep connection to the family.
Our first community stay here in South Africa was one that
we will always remember and treasure. Whether we had any impact on the family
we stayed with, we don’t know. We can only pray that what love and affection we
showed the family during our short stay could be seen as a blessing and as a
display of God’s love for this family!
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| The bittersweet farewell! |
