Fifth Day at Manenberg: Painting (12/15/14)

After a relaxing weekend, we were ready to head back to the school. Because the 20 gallon bucket of white paint was not enough, Fatou suggested we get spray paint. Our problem was the cracks in between the bricks and we decided to spray them rather than meticulously paint them. We stopped at a store along the way and bought enough colored spray paint for 4 of these huge walls and not enough white spray paint. Alas, we worked with what we had. We spent the day perfecting the wall as best we could with white paint.

While painting with the children, it got messy once again. When I was working at the hand-washing bucket, one young boy was very aggressive. He was splashing water all over the place, including on younger children. He also put the towels that kids were using to dry their hands into the water bucket, thus making them useless for their intended purpose. When I asked him to reconsider his behavior and to stop the choices that he was making, he responded with a “fuck you!”. I was floored! This 7 year old just said that? With many smaller children around? He continued to scream, “Fuck you!” and “Fuck off” to me in total about 10 times. I told Felicia and Sharnay who then told Uncle Cyril. His punishment was that he had to leave the school grounds and was not allowed to help paint anymore.

We had been told by Felicia and Sharnay that the children have been getting progressively more disrespectful. They are slowly losing their respect for the elders- even the upper aged teenagers. Owens also began to remember that the last time that she was there in 2012, she worked hard over the 6 weeks to instill more manners. I hope that the children began to realize that disrespect and being rude will get them nowhere in life.

Then we went and made a mock-up design of what we all wanted the wall to look like. We had Felicia, Sharnay, and some other older girls help with the design, because again, it is not our wall. Luckily Fatou is an urban designer and has some artistic abilities. We decided on a Nelson Mandela quote, flowers with South Africa flags as their center faces, and a rainbow and stars surrounding the heart that was already there. We ended the the day with a big (roughly 114 feet) task to complete the following day.

It was Fatou’s last day in town and she needed to leave around 6:00pm that evening so we had an early dinner at a delicious Thai cafe. We enjoyed her company immensely and we grateful that have her there. Her help with the wall was more than we could have asked for and it was nice to meet some of Owen’s family too!

Again, we stayed in that night to read “Long Walk to Freedom” until we fell asleep. It didn’t take me more than 2 chapters.

No Robben Island (12/14/14)

We had planned to go to Robben Island the week before, but this was our first day all week that we had enough time to go on the whole tour. We arrived to purchase tickets 30 minutes before the ferry departed, which was what was recommended online. Unfortunately we were not aware that you could purchase tickets online ahead of time and the Robben Island tours were sold out for the next 2 weeks. Between everyone's holidays and graduation happening at UCT, it was booked. This meant that despite us all reading Long Walk to Freedom, we could not visit the place where the book was mainly written. To say that we were disappointed would be an understatement.

Since we had already paid for a cab to go to downtown Cape Town, we made the most of it and decided to shop instead.

The afternoon was spent doing whatever we wanted! I had been longingly looking at the pool in the courtyard of our residence and decided it was time to lay out. Good choice.

In the evening, the 5 of us headed to Green Market Square to do a bit more shopping. Earlier in the week, Sharnay and Felicia had told us about a tree lighting ceremony that was a huge deal in Cape Town. They were coming into the city for it, so we met them there! It was a grand event with lots of street vendors, performers on stage, and Christmas cheer. The girls said that most people from the Townships come into the city for this celebration. I was happy to spend time with the 2 of them outside of Manenberg and away from their responsibilities.

An Adventure Day! (12/13/14)

This day was a very welcomed Saturday. Being with the children all week wore me out more than I originally anticipated. On this morning, we all headed to the Biscuit Mill. This is a market with different food and goods vendors. It supports local businesses and artists. There are many farm fresh foods with awesome prices. My breakfast was delicious!

           

Once we were done gorging ourselves at the Biscuit Mill, we headed for the train station to meet Maxwell’s friend Richard. Richard lives in Cape Town and was a friend of Maxwell’s when he lived here. We wanted to go to a specific beach and he offered to take us on the train and show us the ropes. The beach we intended to go to was Boulder Beach- the beach with warm weather penguins. Max and I went last year and it was worth the long trek to go see the large amounts of penguins. 

            After we got off the train, we still had two miles to go and no way of getting there. We thought that there would be taxis waiting at the train station, but there were not. There were mini taxis available, but I had always been warned about them. They are large vans with many seats available and they are very cheap to ride in. I’ve heard horror stories about women being beaten and raped while riding them. Luckily Richard spoke Zulu and communicated effectively with the mini taxi driver and we made it safely to Boulder Beach. The penguins were as cute as I remembered.

            Unfortunately, we could not find any rides back to the train station at the end of the day. We began walking the two miles and eventually found another mini taxi, which Richard communicated well with again. We rode the train home and this time it was stuffed full. There were people drinking with open containers and smoking marijuana openly. This was very different than America. We made it back safely thanks to Richard. I do not know what we would have done without him.

            The beach wore us out. We got take out food and ate back at our residence. It was a wild and crazy Saturday night spent reading “Long Walk to Freedom” by Nelson Mandela.  

Fourth Day at Manenberg: Painting and a Community Tour (12/12/14)

When we were planning our trip to Manenberg, Felicia gave us the task to paint a mural. This was an awesome idea and it was made even better because Jamie had done a mural in the past. There were no details about how large the mural wall was or what was to go on it. When we were initially driving up to Manenberg, there was a large white wall (114 feet long)with only a heart in the middle. We joked about how large the wall was and how it would be the wall that we would have to paint a mural on...turns out it was that wall.

Luckily, Owens has connections everywhere and we were blessed with her niece Fatou’s presence. She lives in Rwanda and does not often see family, so this was a perfect opportunity! It also helps that the room we were staying in had 6 beds and plenty of room to accommodate her for a long weekend. She helped with the mural, the children, and our morale immensely.

We first needed to paint the entire wall white because it looked a bit weathered. The kids were interested in the painting process, to say the least. At first it began in a well organized way, but soon there was paint everywhere. At one point I looked around and there were two younger boys shirtless and covered in paint. Oh well, the wall got painted white (for the most part) and the kids had fun. It was their wall after all, not ours!

After we went through 20 gallons of white paint, it was time for our first community tour. Uncle Cyril, who runs the SHAWCO program at Manenberg, wanted to show us around the township to educate us about what really happens in the neighborhood. We began with walking around through playgrounds and seeing children that we had not seen before! We met families and spoke with older adults in the area. I heard many different languages and everyone seemed to know and communicate with everyone else. We met an 11 year old boy who was able to speak 5 languages already. We learned more about the housing planning and development aspect of the Township which was informative and lead to a slew of many more questions. This was only part one of the community tour and we would finish the following week.

In the evening, we went to our favorite Cocoa Wah Wah to see Prince and to get the half off pasta special. Another one of Maxwell’s friends, Wolfi from his year in Cape Town was visiting from Munich, Germany. I spent last Christmas with Wolfi as well! Dinner was great and another cross cultural experience between Fatou living in Rwanda, Wolfi living in Germany, the four of us living in America, and all of us spending time and experiencing South Africa. I’m thankful for the people I know.

(Owens, Prince, Brent, Jamie, myself, and Wolfi)

Third Day at Manenberg- The Dell Christmas Party! (12/11/14)

The third day at Manenberg was the Dell Christmas party! There were presents to open from Santa, face painting, a cotton candy machine, and lunch was provided. It was a hectic but rewarding day. It was clear that the kids had a lot of fun and were excited about their personalized presents. While a normal day with the SHAWCO Little Star has roughly 40-60 kids, this party had 200 kids attend.

While the party was a good time, there were a few alarming observations. First, I was put at the face painting station. Now if you know me at all, you know that Pictionary is a struggle and my most artistic pieces include stick figures. Due to this, I was only drawing hearts and stars. This was going well at first and people were excited about their colorful faces decorated with paint. One young boy came up and asked for a red star with 3 horizontal lines on his other cheek. It was a strange request so I asked Sharnay what that meant. The lines were a gang sign.

My face painting station career continued. A large group of girls then came up and asked for stars on their hands in red rather than the template of yellow. I fulfilled this request because I did not draw anything else on them. Little did I know that they were then going to Sharnay with the blue paint to put blue stars or stripes on their opposite hand. This was to complete the American gang symbol, our American flag. There were kids from ages 5-13 asking for this gang symbol. They are modeling what they see in their community and they want to be a part of a gang. My heart hurt all day thinking about these children wanting a life of crime and violence. I wanted to take them out of their environment to show them that there is other ways of living. Alas, I cannot.

During the served lunch, I was in charge of handing out the Coke (also a sponsor) and juice. This went well for some time, but when the children realized that they could get seconds of their drink of choice, things went awry quickly. I have never been so overwhelmed. Cups were being shoved in my face and kids were beginning to stand on the tables surrounding me. At one point there was at least 50 kinds around me BEGGING for more drinks. I have never been that thirsty in my life that I was crying with a cup in my hand begging for more beverages. The degree of thirst these kids had is beyond my comprehension. There was no ‘please’ or ‘thank you’ that came out of their mouths, just GIVE ME. After a half an hour of this, a helpful mother finally took the remaining juice and stated it was all gone. By this time, children were on their third or fourth cup.

Although this was a structured day, there was free time at the party. The kids played in the field as they always do; group games or soccer took up their time and energy. The children were playing innocently enough when a group of teenage boys came in and interacted with the children. One of them had a hookah in his hand and was shoving the hose into small boys’ mouths, forcing them to smoke. Hookahs are filled with tobacco and not as harmful as cigarettes, but to force that upon a child is just wrong. Again I consulted with Sharnay and she said that they do this all the time and force smaller children to do things they do not want to do. She stated that these older boys were probably already fully integrated with a gang and that is “just what they do.” The teenage boy did this in front of a lot of children and their parents in addition to a slew volunteers. There truly was no shame.