More Townships - by Charlene

Note: This blog was written May 22nd but only published May 30th due to technical difficulties.

Thanks for all of your feedback on the last blog, we’re still looking into ways to help the government schools. I don’t want to give a message of doom and gloom out in the township schools (FYI – the townships are the only areas where black people were permitted to live prior to 1994), there are lots of good things going on there.

During the orphan camps that were held at C4L last December, the kids were taught some life skills to help improve their health situation as lots of these children or their family members are HIV/AIDS infected. They were taught how to grow vitamin-rich vegetables using resources that are accessible to them. By growing vegetables in a dirt-filled grain sack cut with small holes for the veggies and watered by using pop bottles up-ended in the soil to disperse the water slowly, they are able to grow healthy food in a very small space. Heather was very pleased when we visited a school and saw the same process being demonstrated in the schools, here they are:

Last Friday I did another township trip mostly because our vehicle was needed for transport. A number of our camp leaders have been volunteering their time to help kids in rural schools start some after school clubs. Kids who are bored tend to get into trouble (it’s the same all around the world) and by starting these clubs the children learn new skills and build a larger network of supportive friendships. The school knew we were coming and we arrived to the smiling faces of over 150 orphans.

They divided themselves into groups based on their interests: music, drama, beading, drumming, speech and debating. In each group, skills were taught and leaders were appointed to keep the groups going. I joined in with the beading group, these ladies are learning skills that they can hopefully use to generate an income by selling their beadwork. Even newcomers like me can learn, here’s my finished product. Maybe if I sit out on the roadside, I’ll be able to sell my wares!

“Don’t Forget Us” – by Charlene

Those were the words spoken to me by a woman named Iris that I met today. I was accompanying Heather on her rounds to the township schools to meet with teachers to promote the orphan’s camps at C4L. We went to 5 different schools but Iris’ school stands out in my mind as we spent the most time there and the situation seemed the most desperate.

Here’s what we saw when we drove up. This can’t be right, I thought, this school is under construction and it doesn’t have a roof. Heather informed me that last August, when the school was brand new, there was a big wind storm which ripped the roof off and it has never been fixed. Because it was never fixed, there is a lot of water damage inside the building and the wiring has been damaged too. This is the view from the office where we met.

In order for us to sit down together, she had to go and “pinch” some chairs from one of the classrooms. Often the overcrowded classes have three children sharing two seats so there is not an extra chair anywhere. Iris told us that the annual budget for their new school is R11,000 or $2,200 Canadian dollars! The school has an enrolment of 575 students. How can someone operate a school of nearly 600 kids with just over $2000? That's less than $4 per student, no wonder they can't afford chairs...

We visited the Grade 4 class which has 83 students in the class, overwhelming. The class rooms are about the same physical size as the Canadian classes that we’re used to - only with about three times the number of children.

I took a look around the school grounds, no play structures, no sports fields. If you look in the background of this photo you’ll see a primitive structure. It is the kitchen, lunch room and cafeteria all rolled into one. In this country the government provides funding for primary school aged children to receive a meal at school and this is where the meal comes from. Corn maize is cooked in large cast iron pots over an open fire and that is their lunch.

Iris cares very much about the children she teaches and tries her best with her limited resources. She is very proud of the trophy the school received for academic excellence. The area is very remote and the teachers feel abandoned, forgotten and not cared about. When we left, Iris hugged me and said “Please help us, don’t forget us when you leave here.”

Guava Pickin' Time - By John

Hi Everyone. We'll it's been a while since our last post, and now we are officially into Winter. Brrr. It's not really so bad, low teens at night and mid-twenties during the day, but we've also had some unseasonably cool nights, below 10c, so we went out a bought a couple of space heaters since our house (or any other house) doesn't have central heat. We didn't know that the first heater we bought is essentially a big halogen light. Imagine our surprise when we turned it on and it lit up the room! Still, it's warm enough to toast marshmallows on.
The beginning of winter also means that the guavas in the orchard are getting ripe, which means that it’s time to pick them and ship them off to market. Because C4L is in an orchard, we can’t let the guavas go to waste. What C4L makes on guavas in a year almost covers the salary of a gardener. Besides, when guavas fall off the tree they stop smelling sweet and yummy and start smelling really bad, so you have to do something with them. We pick the guavas and then run them down to a local fruit juice processor. So far this year we have taken in three loads, one load a week, as it’s just the beginning of the season. Later in the season we will be going more often.

Here’s what a guava looks like.

Here is Vusi, pickin’ guavas. Vusi and the other Vusi can go through the orchard in about half a day, so we pick in the morning and deliver in the afternoon.

The infamous “Bakkie”. Bakkie is an Afrikaans word which describes all pick-up trucks. Our Bakkie is getting pretty beat up, but still has enough juice to haul guavas.

Today we hauled 17 crates, or 340Kg.

Here we are at the juice factory, getting weighed.

This is the guy who does the weighing. No fancy electronics here, it’s all mechanical.

After weighing, we dump the guavas into a big crate, and then we go through the scale again to find out how much we delivered.

That’s what 340Kg of guavas look like.

Next time you go to your local supermarket, pick out some Guava Juice and have a healthy drink of South African sunshine.