Beauty and the Beast

It is so hard for me to reconcile the jaw-dropping beauty of the Eastern Cape of South Africa with the profound poverty of the people who live there.
I’m in awe of the dramatic, deep green hills and valleys nestled near the Indian Ocean. Cows and horses, sheep and goats roam freely, contentedly eating the green grass. The huge blue sky is as quiet as it is vast. There are no airplanes, no large buildings, only small rondavels and square houses dot the countryside, an occasional pole stringing electricity to a small village. The pace is so slow. We’re on Africa time – a blessing and a curse at once. A blessing because there is always time to stop and strike up a conversation with someone, to practice my Xhosa, to play Simon Says with a child. A curse because progress is painstakingly slow.
While I am living among this beauty, I ache for the children I see at school with holes in their sweaters, barefoot, eating lunch near a trash pile outside of a rusty shack, crooked on its dirt foundation. A thin little girl just stands quietly in the midst of playground chatter, waiting patiently for someone to finish eating so that she can use a bowl. She does not have one at home to bring and the school provides only the food – not the plates or utensils. I watch one girl absently eating her porridge out of a dark blue square plastic container, spooning it to her mouth with a ruler.
One of the four classroom buildings at this particular school is so dilapidated the gutters are broken, so that the adjacent green tank that collects rain water looms impotent and empty. I spy some children without shoes. I remember someone telling me students cannot go to school if they don’t have shoes. I ask Nkosana about this. He tells me that on the first day of school, a child who has none might borrow school shoes from another family. After the first day, no one checks.
At another school, at least a third of the students are not wearing a uniform. Likely they are ostracized for this. Lessons comes to a standstill because the Department of Education is visiting on the first day of February – at least two weeks into the beginning of the new school year – handing out school supplies to each child. They each receive two composition books, a test book, a glue stick, some pencils and a brand new blue ruler. Some struggle to carry the awkward load without backpacks. But I can tell they are excited and proud, yet possessively guarding the handful of school supplies they can call their own. This is their back-to-school shopping spree.
On my first full day in Canzibe, a grandmother and a 14-year-old girl come to visit Nkosana in the office. He is 25:40’s coordinator of Project 1504, the action plan we are implementing with Small Projects Foundation designed to meet the immediate and long-term needs of the 1,504 orphans and vulnerable children in the Ngqeleni District.
The grandmother is dressed in traditional mourning clothes – meaning her husband has died in the last year. The teenage girl is in her school uniform, her gray skirt ripped in the front at the seam. She carries her books in a yellow plastic bag from a local store, the handles broken. These two are barely related. It seems the grandmother’s husband was a cousin to the girl’s father. But right now, that doesn’t matter. The woman in mourning is this teen’s permanent caregiver. The girl’s parents have both died and she has spent most of her life jumping from relative to relative, leaving whenever she wasn’t treated fairly, common for orphans. They have come for help in getting a foster care grant from the government. This small monthly stipend will help the grandmother raise this poor, lost girl.
Nkosana checks their documents – affirming they have proper identification. The Department of Social Services is coming tomorrow for an outreach day, Nkosana tells them. They will set up just outside a local shop and help people apply for the grants they are entitled to but are not yet receiving. Go to them tomorrow, he says.
They leave and it is all I can do not to stop them and sew up the girl’s skirt before she heads off to a day at school.
And typical of Africa time, Friday comes and we get word that the Department of Social Services is not coming after all to this area. Sudden change in plans. It will be rescheduled.
So we wait.

--Amy Zacaroli

Nkosana

Nkosana had been praying for a job. For a few years he had none, but he came from a family of hard-workers and endeavored to find one in the rural, poverty-stricken area of the Eastern Cape in which jobs are scarce and intermittent.
A Christian man he met invited him to celebrate Easter 2008 at Canzibe Mission – a 13-hour drive from his home in the southern part of the country. Nkosana, a sweet-faced, patient Xhosa man of 25, accepted willingly. He stayed for a long weekend and then returned for good in January 2009. He serves as handyman and interpreter for the missionary, who is a native Afrikaner and whose Xhosa is sparse. Nkosana proved himself worthy, loyal, with a deep and caring heart, especially for the children in this area of green, dramatically beautiful hills dotted with rondavels. Nkosana’s first prayer had been answered, but now he wanted more – to be able to help the children, whom he found poor and hungry.
Even though he is not from this area of the Eastern Cape, he quickly immersed himself in the community and the villagers know him, love him, and are beginning to trust him, not an easy task among people who are reticent of outsiders. He plays soccer with the adolescents and takes pre-schoolers to an early morning prayer meeting before school starts.
He has a deep faith that is nurtured through his work with the missionary. He is taking college classes on the Bible, its history and interpretations, so that one day, if he wants to stand up in church and preach, he will have authority and knowledge to do so.
Nkosana’s heart is with the children. He tells this story. One day last June he was in Mthatha, the closest city to Canzibe. A 14-year-old boy named Themba came up to him and asked him for 2 rand. Nkosana noticed his tattered clothes, the holes in his shoes, the angry look on his face. Nkosana asked him, “What will you do with 2 rand?” And Themba said he would buy bread. Nkosana said to him, “I have bread in my backpack. I have an apple. And I have a sweet. I will give them to you. Plus I will give you 10 rand.” The boy was astonished at Nkosana’s generosity. Then Nkosana told him of the hope and promise that is in Jesus Christ. He explained to Themba that if he accepts Christ as his savior, Jesus will protect and provide for him and his family. Jesus will lead him to live in a righteous way – not to steal what is not his, even though he is poor and hungry. Themba seemed to hunger for what Nkosana said.
Then Nkosana asked him, “What will you do with that 10 rand?” a new Themba said, “I will take it home to my family. For we are poor and have no money and this will help my family.”
Nkosana likes to tell this story. He keeps a picture of Themba on his computer and tries to find him when he goes to Mthatha.
In mid-November 2009, 25:40 hired Nkosana to coordinate 25:40’s Project 1504, which has identified 1,504 orphans and vulnerable children in the wider Canzibe area. He will help ensure these children’s needs are being met – such as receiving child support grants from the government; being trained to grow food gardens; having school uniforms and being exempt from school fees; getting health care; and participating in after school care programs, which will provide help with homework, counseling, a safe place to stay after school, and a properly nutritious snack.
He is very well-organized, quite responsible and honest. Plus he has compassion for the children. He showed me a photo of children lining up for soup at a local school and pointed out to me a very small, thin girl in rags and no shoes. “Look,” he told me. “It is very cold. It is raining. The ground is muddy. And she has no shoes.” He just shook his head sadly.
Nkosana prayed for a job, one in which he can help children. 25:40 prayed for someone to help us with this project – to carry out God’s work for children who cannot help themselves. Our God is an awesome God, answering prayers – an ocean apart.
--Amy Zacaroli

Baby Blankets

As a mom, there is nothing more satisfying than taking good care of your baby. When your baby is cold or hungry, moms are there to provide for every need. But not all moms can. If your home is a metal shack with a leaky roof and dirt floors, it is hard to stay warm and dry. If your husband takes your small monthly stipend and spends it on drink, there is no money for food for your baby.
Such is the reality of thousands of women in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Many women raise their families in such conditions with no electricity and if they are lucky, water from a tap outside. If a storm is especially severe, the roof may tear off in places, windows can break, and the rain makes the dirt floors muddy.
It is these women and babies my heart goes out to and who I think of often, especially when someone asks me if I can take donations of things to South Africa. The Holy Comforters, a group of quilters at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield, VA have provided a wonderful blessing to these women and babies in rural Eastern Cape South Africa. I packed an extra suitcase filled with handmade quilts and receiving blankets lovingly created by the Holy Comforters. I was blessed enough to have a midwife named Karen Clarke in Hamburg, South Africa, take me to the women she has recently helped give birth. I was able to show up at their shacks with a handful of these baby blankets made a world away and allow the women to choose which one they wanted for their newborns. I visited three mothers who had two-week and three-week old babies. They were so thankful and joyful that we arrived with the blankets. They had fun choosing the right one for their baby. And then they lovingly wrapped their babies and held them proudly.
Up the coast from Hamburg, a four-hour drive, is another rural village called Canzibe, where 25:40 also has a project. I stayed on the mission property, which is adjacent to Canzibe hospital. Another NGO here has developed a nutrition center on the hospital grounds for moms to come with their children when the hospital staff notices the children are malnourished. Nokuphila offers them a place to stay for awhile and hands-on training for growing a food garden. I also visited Nokuphila with the baby blankets and was able to give them to a few moms – one of whom looked like a very young teenager.
It’s a small thing, one that most people take for granted – having something to keep your baby warm. But when a mom has next to nothing, it really is a gift from God.
Amy Zacaroli

Midwives

Women living in the rural Eastern Cape of South Africa can tell you horror stories about the care they receive when they give birth. Except since it is the only care they know, they have no idea their experiences are horrific.
Xhosa women live in shacks and tend to birth at home or go to hospital when labor starts. Typically they do not seek pre-natal care. During labor, they may be tended to by mothers or aunts at home, but if something goes wrong at birth, like a cord wrapped around the neck, many babies die within the first week. If the women make it to the hospital, they are treated poorly by the nursing staff. A typical maternity ward is a big room with 20 beds and no privacy. Guests – husbands, moms, sisters – are not allowed. Women give birth alone. The women are forced to stay lying down in their beds and if they cry out or scream they are slapped on their thighs. Internal exams are harsh and the only goal by the staff is to get the baby out, regardless of whether the woman is tearing or having other difficulties. The babies are taken from them right away to be put in incubators until it is time to feed. There is very little opportunity for mother and baby to bond. Then they are sent home.
These women are abused by the health system and gone through uncaring labor and go home with a baby they don’t know how to care for. This can often lead to a disconnect between mom and baby and the natural instinct for mothering and nurturing is missing because of their experiences.
Noelle (not her real name) had three babies when a midwife named Karen Clarke was checking her during her fourth pregnancy. Karen asked how many kids she had and she replied 3, but Karen only saw two. Where is the other one? “Oh. That one was not right,” Noelle replied. After prodding, Karen learned the baby had a lack of oxygen at birth, probably because the cord was wrapped around its neck, and had difficulty breathing and suffered some seizures early on. He died when he was 8 months old. These things are so preventable with a trained midwife attending the birth.
Karen Clarke moved from Cape Town to Hamburg three years ago with her family to practice in her trained profession of midwifery. Karen’s dream is to eradicate the horror stories of labor and delivery and replace those with positive outcomes as a result of nurturing care for the women of Hamburg throughout their entire pregnancies. The results are already starting to show themselves with the numerous births she already has attended. Right now, Karen tends to labors in the homes women live in – metal shacks. Karen’s plans are to build a small birthing home in the center of town where moms-to-be can labor and deliver in a comfortable, safe environment. Karen will keep them at the birthing home for a week because that is when most newborns die.
She tries to encourage pregnant women to come to her when they first learn they are pregnant so that proper pre-natal care can be administered. It is during this time that Karen can establish a relationship with the women, learn their histories, and test for HIV/AIDS. A simple test can detect the virus and a simple dose of medication can prevent transmission of HIV/AIDS to the baby during birth. About 30 percent of pregnant women whom she has seen have HIV/AIDS. Simply having a midwife in Hamburg can eradicate transmission of AIDS from mother to child during birth – a huge and significant step towards a healthy, AIDS-free society.

Students Get a Second Chance

HAMBURG, SOUTH AFRICA -- About 50 teenagers and young adults are embarking on a final chance to pass their high school exams through efforts of a community-based group that formed in 2009 to address social issues in their village.
The Hamburg Social Development Project is a group of 10 community leaders, including the high school principal, teachers and former teachers, with the goal of addressing the needs of children in this resource-starved setting who are not receiving an adequate education under the existing public school system. HSDP’s first priority is to help teenagers who have dropped out of school because they failed their matriculation exams and are unable to retake Standard Grade 12 due to a change of the national syllabus in 2007.
Through 2009 the group worked hard to register as a non-profit organization and set and prioritize goals and to communicate to the community their ideas.
The group has made amazing strides in just the last six months. They negotiated with St. Charles High School in Hamburg the use of three classrooms for the finishing school. They will also have an office at the school. HSDP member Mr. Paliso negotiated with the Hamburg community to be granted 5 hectares of land with the longer-term goal of building a community center at which will be the finishing school, the HSDP office and skills training centers, such as plumbing, carpentry, construction, and engineering. The skills training center is necessary for those students who do not have the means to go to college. Hamburg is in the very rural Eastern Cape where jobs are scarce and the quality of education is poor. With specific skills, young adults can aspire to become professionals.
On Jan. 18, the finishing school opened its doors. On the first day, there were 15 young people who registered. The next day 21 showed up. On the day I visited a week later, there were 46 students who were eager to get started. The news had spread beyond the three nearby villages – Hamburg, Bell and Bodium – to villages a bit further away – Lovers Twist, Wesley, Tceku. These students have a deadline of December 2010 to pass their final exams under the rules of the new curriculum. They cannot take the test again if they fail.
HSDP member Thelma Ncumani, who also is principal of St. Charles High School, gave the students a little pep talk. “This is your last chance. We want plumbers, electrical engineers. You must be very serious. This is for Hamburg. This is for you. We don’t want you wandering around the streets,” she told them.
I spoke with a young woman named Portia, who is 23. She finished school in 2004, but did not pass her final exam. She was very excited to take this class so that she could graduate. I asked her what her dreams are. She said, “I want to matric and then help my community.”
--Amy Zacaroli

New Beginnings

In 2009, God planted seeds for two new 25:40 projects in South Africa that we pray will blossom in 2010. I am writing this just two days before I leave for a two-week trip without my family to visit with the people who are working on these two projects.
In Hamburg, South Africa, a group of community leaders organized last year to form the Hamburg Social Development Project. This group identifies issues in the community that need attention and then works to solve those issues. HSDP formed in 2009, established a bank account, and is in the process of registering with the South African government as a non-profit. It has held a fund-raising event and has identified the first issue it wants to tackle -- students who have finished high school but not passed the final exam to officially "matric". HSDP has negotiated classroom space with the local school and is now arranging for furniture, materials and teachers so that these students can be tutored and then eventually pass their final exams. This will give a huge boost to these young adults who would have no hope of finding a job without passing their final exams. While job prospects in the Eastern Cape are quite limited, these students will be the beneficiaries of model citizens who are volunteering to help them and thus help to improve their community. This gives the students hope and a more secure future.
25:40 has encouraged HSDP to get started and organized and we continue to do so. 25:40 will also help financially when necessary. These types of community-based groups are the lifeblood -- and will be the saving grace -- of villages in the rural areas. 25:40's help has been, we hope, the most constructive. Rather than simply giving food, we are teaching to fish.

A little further up the Eastern Cape coast is the Ngqeleni District, a very rural area of rolling hills between Umtata and the Indian Ocean. There are 22 villages that are spread out and very poor. In 2009, 25:40 funded a survey, executed by Small Projects Foundation and community health workers, to find orphans and vulnerable children. The survey identified 1,504 orphans and vulnerable children in that area. In November 2009, 25:40 hired a local Xhosa man, Nkosana Menzi, to oversee what 25:40 is calling Project 1504. With SPF, we have identified immediate and long-term needs of these children, which 25:40 will fund and carry out with the help of Nkosana, SPF and the community health workers. I will go to Canzibe, where Nkosana lives and works, to review the goals of our project and meet some of the Project 1504 children
I will blog as I can from there. Please pray for travel safety and that 25:40 will properly nurture the seeds God has planted into full-flowering fruit. Most importantly, pray for the children in South Africa impacted by AIDS and poverty who deserve a fair chance at a healthy, happy life. Peace, Amy Zacaroli