Movement

This is the last of my themed blog entries and it seems fitting that I am writing it on my last full day at Nkosi's Haven. For this entry I have chosen the theme of movement. I think the most dramatic movement I have experienced over these three months is the movement of time.

As I reflect back on my time here in South Africa I realize how much I have had the opportunity to see and how many different things I have experienced, from drinking umqombothi (home brewed beer) in a local township shebeen to visiting homes in Sandton and Pretoria (two of the wealthiest parts of Johannesburg and area) I have been able to see the contrasts that exist within South African society. Almost everyday I experience something new, even if it is as small as a new dish for supper.

While I am excited to move onto my next adventure (two and a half weeks in Australia visiting my aunt and family) and then my final year of university right now this excited is overshadowed with the question “where has the time gone?”

The cliche that “time flies when you’re having a good time” seems to be holding true for me and though I am still relatively young I wonder whether time will continue to move at the lightening fast pace has over the past year. I think this experience has really highlighted how fast time can move and to really take every opportunity offered. I will end this ramble with a quote I really like from Mark Twain. At this rate twenty years will have gone by before I even realize.

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

Family

Themed blog: What you value.

There are many things that this experience has made me value but the most significant is family. I think I have always appreciated my family but my stay here has made me realize how lucky I am to have a stable family and a stable home to grow up in. Being at Nkosi's Haven had made me look back at my childhood and wonder how I would have coped in a place like this. While everyone does what they can to help the children grow up to be the best they can much of these efforts are limited by the children's situations. One example that I have struggled with thus far is how and when I developed my sense of values. I cannot remember consciously learning values but they were instilled in me somehow and I can only assume this was the doing of my parents.

This has led me to conclude that growing up without having someone guiding you, whether it is a parent, relative, mentor, or close friend, it could be very challenging to develop the values, sense of self worth and motivation needed to succeed in life. I can only wonder who I would have grown up to be if it was not for my parents and my family in general. The first hand realities of children who do not have these people in their lives has made me value what I have much more.

Turning Point

Blog Theme: Turning Point

During the past week I have had several realizations that I would say mark a turning point for me here at Nkosi’s Haven. While I approached this experience knowing that I would encounter people on a daily basis who are living with and have come from harsh and challenging situations this manifests in unexpected ways. While the work being done here at Nkosi’s Haven is remarkable and many of the mothers and children have access to care and opportunities that they would not otherwise complicated problems still exist. One of the largest questions and challenges I have struggled with recently is “how do you help people who do not want to help themselves?”

Studying international development at York, one of the largest debates is surrounding help -- how to help people, what kind of help is most beneficial and whether one should even be ‘helping’ as it can be more harmful than helpful. Here at Nkosi’s Haven an ongoing struggle is how to empower or motivate the resident mothers to want to better their own lives.

When I first arrived here, after a few days or weeks I began to form ideas of how things could run better, especially in regards to the mothers and their overall lack of willingness to contribute to the community. I would like to clarify that I am by no means trying to lump them all together because many have rose from very challenging situations to contribute to this community and to move on to other places. However, despite being given many employment and other opportunities the majority of them seem only be willing to perform the bare minimum duties (cleaning common areas, working in the kitchen) and spend the rest of their time sitting around.

This lack of willingness to grab opportunities to improve one’s circumstances is one that I struggle to understand and accept. I am not ready to believe that these women should be given up on but I am unable to propose how values such as self-confidence and self-motivation can be instilled in someone who appears to have given up on themselves.

While I would consider this a negative conclusion, it has made me realize how exceedingly complex and complicated this issue is and how little I know. This to me reflects the basic problem of “experts” in the development world -- highly trained and paid professionals that are brought into a context for a short period of time, usually several weeks or perhaps months, and relied on to provide advice and guidance to a project.

In addition many of the empowerment and employment opportunities offered here that have failed are those that have worked in other contexts. This adds to the development theory that one project that functions in one situation cannot simply act as a blueprint for another situation. In the context of Nkosi’s Haven I have only began to see the cracks in the surface of this very complex situation where initially I thought I’d seen problems and how to solve them.

Pictures!

Here are a few more pics of more adventures I've had.

This past weekend I went to a game reserve called Rhino and Lion park. It was a really neat experience, I saw lots of animals I've only seen in movies before and I got to pet a tiger and a lion cub! Here I am with the tiger cub.

The other weekend I took a bicycle tour of Soweto, a huge, famous township nearby. The trip included a lunch at a local restaurant where we had kota, a township staple. Kota is a quarter loaf of bread hollowed out with chips (fries), atchar (mango pickle) as basics and other ingredients (in this case ketchup, cheese, egg and polony).

This is a picture of a street in Soweto.

Recently a few friends and I took a trip to a nearby nature reserve where we saw wild animals like donkeys!

Here is a view of the nature reserve from above on a sewer pipe we walked out on.

Through Someone Else's Eyes

For my third themed blog I have chosen the topic: See yourself through someone else’s eyes. During my time here in South Africa I have had lots of experiences where it is very obvious that I am not South African. Despite South Africa being a country filled with many different types of people, if I am not assumed to be a foreigner due to my skin colour it becomes obvious as soon as I speak.

For the purposes of this blog entry I am going to focus on how I think that I am perceived by the residents of Nkosi’s Haven. Nkosi’s Haven regularly receives international volunteers (at the moment there are 14 here) so the residents are no stranger to Western/white people but as a volunteer one is an eternal source of interest.

I believe that the kids see me as someone who is almost always happy to see them, someone who will always give them a hug and pick them up. I think that the children see me as somewhere between a friend and an authority figure (certainly more towards a friend based on the number of times my warnings are ignored). The some children certainly also feel that either because I am white or because I am from Canada that I am rich and therefore should buy them things or give them my things. This is a perception that I have thus far completely rejected as I have never bought an individual child anything as I believe this creates materialistic bonds (as seen in other cases here). I plan to make a donation to Nkosi’s Haven as a whole upon my departure.

As for the mothers living at Nkosi’s Haven it is much more challenging for me to see myself through their eyes as they are harder to get to know. I think overall the mothers see me, and other volunteers, as someone who comes and goes but since they know I will only be here for a fixed amount of time it is not worthwhile to become more than acquaintances. At least I think this is how I would feel were I a resident here. However, I think the mothers also see the volunteers as a source of knowledge and a resource, particularly related to technology.

One example if this is recently I had a mother, Happy, come to me asking me to help her activate her Facebook mobile (Facebook on your cellphone) and a few other programs. For me this would be a simple process but for her first we had to create her first email address, then a Facebook account and then use this information to activate Facebook on her phone. Going through this process and explaining each step to her made me realize how complicated technology could appear when you have not been very exposed to it. I heard the next day that she was up all night chatting on her phone so I guess it’s working.

Overall my experiences here have made me really consider my place in the world and how I am seen by others, living in Canada for my entire life has made me accustomed to having people assume that I am of a Canadian background (which is an accurate assumption) but here I am asked almost daily where I am from and subsequent questions. Being the minority has been a very interesting experience for me and I’ve learned a lot from it so far.