Skills Exchange

Mimo Caenepeel

I visited the Jabulani project for two weeks in March - my first visit to South Africa, and I’d planned to blog about it while I was there.  That didn’t happen: each day was so fresh and full that the best I could do was be there, and blogging fell off the agenda. Now – just over two months later – I feel more ready to capture some fragments of my too-short-a-time with Jabulani.

Where to begin? My first memories are of meeting young South Africans and trying to absorb their names and their stories. Many stories are hard to listen to; many include parents, siblings, friends who have passed away.  Some names are like stories: ‘Progress’, ‘Development’, ‘Purity’… Some seem hard to remember at first -  ‘Ntuthuko’, for instance. Ntuthuko is there from the moment I arrive and becomes a warm quiet presence throughout my stay; he is the one who helps us get round. Soon after my arrival I find myself in a place called Megacity looking for a sheep, for Lucky! I have never shopped for a live sheep before but it does not feel odd – and Lucky’s excitement is infectious. The next day I’m introduced to Siza, whose singing fills the room; and soon after I happen to be sitting next to Emmanuel, instantly taken in by his radiant smile.  I had not expected to be adopted into a kind of multi-coloured SA family but I am glad to let it happen.

The volunteers are the other part of the family. I meet them outside Tekweni hostel on the day I arrive, and the next morning they scoop me up in a khumbi to go to Bobbi Bear. It’s Saturday, very much a.m., and they have been out the night before – but I soon learn that nothing stops them from getting up early to travel to a project. Bobbi Bear supports children who have been sexually abused and it could be a harrowing place, but it isn’t.  The children’s spirits break through in their grins and their hugs, and the spirits of the volunteers explode into song and dance on the way back. The khumbi shakes with it – literally! I have been in South Africa for less than 12 hours but I already love these young warrior women and these let’s-do-it guys who seamlessly negotiate chaotic public transport on their way to a place where they can make a difference (a street children’s project, a township school or university, an orphanage, a crèche … ) They play with the kids and make them laugh, they hug and hold, they give presentations and they share what they know. They are practical and focused and open-hearted; their commitment takes my breath away.

My eyes and my heart begin to adjust. I get used to the threatening signs on the well-to-do houses (‘Gevaar!’. [‘Danger!’] ‘Armed response!’) and the large dogs behind  the electric gates. I get used to people ‘coming coming coming, now now now’; to the rain and the heat; to no day being what it was expected to be; to my eyes being moist a lot of the time. During the first week I feel a bit paranoid, having been told by a sombre Afrikaner at the airport that the malls (the ‘white’ malls!) are the only places I will be able to walk on my own. That turns out to be wrong, but during the first week I attach myself to Alex anyway and go where he goes.

Alex! How does he hold it all together? I don’t know but he does – with head and heart and soul.

There are extraordinary moments. One evening we sing with the kids and the grown-ups at SISCO. How full can your heart get – and how can it be that these people who feel like my friends live in a building with no gas, electricity or sanitation? At another street kids project, Umthombo, I spot rats scampering when I cross a dorm. It’s all real.

One day the volunteers are up earlier than usual. They are swift and determined, picking up food to take to SISCO, which has been flooded by youngsters who normally live in the sewers. The sewers have been flooded due to cyclone rains, and the kids have turned up at SISCO drenched and hungry. It’s all real.

Throughout the two weeks, I flow along with my South African family and work alongside the volunteers as well as I can. I get the chance to do a creative writing workshop in a Durban school, which I love; it is a privilege to work with 30 black and Indian girls in their last year of school, who are so bright and courteous and keen to learn.  I also give a lecture at Mangosuthu, Umlazi’s university. It’s late in the day but the auditorium is full. There is a large blackboard but no chalk, and no microphone either; I need to shout over the din generated by the fan at the back. None of it matters, because 200 youngsters really do seem to want to hear what we have to say.

In two short weeks I grow fond of so many people, and my heart breaks so many times. Coming back to Scotland isn’t easy – so what must it be like for the people in my SA family who were there for many months? A lot of ‘missing’ will go on for a while. Jabulani is under my skin, and in my heart.