05 January 2006

I didn’t really expect to be writing an entry every day (and to be honest, once I get busy I probably won’t be able). However, today I’ve got a lot to write about and combining it with another day would make for a very long read. So there is your warning, you’re in for a fair bit of reading today… but I, as the writer, think it will be worth it.

We were taken around Swakop a bit this morning, and then given a tour of Mondesa in an attempt to visit some of the students who are not gone during the summer holiday. Don’t get me wrong here; these kids aren’t on the beach in Cape Town. Apparently, a lot of them go with their parents back to their tribal villages to visit family or even go alone if their parents can’t get away. In some cases, the parents have even left to find work but have left their children where they believe the best education can be had—so these ones go away at the break to see mom and/or dad.

After some breakfast and coffee at a local café, we took our Combi (Afrikaans for van, I think) out to Mondesa on our mission to find some kids. First we picked up Julian, the MYO youth tennis coach. He is a fantastic guy who has been with the organization for a while and as such knows the kids quite well. Also, we learned that he’s the man to find if you need a guide in the township. The place where he lives really broke my vision of a typical black home. It was a comfortable little house with a view of the ocean—provided one has 20/20 vision. There has been talk that we volunteers may move to a similar house in the township, so the preview was well appreciated. The beauty of the neighborhood struck me, and the colors up and down the block were nothing short of amazing. I am still kicking myself for leaving my camera at the house… damn.

Once we had Julian with us, the mission of rounding up the kids began. First we stopped at the home of Christa, a 6th grader this coming year. She was standing outside sketching when we pulled up, an appropriate start to my journey with these kids I think; one of them spending their time outside the classroom working on a self-inspired project. I would describe Christa’s reaction to the MYO combi pulling up as happy, but I don’t think that really does it justice. I’m going to get a little ahead of myself here, however I must mention that I’ve seen more genuine smiling faces in the last 4 hours than I’ve ever seen in a week. Rob said it best when he mentioned that if one ever gets burned out with fundraising, administrating, etc., you just have to catch a glimpse of these beautiful, hopeful faces beaming at first sight of you. But I digress… After the brief welcome from Christa and her family we gathered the two girls up and took them along for the rest of the ride.

We visited several of the children’s homes and got to see most of the township, from top to bottom. The “tour” started out in a reasonably nice part of Mondesa, as I mentioned, and then continued down the chain of poverty. Another stop that sticks out in my memory vividly, too; it was at a young girl named Mary’s place. We pulled up and approached the shack, and a small boy greeted us by retreating up a clothesline post. (I tried to coax him into playing and even ventured to teach him how to high-five… a necessary skill in my opinion.) Now when I say shack, I am describing a 12x15 ft makeshift enclosure made of all manner of materials (old sheet metal, wood scraps, etc.) that houses a family of 5 or 6. Unfortunately, Mary was not at home. She had gone up north to visit family, but her mother and siblings were more than hospitable. While mom was outside talking to Rob and Julian, I ventured into the house upon invitation with Casey and Alexis. The coziness of the little place struck me. On the floor, a big piece of linoleum had been laid over the dirt in the dining room/living area and beautifully colored pattern material was draped over the entrances to the bedroom (containing two beds) and the kitchen.

While exploring Mary’s home, I met her two older “siblings” (one actual sister and the other a cousin, I think). The girls were 14 and 16 years old but could not have been much taller than your average American 10-12 year old. The malnutrition here has a very adverse affect on the normal growth of the children, and it also contributes to much of the disease transmission from what I am told. The two young ladies did not come right of their shells, but enough questions sufficed to get them talking a little bit. I would have thought that the novelty of having a white person come to their home spurred the shyness, but it seemed to be more a case of being intimidated than anything else—that and some kids are just more bashful than others. Once we got the two talking, they were very talkative. One fun conversation was trying to explain the concept of a vegetarian to kids that have never had enough to eat to be choosy. Alexis sort of got written off as a crazy Canadian; perhaps with a little bit of my input… score one for the yanks. Although, she did gain back some ground with her interest in the girls’ hair twists and braids. After some brief chit-chat with the girls and then Mary’s mother, we took off to visit more of Mondesa with an invitation to come back around soon for dinner.

A drive through the Democratic Resettlement Community (DRC) took up the last leg of our township drive. I’m not sure about the particulars of the DRC, but it is the poorest part of Namibia I have seen so far. The shanties are the smallest and most poorly constructed, and some of the kids we saw at a stop near a religious charity were the most disadvantaged I saw all day. Yet they were not a sad sight, I must say. They were cautious, or maybe shy, but you can’t blame them because most whites definitely don’t make it out that far. Once the camera came out, smiles, shenanigans and poses were unleashed. Casey started out to take a picture of one child and ended up with at least 15 I’m sure. These kids were mostly younger, so I didn’t get to chat with them as much, but taking pictures and shaking hands was enough fun.

After visiting all of the kids we could find, we ventured into town with three girls for ice cream. We still had Christa and her little sister Estella, plus we picked up one of our tennis phenoms, Paulina, along the way. The ride from Mondesa into Swakop and back was great fun. The older girls were doing impressions, singing and generally hamming it up like your average 12 year old with an audience. Once at the gelato shop/café, I was brought back to the reality of this society. There were not any blacks in the whole place, which was German owned, and it was pretty easy to see that not many ever made it in. I wouldn’t go as far to say that our girls had never had ice cream, but I doubt that would be a long stretch of the imagination. The price of goods in town is far too expensive for your average low income family to afford. It did not seem to affect the kids though, which I found to be encouraging. But I can’t say I’m not disturbed by the whole thing.

So we ate our treats and took off back to Mondesa to drop off the kids before running our last errands of the day. I finally have a Namibian phone! The number is 011-264-81-332-8059. We also visited our facilities, but I’m sure they will come into the picture more later so I won’t get into that right now. Good night and good luck.