0 World Aids Day

This week we finally had to do some work that was new to us: We accompanied two of the Cotlands social workers on their regular trips to Soweto where they are doing home visits within the scope of one of our community projects. The children that we were visiting were between four and nine years old  and most of them mentally or physically disabled. Additionally they were all HIV positive and living in extremely poor circumstances. Even without any disability it must be hard to live in a small and leaky shanty at the uneven backyard of a little house… Anyway we went there to check if they are developing good, if they are getting their medication and to bring them a small Christmas present. It was very interesting to get a closer look at different families’ lives and homes but at the same time it was startling how such young children can be hit by so many strokes of fate.

Today we had the chance to join the later celebration of World Aids Day of a Cotlands support group for mothers with HIV positive children. As South Africa is the country with the second highest HIV rate in the world (ca. 18%) HIV is a very important subject here that unfortunately still doesn’t get enough attention. The celebration also took place in Soweto and about 50 people were taking place. At first many hopeful church songs were sung. After that some women had prepared little sketches and speeches but unfortunately most of it was in Zulu so that we couldn’t really understand a lot. Then everyone could write down a message to God. All in all we realized again that there was no sad mood like one could maybe expect at all. The atmosphere was much more happy because of the often repeated fact that you can have a happy life even if you are HIV infected and it was very impressive how many of these women arranged with their situations.

In the end many of the people came over and thanked us for attending the celebration and showing solicitousness and interest which made us a little bit speechless because we didn’t really feel as if we would have done anything that they would have to thank us for. Instead we were happy that they let us take part into the celebration. But that’s something that you also get used to in South Africa: Everyone is saying thank you for everything no matter how self-evident it seems to be.

0 Sweet 16 or Justin Bieber & the devil

This weekend was the first time that we saw a little bit more of Soweto. We already went there two times before to fetch Louisa, another volunteer that lives in Meadowlands, an eastern district, and yet had to realize that Soweto is quite different than expected. I have to admit that in my imagination Soweto always was a huge and disordered accumulation of shacks without a real infrastructure. I expected many people to live without running water or electricity, but all of these pictures were forgotten when we actually went to Soweto. Now I can assure you that most people are living in stone houses that are bigger than imagined, have access to electricity and water and the infrastructure is also very acceptable as there are shops and malls like everywhere else. I don’t really know how I came to that wrong picture I had of Soweto but maybe it’s the expression township that arouse those associations in my mind.

However when we wanted to fetch our friend this weekend we were directly invited to her cousins 16^th birthday party. Alongside the 21^st the 16^th birthday seems to be the biggest in the entire of the Tswana, a Bantu speaking Southern African people that our friend’s guest family belongs to. On Saturday we could already watch the preparations for the big party that should take place the next day. Two sheep should be slaughtered for it and there was a big ceremony all around it. Two traditional healers, who are called Sangomas, were present and performed rituals with the animals and the birthday girl. It‘s quite difficult to explain because we didn’t really understand what they were doing but see yourself:

The next day we went to the real birthday party. The whole family was there - and in South Africa that means at least about 40 people – a big and colourful tent was built up in the court, everyone was dressed very nicely and a delicious buffet was prepared. Of course the highlight was the freshly slaughtered sheep! But also the other food such as traditional chakalaka, boerewors and different salads tasted very good.

We also had to take a lot of pictures that day but Louisa had already told us about that predilection. In Soweto you normally don’t see any white persons - except some albinos maybe. That’s why everyone in the streets without exception greets you and often wants to talk to you or just touch you – and if it’s possible also take a photo to use it as the new whatsapp profile picture.

All in all we spent a very nice day in Soweto and it was very nice to experience some family life and get to know more of the Tswana culture because that’s something that we don’t really have since we are living in our project and not a family.

At Cotlands we have to work a lot with toys for the moment. There is a lot of stuff that has to be finished soon so we unfortunately don’t have a lot of time to work with the children for the moment and do a lot of less exciting work. But that will hopefully change again as soon as everything is done! At least today I had a very funny conversation during the little time that we worked with the children. I was helping some 3^rd grade girls with their homework when one of them suddenly wanted to talk about God and Satan. At first she just philosophized about them in general, but then she came to the really interesting point: celebrities and Satan! I don’t know how it came to her but she was convinced that Justin Bieber is praising the devil. When he was younger he wasn’t, but now he is and Hannah Montana is obsessed by Satan too.

It’s never too late to learn!