For those of you who participated in our Kitchen Safari in October, you may remember the S. African bean curry appetizer with the unlikely name of Bunny Chow. So as I flipped through the movie listings of the in-flight magazine on South Africa Airlines, I was struck with a fit of giggles when I came across a movie called “Bunny Chow”, described as a story about three guys on a road trip to a South African rock festival. (No, I didn’t watch it.)

Last night I unexpectedly ran into Ruth Magagula (see Sitabogogo page of this website) and her husband at the restaurant we went to. They were set up with paper work alongside their coffees, and said electricity and water were off throughout the township of Simile where they (and all the gogos) live, and won’t be fixed until Monday. Apparently the same situation exists in some parts of the main town of Sabie. The problem seems to be that the municipality’s coffers are completely empty due to corruption of the municipal directors (note the civil unrest mentioned in my last blog – corruption was what the protest was all about), and therefore no money for replacement parts to the systems. The good news that I heard is that all those municipal directors were dismissed and a provincial interim administrator has been sent in to clean up the mess.

I am missing Anne Clarke, our Chairperson. Some of you who are closely associated with Grannies à Gogo know she was planning to be here with me for the first several days before she and her husband were to do a 3-week tour of South Africa. In fact I was going to twist her arm to do a few of these blog postings. But in Dec. she badly broke that arm, requiring surgery, pins, and more surgery and, heavy-heartedly, had to cancel the trip. I was so eager to share this little piece of Africa with her, but it’s not to be . . . this time. Maybe next year 🙂

Tomorrow I will finally see the gogos. I’m told they start off Mondays with a rousing exercise session and I’m raring to join in.

Today is all about pulling together and cramming. After five weeks of R&R in a Buenos Aires, I’m referring to pulling together all my belongings and souvenirs that have increasingly drifted into little nooks and crannies of this maze-like apartment, and cramming them into the same size suitcase that I arrived with. It could be a bit of a Houdini trick. Because tonight my husband, Ken, and I say adios to Argentina, and fly to South Africa to say sanibonani (Zulu for ‘hello’) for the next month.

There’s been another kind of ‘pulling together’ on my mind, too. It’s what Sitabogogo has been doing the past six months since they faced confusion and disheartening set-backs. The gogos we support in Sabie were caught in civil unrest that saw some municipal buildings burned and their (municipality sponsored) Ubuntu Centre vandalized. Fortunately they lost very little. They carted things to the nearby church and an adjoining small house which has now become their temporary base. They have pulled together under the unflagging leadership of our volunteer administrator, Rev. Ginny, whose vision is to build their own centre!

Then more cramming for me . . . to squeeze in as much time as I can with Sitabogogo to catch up on their activities and hear their personal stories. For the next three weeks I’ll report on their activities and my insights: gardening, literacy, physical activity, sewing & crafts, an orphan youth support group that’s attempting to form and, of course, a lot that I don’t know yet and am about to find out. Stay tuned!