In the first blog of this series I made reference to the decision to abandon the municipal hall that Rev. Ginny had negotiated usage of for Sitabogogo. It stands only eight feet away from the burned out municipal offices and is surrounded still by burned hulks of municipal vehicles. And, quite frankly, she exhibited the patience of a saint dealing with municipal council’s litany of cancelled appointments arranged over the past two years, and their ever-present threat to take the building away for their own usage. Rather crazy-making, and not conducive to smooth operation. Reminder – all Ginny’s time and energies are totally volunteer.

Ginny dreams (and prays!) big, though, and her plan is to launch a major fundraising drive to build their own Ubuntu Community Care Centre. ‘Ubuntu’, by the way, is an ideology roughly translated as ‘humanity toward others’.

This is a very preliminary first drawing done by the architectural draftsman Ginny has engaged. What we’re looking at here is the covered veranda which runs the full length of the building, with doors leading into the main hall. Inside there will also be an office, a meeting room, a kitchen, bathrooms and a storage room. The plan is to use a steel pre-fab frame and when the roof goes on, the gogos can begin gathering there while the remainder of the construction continues.

St. Augustine’s, where Sitabogogo is currently meeting, is prepared to give them the land for the building, and the process appears to be this: the drawings must be revised until satisfactory (say one month), then presented to the diocese for approval and negotiation of agreement (could be quite lengthy – three months?), tendering (one month), actual building process (six months). I’m quite hopeful that, despite African time running slower than Western time, it could be finished by this time next year.

And if you’re into dreaming big, too, wouldn’t it be great to get a group together and come over here together next year??

Happy St. Valentine’s Day, and what better day to announce a very happy wedding which took place yesterday. Below is a photo of the gogos, some dressed traditionally, some in their finest clothes, singing and dancing in honour of the bride.

Several mkhulus (grandfathers) were along, and they were ‘getting’ down’ with the music:

Last year our volunteer administrator, Rev. Ginny Uren-Viner very sadly and suddenly lost her husband. We felt her grief as she was torn apart. She went to England to be with family for a month and deal with her loss. Then a few months back she wrote to say, “I’ve been knocked silly by a new relationship, can you believe it?” When Ken and I arrived two weeks ago we had dinner with Ginny & Glen and Rev. Lawrence & Joy Burton. Glen is a lovely man, so well suited to Ginny on many levels, and is also involved in community activities. I’m just so very, very happy for her, for both of them! Meet Mr. Glen and Rev.(Mrs.) Ginny Cormack:

Doesn’t she look utterly radiant? Doesn’t he look like the Prince who’s found his Cinderella? It was a lovely service in small historical St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Sabie (designed in 1920 by architect Sir Herbert Baker). The service was lovingly officiated by Rev. Lawrence Burton who, with his wife Joy, are very supportive of Sitabogogo with their time and energies.

Joy and Rev. Lawrence Burton

At the reception hall five of the gogos had been cooking since the morning, and a bus was organized for all the gogos to join the other guests at four o’clock.

It was a sumptuous feast, and the speeches were poignant, telling, and entertaining. The mix of Western and African music had as many as room would allow on their feet, cutting loose on the dance floor, and the rest clapping and singing along. Those of you who know me personally know how I love to dance, but I learned something new about Ginny – she does too. When the first ’60s rock & roll tune was played Ken & I started to jive and Ginny cut in with, “Excuse me Susan, I need someone who can jive”. I stood with Glen, snapped photos and gave him unasked for advice –  that they take dance lessons together soon as Ken & I did when we first married. A great party!

Ginny and Ken - "All Shook Up"

A few nights earlier there had been a shower for Ginny hosted by her sister, Jill, who was over from England. A shower here, I learned, is called a Kitchen Tea, though it was not held in a kitchen but in the lovely Wild Fig Tree restaurant. And perhaps if we had drunk tea rather than the wine that we did, we wouldn’t have had so much good silly fun.

Ginny and Susan at the Kitchen Tea

Rather than buying gifts, we all contributed towards certificates of pampering at a spa for Ginny. Oh, and by the way, there were no wedding gifts. Instead, people were asked to buy vouchers at the local grocery store for the Fill-a-Bag program. These are bags filled with non-perishables for R108 (about $15) for distribution to the disadvantaged. Great idea!

I can’t let yesterday, Feb. 11th, pass without commenting on the celebrations here in South Africa. On this day twenty years ago Nelson Mandela was released from almost thirty years of political imprisonment, and eventually led the country to democracy four years later with a message of forgiveness, reconciliation and national unity. This man is my hero. To me he embodies the definition of a saint. So sad that the current government has lost sight of his vision. If you haven’t read his autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, I recommend it.

The Mission House slated for renovation

There’s a little mission house next to St. Augustine church which Ginny has earmarked for an elder care facility in the future. ‘Assisted’ and ‘complex care’ senior homes such as we have in Canada are not part of the African culture, since the adult children have always cared for their elderly parents. However, with so many of that middle generation dying, there are now elderly gogos left without caregivers. A sister group of ours in Kelowna, ‘Gifts to Grandmothers’, has pledged to help with renovations and has already forwarded a sizeable donation!

The house currently stores all of Sitabogogo's 'stuff', including these personalized craft boxes.

The house looks inauspicious from the outside, but I was pleasantly surprised when I went in. There’s a lounging/eating area, four good sized bedrooms that will each accommodate two single beds, a small but adequate kitchen and tiny bathroom. Ginny says the electrics need to be redone, the kitchen re-outfitted, and the bathroom completely redone. A friend of mine who’s a draftswoman, Maria Marais, came to have a look and is willing to offer planning advice and resources. Another project underway 🙂

The gogos had a singing practice in the church today for a very special event happening tomorrow – more on that in my next blog.

Volunteer Reinette Michaels leads beading activities

Volunteer Reinette Michaels comes twice a week to lead the gogos in beading activities. She brings along a rainbow multitude of beads, wire forms and other necessary bits. It’s an activity that the gogos can manage while simply sitting outside, as there are precious few tables which get carted from the Home Base Care shack to the gogos in the yard to Milly’s temporary office in the Mission House and back again.

Gogos do a balancing act with craft boxes and beads

The gogos each have a plastic craft box, neatly labeled with their name, to keep track of their tools and unfinished projects. In their boxes I noticed English paper-piecing hexagons partially sewn together, half knitted teddy bears, beaded bangles and hoop earrings. In the photo you can see how some of them use the lid as a mini-table surface.

Joy Burton helps with earrings

Not all have steady enough hands or the sharp eyesight needed for the finicky work of threading beads, but there are a few volunteers and they help each other. I’ve noticed that often there are several gogos who have forgotten their glasses at home (remember our Reading Glasses Blitz almost two years ago that garnered 45 pairs for them?). So today I bought two different styled beaded eyeglass chains and will give them to Reinette as a suggestion for a future project.

Shhhh – a secret: beaded earrings and spiral bracelets are apparently catching a ride in my suitcase as little gifts to their writing partners in Canada . . . with a few extras for others.

A full week with the gogos has passed and I now have a better sense of how Sitabogogo is doing. The uprisings and violence that I touched on in my first blog caused them to lay low for awhile. Ginny says it’s such a shame because the group was going so strong. I say thank goodness they were going strong, otherwise they may have fallen apart altogether. 

Relative to my previous visits, the tone is low-key this year, but focused. They sit in plastic lawn chairs under the shade of a big tree in the church yard and chat. Fortunately, each morning has been fine and the rains have held off till the afternoons. Some days they work on hand sewing or knitting teddy bears for sale. More recently they have begun beading – more about that in another blog. One day a week they visit the sick and bereaved of their group if there is need. Fridays have been declared letter writing day.

They are not gardening at the moment. They got most of their last crop in and then had to abandon their extensive gardens due to water shut-off in that area since the fires. Such a shame after their back-breaking – but spirited – work in the past two years. (See ‘Archives: Nov 2008’, Gogo Gardens). Gug, the professional gardener that had been hired to teach them (a lot!) has been let go for the time being. For those that are aware he’d been given an advance on his salary to buy a motorbike for transport, please know that he has now fully paid it back. 

For now the gogos are recharging their batteries and preserving their sense of community. Once the new Ubuntu re-building is begun (more on that in another blog) they will be fully revitalized and ready to break ground again for new gardens.

Twice a week Milly cooks them a hot lunch. One day it was fried chicken, mealie-pap and squash, another day rice with a chunky vegetable and soy stew spooned over top. On the other three days they have tea or juice and sandwiches.

And always there are a few pre-school grandchildren around. This one treated us to a spontaneous singing performance.

Milly scribes a letter; others help too

Letter-writing is not a part of their culture, so I have to be sensitively aware that we are pushing a Euro-centric concept onto them. Further obstacles are lack of literacy and a majority of non-English speakers. But what was very evident is that they love to get a letter from their Canadian partner, and we must remember that is what our frequent letters are – a gift of taking time to show we care.

I asked them what they would like to hear in their partner’s letter and they replied: what do they like to do – crafts, knitting, singing, church, gardening, sewing and what do they do with the products? how does our Grannies group operate? do we have lunch together like them, visit the sick, play sports? And they love to get photos!

Gogo writes on her own

I told them how we like to hear the details of their daily lives and of their Sitabogogo activities, and gave many examples. Then they had a letter writing session. A few wrote on their own, and a few English speakers scribed for others. We’ll carry on with assisting more of them in the days to come . . . strengthening that link.

Maria Mogane, Martina Makua, and Simon Mokgalwane model two of their official T-shirts, part of a 4-piece sports outfit given to each.

This past November, two of our gogos and one mkhulu were chosen to represent all of Thaba Chweu municipality, which includes Sabie and several other surrounding towns, to attend the Golden Games (Seniors) in Port Elizabeth. I wanted a photo of the group but Maria wasn’t there – she was home with her 40-something son who’s had a good job the past 25 years, but has become “mentally ill” (her words) in the past four months. If someone doesn’t stay with him he will wander the streets and get lost.

So Martina, Simon and I walked to her house. Maria was mopping the cement floor with her year old granddaughter wrapped on her back. Her daughter, the child’s mother, was at work. They all beamed, recounting the 1300 km bus trip to the south coast, enabling them to see much of the country. The women raved about staying in a hotel for five days (“they cook for us, make our beds, clean our rooms!”). They received team jackets, T-shirts, track pants and running shoes. They were elated about seeing the ocean for the first time ever (“and swimming, too”). Imagine a comparable once-in-a-lifetime experience for you, what would it be?

Just to clarify, this was a government funded event and we Cdn. grannies can take no direct credit, but . . . these three were the only representatives from Thaba Chweu, and they all are part of Sitabogogo. I’d like to think it has something to do with renewed zest for life and feeling up to challenges. 

Martina, by the way, is the grandmother of the baby, Mimi, seen on the back of Ainah, our poster Gogo used on our pamphlets. Mimi goes to the crèche directly across the street, so here is a photo of her now at age four with her crèche teacher – and some star-struck little boy who would not listen to the teacher trying to shoo him away from a photo op (next generation’s Eddie Murphy?)

There’s been a lot of rain lately in this area and we’re talking often 20-35 mm. per day, but yesterday morning was sunny, hot and humid for my first visit to Sitabogogo. Good thing, because officials were set up under a tree in St. Augustine’s church yard for pension renewal day. All over the age of 60 have to go through the annual red tape of proving they exist in order to keep receiving their meager pensions. It was a tedious, all-morning process, but the wonderful thing is that now, because Sitabogogo has become an institution in Simile, the mountain (the officials) came to Mohammed, and the gogos and mkhulus no longer have to traipse into Sabie and queue all day for the process.

Mable Makhathini, one of the gogos who is a retired nursing assistant, was set up outside doing twice weekly blood pressure and blood sugar testing. A Home Based Care lady assisted by recording the results on each gogo’s separate page, keeping track.

So the big exercise session I was anticipating was much smaller – only those gogos who had already been pension-processed. Their abilities ranged from very energized (note 84 year old Ainah 4th from left at top of photo!) to a few who sat and did what they could. I followed along with them for their abbreviated session of 20 minutes, taught by a young physiotherapist – a good workout.

Monthly food supplement parcels were being handed out, too. Definitely ‘Good for You’!

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!