We can help make your gift giving easier this year!  All you need to do is print off this form, send it in, and your shopping is done!

Suggested gifts:

$10 – weekly blood pressure and insulin monitoring supplies for 2 gogos for one entire year
$25 – one year’s supply of sewing, beading and craft materials for 4 gogos for their fledgling cottage industry
$50 – 12 monthly supplemental protein food parcels for a gogo and her orphaned grandchildren
$100 – garden tools, seeds and bedding plants for a community vegetable garden that produces 3 different crops per year for 10 gogos and their families

The Vernon Morning Star published two articles that Susan wrote about her recent visits to Sabie. In case you missed them, those articles are now posted here and here.

Thank you’s flowed, and what was clear is that we all truly understand that it is the team effort – Grannies à Gogo, Rev. Ginny, Milly and Ruth, Joy and Reinette, and the indomitable spirit of the gogos. The whole thing has become bigger than the sum of its parts.

My breath was quite taken away when two of them hustled me off to a side room and put a traditional SiSwati dress on me. This was a surprise not only to me, but to all the other gogos, and when we re-entered singing and swaying they were almost as euphoric as I was. The symbolism of making me their sister didn’t escape me.

Earlier I gave a little party for the gogos and Home Based Care ladies – two cakes decorated with “We love you Sitabogogo” and bowls of fruit and juice.

Ginny, surrounded by hats, scarves and knitted caps.

On another subject, I’m often asked why the gogos are always seen with hats of some sort and haven’t been able to answer. So I finally asked. They answered that it is their culture to wear a head covering once a woman is married or has a child (those two events being in no particular order.) They explained they are probably the last generation to do so, as young women now experiment with many hairstyles instead. They also mentioned that they’ve never worn trousers as the younger women now do. Here’s an idea via Ginny – to buy white cotton hats for all of them, similar to the one in the lower left of the photo, and then they will decorate them with their beadwork.

I’ve made reference throughout the last three weeks to how Sitabogogo has become a recognized presence in the community. This was underscored yet again when Ginny introduced me to the young man instrumental in organizing the representatives from Thaba Chweu for last year’s Senior Games (see Blog #4: Golden Gogos). Apparently this year he hopes to make up an entire team from Sitabogogo!

So much to watch for and support in the year ahead. Salani kahle, and hope to see many of you at the Pot Luck on March 31st – I’ll have a slide show of this visit (and wear my SiSwati member dress!)

Joy Burton took me to visit Nazareth Baby Crèche which I hadn’t seen in two years. A few years ago Emily Nonyane, a vulnerable gogo, approached Ginny for help, and Ginny encouraged her to start a home-based nursery. Emily takes in more the thirty little ones daily, around the clock to accommodate shift workers, and has a staff of five. Grannies à Gogo donates 25 kg of food per month for these infants.

When Joy and I arrived I noticed a number of improvements since my last visit – a fence had been built around the property (organized by Beverley Barling the year she visited), and lawn planted to facilitate outdoor play. A large room has been added on to the back of the house and this is where we found about 25 little ones and their care-givers. However, we were disappointed to see them all lying passively on mattresses spread around the perimeter of the very bleak room. No playthings in sight, nothing adorning the cement walls. Joy had told me earlier that, although toys have been donated, they are often not used because the caregivers say they cause squabbling. Joy made a point of asking. “Where are the toys?” and one of the ladies fetched a bagful and dumped it into the middle of the floor. The photos below tell the story of B.T (before toys) and A.T. (after toys).

B.T. (Before toys)

A.T. (After toys)

Within a few minutes the majority of them were up and interacting with the toys and each other. I’m concerned about the lack of stimulation for these little ones whose brains are like sponges from birth to age five, soaking up everything around them. My hope is that these ladies might be able to attend some training in early childhood education before long.

The Orphan Feeding Project is a visit I enjoy every year. Run very smoothly by Zodwa Mkhonto, it feeds about 300-350 orphans and vulnerable children twice daily in two locations. She has 15 volunteers putting in full days.

Volunteers cook mealiepap and stew

There are two arms to this project. Zodwa runs Masipa Kapisane (“Let us lift together”) and oversees everything to do with the feeding aspect. Bobby Duffett runs Masiba Mbane (“Let’s hold hands together”) and raises the money for operation costs and finding food. This past year the economic crisis caught up with them, too, and by Dec. they had to forgo the annual Christmas party that Bobby throws for them. Thanks to a generous donation by Kelowna’s Gifts to Grandmother’s, their food budget is off to a good start for January and February, and Bobby will have the party in late March at the beginning of their school break.

One hundred finish up and make way for the next ones.

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.