This year, in the interest of getting to know one another better and to promote friendships, Grannies à Gogo is sponsoring in-home coffee/tea/juice parties.
We will:

• get to know other Grannies in our organization
• hear about exciting upcoming events for Grannies à Gogo
• learn how our efforts are helping the Gogos in Sabie
• share ideas for future Vernon events
• enjoy coffee/tea/juice and chatter with friends

Our first Coffee Party was on Friday, Sept. 18.  Stay tuned for more to come!

Our second Coffee Party, on Tuesday, October 20, unfortunately, had to be cancelled due to unforseen circumstances.

Our next, will be in November.  Stay tuned.

On Saturday, May 2, Grannies à Gogo offered a series of African themed workshops as a fundraiser in support of our Sitabogogo in Sabie, South Africa.  All of the workshops were led by accomplished artists.  This fundraiser was a grand success, not only financially, but also in terms of the learning experiences, the joyful atmosphere and the sheer fun of “playing” together.  Click here to see the slideshow!

This is a video of the Gogos singing the song Susan taught them as described in her blog post of November 30. https://granniesagogo.com/2008/11/30/susans-blog-sing/

Here are two donation options:

1.  We’ve added a printable form to fill out to make a donation in honour of someone (birthday gifts, in memoriam, etc)

2.  You can donate safely by mailing a cheque to our treasurer, Carol Schroeder at #15 – 900 43 Avenue, Vernon, BC V1T 9C8.

Check out both options at this page.

Susan joins in with the Gumboot Dancers in South Africa.

The Christmas party: singing that raised the roof! speeches, prayers, thank-you’s, and good-bye’s!

The gogos’ party took place inside the centre which had been transformed with white curtains & blue swags clothes-pegged in place, and a 10 foot pine tree decorated very effectively with balloons. An African Father Christmas passed out gifts to each and every one. This year the gogos received battery-less flashlights which operate with a shake.

 

Outside was the children’s party, music system blasting away, a decorated throne for Father Christmas under a growing tree also decorated in balloons, and general happy pandemonium.

 

 

 

Rev. Ginny Uren-Viner, with Ruth Magagula, Milly Chiloane, and Joy Burton took on a mammoth task of organization. They have worked tirelessly to make not only this party, but the entire project, a resounding success.

 

The 100 calendars from Grannies à Gogo, signed from so many Vernon area people, were a huge hit! They loved all the photos of themselves and carefully studied the photos of our group. They profusely thanked me and I made sure that they understood there are 150 members in Vernon who raise funds and love them, supported by a whole community.

Beauty Manzini presented Grannies à Gogo with a gorgeous Christmas banner which she made by hand using the paper piecing method. It will make a wonderful raffle item or perhaps a drawing card for our Pot-Luck and Auction. Regardless, what goes around, comes around, and all funds raised will all go back to the gogos.

This is the last of my blogs of this trip, as Ken and I head to Pemba in northern Mozambique for a few days, then to Washington, DC before home. Vernon’s Morning Star newspaper will be publishing two further articles; watch for them over the Christmas season.
“Salani kahle” ~ Susan

“Break the Silence – End the Violence” is the slogan of the country wide 16 Days of Activism which is running now from Nov.25 to Dec.10.  It focuses specifically on women’s and children’s rights (against abuse). South Africa has an excellent constitution but often people, particularly those in rural areas and those uneducated, don’t know their rights or how to find help.

Malindi Matsne is the councilor on the municipal government representing the township of Simile where the Sitabogogo Project is located.  She sat down to speak with the gogos (in an African language) about what this was all about, and to encourage them to come to a public presentation on the topic the following day.

I watched quietly from the sidelines, heartened to see and hear several of the gogos join in an animated discussion. It was also interesting to note those which gogos emerged as leaders in the discussion. Some who normally work quietly at their sewing spoke passionately with much hand waving.

When I drive in the car I always have the radio tuned to SAFM, similar to our CBC Radio, as a kind of pulse of the nation. In the last several days it has devoted a lot of time to this campaign, interviewing authors, filmmakers, victims and repentant abusers about this subject. I see a lot of forward movement in this country in many ways. (Now if only the government could get its act together).

I love to visit the orphan feeding project each time I come to Sabie. It feeds roughly 300 children twice a day, Monday to Friday. It’s not a part of the Sitabogogo project, but a number of the grandchildren that the gogos care for eat here. Zodwa Mkhonto and her unpaid volunteers are doing fantastic work, and this is one project I would love to see partnered with a Canadian support group.

With each visit I always notice changes – mostly encouraging, but they are not without their challenges. On my last visit I learned that, as their veggie garden was coming into full production, it was routinely raided. The night after they had finally laid down new copper water pipes, they were dug up and stolen. Recently a gov’t source of their funding dried up and they were down to their last few bags of meilie and were talking of shutting down. Unexpectedly, one of the grocery stores liquidated in Sabie and gave all their perishables to them – deus ex machina!

This time I had a big surprise. The children had apparently been preparing a program for their Christmas party and my visit prompted a dress rehearsal of their show. It was amazing – all kinds of dancing, singing, drama and poetry performance that went on for an hour and a half. Such talent, and it thrilled me! After some young boys did their gumboot demonstration, I jumped up and showed them 10 seconds worth of gumboot dance I knew, much to the surprise and amusement of all.

Since my last visit, they now have two young social workers who come for an hour or two in the afternoon to help children with their homework around a table in the kitchen. At the same time in the big hall, groups of kids practice dancing, singing and drama.

The big question that is only now beginning to be whispered in the wings of the world stage is this: As the gogo generation begins to pass away, the next huge social question looming on the horizon is that of the hurting, parentless orphans who are growing into the working and ruling generation. How will their experience shape the future of this country?

On Monday the gogos were decked out in the yellow T-shirts donated to them when they had their ball games in June, their red looped ribbons pinned on, long white candles in one hand, umbrellas in the other. At 10 am they were waiting for the bus to take them to the World AIDS Day rally due to start at 10:30. We waited and waited. “T.I.A.” as they say here – this is Africa.I made use of the time by whipping out my journal and interviewing 80 year old Emma Skosana, listening to her stories of losing all three of her children, and raising an adopted daughter. She ended up in Sabie in 1970 when the (apartheid) government took their house away and “made a coloured location there. Bantus were sent away”. Coloured refers to (East) Indians and mixed race, Bantu are black.

At 10:30 still no bus. Milly was on her cell phone and said don’t worry, they have not started without us. So relaxed is this ‘African Time’ . . . so foreign to my urgent sensibilities. At 11:15 the bus arrived and we were there in 15 minutes. True, it had not started.

The program was full of passionate speeches, singing and dancing by a number of groups. Sitabogogo sang an African hymn and This Little Lamp of Mine in English. Following this, the MC expressed surprise at the gogos’ strong, beautiful singing . . . “I did not expect that,” she said, as Milly translated in my ear.

 

A few gleanings from the Johannesburg Sunday Times:

Thirty studies have now indicated that circumcision halves the risk of contracting HIV for men and, since January, men are streaming in at the rate of 50 per day to one Johannesburg township clinic. It is funded by an agency from France.

South Africa HIV facts:
5.7 million people are HIV+, 11 % of the population
1,500 new infections every day
370,000 AIDS deaths a year; total deaths from AIDS = 2.5 million
30% of pregnant women are HIV+. 60,000 babies infected each year
470,000 receiving treatment
540,000 needing, but not receiving, treatment

For more details see: http://www.tac.org.za/community/

“This land is your land, this land is my land
From Pretoria, to Robben Island,
From the great Limpopo, to Atlantic waters,
This land is made for you and me.”

That’s my rewrite of the well known folk song, accompanied by an upbeat Trini Lopez version that my husband downloaded to a CD. Although I can dance up a storm, my singing voice is the pits, hence the CD for teaching purposes.

First I met with Ruth and one of the young Home Based Care women, Winnie, to give them the printed words and listen to the tune. They immediately began clapping the beat and moving their feet as we sang our way through. By the third time through they were singing in harmony, and after that they no longer needed the CD. Amazing how much better my voice sounded singing along with them! Then we set a few simple arm and feet movements to the chorus.

 The next day we team taught the song to about 30 gogos. Ruth and Winnie explained what the words meant and they all learned the English version. What a glorious sound they made! I couldn’t help but think what a tentative and thin sound a comparable group of Canadian grannies would make as they learned a new song in a foreign language. But of course, it’s cultural – they sing lustily and spontaneously many times a day. What fun!

 On World Aids Day, Monday, Dec. 1, I will be going with Sitabogogo to a big rally. Will report back on that experience next.