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Friday, March 25, 2005
March 2005
3/25/05
AFRICA DIARY 13: WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH A LITTLE $$
3/25/05
AFRICA DIARY 12: SOWETO SOUL
3/25/05
AFRICA DIARY 11: ONE PERSON AT A TIME
« March 2005 Archive
Friday, March 25, 2005
Subject: AFRICA DIARY 12: SOWETO SOUL
Time: 11:31:00 AM EST
Author:  ajuddinafrica

How I have always elegized Soweto, seat of the struggle, angry, righteous Africans persecuted by a monstrous minority government that perverted even its church in its preposterous reach for justification of racism.  Images from the news, bulletins from Amnesty International, U2 records.  I followed it all.  To actually go to was akin to a pilgrimage.

 

And, as with so many other things in life, I was quickly disabused of my romantic fervor.  My Soweto was a hotbed of political activism, militant youth, and safe houses for underground freedom fighters-- I overlooked the shanty town and slum part, population 4 million, entirely.

 

                           

 

I visited an HIV+ woman in her small 3 room shack.  From oppressively crowded streets I entered through a lean to kitchen that had a vintage stove that would suit an upwardly mobile cottage in America and good pots and pans; turns out, she’s a baker, and were she well enough to work, she’d love to do catering.  The living room and bedroom were crammed with furniture; the floor was covered with dirty, loose linoleum. She has buried 2 children from HIV related illnesses, and her remaining daughter came home from school doing things familiar to kids everywhere:  dumping her rucksack, kicking off her shoes, looking for a snack (but there was none).  Immediately a chatty neighbor came in, and at first I resented that she dominated the conversation.  Also HIV+, she spoke at (great!) length about stigma, her upcoming lung operation, immune vulnerability, the rancid toilet 10 families share and how sick it keeps making them, the bucket she sneaks back and forth from her house in the dark, and the 1water tap in the neighborhood, and my resentment gave way to realizing that this was my Soweto after all:  poor but informed, sick but informed, neglected but informed.  I struggled to reconcile the disconnect between their smart eloquence and ongoing victimization, but whether women  rail against it or remain mute, the problems of HIV, poverty, gender inequality, lack of education, lack of opportunity, etc.,  don’t get any easier. I listened to their phenomenal woes and  asked what I could do. Even though this was a YouthAids visit, they most specifically asked me to complain on their behalf to the city about their toilet, which I have done.  I had to go once in a bad toilet in Madagascar, and it was a horrible experience.  I cannot imagine having to cope with one several times a day.  No wonder people end up going in the streets.

 

Next we pulled into a small, tired yard with a hand painted doubled decker bus decaying on one side.  A hand pump for water was in the center, and around it were afew small tin outbuildings.  In one of them I discovered about 30 calm, wide eyed babies sitting in an orderly row.  It was amazing.  This is the part of the work Sister could never do, as they are mostly orphans, most from HIV.  Some are positive, some are not.  The “program” is an extremely modest foster care scheme run by a local woman.  13 years ago, all she had was that bus, but someone has donated the caravans.  They get food from neighbors and churches—but some days the kids do without. They have little, if any, funding. They spread the kids around to locals who can handle them, and a child might not stay in the same house 2 nights in a row.  The children were so subdued because many didn’t feel well, and it was terribly hot.  After their dinner (rice and pap with gravy) they became a little, but not much, more active.  (I am sending details and photos to a brilliant French friend who funds programs for orphans and vulnerable children.)

                                                     

 

Seconds after walking in, all 5 of us had babies to look after. It struck us how each child was totally placid about being approached and held by strangers, and in fact they reached up trustingly, undoubtedly because they are passed around so much.  Papa Jack ended up with a big toddler sound asleep in his arms, proudly telling me he can put anyone out.  He held him the entire time.  Another very touching aspect of being with them was seeing how nurturing the older ones are to the younger.  One can only hope that they do so limitedly, and don’t end up care givers with total responsibility for them, as so many orphans do.  This leads to the horrible cycle of cross generational and transactional sex, when the young girls trying to feed themselves and babies have sex with older men for food and supplies, and are then of course at major risk for HIV.  Insist on a condom?  No power to.  Abstain?  This is sex for food.  If you abstain, you and the little ones starve.

 

I stayed for a long while, working my way through the babies, when I decided to walk with one in my arms to where I heard singing.  A cinder block building apparently serves as a church on Wednesdays for a few adults who come to worship and be fed a snack.  There was white bread, peanut butter, juice, and Big Mama, next to whom I sat, passed over her sandwich to my baby, who serenely ate it on top of his rice and bap.  I took his sweaty shirt off, and he cooperated perfectly, holding out one arm then the other, and it occurred to me he needed water.  I was not supplementing his care:  I was his caregiver.  He was, in fact, dehydrated, and I stayed in church with the praise and dancing filling my eyes with tears, on the floor with my boy and the other dears who scooted over to me, until he was rehydrated and a reluctant Papa Jack said everyone was waiting on me.  I panicked. I couldn’t set him down.  We sang Amazing Grace, and I waved another crying woman over to me.  I prayed over her and that helped me pull myself together so I could come to grips with leaving my sweet boy (Little Nonno, which means lucky) and all the other children behind.

 

                    

 

*

 

On a busy road with rough tables set up selling sundry goods, one of our audio/video mobile units was doing its thing.  Timed perfectly as the market place was busy and kids were let out of school, Fats, our peer educator, entertained the shifting crowd with music in which the ABC’s of prevention were embedded.  I floated around, tried to stop counting the malnourished kids (identifiable by the rust color of their hair), and kept it more upbeat, chatting up shy (defiant?) young men about safe sex.  I climbed some high stairs to where the too cool crowd was aloofly observing at a distance, and a young man explained the goat bracelet on his wrist was worn to ensure his ancestor’s protection.  I passed out anti-rape fliers (SA is the rape capital of the world, unfortunately.) 

                                                      

                                                       

 

As Fats was winding down, the peer educators were dancing in the street.  I began to make my way toward them, then decided instead to ask some small girls to dance with me in a cool spot under some stairs.  A party broke out amongst us, and we added more girls, then boys, and they competed and grabbed to be the one holding hands with me.  I led, then they led, and I tried to pick up the words to the songs they loved.  Soon the shy ones couldn’t stand being left out and became the most animated.  I can’t count how many times I fell in love, how many times I said, “You are so beautiful,” how many times I said, “You are so smart,” how many times I said, “Just 5 more minutes!”  But, as all things do, it came to an end, and I left Soweto perhaps the filthiest I’ve ever been, covered in dirt, snot, rice and gravy, slobber, my own sweat, and the sweet, tangy sweat of scores of children I hope make it out of Soweto someday.

 

Back at the hotel, I soothed and calmed myself with normal, stable routines, such as hand washing my things in the tub.  I skipped my stained, caked linen pants, though, and decided I’ll retire them dirty with a few other special things I keep in my closet, such as the sandals I wore my first summer in France, and the sneakers in which survived the Ashram’s hikes. After 18 years of following the liberation struggle, my pants are my own little piece of Soweto’s soil, sun and soul.



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