War against Waste

The George Herald has been very supportive of our work here in Thembalethu. Here is yet another article published by this local paper!

An unexpected surprise for those who are struggling.

Today I walked down the street and saw hundreds of men who all looked hungry, and were all hoping to obtain work. The unemployment rate is so high here that the men literally cover the sides of the roads, they stand there hoping that someone will stop and offer them work. Sadly most men do not receive work and must return home hungry with no food to feed their families.

Today Gcinisizwe and I did something different, we went to the local grocery store and bought gift certificates. Today we literally walked down the street and handed out R100 gift certificates to 25 men. Men were dancing in the streets and so excited, everyone that received the certificates high tailed it to the grocery store and loaded up on rice, pap and other essentials. Many of the men hugged us in a tight embrace, nobody has ever helped them before, we were the first.

Themba makes the George Herald!

Thank you to the George Herald for printing a story about the Young Attackers winning the soccer championship last week. This is the team which is also known as the Youth Leadership Football Team, a team sponsored by The Themba Development Project.

My funny story of perception

Now matter how well traveled you are there is always a period of adjustment when traveling to other countries. One of these adjustments comes by way of the furniture. At home we sit on comfy cosy sofa's with their soft pillows, we recline back, put our feet up and watch television or read a book. Here at my home in Thembalethu however things are a little different, we get to fight over hand-made wooden benches, overturned plastic buckets and the infamous chair....

Last week I actually said out loud "Oh wow, the comfy chair is free!" It was at this moment that I realized just how much my perceptions have really changed. You see, the comfy chair in this house was in fact collected on the job one day. Gcinisizwe on one day worked for a man who wanted him to clean up the property and then take the garbage to the city dump. When he arrived at the dump he noticed a plastic lawn chair, amazed that is had not been claimed he grabbed it and took it home. Yes, our comfy chair here was found at the dump. Ha ha ha ha, it is now that I start laughing, I find this really funny. But this magical chair, when compared to our overturned plastic buckets and wooden benches, well, it truly is the comfy chair. Ha ha ha ha

I present to you, the comfy chair......

Ha ha ha

In loving memory, I introduce to you Mbambano Park

Those of you close to me know that my grand father recently passed away. It is a sad thing to be so far away when something like this happens. I remember saying good-bye to him as I departed for South Africa, I had a funny feeling as though it may be my last time seeing him in this lifetime, sadly I was right.

What began as a community clean up project has blossomed into a memorial park for my grandfather, Everett Lohnes. We started with an illegal dump site, with many men, 300 garbage bags and a lot of hard work we are slowly turning this dump site into Thembalethu's first public park. This has been a wonderful opportunity for the community, with 80% unemployment here it is nice to be able to employ my neighbours, and we are all taking pride in the work we are doing. I also employed my friend and neighbour, Nanza, to build two large benches and a table. Over the past 2 weeks we have cleared most of the garbage, leveled the land by moving soil from another area, made a path and my personal favorite, planted trees. It gets very hot here in the summertime so on either side of the chairs and table will two large olive trees. These trees will provide shade from the hot sun as well as protection from the wind. Along the perimeter of the park are flowering shrubs and perennials. On the exterior away from the former dump area are fruit trees.

We are nearly done, we are currently priming and painting the chairs, and cleaning up the last scraps of trash that once littered this beautiful landscape. I am so proud that I can barely contain myself. Although some are fearful that our work will be stolen or vandalized I am hopeful that people will see the beauty in what we are doing and take pride in this one of a kind park. With every tree I plant, every grain of soil I move I think of my grand father. In living memory of Everett Lohnes, we give you Mbambano Park, or translated into English, Unity (Togetherness) Park.

Watch for updates and new photos to see how Mbambano Park is evolving.

Some of my friends here in Thembalethu who helped me with this project.

Two hundred garbage bags of trash collected, another 200 or so to go!

Nanza making the table

The photo above is the "sort-of" before photo, this was taken last week, after 3 days of work,

but as you can see it is still a mess.

This photo was taken today, planted are olive trees, flowering shrubs and the border is flowering Gazania. You can see over the hill that the guys are still down there picking up shards of glass, bits of plastic and other odds and ends. The table and chairs will go between the two olive trees.

I am so proud, I just cannot believe the difference.

Changing the face of Zone 4 in Thembalethu

One of my best friends in the entire world is Abdul. Abdul is one of the founding members of The Themba Development Project and he grew up in Darfur, Sudan. One of my favorite activities is sitting with Abdul, his wife Fatima (Sudan), and our friends Afsa, Fatuma and Rukiya who are from Congo. We tell stories about our life, they tell me about life before coming to Canada and I get to learn about other cultures and lifestyles. One day while I was sitting with Abdul he was telling me about when he was a child, before the genocide which is currently taking place as you read this. He would spend the entire day in the bush with his friends, they would play, and explore. I asked him one day how he was able to play for so long without going home to eat when he said, "Catherine, everywhere you looked in Darfur there was food, food growing in the trees, on the ground, in the bushes." This is when it dawned on me that the missing piece of the puzzle in Thembalethu is fruit trees!

After a year and a half of planning, fund raising and a lot of hard work, one of my dreams took place this week. With Abdul's story an idea was born and this week we planted over 100 fruit bearing trees throughout this community. We planted guava, pomegranate, plums, avocado, peaches and apples, all of which are in public spaces for the entire community to enjoy.

Today when a person is hungry they suffer, but soon when the trees have time to grow, when a person is hungry they simply need to walk to the street and pick a basket of fruit.

Not only will the trees provide an improvement in the food security of this community, they will also provide shade from the hot sun, wind resistance from the strong ocean breezes as well as protect against soil erosion. Any fruit which is not eaten will return to the Earth as fertilizer.

Armed with a team of men who are unable to find work, we set out to change this community. It was a wonderful day that united us. A special thank you to Radermachers Nursery for providing such a generous discount on our tree purchase.

Well now I have heard of everything....Proof once again that our work is essential to this community!

Let me tell you a story, this Blog is supposed to be about the behind the scenes life of both myself and the men and women of Thembalethu. Today I heard news that made me both laugh and cry, let me tell you about it.

Yesterday Gcinisizwe and our three friends found work, they were supposed to work all week which is a miracle because there is no work here, and they have been looking forever to find something, anything, because no work means no food. They left the house yesterday morning at 5:30am and traveled a far distance to the next town. They had no food so they intended to buy food once they got there. Now on this day it was the hottest I have experienced in Thembalethu, a scorching 39 degrees in the shade. These men were driven by their boss all the way up the mountain and worked for 12 hours in this heat. Twelve hours of back breaking work, oh, and there are no stores to buy food or water. Their boss knew all of this, and knew that they had nothing to eat but regardless he left the scene in his truck and didn't come back to get them until after 6pm. I happened to call Gcinisizwe around 1pm because I was worried about the men in this heat, I could hear in their voices that they were struggling, it was far too hot to be outside, especially without food or water.

Today again they woke up at 5:30am and traveled back to the same place, only this time I equipped them with multiple bottles of water, lots of food and gloves for their beaten hands. I was quite surprised when just now, at 12:40pm I see them walking back to the house, they were supposed to work until 6pm.

You see their boss informed these men on Saturday that they would each be paid 90 South African Rand (R), but today he changed his tune and said no, I will not pay you R90, instead I will only pay you R9 which is about a dollar. There in the mountains, far away from everything they realized that all of their work was for nothing. The boss man drove them to the base of the mountain and left them there. They then had to walk three hours home, up big hills with no pay for both today or yesterday.They have arrived home feeling defeated, sad, and heartbroken that yet again they and their families will go hungry. There are no laws to protect them from this type of abuse.

EXCEPT, they live in Zone 4 which means that The Themba Development Project has their backs. Feeling angry about their misfortunes I have decided to begin a new project in which I will employ men from the community, they will receive pay for an honest days work and will be able to buy food for their families. Thank you to all of the people that have generously donated funds to The Themba Development Project, you have once again given the families here something that is priceless, hope.

Catherine Robar
Founding Director
The Themba Development Project
http://www.thembaproject.org/
http://thembaproject.blogspot.com/

Donate today, it all adds up to ending chronic poverty! http://www.canadahelps.org/
One person, One community CAN change the world, we have already begun!

Youth Leadership Football Team Update

Sunday was a wonderful day, I spent the day at the football field watching my boys play the finals for this season. The football field is a very basic place, the field is actually just a dirt patch with a handmade goal area on each end. It is really wonderful how creative the people are here, they turned a bare piece of land into a plot where people can laugh and play and forget about the daily struggles.

When I arrived at the field the boys faces lite up which makes me feel really nice because these are not little boys, these are respected young men from my community. To be respected by them makes me realize that I am a trusted member of the community. There they were, all dressed up and looking wonderful in their uniforms, uniforms if you may recall that were donated by The Themba Development Project. These funds fame from regular people in my community who wanted to give these young men an opportunity to play football.

The sun was very hot on Sunday but the boys didn't seem to mind, they were so happy to play. I realized before the game that many of them hadn't eaten that day so we ran to the store and bought bread, bananas and cool drink (pop). The sides of the field were lined with people from the community, all excitedly cheering on their favorite teams. It was so much fun, everyone was yelling and laughing, all in Xhosa, and I spent the day taking photos and trying to decipher what people were saying.

The guys did so well, they played two games, the first they lost by one point, the second game they won! We all walked home together, clear across Thembalethu, everyone was so happy and our laughter continued into the night.

Thank you again to everyone who generously donated funds so that we could purchase the uniforms, it has made a world of difference to these boys who not only get to play football, but also receive mentorship from the older young men in the community.

Catherine Robar
Founding Director
The Themba Development Project
www.thembaproject.org
http://thembaproject.blogspot.com/

Thabo and Xolisilay share their story

Last night as I sat with Gcinisizwe, Thabo and Xolisilay my heart was filled with both joy and sorrow. These men are such wonderful people, their hearts are filled with goodness and they would do anything for me, they are my friends and I have so much respect for them. They are also survivors of a war called Apartheid. Thabo tells us a story of his childhood in the late 1980's. He lived in a house in the next community over called Lawaiikamp (La-Vie-Camp) with his adopted mother. Hi birth mother was 17 when he was born and his father he has never known. His father fled because at that time the police arrested all of the black men for no reason at all, and he was running to avoid the abuse and torture that came with this imprisonment. Thabo's young mother had no food, no money and no husband to help her. Faced with this hopeless situation she held her baby in one hand and a knife in the other, better this than have him face a life of suffering. Thabo however was rescued by a neighbour who promised to take care of this boy in exchange for his life.

Thabo lived with his adopted mother at the entrance of Lawaiikamp, in a tiny shack that they built from materials commonly found in Canadian garbage dumps. It is often that the police raid this community, it is a time of war and the police, in their minds, do not need a reason to attack. Being that Thabo and his family lived at the entrance to this community they are exposed to a lot of hardships. When the police raid the community they where Thabo's house sits so they are always in harm's way. He has been drenched with Tear Gas more times then he can remember, but he does remember how the gas burned his eyes and his tender young skin. As a boy he can remember feeling as though he was on fire from the inside because of this painful gas. He is a child of war and sadly his is the story not just of him, but of many people in the Republic of South Africa.

One day as he returned home from school the entire community was gone. He rubbed his eyes, not believing what he was seeing. His house, his neighbours house, everything was gone. The government went to Lawaiikamp in the middle of the day and with no regard for the people or humanity they bulldozed the entire community and took away the lives of these families in the backs of dump trucks. With these houses they bull dozed all of these family's worldly possessions, the furniture inside, the money hidden under the mattress that they hard worked for months to save so that they could return home to visit their families in the Eastern Cape, and sadly even the family pet's that were inside the homes at the time of the bull dozing.

As Thabo told me his story I thought about what I was doing at that time. While he rain with arms out, unable to see due to the burning tear gas in his eyes and on his skin I was riding my bike with my friends Carrie and Shawn, eating candies that we bought at the store, totally unaware that my friend Thabo was crying and praying to God to make his pain stop.

People believe that the war is over, that Apartheid is long gone, a distant memory of the past. These people are sadly mistaken. Although 57% of South Africa's population lives in chronic poverty, a figure higher than the struggling country of Burundi, it has been said that not a day goes by that a white man does not rob the black man. Now this is a very powerful and controversial statement that I have just made, let me explain as well as point out that there are many kind and good people here in George, but also some not so good ones, sadly it is always the bad people that make the news.

I listen to endless stories of my friends and their problems with collecting their pay, pay that they earned through bloody hands and sweat and I realize that this country is far from being reformed. These men who have no food, who live in shacks made from garbage, who have mothers and children and grandparents to feed, they work long hours under grueling conditions and when they go to collect their pay in many cases the boss-man has disappeared, never to be seen again.

Xolisilay has been working all day at it is now time to collect his pay, his boss has left and is nowhere to be found. He waits at the house patiently for his boss to return, hoping that perhaps he went to the store and will be back shortly. Six o'clock comes, then 7, than 8pm. Xolisilay is scared, he cannot go home with no money, his family is already so hungry, going home with nothing is not an option yet it is now dark outside and the public taxi's have stopped running for the night. He finds a discarded mattress under the patio of his bosses house and pulls it out so he can sit. Nine o'clock passes, then 10pm. At midnight he hears the garage door open, he is scared so he jumps up, carefully placing the mattress back where he found it. He is standing in front of the patio door when his boss flips the light on. Xolisilay looks at his boss and holds his hands out, politely asking for his pay. His boss is drunk and stumbles. Shocked to see that Xolisilay is still there waiting he backtracks and says "oh, ummm...yeah, I was going to pay you.." clearing his throat "I was going to pay you on Monday. "But this is Friday sir" Xolisilay says, "and my family has no food, we cannot wait until Monday". Finally after a very long day he receives his pay, 100 South African Rand, a tiny amount which equates to 12 Canadian Dollars for a full day of work and 7 hours of waiting in the dark.

You may think that this story is from 1974, during the Apartheid regime, but sadly this happens every day here in Thembalethu, and many times it results in the poor man being robbed of this pay. These men suffer, just hold one of their hands and ask to see their palms. The pain they have endured is nothing short of slavery, or something you would see in a work camp or maximum security prison. They have no gloves and their hands blister under the pressure of their work, to stop means that their families go hungry. They continue to work, their hands bleeding with a stinging pain. There is no time to heal before resuming work tomorrow, they must return to work, trying to remember that they are the lucky ones who were able to find work. There is an estimated 80% unemployment rate in this community. Failure to comply to even the most degrading of treatment means that there are hundreds of other men who will take your place, so they work, and they cry when nobody is watching. These men have been denied lunch breaks and even pee breaks, something I cannot imagine when working for such long hours.

I notice one day that in addition to the existing railings lining the Thembalethu bridge, there are now men installing razor wire. This bridge which covers the N2 highway is the last stop for many men here in Thembalethu, their hope has left them, they are unable to continue the cycle of starvation and cruelty so they jump. For those who are unable to work, of which there are many, they drown their pain with African Beer, drinking to the point of total disarray and other times drinking battery acid, hoping they will not wake up again.

Although this has been a story of sadness it is important to realize that you and I are making a difference. For those of us who have everything it is now that we must act, we must mobilize ourselves and reach out to out brothers and sisters who are suffering. Life does not have to be this way, and it is in our power to change the lives of many people here in Thembalethu. Not sure how? Just ask me.

On a final note I would like to share with you something that I have found to be astounding. These men and women have endured more than you and I could ever imagine, and even though they live with constant oppression and hunger they surprise me with this one point. They do not want revenge for their suffering, they do not want to retaliate or to wage war on their oppressors. These men want peace, and even when their bodies are aching with the pain of hunger they continue to pray to God that one day this suffering will end. I would have thought that they would want to fight the white man, to teach them a lesson for their wrong doings, but to my surprise they do not, what they want is to be respected, to be treated like equals and to be paid what they are worth. They want peace and friendship. To me that is incredible and it teaches me a valuable lesson about humanity and the power of the human heart.

A personal thank you

Today I spent the day canvassing the neighbourhood with Gcinisizwe. This is a very long process but important because we are surveying every house so that we can set them up with Rain Water Harvesting, and as well, I am conducting an informal survey to find out how many people live in each house, and how many people are working, so far the numbers are not looking good. It is evident as I travel from house to house that people are really struggling. I will post my finding once I have completed this survey.

I met one man and his family today who really inspired me to keep going. Sometimes I wonder if in fact there must be a God up there, someone who sends these amazing people to me. I was speaking (through Gcinisizwe's translation service) to a elderly woman when this man came rushing into the house. This house belonged to him and his family and as soon as he saw us he began to run to us. He bounced into the house and immediately took our hands and thanked us profusely. You see, there are 7 people living in this tiny shack and he is the only person who can find work, sometimes....This man's name is Happy, and that is exactly what he is, Happy. When Happy does find work he is paid very little, between 60-80 Rand per 10 hour work day, that is around 9 Canadian Dollars. He only works a few times a week, or at times 0, it all depends on luck, and in Thembalethu luck can be hard to find.

Happy sat down in front of me and said "Sisi, I don't know what my family would do without you, I prayed to God that a miracle would happen, that I would find work so I could buy my brother a school uniform, and then the next day you came to my house, sat with my mother like you were our family, and now my brother has a school uniform." Happy and his family really struggle, with seven mouths to feed most days this family goes hungry, and most days his brother goes to school without food. Sisi by the way is what you call a woman that you respect very much, so to be called Sisi was quite a blessing to me.

Happy told me that he has also been praying because he would like to earn enough money to buy 4 egg laying chickens, 1 male and three females. These chickens he explained would live with his family and would provide food to the children so they would not be hungry. It is at this moment that I think that yes, there must be a God because my next question to him was to be ....."Do you need chickens and do you have a place to keep them", a miracle really!!

Happy made my day, my week really, if ever I have doubts about my work I will think of him and his family. Although I do not get paid to do this work, I feel blessed to do this work. In exchange for hard work and lots of volunteer time I am given the gift of love, a fair exchange I think.