New Grandma in Africa

New grandma in Africa! I am a first-time grandma as of February 19, 2007, when precious little Paisley Grace Abdine was born to my son, Alan, and daughter-in-law, Melissa in Texas. It was difficult to concentrate on my work here last week when the birth of my granddaughter was taking place so far away. I found myself elated one moment and then heavy-hearted the next moment because of the distance separating us. When I began to seriously contemplate joining the Peace Corps, I knew that my kids wanted a child and that I would be half-way around the world should it happen while I was away. I could come to visit, we decided, after the birth, after the visitors went home and the family had settled into a bit more predictable routine. But all the fine plans made doesn’t make it any easier to be a new grandma in Africa when I can’t be a part of the experience now. I shared my joy with my African friends and showed them all of the newborn photos from Alan’s blog (alanabdine.blogspot.com). The response from one friend was, “if you could only just touch her”…boy, if I had any wish right now, it would be that I could just touch her once. Yes, I will be coming for a visit mid year where I will hold her and fall in love with her more and more, but my absence there now is very difficult for me.

This past Thursday evening as I was preparing for bed, I was startled to get an incoming call on my cell phone…it would have been an odd time to get a call from the states. On the other end was the Dutch Reform Church pastor that is a member of the orphan and vulnerable children drop-in center committee which I have been facilitating for the past 4 months. He apologized for his poor English as he was very excited to tell me that the business plan (proposal for funding) he submitted to TOTAL, one of South Africa’s largest oil company’s, had been accepted. We have been funded for Rand 300,000 (over $42,000) for our OVC drop-n center. It was fun the next morning at work to call all of the committee members and share the good news. The most excited was the child care worker volunteer from the community we are trying to help. She squealed with delight and didn’t stop for what seemed like minutes. She is the one who has spent months of unpaid hours listing and helping the 280+ OVCs in her neighborhood community. Besides sole supporter of her 7 children, she helps care for 12 other children who are orphaned from her relatives, all due to HIV/AIDS. Now the work begins to find the “way forward.” Do we construct a structure? Do we accept the offer of the local school to use vacant classrooms to start our feeding plan even though the buildings are so decrepit the sewage from the bathrooms overflows at times? Since I have no investment in any particular decision, I can use my position to facilitate in the decision making process.

....a day in the life

What is it that I do here in South Africa? I’ve spoken about my Peace Corps training a bit and the holiday I spent at Christmastime. In fact, I just returned from an eight day Peace Corps in-service training where we re-connected with our fellow volunteers, increased our language skills and learned the process of designing and developing a project. I have lived in South Africa for over 6 months now and I should be actually “doing” something by this time, right? Well, the Peace Corps trains us to sit back and observe and orient ourselves to the organization we’re assigned to for the first 3 months after we arrive at our site before we commit to any big projects. This is good advice as there are so many adjustments we must make just to live in a completely new community, with a new family and, finally, orienting ourselves to a new work environment. Like any new job, I had to get to know the other employees, understand the policies and procedures and how to get things done. Additionally, we all have had a bumpy road in understanding our role within the organization. Our counterparts or supervisors have had the same difficulty. Many of the organizations we are placed with are very small start-ups while others, like World vision, are large, mature, international organizations. What they all have in common is the vision to impact the South African HIV/AIDS pandemic in a positive way…….

I arrive at my organization’s headquarters at 7:45AM every day, Monday through Friday. The headquarters is a residential home located about 2 miles from where I live with my co-worker who drives us to work. We have just dropped off her son, aged 9, at his primary school on the way. Once an all white Afrikaner school, it has been integrated since democracy, 1994. The children all wear uniforms and many of the Afrikaans kids come to school barefooted (a cultural norm, not a necessity). At about 7: 50Am, all the staff gathers in a circle in the “board room.” We sing a “praise” song in Zulu, complete with clapping and movement, and then the director or another staff says a prayer in English or Zulu. I then amble off to the OVC office not without lengthy greetings to everyone I meet. We continue to catch up with everyone in the office as we are served coffee (instant) or hot tea by the young girl who maintains the office. My role and responsibilities have become clearer as the days pass and I am able to plan my day and my work better. That doesn’t mean that the day will go according to plan…..it probably won’t, but what is important is that I am flexible. The work day ends at 4:00PM when I walk home through my little town unless it is too hot and I catch a ride with my housemate.

I am involved in two projects at this time. One, tangible and close to home, is acting as a neutral outsider, facilitator to a community collaborative involving in town pastors (white) and township (pastors) black and other interested community members to build an OVC drop-in center in the township. Volunteers in the township have informally identified 280 orphans and vulnerable children so the need for a drop-in center where these children can be fed, assisted, assessed and referred for other services is crucial. My job this week is to set up our second meeting of the committee; take notes for minutes confirm attendance and lead the meeting. So, I will be setting the agenda and reviewing it with my supervisor and just thinking through how best to proceed. We will be discussing possible building sites and we will select among us those who will “sell” our vision to the local municipality at a meeting in the council chambers later this week. Although the committee members will want me to attend the municipality meeting, I will decline as I see it as an excellent opportunity for the committee to work directly with each other on the initiative. The second project I am involved in is research resulting in developing a training manual. Because of the OVC crisis, there is a great demand by all groups working with orphans and vulnerable children to understand how to access government resources, partner with the educational system to keep the children in school, deal with the psycho-social issue of grief, etc., etc. My job is to investigate who is doing what in the country and write a practical how-to manual for use by community child care workers…..a bit overwhelming now but I am very excited about being involved in both projects. I feel they are both very worthy of my effort and passion.