The Wood for the Trees

So here am I sitting on the ground, in a church tent with a large group of women. We are in Lakeside Estate, a recently formed township about 100 km south of Johannesburg. Lakeside Estate is not near a lake and it's the RDP-house set-up is furthest possible thing from a 'housing estate" one could imagine. It is decent enough looking place - its new style match box houses standing in neat well-kept rows.
So... here we are as part of the Hollard Foundations Kgago ya Bana (Building together for our children) Project, discussing how to be better parents. The group is animated and excited. They warm to the topics of 'seeing through different eyes' and 'what is the state of parenting in your community'. The draw pictures, huddle in little cafe style discussion groups and take a dialogue walk down the streets o their Estate.
All great and well.
Any yet the issue that keeps looping back throughout the 2 hours we are engaged is: "How can you help us to get work?"
It is said in so many words and in other ways.
These are articulate, seemingly determined women varying in age from 18 to 50 and yet... unemployment is high in this area. That's why they can meet with us at 1 in the afternoon on week day.
And I wonder...with everything we are trying to achieve with this project - creating a haven for the thousands of vulnerable children in this area - are we not missing the wood for the trees.
Is the elephant in the room not that these women (and hundreds and thousands like them) are not gainfully employed or kept busy. That as much as we assist these women in looking at there children through different eyes, there is just no way for them to look at their socio-ecomomic realities differently. Living just above the poverty line wakes them up every morning and drowns them to sleep to every night.
The Vulnerable are the adults more than the children...

... and as a result all other good-to-haves: stable homes, great families, well-looked after kids, functioning schools and clinics....

...Are just never going to happen...

Selah

Elections 2009 Revisited

Unbelievable long lines for my sleepy suburb. Is spent 2 hours waiting for my turn to ink my thumb. The larger majority of my fellow voters still reflected that this had been previously deemed a white Afrikaans-speaking group area. The line snaked out of the primary school and into the street. Behind me a tall young man of Asian-descent kept the ear phones of his MP3 cellphone firmly in his ears the whole time. In front of me an elderly couple joked in Afrikaans and jostled lovingly with each other. Immediately in front of them a gaggle of smartly dressed young adults chatted away in Sesotho. The lines grew longer and longer throughout the morning. A young ‘coloured’ couple wheeled their little baby in a pram.
The mood started off a bit grim. Maybe it was the low hanging clouds and the chilly wind. But....surprisingly few gripes. Just a strange quiet determination. Maybe a hint of expectation? Resolve maybe?
The police moved us off the street and into the school grounds. The number and diversity of the group came into view. It was going to be long wait for all of us...but hey...
This was the Rainbow Nation. Present and in attendance. Quite a bit jaded. The 1994 lustre gone. But here anyway. Standing in orderly lines. Doing democracy thing.
It was probably the first time most of us could actually appreciate the integration that had taken place in this lower middle class suburb.
The time ticked by. Outside some entrepreneurs sold coffee and pancakes.
A lady with a parrot on her shoulder took her place in the line. Gospel music blared meekly from a cellphone a few places in front of me. A wannabee punk tried his best to look out place with a torn jeans and a half-hearted attempt at a Sid Vicous Mohawk.
All around conversations piped up in Afrikaans, Sesotho and Zulu. Not a lot of English here.
A boisterous father joked loudly if it was possible to vote slower. A young other played with her kids on the school grounds while her husband kept her place.
Then it happened. In English darem. Someone looking like (acting President) Kgalema Motlante’s younger brother (smart, presidential and a greying goatee) and an Afrikaans-speaking man more-or-less his same age, started joking about the main topic in South African politics. And what about? JZ, who else. Just before it could go anyway, the discussion unfortunately broke off as the younger Motlante had to take a call on his cell.
The rest of us stood quietly. Grimly? Militant? Not really. Not at all in fact.
More like the look I remember outside the Wits University exam halls. This was something that had to be done. Maybe this could work? Maybe the ANC could be beaten?
Then it was time to vote. Check ID. Check voters roll. Ink on the thumb. Collect ballots. One last think. Final decide between which of the other Guys you vote for.
Then it was over.
As it turned out the middle class Velvet Revolution was a non-starter. The ANC’s 107 year-old brand held and 65% of South African voters chose to give them one more chance to do a better job than the last time.
But maybe there was something left behind in those long lines. Maybe ...?
Selah

We Are the Ones We have been waiting for

Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousandsby the tens of thousands pound the fallow landinto new dust thatrising like a marvellous pollen will befertileeven as the first woman whisperingimagination to the trees around her madefor righteous fruitAnd who will join this standing upand the ones who stood without sweet companywill sing and singback into the mountains andif necessaryeven under the sea:we are the ones we have been waiting for.June Jordan