A new word: Repertoire

The Lonely Planet’s guide to SA suggests that you need not spend more than one day in Bethlehem to fully experience it. A weekend and a national holiday extended our 5-day training to 9 days in Bethlehem (with our wonderful Maluti mountain weekend) and hike in Golden Gate National Park on Youth Day. The Lonely Planet author has a point, but then again, he did not spend time with the parents and practitioners in our Tshepang group.

We finished our last training this week and as hard as it was to even believe we were really going to repeat the same training for yet a fourth time, we left with wet eyes today. This group “got” the essence of the material with depth and passion. There were also some characters in this group who made the whole experience quite enjoyable. We had lots of running jokes throughout. Early in the week we used the word “repertoire” and defined it. Everyone fell in love with the word, and a day didn’t pass without it being used at least once, and often in curious or hilarious contexts. The young trainer and translator Matilda made expressive faces and shared her frustrations when not finding the right words, whereupon others chimed in with suggestions of Sotho language that fit. We became a group.

Here in Bethlehem, we not only heard about the abused babies and toddlers, but spent time with a practitioner at the orphanage where she works. An HIV positive diagnosis accompanies most of their physical, emotional and cognitive challenges. We met a boy whose Sotho name means “Leave” (as in don’t come back). He had been abused in ways that seem unfathomable, as were his significant delays. When Faith and I visited, all the practitioners had the babies out on a beautiful clean rug, and were interacting with them. The next day Erin went by to visit. This time, they were all in their cribs, without much at all going on. Sigh.

Another dilemma arose when we had to decide whether to show one of our most problematic of all the pre-test videos after learning that the practitioner was, after all, in the training. We always begin with a message about learning from each other’s practice, about strength-based observations, etc. But the fact was, that this practitioner was alone with over 30 children under 3, and the results were not a pretty sight. With Matilda’s translation and me at pains to suggest that this would be a good learning experience, the practitioner said “no problem.” When I asked Matilda for counsel, she replied, “It’s OK, because this is the reality.” It did work out, and the practitioner clearly had a transformative experience.

The Working Group met Friday to roll out their plan to extend the knowledge they acquired into the community. They renamed themselves Tsebo ka di Bambinos, which means Knowledge for Babies. It doesn’t have the magic of the name Sesivukile, but these women are charged up and about to tell everyone they know about early brain development and why there need to be fewer babies in care despite the negative economic implications for the crèches. I ended my last entry thinking that the “Talking to Our Children about Difficult Subjects” would be a powerful session. I could not have imagined, and I can only say it is best summed up by one parent who said, “We need to become friends with our children.” They talked about how quickly the world is changing, and how they don’t want to raise their children as they were raised, yet they aren’t sure of the words to use. An elderly grandmother put it politely by noting that in their culture, certain ideas are just not given voice.

We’re back at Matol’s Farm in Viljoenskroon for the weekend, to finish up our draft syllabus and prepare for a week of meetings with the University of the Free State and their community partners in Bloemfontein, then to Pretoria for a UNICEF and national level Dept of Education and Department of Social Development folks, then Thursday evening we hop a plane to London and then JFK.

The closer I get to coming home, the more homesick I become, but will also miss our lives here and the people we have come to know deeply.

xxoova

Maluti Mountains

The thorn bushes are ablaze with bright orange berries across this dramatic landscape. This northeastern part of the Free State looks a bit like Utah, with its strange red rock formations, but also has a mixture of beautiful trees and grasses. We are in the Maluti mountains, which is really the same range as the Drakensburg, but further east. The Maluti are mostly in Lesotho, which is a few kilometers from our cottage. Finally, a weekend of fun—horseback riding and hiking today through this remarkable area, and ending with a long yoga session facilitated by Erin, who just happens to be a yoga instructor. We are staying in a tiny stone cottage that looks out on a panorama that is so epic it is almost impossible to take in. Sunday, we are off to Lesotho and more hiking. We train on Monday, and then we’re off for the National Youth Day holiday that is a commeration of the Soweto uprising (June 16). On this day in 1976, Soweto students organized a march to protest the conditions in their schools and the apartheid government’s policy that half their subjects should be taught in Afrikaans. The police responded to the protest by shooting many unarmed children, which caused more protests and unrest throughout SA.

So, some of you may be wondering what is going on here politically. I’ve hesitated to weave the details into the blog because single facts can be confusing. We had stopped at a roadside rest stop on one of our first days, to catch Jacob Zuma giving his inauguration speech—in sunglasses no less. It sounded like a pre-election speech to us, but everyone in the building was glued to the t.v. as he spoke. We have also been here for the assignment of new cabinet posts, which except for the health minister, we don’t have much information to share. A new cabinet post was just created for issues relating to women and children. And, if you read the NYT you too know that unemployment is inching near 25% with the same percentage on government subsidies. COSATU, the Congress of South African Trade Unions are battling with Zuma, who made jobs his number 1 priority, but there isn't much to show for it. In his State of the Nation address two weeks ago he set out plans to create millions of temporary public works jobs, retrain workers facing layoffs, aid distressed companies and buy more goods made in South Africa. There is a strong tension in the country as a strong emphasis is being put on getting ready for the 2010 games (roads, stadiums, etc) versus keeping the pressure on jobs, education and everyday people issues.

This last group has been the largest yet—close to 30-- and very focused and sharp. As usual, the first day or two feels a bit uncomfortable as parents and practitioners and principals and others learn together for the first time. Then, the power relations break down and everyone is in it together. There are more community folks who are not practitioners or trainers in this group, such as those who work in programs for children with special needs, HIV/AIDS, or abuse, such as a two-year-old who was raped. They are a compelling group, and I particularly look forward to the session on “Talking with your children about difficult topics” because it feels like they will open up even more.
Nite,
va

Mpumalanga—Love and Attachment

Sithuthukile, in Middleburg, Mpumalanga, has been our most wonderful NGO experience to date. We don’t want to leave and they don’t want to see us go.

Middleburg is about a 40-minute drive from Witbank, the largest town in the area. Once again, the possibilities of getting lost abound, as SA is in the middle of changing road and town names from Afrikans/English to African names. So,

Warm Baths= Bela Bela
Black Creek Rd= Masekane Rd.
Witbank= Emalahleni

All this is well and good, except that, often, the old signage stays up while the new one appears (*@#%(@#%&(@??] leading to much confusion. I also got a perverse kick yesterday, when I responded to a phone call from an Afrikaner colleague. She asked where we were and “we’ve just left Emalahleni” rolled off my tongue. Ha! There was a pause, and I could hear her mental gymnastics at work. Actually, Emalahleni is a more appropriate name for the old Witbank area, as it means “place of coal”. A huge coal mine also sits outside of Middleburg as well (no name change yet) and I’ve heard multiple dynamite blasts. In Emalahleni, children’s eyes run from irritation and allergies run high, as they do in most mining areas. Between the smoke from the home stoves and the coal pollution, this once beautiful area is wrecked. In this dry season, too, multiple brush fires appear on the side of road.

Sithuthukile is the smallest NGO of the 4, yet they do such thoughtful work with their sites. This is exemplified in the quality of their preschools and as we found, the level of practice of the practitioners and parents in our training. Strangely, though, this group was hard to read at first. There was less overt enthusiasm for our learning games, and a bit less participation at first. Our experience in teaching has taught us not to let that faze us, and to keep faith in the program. This turned out to be true. Day by day, there were signs of deep understanding, as when we came to a differentiation of love and attachment. During all my 0-3 work in SA I have heard: babies need love, babies need love,” over and over again. When asked what that means, there is often silence. This group understood the attachment issues immediately, and most important, the link between creating quality attachments with children with how many children are in care. That aha moment and their enthusiasm for learning about early brain development put them in a quiet and solemn mood.

This is a site with a Working Group (made up of about half of the training group in addition to community members). This group in fact, is Sesivukile, and now you know why the blog is named after them. Their deep understanding of the new ideas has fueled a fire under them and they met yesterday to plan their work, which includes research on the number of 0-3 at-home and preschool crèches in all their areas, a web of workshops with the key ideas for parents, other practitioners and community members, and a long-term advocacy agenda that will roll out with some future funding.

Three trainings down and one to go. But that doesn’t really state the true facts. The truth is that we have a fun-filled day of meetings in Jo’burg on Wednesday on the way to our last training, where 5 observers will join the largest group yet. And when we are done with the Tshepang training in Bethlehem, we still have a week of debriefing and meetings with our new partner, the University of the Free State.

The wind is howling and last night felt like Halloween. We are sitting by a warm fire so don’t feel too bad for us, but we do miss home.

xxoova