Our first day of orientation, Mary Emily, our fellow volunteers and I went on a river cruise with lunch. We had meat pies, pumpkin (which is served as a vegetable), and milk tart. Milk tart is a traditional South African dessert that is made of a pie crust, milk, eggs, and sugar. It’s interesting- a tiny bit like cheesecake, but not as sweet. It appears to be an acquired taste.
We also went on a township tour. A township is a large community of people with similar cultural heritages. This township is a Xhosa township, so they speak the clicking language and keep a lot of the traditions of the past. For example, a man still buys his wife from her parents- previously, he bought her with cattle, but now the exchange is more often money. Many of the houses are purchased for the people by the government. If a family makes less than a certain amount per month, than they can apply for a house from the government. Other houses were more like shacks. Those houses were purchased by the people who made slightly over the limit of income when the government would give you a house. Our township tour was extremely enlightening because we learned a lot about how the people live and saw how connected the community was. Everyone knew each other within the township!
Mary Emily and I have also been learning a lot about the history of Robertson and South Africa. Robertson’s primary economic mainstay is wine production. There are many wineries in the area, and the owners of these wineries have become extremely wealthy. For their farm workers, they employ mostly colored people who live on their farms and are primarily seasonal workers. In the past, most vineyard owners paid their workers in wine- basically the people were indentured servants. This has made alcoholism a huge problem in Robertson and the surrounding areas. Although the people are paid with money now, alcoholism persists, and as a result, Robertson has one of the highest fetal alcohol syndrome rates in the world. It is difficult to see so many children with the clear facial deformities of FAS. Later this week, we will have a program on FAS in this community and the programs that are helping to prevent it.
Like the rest of Africa, Robertson is plagued with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Mary Emily has been working in a clinic at which many people receive treatment for these two diseases. It is also a primary care clinic, so she has been very excited to be helping with things like bandaging burns and diabetic amputees, as well as helping give babies some of their first check-ups and vaccinations.
I am working at one of the wineries at their crèche (which is like a daycare). All of the children of the farm workers come to the crèche during the day to play with the other children and be taken care of while their parents work. I work primarily with the older children who are ages 5-14. I am hoping to do a lot of fun activities and art projects that may be very familiar to kids growing up in the United States, but which kids here have no exposure to. They LOVE to play soccer and so I am making up for the two years I’ve been absent from the soccer field! If you have any ideas of craft projects or simple activities please shoot me an email because I am definitely looking for lots of ideas!
So far we are having a fantastic time in South Africa. We have made some great new friends and are very excited about our next five weeks!
Love,
Mary Emily and Martha
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