Posts tagged volunteer
Volunteering in South Africa
As much as I love the idea of picking vacation spots based on beaches and the cheapness of beer, it gets old…fast.If you love to travel and are looking for something more unique to do with your free time, look into volunteering. From your own backyard to every corner of the globe there are programs that invite you to help out.
Think of what you would like to do. Be it teaching English, conserving the environment, coaching sports, building schools, playing with kids – whatever – there are opportunities to do what you love, make a difference and explore the coolest places on earth.
Some programs are just a week long, others can go on for months if you find yourself loving it, and you will if you give it a shot.
In South Africa, Lindsay and I met up with a group of about thirty girls (reason enough for me to return but that’s besides the point) who were all volunteering on a variety of projects in and around Cape Town. Everyone was able to choose which project fit them best and at the end of the day they all returned to a communal house that was as cool as any backpacker hangout I’ve seen anywhere in the world.You get to meet travelers from around the world who have been brought together with a common purpose of trying to make one little part of the world a bit better.
Lindsay and I agree that some of our best travels have been when we volunteered in foreign countries and both of us will always be looking to do more of it. It’s an amazing experience and I promise you will have as good of a time helping out than you would have had pounding Coronas and getting sunburned in Cabo.
Volunteering in South Africa, Part 3
There’s nothing louder and simultaneously as comforting as rain on a tin roof – even during monsoons. This must be what makes the Cape Town area look so clear, clean and lush. And surely, when we emerged from our rooms that second day in False Bay, the world was dripping and new.
Into Masi again, we went into a few creches where children from the township can receive child care and an education while their parents work, in hopes that they will someday be at the same academic level as their peers.
The first one was hooked up – resources filled the shelves in an organized, well-labeled fashion. At our arrival, one volunteer was reading a book in English and a teacher next to her translated the story in Xhosa, chocked full of clicks and tongue smacks. Activity time commenced with drawing and painting, and we tried getting our hands and minds in there with the kids. I ended up stacking toys with young five and six-year-olds, trying to teach them colors and shapes. One teacher came over, asking me if I’ve been “teaching her children.” When the kids nodded their heads, she looked really touched, and I was filled with…dare I say…glee.
The second creche wasn’t nearly as organized, discipline-oriented, or effective in making a difference for the kids. These two and three-year-olds, as well as babies, pretty much danced around a building erected by previous volunteers and entertained themselves. Part of the process, though, of programs coming in to help various establishments is waiting for an invitation and a genuine intention to progress towards something sustainable. Though this creche had made great leaps towards improving the conditions for the kids, moving them from a flooded and moldy room in the back of the house to a clean, dry, well-lit structure, they didn’t have daily routines or enough activities to calm their busy minds and bodies. Luckily the ones at this creche move on to the previous creche and receive the skills that will get them somewhere.
And the women who run these places often don’t receive enough donations to function but must work themselves on the weekends and evenings for funds to run their creche. That’s some noble, admirable dedication right there.
Our volunteer coordinators, Ally and Isabelle, treated us to a much appreciated meal and took us to our final destination of an orphanage in a colored community. Something Ally informed us of early on is the use of racial terms in accepted speech. In South Africa, people describe others as white, black or colored. Simply using these words does not imply anything derogatory. The term “colored” differentiates those who have dark skin and other influences of Arabic, Asian, and so on.
The orphanage is better than many that exist in America today and had been visited by Melinda Gates in the past. They had resources, though an odd stance on nutrition (the meals of custard answered questions about the quite round babies). We played for a bit after a tour of the facilities and returned to our hostel, feeling pretty content from the incredible treatment we received for two days straight.
Thomas Jefferson was a fan of travel: “Travel makes you wiser, but less happy.” In a sense, I think he was on target, but global and social awareness can also bring a feeling of hope and enlightenment that can empower and please. I didn’t feel happy seeing children and adults living hard lives that I observed as a cushy tourist, but I loved being witness to their strong characters and seeing the moments of success that emerge from the hardships. You can hear about the problems in South Africa and easily forget about them. You can see the problems in South Africa and remember them well. You can do something for the struggles, learn about the solutions, and interact with South Africans and understand viscerally until the end of your days. For this reason, I volunteer, because I don’t ever want these hard realities to be easy to forget.
Volunteering in South Africa, Part 2
The barking from TEARS reverberates across the entirety of Masiphumalele daily, but what’s represented by those sounds make the annoyance of constant dog yelping kinda comforting. The Emma Animal Rescue Society (TEARS) takes stray animals and domestic pets from the local communities for vaccinations, fixing and disease treatment at a price that no one can argue with: free. Instead of putting down pups with horrifying skin diseases, they do what they can to ensure that every animal gets a chance at survival and adoption. And when they wander across a pet cat that hasn’t been neutered yet, they create a positive relationship and rapport between TEARS and the owner, gaining respect and trust among people who don’t often have the money to do the right thing for their beloved pets.
The mobile clinic invited us to join a ride through Masi to observe how they find needy animals and connect with the communities. There was one man living on the very edge of the wetlands who absolutely adored his large, golden canines but couldn’t feed them and treat them they way they deserved. TEARS built him a kennel and helped him out with dog food. The man was so grateful, he put his palms together and dipped his head in a sign of extreme and humble thanks.
In the next township of Mountain View, we came across a man who adored his massive pit bull, a canine who was quite obviously not fixed. The dog’s homemade sweater was connected to the chain around his neck and had felt letters sewn on spelling “I’m so hood”. It was just too perfect an ensemble. The owner reeked of booze and had an odd smear of white surrounding his mouth. He insisted that he’d never taken his dog to a fight, but he’s killed 13 dogs before. And he took impeccable care to pair his fella with only the most worthy pit bull ladies, spreading the good bloodlines he called it. In this community, it’s common that the men keep incredibly virile and dangerous dogs to solidify their own manly image. This was a case that would take weeks for TEARS to work, and they began by talking about dog fight victims to get on this guy’s sappy side. We watched from afar at their wicked skills of coercion.
Volunteering in South Africa
We drove from Cape Town to False Bay during the brilliance of a harbor sunrise. The first stop was a “no frills” walk around a township called Masiphumelele (which means “we will succeed”). Township areas were set aside during the apartheid era as a place to “put” the colored and black communities that weren’t wanted in the residential white zones. Masi, for short, is the only informal community in the Cape Town area that’s centered in a “white” zone and is also the township with the highest percentage of people with HIV and AIDS…42%.
Day care for a young child is $10 per month, but since these facilities wouldn’t send a child away if the parents failed to pay, often that fee never gets collected. The township also bordered a wetland area, which floods with each heavy rain, and, unfortunately, it had been pouring the week prior to our arrival. Many children couldn’t go to school or day care because they didn’t have dry clothes to wear and parents flocked to the relief centers for blankets to get through the chilly weather.
We hit up our lunch stop, which also happened to be an educare center for children of pretty abysmal living situations and histories. Carrying in bags of rolls and deli ham, Chris and I began slathering mayo and folding ham for the kids’ lunches. When we walked in, there was earth-rumbling screaming. When we passed out sandwiches, a mouse could have passed gas and all would have turned their heads to look. And once the children consumed the food before them, it was back to unstoppable energy. The volunteers were personal jungle gyms for some kids, while others found joy in just being held. I attracted some gigglers with the always-reliable crowd-pleaser, the tickle monster. Wherever you looked, there was a runny nose and a smile. It was a good scene.
Our expert sandwich assembling abilities came in handy once more when about 20 loaves of bread and flats of peanut butter came into the kitchen. We found ourselves in an efficient assembly line partaking in the relief efforts from recent rains. All those families whose homes hadn’t a dry board received PB&Js to curb the devastation just a smidge. It felt good to spend even part of this trip doing something as useful as making cold and hungry families food.