This was such a great idea and confirms what I have been thinking all along: I have traveled all over the world and I’ve never been in a city with such friendly people as the people here in Joburg. I haven’t met anyone who isn't warm and helpful, from the office to the gas station to the grocery store. People (including natives) say that Cape Town is a little more reserved and less racially integrated. But I just can’t get over how friendly these people are….
Anyway, the service day. The group I am working with decided that, instead of a Holiday party, they would spend the $ on a service project followed by a group lunch. When I first arrived they told me we were painting a crèche. For French Canadians, crèche means the manger in which Jesus was born, so I assumed it had something to do with Christmas (and I was also thinking this is gonna be a pretty big crèche if 45 people are painting it!). Someone in the group has a connection to a teacher at a primary school in Soweto so they suggested that they work with the “crèche” down the street. It turns out a “crèche” is a day care. So we set off to renovate a day care center in the heart of Soweto. I took a few pictures on my mobile but there were tons of pictures taken so I will pull together a bunch and create a second post with pics once they are circulated.
Soweto is a shanty town like any other shanty town. It is abject poverty to say the least. But as we turned off the main road and went down the hill, all of a sudden, what appears but…. Lil’ Red! There are Mini’s all over Joburg but in the middle of this slum is the first red one I’ve seen with a white roof. I was like “That’s my car!” Everyone in the car was like – why is she so excited? Little do they know…
The kids were all excited to see this big group of people coming to visit. In this picture they appear as if they are in prison but it’s just a gate to keep them in the courtyard. But there were a ton of kids in an extremely small space.
The kids moved to the primary school down the road and we took over. One team repaired some key furniture and their play gym. Another team cleaned the entire inside and all of their toys and furniture. A third team was the food prep team (we had a lunch for the kids before going to ours)—then there was the inside and outside painting teams. I was on outside painting.
The group who came prior to prep had whitewashed the entire outside of the building (which is made of very cheap, bumpy concrete). Then a high school student drew some pretty creative drawings inside and out to make the building fun and inviting for everyone. Here’s a “before” picture of one section from my mobile.
UPDATE: "During"
and "After"
We probably didn’t start until 9:15 and we all took a color and went all around the outside painting the drawings. It was quite hot and sunny, but we had a blast talking and painting all morning. It looked so good when we finished (If I do say so myself). People in the neighborhood came along commenting on all the activity – people would stand and watch, groups would form, and then people would move on like in any neighborhood, rich or poor. People are people….
The kids came back from down the road and we had gift bags for them and the teachers. (I keep saying "we." I did nothing but show up to paint. The two girls who organized the day did a fantastic job.) Then about 18 of the kids were all getting up from their hot dogs and we were like what’s going on? They had choreographed a dance to the Shakira song written for the 2010 World Cup as a way to thank us. I truly hope someone got it on video, because they were just too adorable.
Then we headed out to lunch at this cute little restaurant. Good thing we were seated outside in the courtyard because we weren’t exactly dressed for French Laundry or per se. And we certainly didn’t smell fresh as a daisy either. But the lunch was just as fun as the service project – there was another group on the opposite side of the courtyard clearly having their end of year party as well. Whenever they would clap or cheer someone, we would join in – and they did the same for us. It’s hard to explain but it was really funny.
I was spent and so glad to get a taxi back to the b&b for a shower. A fantastic day and something I will definitely suggest to future employers.
