Final Firsts

By: R. Gail

It was a full week of getting into the rhythm of things. We finally started classes, had our first day of internships, got to explore Windhoek further than walking distance. We also had our first and only birthday celebration while we are together.

This week we set the tone for the rest of the semester with "community day;" we dove straight in talking about religion, sexual orientation, race, class, etc. What I loved about the community day was that the students didn’t just reflect on all these issues, but also the staff did too, who are mostly Namibian. Personally, I found it very informative to talk to the staff and see their views on these issues and how they compare to the Americans. It was a great platform to reflect and reaffirm my thoughts and beliefs on some of the subjects we touched on during the day. We played games to get to know each other a little better and got to teach the game Ninja to the rest of the staff. I was getting a bit worried when d (the housekeeper) was jumping around and almost falling on her pregnant belly! Thankfully, she did not.

The whole CGEE gang trying to figure out how the game of Ninja works.

 

Tuesday we went on a “Katutura Quest” with some young people that are from Katutura, a township that was created to forcibly moved Black people there during the Apartheid. Katutura has so much to offer from the amazing food of Kapana to the elder community we got to meet with during out “Katutura Quest.” For the quest we were split into two groups; one group went to an art center and my group went to the only old folk's home in the city. We talked to the man that ran the center and he told us that residents must be able to take care of themselves, have a low income, and be overall in a healthy condition; meaning that the residents were able to care for themselves and did not need constant medical attention. Usually, when I visit retirement centers or old folk homes I get quite sad, but at this one everyone, for the most part, was all smiles. We sat in on a bible study in what I assumed was the Afrikaans language. Since I could not understand the language the bible study was in, I observed the room and something dawned upon me: I was sitting in a room with Black and White people who grew up during the apartheid era. To think that they grew up separated by law, and now live together only a few years after the end of apartheid was amazing. We later found ourselves eating the most deliciously prepared meat: kapana, a cow that is very freshly cut and prepared with the richest spices and luscious fat on a grill. We ended the day by preparing for the first day of our internships (unfortunately I was MIA for this)!

Wednesday we all started our internships bright and early! My internship is with the Namibian Women’s Health Network which is a community-based organization that empowers people who are affected by HIV and AIDS in Namibia. This organization also seeks to provide educations, skills, and information to women who are living with HIV and AIDS in Namibia. What is currently happening now is we teach reading and writing in English and food preparation to women outside of the city of Windhoek. Most of what I have been doing is lesson plans to teach basic English literacy. The idea of this current program is to give the women the tools they need to be able to find a job or even create a small business of their own. I hope to teach as much as I can and learn more about and from these women throughout the time that I am with them.



(Jimmy & Alexis) Our first day of our politics class!
We couldn't be more excited!

Thursday we finally had our first day of classes! In our politics class and political development class, we had speakers come in and talk to us about what Pan Africanism is and how it was mostly for people who were outside of Africa to reconnect with their roots, but is now a uniting idea among all Africans. We also had someone come in a talk to us about the relationship Namibia has with China and North Korea. The two countries have great political relationships with Namibia because after the liberation struggle Namibia needed some help and reached out to other countries but only really received help from China and North Korea. Especially with the Chinese, the relationship was abused. The Chinese would build factories in Namibia to acquire cheap labor from the Namibian population. The Namibian government allowed the Chinese to overwork their workers, left them sick for the rest of their lives, and let them break the laws of the worker's rights of the Namibians. Namibia’s government overlooked these conditions because they were in great need for jobs at the time. I am already learning so much of Namibia’s history and how that has shaped Namibia today.

 

To wrap up this busy week we headed to the theaters to watch Black Panther, which lived up to the hype. We went out to dinner and got pizza with a very rude waiter, it was great. It was also Hal’s 21st birthday! We all bought him an inflatable shark for the pool (he has yet to take it into the pool though…). After he showered we pushed him into the pool in all his dry clothes. We went on a hike in search for a lion, thankfully we did not find one considering we were still in a city. Now that we are settling into our new home I am excited to see what these next few months will bring us here in Windhoek, Namibia.

I was just helping Hal jump into 21!
(HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAL!)

 

Till next time!

Blown Away by the Community Spirit in the Windy City

 

By Alexis T.

Red Location Lodge, a former beer house that was transformed into
a bed and breakfast by Mama Africa and several other women.

The focuses of this week’s adventures were women’s empowerment, Black empowerment, and the idea of Ubuntu. Mama Africa told us her story about Red Location Lodge, a lodge in Port Elizabeth, South Africa former beer house that was transformed into a bed and breakfast by 15 women in 2008. These women worked their whole lives to destroy the beer house that distracted black children from their education. Instead of doing homework the children would carry liquor for individuals at the beer house. Mama Africa was one of the women who fought for equality for Blacks during apartheid to ensure that children would be able to get an education. She continued this mission by renovating the beer house into a bed and breakfast in which women could work to afford their children’s education.

The Ubuntu Centre, a center that provides educational, health, and
psychosocial resources for the local community

The Red Location Project was meant to better the community, both for the education of the children and to bring revenue through tourism. There are many organizations in South Africa that work through and with the community to improve the livelihoods of its inhabitants. The Ubuntu Centre is another community-based project that aims to educate children from “cradle to career” through the Ubuntu Pathways program, and provide health and psychosocial resources to the local community. The Red Location Project and Ubuntu Centre both employ the ubuntu ideals of altruism and sharing by being open to all individuals in the community. The Ubuntu Centre determines the needs of the community by working within and networking with the community. This inside-out approach ensures that the primary needs to the society are being attended to. The primary needs of the community are education, health, and psychosocial help. The Ubuntu Centre focuses on being open to all types of individuals, all desired career paths from music to science to technology, and giving back to the community through its sustainable design and educational programs.

The Ubuntu Centre, a center that provides educational, health, and
psychosocial resources for the local community

In another town called Victoria Mxhenge, the South African Homeless People’s Federation strives to improve the livelihoods of those in the community by providing free, stable housing. The organization went to great lengths to educate individuals on building techniques that allowed them to construct their own houses. Most of the houses were built by women and have been standing for 20 years despite developers claiming they would fall in 5 years. The program has provided housing for 136 families and the vocational education has provided the largely unemployed population with a skill set that makes them more employable. This organization speaks to the ideals of ubuntu and sharing by working within and providing the community with homes, skills, and stability resources. The organization continues to address the housing issue and has moved onto addressing unemployment, education, and the health of its citizens. The organization educates through a feminist lens that promotes women’s empowerment. Most of the individuals building houses with the organization were women and the organization promotes the importance of the women’s role in the house. This is extremely important in the town which has many single mothers. The skills taught to women are traditionally masculine skills, proving that women can do both the jobs traditionally associated with men and women. There is a similar feminist movement in the U.S. in which women take on the traditional masculine role of breadwinner or join masculine occupations such as engineering, proving that a woman can do anything a man does. The program also funds children’s education through bursaries that prepare students both for the university track and career path through vocational training. There are also programs to help children with homework and problems going on at home. The organization provides a safe space for the children where they can stay away from the influence of drugs and alcohol that can be found on the streets and focus on their schooling and wellbeing.

 

Members of the Victoria Mxhenge community and South African Homeless
People's Federation outside the Federation's center.

Community is an important concept in the South African culture which differs greatly from the culture of rugged individualism in the United States. Individuals learn to lean on each other for support as they did by building homes for each other, sharing resources and skill sets, and providing programs that uplift and provide opportunities for one another. In the United States, on the other hand, it is common to be closed off from the community and be self-sufficient. The organizations mentioned above were started by individuals who lived and grew up in the communities their projects are based in. This ensures that the needs of the individuals are met by having an inside view of what the community needs rather than an outsider’s assumption of the true problems. For the Red Location Project, it was destroying a beer house that promoted alcoholism and kept children away from school. This community has seen many improvements including paved roads, an increase in formal housing structures, and an influx of tourism which has provided jobs for more individuals. For the Ubuntu Centre it was ensuring that the community has access to health care, psychosocial care, and education. These three things can prepare children to enter the workforce instead of increasing the unemployment rate and provide physical and mental health stability for those living in undesirable conditions who cannot afford medical care. For the South African Homeless People’s Federation, it was teaching the largely unemployed community with a skill set of home building that allowed them to create their community from the ground up. This project not only educated but provided stability through their free housing program. The organization has also begun to provide educational and support programs for children to ensure that their needs are met in a safe environment away from the streets. At the heart of each of these projects is giving back to the community through the sharing of resources and knowledge, a quality that is not often exemplified in the individualistic United States.

The importance of community in South African culture creates a welcoming environment. It also shows how caring individuals are towards one another. This was shocking coming from the U.S. where the focus is more on growing individually rather than community building. The South African culture focuses on sharing and giving back to the community rather than self gain which is synonymous with American culture. I feel that this creates a more trusting community where each person knows that they can rely on another. It also creates a more sympathetic and caring community where one can be sure that those in their community are looking out for them.