Crossroads

Last week, Steve Le and I had a meeting at the Amy Biehl Foundation.  Amy was in South Africa a number of years ago, in Crossroads (a small township near Cape Town) and was murdered during an uprising.  I don't know the entire story, but her family (maybe just her mother?) started a foundation in her memory to carry on the work she had been doing.  We really were expecting to meet with the Executive Director, Kevin, talk about non-profits in South Africa, make connections between the foundation and the LEAP Schools, but instead, Kevin sent us out on a tour of the programs that the trust funds.

The trust funds 13 different after-school programs at elementary schools in the townships.  These programs are designed to help tutor students, but to also give them a place to stay where they won't get into township trouble (drugs, gangs, the usual trouble spots.)  My notes don't say how many children participate in the programs, but let's say many.

The Trust also subidizes Holiday programs (we are currently at the end of Winter Holiday, which was made longer because of the World Cup), and our tour included observing three of the "workshops" offered by tutors at the Crossroads Elementary School.  Tutors is a realitive word because they only receive a minuscal token payment for their work, essentially volunteer work.

The first workshop we saw was in dance.  This group had been practicing all week (we came on a Thursday).

Look at the details.  No one wears socks.  Few of these kids wear long sleeves or sweaters. I was freezing.  Yet, they were full of music and dance. This particular dance went on for a good five minutes.

After this workshop, we moved into the next classroom for the art workshop.  That is Steve working with the kids.  Steve is a teacher at a High School in Costa Mesa, Ca.  The kids sort of glommed on to him.  They were drawing pictures of a cup - copying a drawing in a book of a coffee cup.

Look at the details of this classroom.  Peeling paint, desks from whatever year, cracked linoleum flooring.

Toto, we aren't in Kansas any more.

The final workshop we observed was Beading.  Beading is a popular form of revenue here in Cape Town.  so far, I have bought a bead Penquin, a bead elephant, and someone gave me a South Africa flag keychain of beads.  Women can do this from home and make good money from tourists.

This young student was showing me the strings of beads that she had been working on all week. I don't know if you can tell from the photo, but most of the glass in the windows is broken out.  The room was easily 50 degrees.  I might be smiling, but my feet were numb they were so cold.  It would be a regular day at the elementary school.

You should have seen these kids work. First, they sorted all of the beads out by color, then started stringing them into the long skeins of beads. The finished product is sold in the school store.

We didn't stay at the school long enough to sit with the kids for lunch, but here is what everyone gets.  Most likely, a few slices of white bread.

This is a photo of the exterior of the classrooms that the workshops were being held in.  This is the good side of the building.  I did not photograph the bad side.  I also did not photograph the bathrooms.  I once said that I could take just about any bathroom in the world, after having used the pit-style bathrooms at the castle we stopped at on the way to Spain. (Ca ....... something ....)(oh, now that is going to make me nuts that I can't recall the name of that place).  Anywho ...  those bathrooms were crude and awful, and didn't even hold a candle to the bathrooms here.  I couldn't do it, I had to wait.  I don't consider myself a prissy that way, but, ummm, no way.

We were here on Thursday, on Monday morning, regular elementary school classes started back here.

Did you notice the tops of Table Mountain in the background?

From the school, we took a brief tour of Crossroads. This is one of the nicest houses in the area.  It has glass windows and a front door.  Notice how many houses the electric pole serves.

Also, you really can't see it, but notice the streets.  There is nice pavement, there are no pot-holes.  Sure, there is sand, there is sand Everywhere here, but the pavement is nice.  How do you reconcile the level of poverty that is apparent with nice pavement??

A working corner of Crossroads.  You see about eight different businesses here.  Each of those shacks is a fully functioning business that has open and closed hours.  The kids on the corner are their own business, then the horse/carriage that just missed being in the photo is another business.

Crossroads is actually one of the more "affluent" townships.  Look again at the pavement. That is better than the street that I live on.  The kids are clean.  People are happy.  Commerce is taking place.

What am I missing??