Women's Day - August 9, 2010

August 9 is a legal holiday here in South Africa.  The story goes that in 1954, 20,000 women marched to Pretoria with a petition that they wanted to become law.  From that day, Women's Day has developed.

Now, I really should go and research the details, as all of that is rather sketchy, but the Internet being what it is here, well ...... you can look it up if you like.  The real point is that today, all of us Fellows got to LEAP early (8:30) and boarded the bus which took us to Langa. 

Today is a real legal holiday, as in everything is closed, and there are celebrations everywhere.  The one we participated in was at the South African Methodist Church, here in Langa.  Do you remember me talking about Langa?  This was one of the first Black Townships developed after Apartheid was inacted.

The celebration was to honor women in the Langa community that have given back to the community.  Mama from the soup kitchen was honored, as were a number of other women.  I am a bit vague as to who was honored and why, as the entire celebration was spoken in Xhosa. 

Just about the only thing that was said in English was by the moderator, who said "When you sing, you need to stand up" and from that time on, every time the LEAP Choir started to sing, all of us Fellows stood up.


Here's the LEAP 1 and LEAP 2 choirs (remember, there are two different schools at the same site - one serves the township of Langa and one serves the township of Guguletu.)

As always, the voice of these kids was beautiful.  I wish I had the technology to capture that for you to hear.

The seating order in the church was of some pre-determined status.  When I originally sat down, in one of the center middle pews, I was asked to get up and move to one of the other areas because the "elders" sat where I was sitting.  I got up and moved to one of the side pews, and slowly, ever so slowly, the middle seats filled up with the older women.  here you can see five of them, all in their hat bandanas.

Lunch was part of the ceremony. I didn't eat because my stomach was bothered by something or other that I had eaten recently, but enough people at to generate this stack of dishes.  I probably don't need to say that the water outside here was cold water only, and the fact that they had a tap, here in the church yard, was a luxury.

(That is Subina, Josh, and Sarah in the back row.  I don't know the name of the LEAP student.)

The day was pleasant, and company was good, the cause honorable.