Life is Twisted

A follow up blog to A Twist in the Tale...

The twist in my tale sent me to Durban, but another twist has me back in Pretoria!  It’s like the Labyrinth all over again.  But this time the twists are bringing me closer to the goal, the first Purpose Leadership Adventure for Youth camp.

In March, I moved to Durban to work for the Jes Foord Foundation.  It seemed like the answer to a prayer, to be able to join the battle against rape in South Africa, get paid for it, and still have time to work on PLAY.  Too good to be true?  Yep.  JFF was doing such fantastic work that everybody wanted it.  The programs and projects were growing, but the number of personnel was not, which meant more and more hours for me.  By July I was working 70-80 hours a week and had no time to work on PLAY.  It was all work and no PLAY.  Come on, you had to see that coming.

I had a choice to make, work or PLAY.  Since you already know I am back in Pretoria, the surprise twist ending was blown.  But you might have been surprised that I chose a nonpaying job over a paying one and the opportunity to get a work Visa!  Leaving JFF left me homeless, unemployed, facing poverty and possible deportation – NOW at last I feel like a real missionary! 

Johan said he knew I had what it takes back in 2004 on my first missionary trip traveling with AFnet through South Africa, Botswana, and Zambia.  He cites this event as my missionary cred:  We were staying at a hotel (generous application of the term there) on the edge of Lake Mweru.  Lake Mweru forms the border between Zambia and the Democratic Rebublic of the Congo where a brutal civil war was raging.  We were on our way to Kala camp, the UN refugee camp housing those who fled from the war.   
The “hotel” is several cinder block rooms with concrete floors where they turn off the electricity and water at 9 pm each night.  Being near a lake, malicious malaria-bearing mosquitos were on the prowl at night.  To sleep, you must obsessively tuck your mosquito net tightly in around every millimeter of your sleeping bag or those little suckers will find the gap.

It was in this fully zipped and tightly tucked state that ED came to visit me.  ED is explosive diarrhea.  ED likes to visit Americans in Zambia.  I frantically unzipped, manically untucked, but it was too late.  Those of you with babies who howl in the middle of the night when they’ve had a diaper blowout know that you can’t go back to sleep in that condition.  But how do I clean up?  It is after 9 pm so there is no water in the shower or sink.  I can’t go for a dip in the lake because it is infested with crocodiles.  Only one option left, the toilet.  There is also no electricity and it is pitch dark.  So with a flashlight in my teeth to light up the task before me, I scraped the rusty top off the back of the toilet to get at the water in the tank.  As the lid was freed, a HUGE spider jumped out.  My scream propelled the flashlight into the tank, but I held onto that lid for fear of crushing my toes.  I thought that showed great presence of mind in the face of sheer terror.  I went on to have a splashy good time in the toilet tank. 

I was looking forward to telling my humorous tale around the breakfast table, but fellow team member Fred was missing.  My story would have to wait.  When Fred finally stumbled back into camp hours later, we learned he’d wandered a little too far down the beach during his morning walk-about and he’d been arrested by the Congolese army.  They held and interrogated him for a few hours before deciding this mild mannered 60something year old American was harmless and released him.  Blew my little spider story out of the water.

Bayete Adventure Camp

After that lovely trip down memory lane, let me update you on where I am now.  I have moved back to Pretoria to get ready for the first Purpose Leadership Adventure for Youth camp in December.  It will be held at Bayete Adventure Camp which is 1.5 hours north of Pretoria so it will be easier to prepare for the camp from here: recruit campers (children from the township and Pretoria), rent buses, develop curriculum, etc.  I’m very excited to be focusing on PLAY, but also mourning the loss of the great expectations I had for what I could contribute to the battle against rape through working at JFF.  Someday … but first I must PLAY!

I also must volunteer.  Translation – work for free.  My volunteer Visa to stay in this country has expired and without the JFF job I can’t get a Work Visa.  So to renew my Volunteer Visa I am volunteering again with AFnet, but only once a month helping Christo do the food run to the orphan centers in Soshanguve.  I am also volunteering at another township outside Pretoria, KwaMhlanga.  Randy, the team leader from that original mission trip back in 2004, started a nonprofit there called Zonke Izizwe.  He runs a preschool for ages 3-6 and an afterschool program for teens called It Takes Courage.  This program focuses on character development, leadership, and life skills like HIV prevention.  I help teach on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  It is allowing me the opportunity to teach teens in the township, learn the It Takes Courage curriculum, and hear the children open up about the issues that they face living in the township.  It is exactly what I need during this time that I am developing the curriculum for PLAY camp. 

I’m sorry for the long period of silence.  70 hour work weeks will do that to a person.   

The children of Zonke Izizwe

But Makuwa Lisa is back!  And I don’t just mean that in a bloggy sense.  Now that I am back in the township, I am called Makuwa by the little ones again.  It feels good.