A Twist in the Tale

Forgive me, but my tale begins, as all good tales do, on the loo.  Last August before leaving my post at AFnetAid in Pretoria, South Africa, I was visiting a friend when nature called and I excused myself to visit the restroom.  Whilst seated, I noticed a year old Cosmo magazine gathering dust in the rack.  Not normally a potty-peruser, I was intrigued.  This was a South African Cosmo.  How would it be different from the fine piece of monthly literature America cranks out?  I was also a bit hesitant.  It was the Wedding issue after all, an irrelevant and frankly depressing issue for those of us with no fish on the line.  Who am I kidding?  No line in the water, forgot how to fish.

But it WAS fascinating.  There was an article entitled “How do you know when you are married?”  I thought the title was tongue-in-cheek, but evidently there is some confusion on this issue in South Africa.  Am I married now?  How about now?   The article delves into such as issues as:  are you married when your parents reach an agreement on how many cows you are worth, or when the cows are delivered to your groom’s village, or when YOU are delivered to the groom’s family, or when you have the ceremony, or when you file the legal papers, or when the marriage is consummated?   Inquiring minds want to know.  I would think so!  Centuries-old cultural marriage traditions are still very much alive and when blended into modern society and multiple cultures, it gets fuzzy.

The article also offered good advice about the importance of registering your marriage, especially to preserve your rights if you are becoming wife #2 or #3 or more.  Yes, that is still done here also.  It is a constitutional right.  The president of South Africa has four wives.  The taxpayers pay to maintain four separate households for these wives. 
The government and thus the taxpayers also maintain the multiple palaces of the 6 wives and 27 children of the king of the Zulu nation within South Africa, a figurehead like the Queen of England.  

Back to my story, or rather, on to her story.  In this same issue of Cosmo, there was an article called Finding Love After Rape.  It was about Jes Foord, a 21 year old woman who had been gang raped by four men in 2008.  On that day, she hadn’t been doing anything we would characterize as risky – walking in a bad part of town, or alone, or at night.  She was in a public park in a leafy suburb, in the middle of the day, with her dad and her dogs.  These men tied up the dogs and her dad and forced him to watch the brutal gang rape of his daughter.  Jes Foord was determined not to keep silent, as the overwhelming majority of women who survive rape in South Africa do.  She started a non-profit and got to work. 

Within 3 years, Jes had opened a medical center where rape survivors are immediately transported and receive compassionate holistic care.  The police come to the center and take the statement there.  Trained nurses and doctors perform the medical exam, gather evidence, and provide treatment and medication free of charge.  Counselors from the Jes Foord Foundation are called at the onset to be there with the survivor during each step of this process and then offer ongoing counseling also free of charge.  Jes has partnered with a local church who organized a volunteer team on call 24 hours a day to provide transportation to the Center when a survivor calls.  Rape survivors in the townships rarely have access to transportation and it is critical that medical attention is received in the first 48 hours.  When Post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) are administered within 48-72 hours of possible exposure to HIV, they can be up to 99% effective at preventing HIV infection.  When you live in an area where one out of four people are HIV positive, you can see how important this would be.  This center is saving lives in more ways than one.

Jes Foord also began other projects:  motivational talks in schools and corporations, Rugby against Rape, the Handbag project, to name a few.  She shared her story, the multiple indignities she faced for the long hours after the rape.  How she sat in the hallway of the police station in ripped and bloody clothes waiting to give her statement.  How she then was told to wait outside alone in that condition while her father gave his statement.  How she then had to go to another location to be examined by a state doctor.  How they took her clothes away from her so they could be saved for evidence, then told her to go home wearing nothing but a towel.  She has done something to change that for future survivors.  They now come to one place, do not go through it alone, are treated with dignity and respect, and thanks to the handbag project, are handed a bag that contains clean clothes, personal hygiene supplies to feel clean, and a special gift to lift them up.  All this leads to more reporting, better investigation and prosecution, more convictions, and less rapes.  And a victim who becomes a survivor.

I was really impressed with what this young woman had accomplished in such a short time.  Before reading this article, I had been doing research looking for nonprofits who are working to reduce rape in South Africa, the country with the worse rape stats in the world, where a rape happens every 17 seconds.  There were plenty of organizations out there, but it seemed they mainly ran “awareness campaigns.”  Here was a woman who was DOING something.  
I ripped out the page from the Cosmo magazine, tucked it into my folder on rape, the only thing in this folder, and vowed I would find out more.  The article didn’t say where Jes lived, where it happened, or where the foundation or medical center were located.  Could have been anywhere in the whole country.  My plan was to look up this foundation a year from now once PLAY (Purpose Leadership Adventure for Youth) was up and running and I was ready to join the battle against rape in South Africa. 

I stuck to my plan and moved to KwaZuluNatal to familiarize myself with a whole new area of South Africa and to research property locations for my camp for kids.  I answered an online ad to rent a small room in the backyard of a family in Kloof, a small town 20 minutes inland from Durban.  My new landlady asked me why I moved and I explained my plans for a children’s leadership camp and then someday to do something about the horrific rape situation in this country.  Her eyes lit up, “OH, then you’ve got to meet my friend, Jes Foord.”  I whipped out the article, “You mean THIS Jes Foord?!!”  Turns out Jes Foord is from this little town and her center is in Durban and I had moved in with someone that was her friend and could introduce me! 

The one woman in the country I wanted to meet and God had led me to her.  Guess He didn’t want me waiting a year to join the battle.  Also turns out that the very week I met her, her marketing director left.  She was now looking for someone to do all the things I had just spent the last 2.5 years doing for AfnetAid.  Coinky dink?  I think not.  So I went for it. 

Chandra and I sorting contents for the Handbag Project 

Beginning Tuesday, April 2, 2013, I am the new Marketing Director for the Jes Foord Foundation.  This is 3 years, almost to the day, from when I arrived in South Africa to volunteer for one year.  Durban is 7 hours away from Pretoria so I am starting over again, again.  New home, new job, new friends.  But I am honored to be a part of the Jes Foord Foundation and excited for the work ahead!

I have not abandoned my own non-profit, PLAY.  PLAY camp is only held during school holidays so I will be able to have a full time job in the months in between.  Now the PLAY budget won’t have to include my support.  I am currently in a holding pattern while I wait for funding for PLAY, but I am not worried as He has shown me that He is in control and His timing is always perfect.