Report 2

Thursday, September 20, 2001 Guguletu, South Africa

Jan(center) talks to Minnesotans in front of the construction of the J.L. Zwane Training and Development Centre of Guguletu, South Africa. Many Minnesotans have had a hand in helping this project get started.

Travel agents rave about the splendor of Capetown, one of the world’s beautiful cities. It is on the right as you leave the airport. Few turn left, the road to Guguletu, temporary home to 330,000 Xhosa. It has been temporary for a long time. Guguletu is one of the larger townships, where one section of dwellings ends, another begins and they are all a sea of shacks, children, adults, sometimes goats and cows. The driver always points up to the sagging rows of electrical wires; they are all illegal. From time to time they fall on the ground adding even more danger to daily life.

One does not go to the townships to just look; even in all the rubble there are small signs of human enterprise. Everywhere people sell food; there are signs for haircuts, and one on one transactions are seen on every corner. There is a pottery shop where the willing are taught the trade, and there is a weaving industry for women with children. Noontime meant lunch at MASANDE, an authentic South African restaurant in a whitewashed building complete with thatched roof. In native dress our hostess welcomes us and a group of British travelers. “MASANDE”, she says, means, “Let us prosper, let us grow.” A table of food offerings is prepared and it looks very similar to a Southern Minnesota church supper. The difference might be that we were sung to by a group of eight young men. Paying for lunch and some gift purchases, we were moved along to the next enterprise in an abandoned Dutch reform school, a budding furniture industry.

Rachel Wobschall from Governor Ventura's office with the children of Guguletu.

Our prime destination was the Brown’s Farm clinic, a fenced in area with two large boxcar containers serving for offices. Some days as many as 350 men women and children will line up to see the one doctor. Reverend Spiwo’s wife, Zetu, is the public health nurse who oversees operations. While the others listened to Zetu in her office, I stood outside in the waiting area listening to a man in a wheelchair and a grey bearded elder shout back and forth at one another. The shouting went on for some time and got more intense, so I asked Eric, our driver, to translate for me. “Oh, they are just arguing about Scripture,” he said. Spiwo appeared and he too listened to the argument, then he went up to both men and loudly made an announcement and the entire waiting area broke into wild laughter. I turned to Eric, “What did Spiwo say?” “Reverend Spiwo just said, you two men have such great energy for shouting, you cannot be sick, go home.” All the time this was going on a young boy kept staring, I think at my “whiteness.” I called to the boy and slipped some pocket coins into his hand. The book looked at the coins and seemed concerned. Again Spiwo just laughed and told me I had given him a mixture of African and American coins, he doesn’t think the American coins are real money. “Well,” I said, “some of our economists might agree with him.” The re-grouping reappeared and we were again on the move.

Friday morning the clouds left Table Mountain. Eric would say “God has taken the tablecloth off the mountain.” A cablecar took us to the top of one of the world’s most beautiful views.

The afternoon was spent in Guguletu. Cyril Paul and Sandy Dennert put on a small concert for the children. It was also the first time we had a good chance to look at the new, nearly completed training center. I watched the men on one of the tower scaffolds and I thought of the first time a year and some months ago. It was an empty field. I thought of the vision of Spiwo and Jan and I thought about all the people who helped. I am repeatedly reminded of the remark that Kevin Winge of Open Arms gave to those who thought the pandemic problems of South Africa were too staggering. They said, “What can anyone do?” When this building opens in the coming months, the people of Guguletu, especially the children, will have some place to come together. There are classrooms, the children can be tutored and the adults can learn skills that might help them find jobs. Meals will be cooked in the kitchen to be sent to the sick. Catholic Social Services will have an office and they can give music lessons. There is a large open court area for meetings and concerts. I asked Jan what the people in the neighborhoods around thought of this building. He smiled and said, “Since we started, not one brick has been stolen from us.” The walls stand strong for the new J.L. Zwane Training and Development Centre of Guguletu, South Africa. And the names of many Minnesotans and Americans are in spirit, on those walls.

-Chuck MacDonald

Chuck MacDonald and his wife Beth are Parishioners of St. Joan of Arc. He is a member of the Parish Council. Chuck also serves on the Board of Open Arms of MN. He is presently actively involved in efforts to help victims of Aids and poverty in South Africa and has traveled to Cape Town three times in the past fourteen months.