The delegation (minus the photographer Ric Rosow): Front Row: Julie Pope, Heikki ( a German teacher spending 3 months in South Africa, a Malugeni resident, Vicki Underland-Rosow, Spiwo Xapile, a Malugeni resident, Kate Cummings and Pat Murphy. Second Row Standing: Jim Cassidy, Bill Driscoll, Linda Tally, Charlie Pope, Kathy Samski, Jimmie Dunn, Jo Parsons, Terri Ackland and Maureen Carlson. Back Row: Kalani, Christopher Hermann and Spato.

These words grace three paintings in the JL Zwane Church and Centre in the township of Guguletu, South Africa. The church and its pastor, Spiwo Xapile and his wife Zeta were host to a group of 15 men and woman, mostly parishioners of St. Joan of Arc during their journey to South Africa. The group led by SJA associate pastor Jim Cassidy and parish council member Pat Murphy traveled in South Africa from Feb. 14th to March 3rd. This was the 7th year that a delegation from SJA has traveled to South Africa. The fifteen members of the delegation were: Kate Cummings, Pat Murphy, Linda Tally, JoAnne Parsons, Charlie Pope, Julie Pope, Maureen Carlson, Kathy Samski, Vicki Underland-Rosow, Ric Rosow, Jim Cassidy, Christopher Hermann, Jimmie Dunn, Bill Driscoll and Terri Ackland.

Past delegations from SJA have developed a relationship with the JL Zwane congregation. The mission of the church and centre is to provide a range of services to the local community. The main focus of the service includes HIV/AIDS prevention, care and support programs, nutrition, hospice, music and drama as well as an after-school study program for young learners. Previously the church was the center in the community for the struggle against apartheid. The church is named after its founder, JL Zwane who is remembered for his commitment to reconciliation and peace. More information about the JL Zwane congregation can be found at www.jlzwane.sun.ac.za/churchhistory.htm.

Rev. Spiwo Xapile and Malugeni children with the 7,000 meals that SJA members packaged at Feed My Starving Children and shipped to Malugeni.

In preparation for the trip, the group collected clothing, medical supplies, stuffed animals, hand knitted bears, colored stickers and money. Clothing and medical supplies were distributed in the townships of Guguletu and Malungeni where JL Zwane has ministries. Delegation members distributed the stuffed animals and hand-knitted bears as they walked the streets of the townships. Children by the dozens came running each time we walked the streets with an arm full of stuffed animals or a roll of stickers. Prior to leaving, SJA families helped package over 7,000 dried rice/chicken meals at Feed Our Starving Children. The delegation then arranged to ship the food to South Africa. Once in South Africa the food was delivered to the township of Malungeni. Money collected was used to pay the cost of shipping the food and to purchase additional food that was distributed in the townships.

Children excited to receive stickers in township from Jimmie Dunn and Maureen Carlson.

In addition to distributing the food, clothing and toys, the delegation worked in a medical clinic in Guguletu. The clinic, run by Zeta, serves hundreds of township residents each day from early morning to afternoon. Often there is not enough time in the day for everyone who is waiting to be seen. Such individuals are given a slip guaranteeing them the right to be seen the next day. While at the clinic we sorted and packaged the medical supplies we had brought with us so that the staff could easily distribute the medicine.

Following a half days work at the clinic, the delegation next visited the Golden Girls Orphanage. The Orphanage is home to 65 children and is privately run. It occupies a space about the size of Hospitality Hall at SJA. Stuffed animals and stickers were given to the children and the members of the delegation made a donation to the Orphanage to purchase uniforms so that the school aged children that were capable of attaching school could do so. Uniforms are required for all school children in South Africa. While the visit was rewarding, it was hard. All of the children were handicapped. The facility itself was sparse. Most of the children hung on each of us, longing for attention while others ignored our presence. The children (and adults) enjoyed having their pictures taken and literally hundreds of pictures were taken of these children. As was typical of each of our days, we had a late dinner after the day’s activities and did not reach our hotel rooms until around 11 PM.

As a group we spent a lot of time walking the streets of the Guguletu Township. On our third day in South Africa, Spiwo led us on a walking tour of the township. Most of the homes were mere shacks, pieced together with whatever building materials were available. Exteriors walls were made of a variety of metal sheets, interwoven with other materials such as wood to keep the wind out. Bricks or other debris held down tin roofs. Some of the residents were kind enough to invite us in. One home we entered consisted of two rooms. There was electricity but no running water in this home. The interior walls were made of panels from cereal boxes. There was row after row and block after block of such homes. This scene repeated itself in many of the townships we saw or drove through. The townships were established under apartheid as the only places where blacks and mixed race (referred to in South Africa as “colored”) people could live. Since the abolishment of apartheid, the lack of economic opportunity has prevented most from moving out of the townships. Unemployment among the black and colored population runs at over 60%. It was culture shock each day for us to return from a township and have dinner in a nice restaurant where the food was moderately priced by our standards and plentiful.

Malungeni resident carrying laundry home.

Our time in the Cape Town area was to include a visit to a hospice. When the hospice visit fell through we found ourselves at a senior center. There we asked permission to enter and preceded to massage the hands of all the seniors who were there for the day’s activities. All the seniors were black or colored. I could not help but wonder what they really thought about our presence. Here were 15 white American, sitting next to or kneeling beside them, gently massaging their hands with wonderful lotion brought from the USA. The director of the center talked to us before we left and told us some of her experiences under apartheid. She worked as household help to a white family for over twenty years. Never once in all that time was she ever touched by or did she touch her white employers. Now here was a group of 15 white people massaging the hands of each person in her center. From 1959 to 1994 she was required by law to carry an identification book that looked somewhat like a passport. The identification book was called a “Doma” which means stupid in Afrikaans. Before we left the center, the seniors sang and danced for us and Father Jim led us in a prayer.

From the senior center we next went to a nursing home where we again massaged the hands of the residents. It was a wonderful opportunity to engage in one to one conversation. One woman thanked me profusely for “taking away” her pain. All too soon however we were on the road again and after lunch met up with our other primary host for the trip, Professor Johan Augustan. The University is where apartheid began in the school of Theology. Johan gave us a tour of the University of Stellenbosch where he teaches. The City of Stellenbosch has approximately 100,000 residents, not including the residents of the adjacent township. That township has 300,000 people jammed into it. As we walked the streets of this township, two of us walked away from the main group toward an area of the township that looked particularly in distress. A local resident stopped us and advised that it was not safe for us to walk there on our own. He told us that even he would not walk in that area. In this township the shacks were more run down and patched together than those of Guguletu. As we walked back to our bus one of our members had a large group of children following him. Jimmie picked one child up and put him on his shoulders and it was clear the child enjoyed the ride high up in the air on Jimmie’s shoulders. No one objected to our presence or our distributing toys to the children on the streets. I wondered what kind of reception the residents of this township would receive in the U.S. if they walked the streets of our city gathering a large group of children with them. I believe there would have been a much different reaction than the welcome we received.

Women carrying tree branches along side the highway

The following day was just as full. We started out at an African street market; visited the College of Cape Town, and the Philani Employment Project in Khayelisha Township, the second largest township in South Africa. The project sells hand-made rugs and other goods made by township residents. At both the African street market and the Employment Project many of us did our best to support the economy of South Africa! On a much different note we also attended several funerals in the Guguletu Township. All funerals are held on Saturday. The mourning family and friends allowed us to observe and be a part of their ceremony without objection. As was the case everywhere we went they also wanted us to take their pictures. The gravesite ceremonies were filled with African songs led mostly by the women. Some funeral processions featured a dozen or so woman all dressed in white. We were informed they were members of a church choir paid to sing at the funeral.

After attending the funerals the group was given some free time. Seven of us made a mad dash to the Cape Town Botanical Garden. It was a paradise inside the city. The views of the mountains were spectacular and the flowers that were in bloom were large and lush. It is considered one of the most beautiful botanical gardens in the world. What a contrast from the township we had just come from. The hour and a half we spent there was far too short.

A Sunday celebration at the JL Zwane Church in the township of Guguletu.

The next day was Sunday and we were off to participate in one of the most colorful church ceremonies we have ever experienced (even for SJA members!). We attended church at ZL Zwane. It was collection Sunday; the one time during the year that the members of the community make donations to the church. The community is divided up into zones and each zone is given an opportunity to march (or rather dance) up to the front of the church to present its donation. It is somewhat of a competition as the zone contributing the largest sum is awarded a trophy. Their singing rivals anything we have heard at SJA and their voices and the smiles on their faces expressed a joy we could appreciate even though the songs were sung in a language we could not understand. Everyone wore their finest clothing and the colors of the rainbow were well represented. The SJA delegation is considered part of the congregation and is Zone 19. We sang We Are Marching to the Light of God as we entered from the back of the worship area and after the first verse the whole congregation joined in for the rest of the song. From donations solicited prior to leaving the U.S. we were able to make a sizable donation to the congregation.

This was only the beginning of the day however. About half the group departed from ZL Zwane to tour the former prison on Robbin Island. This is the prison where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of his 27 years as a political prisoner. He was released from prison in 1990, four years before the end of apartheid. All of the guides at the prison are former inmates. The guide of my group had been imprisoned at the age of 20 for being a member of the ANC political party. He stressed that over his years in prison, the conditions improved because the inmates worked to improve the conditions. From his perspective the prison became less harsh over time. From my perspective it would have been a horrible place to spend any time. A plaque on the wall of one room identified the differences in meals given to inmates of different color.

“Coloureds/Asiates” were allowed only 6 oz of Mealie meal for breakfast; 4 oz of bread for lunch and 4 oz of bread for dinner 1 oz daily of fat; melie rice or samp, 6 oz of meat; 1 oz of jam or syrup; 2 oz of sugar and 1/2 oz of coffee for breakfast and for dinner. “Bantus”(name for blacks of the time) were allowed 12 ounces of Mealie meal, 6 for breakfast and 6 for dinner; no bread but Pazamanda for lunch, ˝ oz of fat, mealies ; 5 oz of meat, no jam or sugar and only ˝ oz of coffee with breakfast, none for dinner. This differentiation was part of the apartheid system even in prison.

Woman cooking goat heads in open air market.

The next few days were spent traveling from Cape Town to Malungeni, a thousand miles up the eastern coast of South Africa. We made several memorable stops along the way including the Cango Caves. Twelve of us took the adventure tour of the cave and quickly learned to rely on each other to gut our way through EXTREMELY narrow crevasses in the rock formations. We also received our own personal tour of an ostrich farm where they hand made purses and belts from ostrich skins. It turned out to be another opportunity to contribute to the South African economy. On our way the next day to Malungeni we stopped in the city of Umtata to purchase food for the Malugeni village. We were told that Umtata was not as safe for us as other places we had been and we were advised to stick together and not wander off on our own. The streets were teaming with people. Vendors were everywhere selling all types of goods. In addition to the food we also purchased over 50 umbrellas and a dozen ceremonial blankets, which we would give to the people of the township. As we walked the streets in search of the umbrellas, children and adults asked to have their pictures taken. Then, of course, they wanted to see the picture in the camera’s digital screen.

The day after arriving in Malungeni we visited another clinic. After our visit we decided the clinic could use fans to help cool several rooms. Back in Umtata we purchased two large room fans, which we then presented to the clinic. The clinic serves approximately 200 people a day, similar to the clinic in Guguletu. On the way back from purchasing the fans in Umtata we stopped at a squatter community called Tipini. Tipini is built on the site of a former landfill. Tipini means to “off load” trash. Most of the residents came to Tipini from rural areas looking for a better life. They did not have sufficient resources to live in an established community so they took up residence at the abandoned landfill. The conditions here were worse than what we had seen in other townships. I did not think that was possible but it was. As with all the other communities we visited, there were hundreds of small children. Once again we pulled out the stickers to give to the children. At the child center established in the midst of the community we met a woman from Faribault who was working there for a month. Her husband is an orthopedic surgeon who was working in town.

After our visit at Tipini we returned to Malungeni where we prepared to feed the village an evening meal. Woman from the village spent the day cooking the food we purchased. We served this meal to over 340 people. For the first time since an SJA delegation has been visiting Malungeni, the adults allowed the children to eat first. After dinner we handed out umbrellas and scarves to the women and beach balls and Frisbees to the children. It was a rewarding but tiring day.

The next day we visited the Cancibe Hospital. The head physician, Dr. Kabir is from Bangladesh. He has worked at the hospital 10 to 15 years. For most of us it was a very emotional experience. The hospital was filled with many children. We handed out more stuffed animals and knitted bears. The conditions in the hospital were not anywhere near the standards that we were accustomed to in the U.S. Medicine appeared to be in short supply. Even members of the nursing staff were eager to receive a stuffed animal or bear. After our hospital visit about half of the group decided to go back into Umtata to visit the Nelson Mandela Museum. The museum was excellent and we received a personal tour. It was important to learn more about the life of the father of this new democracy. It was Mandela’s leadership and inspiration that led to the Truth and Reconciliation process that is still going on in South Africa today.

In Malungeni we stayed at the home of Spiwo and Zetu. They have turned their home into a conference center and have added additional buildings to the grounds in order to accommodate a variety of groups. Back at their home, a large number of Malungeni residents gathered. Among them were thirty families were waiting for the food we had purchased which would feed them for a month. The food we gave consisted of bags of beans, flour, corn, rice and samp and a gallon of oil Each family carried the food back to their hut, with many of the woman carrying the largest sacks on their head. We played music and danced with the children. Then we were in for a treat.

A group of 11 young boys and girls, dressed in traditional native African garb, performed traditional dances for over two hours non-stop. They were wonderful and inspirational. The music so inspired Father Jim that he jumped up and danced solo to the beat of the African music in front of the large crowd gathered for the event. They enjoyed his performance immensely. This was our last evening in Malungeni and the evening’s activities went very late. We did not sit down to eat our dinner until 9 PM.

The next day we drove to Durban which is a large modern city. There Johan introduced us to two of his former students who are working in the HIV/AID area. They spoke to us about their work and the challenges facing South Africa as it deals with this epidemic. Following our stay in Durban we flew to Johannesburg. Six of our members then returned to the U.S. while the remaining 9 went to Sun City (South Africa!), a resort area for some R&R before retuning home. The highlight of the R&R was the opportunity to go on several three hour safaris. The best was a nighttime safari, where we were so close to a white Rhinoceros that we heard it chewing the grass it was eating. After several days at Sun City we returned home where a small but enthusiastic group from SJA welcomed us home.

It was a wonderful and sobering trip. We met many beautiful people who opened their homes and their hearts to us. As Father Jim often says about South Africa, these are our brothers and sisters. They treated us as family. The extent of poverty in the country is startling. More startling than the poverty is that, in spite of dire living conditions, the people were upbeat and joyful. We have much to learn from them.

The Third Annual Silent Auction to raise funds to provide additional food and medical supplies is planned for late fall. Members of the delegation also plan to sponsor an informational meeting on the delegation’s trip to South Africa later this year at SJA.

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Ric Rosow has worn many hats at St. Joan of Arc. He is currently chair of the parish Finance Committee. He has also spoken several times at Sunday Mass and was on the Fellowship of Reconciliation trip to the Middle East in 2003. His wife, Vicki Underland-Rosow, is currently a member of the Pastoral Council.

South Africa delegate and webteam member Ric Rosow took many outstanding pictures on this year's trip to South Africa. Because of the quality of the pictures, we have created a 29 slide show that will open in a new window. It will take a moment to load due to the volume of pictures, but we think it is worth it! Launch SlideShow