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- A Story With A Beginning – Guguletu, South Africa - Today

Remember the time you wrote that check to help the South African people in their struggle with the AIDS pandemic? You had to have someone spell that new strange name, G-u-g-u-l-e-t-u. Until July of 2000 few of us knew anything about a township of 330,000 black citizens just outside of the jewel city of Cape Town. Today many of us have added strange sounding words to our vocabularies, “Spiwo, Zethu, Kwezi, Thamie, Nosisa, etc.” Those words now are names of friends who have become part of our lives. They are the names of just some of the brave and noble South African citizens working to save their people. This is the story of what happened to your money.

Three years ago on a hot, July, Tuesday morning, a small band of Minnesotans had cautiously agreed to drive out of their comfort zone and into the township of Guguletu. We stood looking at a barren sandlot adjacent to a very modest church called the JL Zwane Memorial Presbyterian Church. We were in the company of two men Dr. Jan duToit, an Afrikaner professor, and Reverend Spiwo Xapile, pastor of the church. The empty lot was in an elevated area so the eye could look out to the sea of corrugated shanties that were the very long term, short term housing for the displaced Xhosa people. For over 40 years it has been their Apartheid home. That day both men were anxious to tell us that they hoped to build a training and development center on this very spot. Trying to grasp someone else’s dream or vision was very difficult that day. It looked so overwhelming and both men admitted to limited resources.

Three years have passed and those same two men have moved a mountain; some of that was with the checks you wrote. Their vision is now a reality. Gone is the sandlot and in its place is the new JL Zwane Training and Development Centre. What a hopeful building this is, with safe meeting places for a people who know too much unemployment, hunger, and sickness. And with a lack of fair opportunities to learn and be educated these problems become systemic.

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If you wanted to meet anywhere, you stood around in the parking lot or in the crowded little schoolroom. Now there are rooms large enough to hold support groups for up to maybe 150 adults suffering from AIDS. There are classrooms for after school programs for the children; rooms that during the day are used to train healthcare workers to visit the homes of the sick. There is one room to be used for computer training so the larger world will not be so foreign to them, and a room to teach music, for these are a people whose voices and talent have inspired many. Recently they encouraged 13 visiting United States Congress men and women to join them in song. There is a large kitchen with some of the needed equipment to help feed the children and send food to the sick. There are offices for social workers, and health care staff, and church workers. Two men had a dream to create a hopeful space with a tall tower that the people could see and know they have a safe place to be.

Since that day in July of 2000 many Minnesotans have gone to South Africa in small groups. They always start out visiting Guguletu and each group brought funding for the center, and as many supplies as customs would allow. We Minnesotans are not the only Americans who have helped. There are groups from Texas, California, and Pennsylvania who have come with medical teams or paid for teachers. Over the three years we have met with other South Africans who come into Guguletu to bring supplies and help with the AIDS support groups.

Still not sure what happened to your money?. In addition to building a Centre for the people, your money has been used to create a Home Care program between the JL Zwane Church and the St. Luke’s Hospice Program. This took over a year to arrange and now St. Luke’s is supplying medical personnel to assist the overworked doctors and nurses in the community. Some of your money has gone to pay for salaries for the homecare workers. Survival is the primary activity in the South African townships, and there is no time to do volunteer work. One must find money for food for their families. In the township many are sick, particularly the young adults, and the number of orphans increases every week.

There have been people who have asked those of us who have gone back and forth to South Africa: “Why go so far to do this work”. The answer is simple. We do it because they asked us. We Minnesotans who originally went to Cape Town never planned much except to get a sense of the city and culture, then one noontime a man small in stature but with piercing eyes, simply said “I really need your help.” Life, like the Gospel story, is messy and not organized in a way that is easy to understand. Because of the great generosity of many Minnesota people, children get some food, women are trained in basic homecare, overworked doctors and nurses have more help, American ideas are woven into a different culture, and support groups help to find homes for the orphans and strength to the sick. Spiwo Xapile said during one of our first times together said, “Just your willingness to come this far and spend some time with us, tells us that we are not alone.”

This November we will return to Cape Town and to Guguletu to participate in the World AIDS Day activities which will be observed across the Western Cape on November 30th. We will be visiting the sick and helping to support the families who have lost members to this pandemic. The hospice program is receiving funds from a Minnesota company, and we will meet with the doctors and nurses and homecare workers. We will have conversations with the staff of the Peace and Reconciliation Centre to explore partnering with our Minnesota groups. Reverend Xapile is now on their board. We will reconnect with the ministers who were in Minnesota in May and who are working to strengthen the ISAIAH movement throughout South Africa. We are also planning a project for March of 2004 with the House of Hope of St. Paul, Minnesota, who has agreed to concentrate their efforts in the rural area of the Transkei in a little village of Malungeni where Spiwo was born. In Malungeni they are going to start first to rebuild the church.

We welcome all inquires about these two upcoming projects and we thank you for your help in the past and present.

Dr. Gene Ott, Spiwo Xapile and Chuck MacDonald

The JL Zwane HIV/AIDS Program – American Partners
Chuck MacDonald – 651.452.5234 - chuckmacdonald@comcast.net
Dr. Gene Ott – 952.922.5636 drott@mn.rr.com

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Chuck MacDonald is a member of the St. Joan of Arc Parish Council. He is the Project Coordinator for the South African Hospice program. Chuck can be reached at Chuckmacdonald@comcast.net.