Andy's Thursday Breakfast, Penguins and Masi

Waking up, I was treated to a lovely breakfast made by Matt and Dwight. Matt was the head chef and made everyone any type of egg that each person wanted. Evidently, Dwight was our waiter and made the food look elegant like a top notch restaurant. I personally had ham, scrambled eggs, and toast. It was delicious. My compliments to the chef.

So my sister Kate will be extremely jealous when I tell her about our visit to Boulders Beach. Yes, there were boulders, but on those boulders there were also penguins. Thousands of them! No, not Emperor Penguins, but the African Penguins. Even though not as prestige as the Emperor Penguin, the African Penguin was a sight to see. No worries, I have numerous pictures of the penguins. Oh, I also climbed a mountain there. Well, it was a few boulders but when you’re on top of them, one does feel pretty high.

After visiting Boulders Beach, we took a road trip to Masiphmelele. As many know, this is an impoverished township. We started off by going to the local health clinic and took a brief tour by one of its three nurses. After our tour, the group headed across the road to the Children’s Library/Community Center. Another tour was in store for us there also. A local elderly lady named Pat took us around Masi and showed us where a massive fire took place a few nights before.

That night we had some soup prepared by Mary Nodar and then went off to a youth group meeting at the Church of the Good Sheppard. Here, we had discussions about cultural differences in the World and how to overcome them.

Ok, so that was just a brief overview of what happened on Thursday. Now it is time for me to tell you how I felt during selected portions of the day. Boulder Beach was nothing short of magnificent. Clear light blue water splashed against massive smooth boulders sticking out of the beach. These boulders reached thirty feet in height and many of them had numerous penguins sprawled on top. We watched penguins dive into the water and their bodies slickly glide through the water. I’ve never seen any creature use their natural habitat like these penguins.

It was hard to comprehend anything in Masi. The township was made mostly of metal shacks and it was hard to find anything positive about anything there. The clinic and library were the only positive things that we could find. The clinic provides free care for numerous diseases. However, it is often overcrowded because there are only three full time nurses and the community is devastated with all types of diseases including HIV/AIDS. The nurse that toured us told us about how three year old boys were being used for sex and they were contracting HIV/AIDS through it. Though I never saw any of these boys, I could only imagine their faces and the pain they were going through. It is common for girls (mostly young teens) to get pregnant. When these girls go into labor, they have to be sent to the hospital five minutes away. Because many families here have no mean of transportation, they are forced to take a taxi. The Taxi drivers know the dire situation of the girls and they usually do not feel remorse for them. Many will charge the girls 300 to 400 Rand to drive the girl five minutes away. That is around fifty dollars. The nurse told=2 0us about a particular girl who was a peer leader at a local center. She taught younger kids to abstain from sex. She however, has come in recently for her seventh STI. Talk about hypocritical. Although the health clinic is physically in good shape, it has a lot of work ahead of it that will never cease.

Our walk though Masi was hard for all of us. We walked the streets of this township and our skin color was on all of our minds. I have never felt so vulnerable being white. We walked down a “main” road and saw a quick glance at how these people live their lives. Everybody stared at us and thankfully we had two locals taking us. I felt like these people perceived us as tourists viewing a must see. Though many were personally nice to us, I could tell many despised us. Pat (the local elderly lady) took us through the heart of the township. We went off of the main road and into a winding alley like path that took us between numerous shacks that were all burned down by the fire. When one shack catches on fire, because of the close proximity of shacks, they all catch. The government provides shack building kits to the destroyed shacks. In this particular case, 200 shacks were destroyed and 800 people were left homeless. One of the most awful thing about t his situation is that the government only provides five pieces of metal for their new homes. It is hard to comprehend that the government provides so little. It is even harder to comprehend that the government encourages these living conditions. The government does not attempt to give its people better building materials for a better home, but maintains the inhumane living conditions that are already in place. I stayed in the back of the group as we walked through the mud around the shacks. Beside me was Mary Nodar, who attempted to greet almost every person that we passed. She has been around this area for numerous years and even she felt uneasy. She told me that as long as we keep on talking and wishing them the best of luck, we should have a safe journey. Without Pat or the other local walking with us, we would have been very insecure. I watched the people rebuild their lives over again as if it was a normal occurrence. Actually, fires in Masi are almost normal to the locals. Every few weeks a fire burns down hundreds of shacks then the people rebuild them in a number of days.

Life here is just impossible to fully understand without living it. The hardships that these people go through on a daily basis is more than anyone should ever go through. One family’s shack burned down, and all it had left was the school books for one of its boys. Everything else was destroyed.

(Received for posting 7/25/2000)