Before I start this blog I just want to apologize for the wait. The internet connectivity in Roberston, South Africa was a large issue so it was difficult for me to write my blog last week. This is why I've decided to chronicle all the happenings in Robertson in one blog.
They call Robertson, South Africa "The valley of wine and roses" as it is situated in the wine country about 2 1/2 hours east of Cape Town. Unlike Cape Town, Robertson is extremely rural and is surrounded by vast mountain ranges and farms. The people were extremely friendly and the townships were so safe that we were able to walk around them without any fear of anything happening, which was definitely a large difference from Cape Town. On the downside the racism in Robertson somewhat exceeded my expectations in comparison to Cape Town.
On Saturday, August 29th we were all packed and excited to be somewhere else. We drove down looking at all of the countryside thinking that we were in a different world coming out of the big city and moving to the big country. There was 6 of us total volunteering for 2 weeks including, Rachael, Evan, Lilly, Nicole, Ty, and myself. When we pulled up to our new homebase we were ecstatic. The homebase was down a dirt road 3 km away from the main road. It was in the middle of a mountain range that circled the house. It was gorgeous. The house itself was also very nice and exceeded all of our expectations. We all felt an overwhelming sense of relaxation as 4 weeks in Cape Town was a lot of work and very stressful with all of the safety measures we had to take anytime we went out. Here we were informed that Robertson was extremely safe and being in a house 4km away from the town meant that we were pretty much in the middle of nowhere, which for once was a wonderful feeling. I think everyone agreed that it was nice to get away from the hustle of Cape Town for a bit.
The next day we met our program director Lynda who took us down on a riverboat lunch at a winery, which was very nice and relaxing. We met some wonderful people who all lived in Robertson and owned their own small businesses. Lynda knew all of them as she has owned a backpackers lodge in Robertson for the past 10 years. This experience was significant to my understanding of how small a town Robertson is. Everyone knew each other and if you had lived there for more than a couple years and saw someone you didn't know you knew they were from out of town. After the lunch we went on tour of the downtown area and the nearby township called Khubela. The township was very interesting as there was an overall carefree feeling in the air. The people didn't seem threatening what so ever and many of the children were running on the streets and waving to us in the car.
The next day was our first day at our volunteer placements. At the beginning I felt at ease, because I already had the experience with volunteering in the townships in Cape Town so I thought it was going to be cake. Unfortunately my first day was probably the most stressful day I spent in Robertson. I was volunteering with Ty at a primary school, which is the equivalent to a elementary school in America. We were working in their computer lab teaching kids very basic programs on the computer. The Internet wasn't working that day so we had to work with what programs were left on the computer. At first I thought it was going to be easy, but the kids that were coming in were in the 2nd and 3rd grade and didn't know a word of English. They all spoke Afrikaans, which is 1 of the 11 native languages of South Africa. Afrikaans is a heavily dutch influenced language that developed out of the beginning of Dutch colonialism. With no knowledge of Afrikaans I had no idea how to speak to the kids. The other problem was the fact that most of the 2nd and 3rd graders never have used a computer in their life. I tried to show them programs like Microsoft paint to see if they could draw a picture, but it was so difficult for them to maneuver a mouse that it almost seemed hopeless. Eventually they all got tired of drawing and wanted to play games, but they even had trouble with that. At the end of day I was extremely nervous about the future of my placement with my lack of knowledge of the Afrikaans language and the lack of programs that were available it didn't seem like much was going to happen with our placements in the future. I was exhausted after placement and spent the night contemplating what I was going to do the next day.
The next day I woke up worried and wondering if the internet would be back up so we could research some free programs for the kids to use. Our supervisor Houman was in the lobby ready to greet us. Houman was a 37 year old Geography and Math teacher at De Villiers Primary School. He was extremely kind and was very active with the kids helping them out with coaching the track team. He was also very adventurous as he had been out the country a couple occasions traveling to New Zealand to work on farms and South Korea for a traditional sporting games competition. He told us the internet was being worked on and would hopefully be up today. Ty and I crossed our fingers as we went upstairs. To our amazment a gentleman greeted us in the lab, pressed a couple buttons on the main network computer and the internet was up and running! I was really excited and started researching typing programs for the kids. The other aspect of our placement we were still unsure of was the age of the students we would recieve and if they could understand us. Even though we didn't speak out about this issue, Houman seemed to already understand and sent us a group of 6 and 7 graders. I found a typing program online that seemed very accessible and user friendly. I worked on a program where I taught proper typing form and what fingers you needed to use for each key. The program gave them tutorials to go through, which taught them two keys at a time and gave them a speed goal, which you could set. In the matter of an hour the kids seem to have a great grasp on typing and were actually improving as time progressed. It was a great feeling, especially in the idea of how essential a skill typing is in today's world. I felt like if I could create program where some of the kids could get in the lab everyday for an hour then they could use this program to help develop really crucial skills. It was amusing to think how excited I was to teach typing to my kids, because I could always remember my mother hassling me about going on the computer everyday and using one of the many typing programs. I remember hating them, but now I look and I'm definitely glad I have that skill. In the matter of 24 hours Ty and I seemed to change our feelings to our placement completely. That night we did a township tour of Khubela, which was very exciting because I wanted to gain insight on what the culture was like and how it compared to Cape Town. It was a walking tour, which was already different. In Cape Town we visited 3 different townships on our tour and the walking through each of them was very restricted, but in Robertson we could walk around the township without a worry. People seemed excited to see us, and even random people came up to greet us. They asked about where we came from and what we were doing in South Africa and seemed very happy to meet us overall. It was a great tour and we even got to go to a local shebeen, which was an experience. A shebeen is an illegal township bar. Illegal meaning that they don't have a beer or liqour license so all the beer they get comes from neighborhood houses across the street. In Cape Town a white person would never dare to go to a shebeen, because of the dangers of getting robbed or beaten. Overall it was a wonderful day and it seemed like things were changing from monday.
The rest of week continued to be very successful as we continued our typing program. We got to know Houman very well along with other teachers in the faculty. We even got to participate in a Friday field day where the students got to play games in the back of the school for a good portion of the day. The games included jump rope, marbles, rugby, cricket, and other traditional games. It was a very special day called "Casual Friday" which happens once a year where the students don't have to wear their school uniforms and can dress in whatever they want. Houman told us that he called it "American Day". The students who dressed up also made a small donation to environmental funds that contributed to the preservation of the beautiful town of Robertson. They also celebrated this day by planting trees in the back of their school.
Going into the weekend I was filled gratitude thinking that my placement was really having an impact on me. The kids were so disciplined that I was amazed. I knew that if I ever tried to teach American kids in the 6th and 7th grade how to type it would have been a mess of crazy behavior. The kids at this primary school listened to everything I said and seemed very determend to learn the work. It continues to make me think of the potential these kids have if there were more resources available.
To celebrate the weekend our group planned a 14km from McGregor to a small town called Greyton. It was a gorgeous hike that took us through mountain valleys filled with exotic flowers, trees, and plants. The views of waterfalls, cliffs, mountain tops with clouds hovering just below were amazing. We reached the town of Greyton in 6 hours and stayed overnight. Greyton was a really nice small european looking farm town. We felt like we came to some town in the Netherlands. The people were extraorindarily nice and one even treated us to a bottle of wine when we were eating dinner. Waking up the next morning we hiked back to McGregor, which was a difficult task as we did another 14km when we were still sore from the previous day. Rachael had probelms a little more than half way through the hike because her knees were overworked. To my amazement she powered through the last 6km of that hike and seemed fine when we return to the homebase. A big shout out goes to her for being a champ on that hike.
The next Monday Ty and I walked into our placement and went to an Assembly that consisted of a very religious presentation given by a speaker. These assemblies happened every Monday and were given to the kids to promote the ideas of Christianity and to stay away from drugs and violence. Even though I couldn't understand a word the speaker was saying it was a very interesting experience as the speaker was so passionate about what she was saying that she teared up many times during the middle of speech. The behaviour of the children was another testament to their amazing discipline as you didn't hear one word through out the entire 30 minutes. The kids ended the assembly by singing and praying. I stood again very gratified to know that the institution I was working in was doing a lot of good to help the children of the future.
Throughout the week Ty and I continued on our typing regiment, but also included some lessons on how to use microsoft word and internet search engines like google for research. The work was successful and the students seem to get more familier with using a computer. Their typing skills increased and they seemded really pleased to be working with us.
That week our supervisor Houman took us out around town showing us the different sites and telling us about the culture of Robertson. Although the people from Robertson, both black and white were very nice separately you could tell that there was a lot of tension and divides between people of different color. The one thing that stood out was how we were driving around town. Houman drove a pick up truck with a canopy in the back. He used the truck mostly for his side mobile car wash business. When Ty and I drove with him one us sat in front while the other sat in the pick up hitch in the back. As we drove through the separate color neighborhoods I asked Houman what would the white neighborhood act like if they were out on their lawns and saw a black man driving a pick up truck with a white person in the hitch. He told me that their jaws would probably drop as they have never seen anything like that before. Just as quickly as I said that we drove through some areas where white people noticed us and definitely looked back twice to make sure of what they saw. After traveling around we stopped at Houman's parent's house. They were so welcoming and quickly asked if they could feed us. We politly declined, but you could tell that when their son brought guests they almost automatically treated them as family. Our next stop was at Houman's house where we met his beautiful wife and 2 year old daughter. His daughter ashlynn was so adorable and full of energy. She was like a mini gymnist as she found stair rails, door knobs, and anything else she hang from to do tricks. We ended up spending the majority of the evening with them talking and enjoying one anothers company. We also spent the next afternoon and evening together at the hot springs a natural hot water pool in a small city called Montagu. We then had dinner with them afterwards. It was so amazing to spend so much time with the people from our placement. Houman seemed so excited to have us learn about his family and where he came from. His optimism and passion for life really transferred to me and Ty and we really cherished our time with him. Overall it was definitely the largest highlight of the trip.
Our last day at De Villiers Primary school was very difficult because I felt like I was really connecting with everyone there, but we were so quick to leave being that we were there for only two weeks. Some of the other volunteers had a very similar experience. Robertson was very different place from Cape Town with the freedom you could express there as a foreigner, but there were also many similarities. There was so much beauty among the people and the town as there was in Cape Town, but at the same time there was a strong yet extremely subtle ugliness that came with that because of the racism and division that encompassed the entire town. Cape Town definitely has it's share of racial tension, but it definitely shows up a lot more clearly in Robertson in my opinion.
I'll never forget my experiences in Robertson and I hope I was able to convey the impact of these experiences through my blog entitled "The Robertson Chronicles". I'm currently back in Cape Town returning to SIYAYA to work with them on getting them performance opportunities and help them learn more music. Thanks again for everyone's love and support and please keep tuned to "Kevin Tackles South Africa".
Best,
Kevin
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