Kevin Tackles South Africa

Kevin Tackles Salvador, Brazil!

2011-04-05T13:15:00.000-07:00

Ola Meu Amigos!

It`s been a long time since I`ve posted to this blog, but being that this is my first international trip since South Africa, I thought it was appropriate.

A lot has happened since my last post. To those who haven`t been updated since my last blog posting, I will summarize. Shortly after my jobs at CARE International and World Hope International I moved to Boston for another job in music. I was there for 6 months to find once again that music industry was just not cut out for my future ambitions. I went back to Cross-Cultural Solutions to find they had an opening for a Program Manager. I intereviewed for the job in late July/early August and became a part of the Program Management staff on August, 23rd, 2010. It was a big accomplishment in my book with all of the efforts I had put towards my work in South Africa. It seemed to be perfect timing for this opportunity to come my way after I became so passionate about African culture. I`m proud to say that I have been working with Cross-Cultural Solutions for 7 months now and have really enjoyed every part of it.

As a Program Manager you are the direct liasion between your country programs and the enrolled volunteers. Before the volunteer departs on their journey, the program managers are the connection to the culure and life of each program. Currently I represent the South Africa and Brazil volunteer programs. As a part of our training you are required to travel to your site and experience the program inside and out, so you are able to communicate those expectations to future volunteers.

As I write this blog, I´m sitting in an internet cafe overlooking the sun set in Salvador, Brazil. I wish all of you could be here to see it, but hearing about it is just as good, right??? I´m set to stay in Brazil for 2 weeks to train on my site and I just wanted to give you all an insight to the beginning of my trip.

I began traveling to Brazil via TAM airlines, which itself was an interesting experience because it was the first time flying with an international airline carrier that was primarily in portuguese. Most of the time the announcements would come up without an English translation. It was just the way it was :) The flight was almost as long as my travel to South Africa, because I connected from JFK to Sao Paulo, then to Rio de Jaineiro and finally to Salvador, Brazil. I left at 7:40pm on Friday night and got in at 6pm on the following Saturday. What can I say, it was the cheapest flight I could find!

We were met at the airport by Ivan, an extremely friendly driver of CCS and another volunteer named Liz. The drive back to the homebase was gorgeous as we drove along the coastline to watch the sun set on Salvador. The narrow roads and archeitecture along these ocean views reminded me of some areas around Los Angeles. As we passed by one of the first beaches in Salvador, you could see a rambunctious crowd circulating. We came to the homebase to meet with the rest of the volunteer group and see that everyone was safe and sound and ready to experience everything Brazil had to offer. Vini, our Program officer informed us that we had a free day tomorrow until 7:30pm to explore before we had our program orientation. We all decided it was best to get to bed and hit the beach bright an early, being that´s the place everyone seemed to go.

The next morning we got the group together and were introduced to some of the other CCS staff including Lulu and Beto who were both very friendly. Five of us in the group went down to the beach around 10am and had a wonderful time experiencing what seemed to be the epi-center of social culture in Salvador. It was a great time seeing tons of people enjoying the sun, swimming, and playing beach volly ball (or at least a different version that had an object that was reminicent of a badminton birdie). There was also a lot of people who obiviously had experience in capoeira who were doing flips and cartwheels right on the coast line. We relaxed swam and enjoyed cheese on a stick which plenty of vendors brought around and toasted right in front of you like they were cooking smores. It was a great treat and really added to the experience of the beach life in Salvador. After the beach we explored the historic city of Pelourinho, which was a very colorful part of Salvador that had many restaurants, shops, and unique archeitecture. The whole day was wonderful and after our informative orientation with Vini, it seemed all of us were ready to begin volunteering the next day.

As a Program Manager, you are required to visit as many of the program sites as possible. This is essential when discussing placements with enrolled volunteers before they depart to their country site. The volunteer group was up early and ready to go. Since there were 6 volunteers total, Vini decided to have 2 at each placement so each volunteer would have some support. The 3 placements were Lar da Creance, Fruitos de Maes, and Madre Teresa.

We first visited Lar da Creance, which is an orphanage home to many children abandoned at a very early age. Some of the children that stay at this orphanage are here because their parents didn´t have the means to look after them while the others are there because their parents suffered from drug abuse or other issues. The placement definitely had a need and with 25 children to look after. The staff relies on volunteers to help look after the children and make the orphanage run more efficiently. I´m happy to say that the volunteers are really enjoying their placement and are already falling in love with the kids. They are planning a trip tomorrow to take them all to the park or the zoo.

The second placement, Madre Teresa, is a special place where nuns work with elderly and a children´s daycare center. One of the volunteers, Judy, was a 3rd time alum of this placement and was ecstatic when she walked through the door to see many of the same women she had cared for in the past. It was a heart warming feeling to see the elderly women embrace Judy as if she was a part of the family. Some of the elderly women at this placement have special needs that require a bit of extra attention from the staff. The volunteers really make this possible by aiding in chores, caregiving for the kids, and having occasional games of bingo which the elderly women love!

The third placement Fuitos de Maes is a really incredible facility. It was once an empty plot where mounds of trash were piled up, but then turned into a wonderful school for kids 1-5 years old. The school has 4 classrooms that are overwhelmed with children, providing a great challenge to a minimal teaching staff. In this way our volunteers really become great assistants by giving extra attention where it is needed. One volunteer Lee has a great background in teaching and has experience working with children affected by autism. The teachers had just received their first 2 children that were diagnosed with Autism. Since the teachers had never worked with autistic children before, it became very apparent that this was an area they needed help with. I sat down with Vini, Lee, and the teaching staff at Fruitos de Maes to have a discussion about techniques that would help the teachers in working with these children. Lee gave great insight to her work with autism and really enlightened the staff on ways to create a great learning environment for the children. Simple things like taking the child out of the classroom when the environment becomes too hectic for them, ignoring the child when they are obviously asking for attention, and rewarding the child with stickers and other things to give them incentives to continue focusing on their daily tasks. It was definitely a special occasion to see a volunteer really putting her life skills to work. Thanks Lee!

Vini has shown me around to many of the other placements and they have been incredible. One of the special experiences I had is when I visited CAASAH, which is a center for people of all ages affected by HIV/AIDS. As I was there, a little 7 year old girl took my hand and walked me around the entire center, showed me all of the rooms, and even sat with me to chat and draw. It was a special moment that really stands out in my mind when it comes to my experience in Salvador.

I will touch on this and much more in my next Kevin Tackles South Africa blog. Yes, I´m still calling it Kevin Tackles South Africa, because that´s how it started, so I´m sticking to it. Like it or not Jess Fraser!!! ha. Stay tuned folks....and thanks for reading :)

Kevin Gschwend
kevin.gschwend@gmail.com

p.s. feel free to email me anytime with your comments. I always love hearing from everyone and it´s definitely a part of the reason why I love writing it so much.

Kevin Tackles South Africa Presentation & Job Updates!!!

2010-02-16T14:05:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since my last post, but I wanted to let everyone know about my upcoming Kevin Tackles South Africa presentation. The presentation will be held at "Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church" this Sunday, February 21st in Covenant Hall(smaller worship hall to the right when you go through the main entrance). The presentation will start at 11:40am and last about 45 minutes. I will also be doing a small musical workshop/performance for the "Children Sermon" during the church service in the main worship hall, which will be at 10:30am. It should be a lot of fun so if you're interested in seeing that, please feel free to come at 10:30am and attend the service. Again, the presentation will follow the service at 11:40am so feel free to attend either one or both!

Here's the address:

Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church

6601 Bradley Boulevard

Bethesda, MD 20817

Here's the link for google maps directions

http://maps.google.com/maps?client=safari&rls=en&q=bradley%20hills%20presbyterian%20church&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wl

Summary Sunday, February 21st:

- Church Service with Kevin's small South Africa children musical performance starts at 10:30am in the main worship hall straight ahead when you go through the front entrance.

- Kevin Tackles South Africa slideshow presentation will start at 11:40am in Covenant Hall (smaller worship hall on the right when you go through the main entrance)

Also, I would like to tell everyone some exciting news. During the first week of February, before the Snowpocalypse of DC happened, I was offered 2 part-time jobs with both CARE International and World Hope International. Both organizations deal with development work overseas in Africa, Asia, South America, etc. I was able to work out my schedule so I can work both jobs. I start training for a "Face-To-Face Recruiter" position with CARE tomorrow. This job requires me to charge the streets of DC and try and get people to sign up as monthly donors in support of CARE's wonderful development programs, including their program in Haiti. The second job with World Hope starts next Tuesday, Feb. 23rd. At World Hope International I'll be a "Hope For Children Processing Specialist", which is an administrative/support position for their international children sponsorship program. I'm really excited about both opportunities and will be talking a little more about it at the Kevin Tackles South Africa presentation.

Again, thanks for everyone's support and I'm excited about sharing my experience with everyone first hand at Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church. If you have any questions about how to get to the church or anything else, please feel free to contact me.

Best,

Kevin Gschwend

301-758-7916

kevin.gschwend@gmail.com

Return home - Time of reflection

2010-01-04T17:40:00.000-08:00

For those of you who don't know by now, I have returned home from South Africa safe and sound. The camping trip that I did was incredible and had me seeing parts of africa that I would only dream of. In Namibia I explored deserts and hiked some of the highest sand dunes in the world. In Botswana I discovered vast animal life and camped in the wild among the Okavanga Delta region. Finally, I finished my travels in Zimbabwe where I witnessed the epic beauty of Victoria Falls and grazed the forests with lions. The people I traveled with were amazing and from all over the world, including Germany, Holland, Norway, South Korea, Spain, England, etc. I was the only American among the group, which definitely provided the ultimate of cultural experiences..haha. Overall the trip was wonderful and will be something that I will never forget.

This blog will be a reflection on my time volunteering in South Africa. I will discuss the experiences of both volunteering in Cape Town and Robertson. My discussion will also focus on the issues that South Africa faces today and what are the possible solutions, if any. Finally, I will talk about my overall impression of my time in South Africa relating to culture, people, and the Cross-Cultural Solutions program.

As a volunteer in Cape town I worked with a music and drama group called Siyaya. They are a professional performance group made up of 14 young adults from the ages of 18-26. Siyaya was created as one of the many programs at the JL Zwane Community Center in the township of Guguletu, which means "Hope of ours" in Xhosa. They mainly performed at health clinics in the townships that treated people affected by Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS. These health clinics are extremely over crowded and many of the people will wait for several hours before they're able to see a doctor. The Siyaya group will come into these clinics several times a week to perform music and drama that promotes HIV/AIDS education in a fun and entertaining way. My job was to work with Siyaya on vocal technique, teach them new repertoire, and work on ways to market the group in hopes of getting them more performance opportunities. A lot of these aspects of my volunteer work were ideas that I came up with that I thought would benefit the group.

All of these ideas sounded great to me on paper, but to actually execute them is another story. I still remember coming in the first day and working with the group on vocal warm ups. I was so nervous, because all of the members were around my age. I thought to myself "Why would any of these people want to listen to me? What do I have to offer them that they actually need?" I felt like I was taking a giant leap of faith into a dark pit that I wasn't sure if I was going to land on my feet or completely crash. It was a tremendous experience to feel success on this journey as the Siyaya group listen to me and performed the warm ups with a good amount of success. A good deal of the group had some trouble with the breathing exercises I taught them, which made me relieved in the idea that I could teach them something that they could improve upon in the future. Although I had a good deal of success there were also weeks where I experienced some obstacles. One major obstacle was the idea of trying to create an online marketing presence for Siyaya. It was a very frustrating situation as the internet in South Africa was very unreliable and I had a lot trouble creating an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) and other online marketing materials. these were materials I used a lot at the record company I worked for and also when I managed a local funk group in Cleveland. Unfortunately, creating these materials in South Africa was a more demanding task due to the lack of technology in the township areas. Overall I think it was all apart of the experience. If I hadn't had difficult experiences like that one, then I wouldn't be able to appreciate my successes as much. I also wouldn't be able to understand the fact that there is only so much that one person could do in the matter of ten weeks.

My two week volunteer experience in Robertson, South Africa had me experiencing similar feelings to my work in Guguletu, but was also very different. I went to the rural farmlands they called "The Land of Wine and Roses" 2 1/2 hours east of Cape Town after spending my first 4 weeks in Cape Town. I remember being very nervous about leaving Siyaya, because I didn't want to abandon them especially after we started making some real progress. I also knew that I didn't want to give up an experience like this. I came to South Africa to experience as much of the culture as possible and the differences between urban and rural South Africa are vast. It was a difficult opportunity to pass up. Fortunately, Bongani the director of Siyaya was very supportive about me going, which was very relieving. In Robertson I was going to work at a primary (elementary) school called "De Villiers". Another volunteer and I were going to work in a computer lab teaching 4th, 5th, and 6th graders how to use basic computer programs. In the first couple of days I felt really unhappy with how things were going at this placement, because we worked with younger children who didn't know how to even use a mouse. The other problem was the fact that many of the children only spoke "Afrikaans", one of the 11 national languages. It was very difficult emotionally for me to come in after I felt like I had a good grasp on what to expect after volunteering in Guguletu for several weeks. Although it was difficult in the beginning, shortly afterwards we were able to teach older students that could understand English. We worked a lot on typing skills and soon had a agenda worked out where we would practice typing lessons through a great free online program. We would also mix it up where the could play typing and math games. In the end I was able to create a typing packet that our supervisor, Houman Joseph could easily use to teach his kids. In the end I felt like our volunteer work was a success. Not only did we experience a lot with our time volunteering, but Houman was great in the fact that he took us around Robertson in his truck and showed us the townships and gave us an insight to his community. Robertson was such a magical place with it's beautiful land and mountains. The people around us were so kind and inviting. We were treated to delicious baked treats called "fat cakes" from complete strangers. It's unfortunate cause with beauty also comes an ugly side. The racism there was definitely apparent among the whites, coloreds, and blacks. Again, colored meaning a mixture of different ethnicities (i.e. black, white, indian..etc.). I still remember Houman driving the other volunteer (Ty) and I around in his pick up truck. Ty had to sit in the back in the pick up hitch as there was only room for 2 people in the front. I asked Houman, "What would a white person think if they saw a colored person driving around 2 white people, and especially with the fact that one of them was sitting in the back of a pick up truck." Houman laughed and said that they wouldn't believe their eyes. Sure enough we passed by a couple white people that turned around several times in a look of amazment. It was those kind of experiences that really made me realize how far back South Africa is in terms of human tolerance. Even though I only spent 2 weeks in Robertson the people like Houman and his family made the experience unforgettable.

In all that I've read and my understanding from my experience volunteering in South Africa, there are many problems that are holding back South Africa. In the history of the apartheid government, which began in 1948, the black and colored population majority was systematically removed from their original homes and placed into decrepit and unsanitary living areas called "Townships." While that was happening the white minority, which made up maybe 20% of the population took more than 85% of the land. It was an ugly system of legalized racism that not only removed people from their homes, but denied them basic human rights including, education, health benefits, jobs, etc...based on the fact that the white government did not believe that blacks and coloreds deserved the same rights they had. Eventually political parties like the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) formed to fight against the government powers. Political activists like Nelson Mandela, Steven Biko, Archbishop Desmund Tutu and many others led these parties to eventually cause a global disturbance in the international community, which helped contribute to the dismantling of apartheid. It was a long and dreadful process, which led to more than thousands of brutal deaths, many which were in secret because the apartheid government's secret police force would round up anti-apartheid activists and would take them away to be never heard from again. In the end the apartheid government did, under a brutal context, deny other races human rights for almost 50 years as it was finally dismantled in 1994. Now in 2010, 16 years after the apartheid government was dismantled, you need to ask yourself, "How long do you think it takes a country to turn around in terms of understanding that human rights should be granted to all people no matter what color they are?" I'm not saying that all whites in South Africa were racist, and in fact a lot of them opposed the government just as much as the blacks and coloreds. My main point is that along with being a brutally repressive government, apartheid also brainwashed the white minority population into believing that blacks and coloreds were communists and out to drive the whites into the sea. With that kind of political propaganda being shoved into your face for nearly 50 years it's no wonder why racism in South Africa is still rampant. As Americans we can definitely relate to racial inequality in our history with events like the civil rights movement. As we've come to understand our country, there have been great strides in equality for all human-kind. Even so there is still lots of work to be done in terms of excepting differences in humans. In my perspective I believe that South Africa is kind of like America back in the 1950s where they still struggle with human rights for all races, because of the psychological impact of their history. In my mind it's going to be a long and arduous process for all people to be accepted. I believe that a good portion of the solution is in the hands of youth and their understanding of past events and using that understanding to come to a point of reconciliation among all people.

When I first came to South Africa I felt somewhat prepared for my experience with my small knowledge of their history. I realized that even knowing what I did, no one is ever prepared for the experience until they get off that flight from Cape Town international airport and see the miles of land covered in a blanket of shacks made from tin metal and wood. It is a shocking spectacle that strikes a very dark chord in your body.

Just as soon as you feel that sudden shock, the quicker you begin to acclimate to the sights and culture that makes up life in Cape Town. It's an erie thing for me to think about because everyday when I drove to the township of Guguletu I was so used to the sights of the townships that it felt normal. The reality was that these areas of extreme poverty that were covered in trash and riddled with drugs, crime and violence were a product of the Apartheid government. The feeling of shock returns upon your departure. As I said in my previous blog, the last week of my volunteer program was the most difficult because you realize that you're about to leave these people in the drop of a hat. It's a difficult reality because you return home to a huge suburban home that is a place of almost complete safety.

After some time when you reflect on your experiences and the work you did, you understand the subtleties of the impact you made. When I worked with Siyaya and the choir I felt like I really engaged with both groups. I'd like to think that I inspired members who were new and struggling to strive and become leaders and the members that were veterans to continue to enhance their craft so they would become the best musicians they could be. In Robertson, working at the primary school I taught typing and saw many students improve in such a quick period of time. My supervisor Houman Joseph was an amazing person who took me around Robertson to get an inside view of the culture, which revealed many differences from rural South Africa to more urban life. He introduced me to his beautiful family and within the matter of a couple weeks I felt like I was already a close friend and knew so much about his life. Overall the biggest impact I made and that any volunteer I think can make within a short period of time is the idea of cultural exchange. I really believe that everyone should experience going to a third world country in some point in their life. Not only does it open your eyes to the hardships that people face all over the world, but to interact with the people, is to get an inside understanding of their culture. In that regard you are able to develop perspective and bring back an insight to the world that you can share with the people around you.

I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of you who have supported me in my development project entitled "Kevin Tackles South Africa". It's been an honor to write this blog and share as many experiences as I possibly could with all of you. It's also been very therapeutic for me to write my ideas down, because I feel like I'm embracing all that I have taken from this experience. Now as we have come into the New Year I'm deciding on a different career path. I love music and all that it has given me with my college studies and my work with Telarc/Heads Up records, but now I feel that it's time for me to pursue a job that deals with development work specifically related to Africa. I've continued my reading and personal studies on the history of Africa, by exploring books like "The Fate of Africa", by Martin Meredith. An extraordinary account of the modern political history of every country in Africa from the beginning of independence in 1951 of Ghana to the present. I'm continuing my readings with books about Sudan, Zimbabwe, and Darfur. In terms of the job hunt I've been pursing many opportunities with several organizations. None have proven successful quite yet, but I'm hoping that when they do I can continue writing this blog, sharing my experiences with everyone about what's happening in the world and what can be done to help.

As always I love to hear from anyone reading this blog. So please, I invite you to send me your comments, questions, or if you just want to say hello! It's been great to hear that so many people are reading it, so I want to keep it up. Below are my contact details, so feel free to reach out to me anytime. Thank you again for all of your support and best hopes for a prosperous year in 2010!

With All Of My Love,

Kevin Gschwend

Current Address:

7300 Brickyard Road

Potomac, MD 20854

phone: 301-758-7916

e-mail: kevin.gschwend@gmail.com

www.kevintacklessouthafrica.blogspot.com

Week #10 A beautiful journey comes to an end

2009-10-10T01:43:00.000-07:00

Before I start I want to mention that this blog will be very sporadic to my very hectic schedule in preparing for my departure. I apologize for this, but I will be writing a more extensive reflection blog when I come back home on October 31st. If you don't know by now I'll be doing a 20 day overland camping trip from Cape Town to Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe.

This week I worked more on going out to performances for Siyaya and helping them record video footage for promotion. I did very little music teaching as I needed to concentrate on getting my going away presents together for everyone in the group. I decided that I wanted to make individual mix cds for each member of the group including their musical director, Bongani. So in total I made 15 mixes. It took a long time to put together, because I wanted each cd to be special to the person I was giving it to. Some of the people in the group were more into classical music and liked singing opera so I concentrated on making mixes with a lot of Italian arias and opera works. Some were interested in pop music so I looked for music that would fit their style and would be songs that they could possibly sing. Finally, for the instrumentalists I made mixes featuring great artists that play their instrument of study. It was a long process, but I'm happy to say it's done.

The other major project of the week was gathering video footage of the group for a submission into an arts competition. South Africa has a major arts competition every year called the "Spier Contemporary Arts Competition". The competition has over 1.2 million rand in award money that they pay to visual artists and performing artists. I've been in touch with a lady named Fadia who is one of the administrative workers for the competition and she said she was very excited to have Siyaya be a part of the competition. I also mentioned that I was interested in submitting the African Chord Choir as well and she seemed extremely excited about that.

On Wednesday, October 7th I got everyone in Siyaya to get into costume and set up their stage at the JL Zwane Centre. I had them rehearse and perform a couple of their strongest pieces and then recorded them. It was a somewhat emotional day as I gave them a motivational speech telling them how much of an honor it's been to work with them and how talented they are. I had to stop myself once because of the thought of leaving this amazing group was difficult for me to comprehend.

I was happy with the results of the recording and prepared to record the choir the next evening. The choir did an amazing job and I was happy to have everyone participate in hopes that I could really help finance the group. Everyone seem to really appreciate how hard I was working to do something to help the group.

Towards the end of the week Siyaya had some last minute performances at a high school. I went to the one on Friday, which was one of their best performances I've ever seen. There must have almost 1,000 kids that attended the perfromance in the main gym. The kids were all screaming their heads off like Siyaya was a rock group. Bongani stood up at the end of the performance to say thanks and introduce the members of the group. Every member got a huge standing ovation from the audience. Bongani even introduced me and had me stand up in front of everyone and once again everyone cheered as loud as possible. It was quite an experience.

Being that Friday was the last day I was to work with Siyaya I wanted to celebrate with them by going out to a township barbeque restaurant in Guguletu called Mzolis. Although I was excited about this day I was also dreading it. I had been dreading my last day with Siyaya for many weeks now as I knew it was going to be very upsetting and emotional for me to say good bye. When you spend so much time with a wonderful group of people that struggle so much everyday to live on the basic necesstities, It's hard to think that you are just going to leave them in a drop of a hat. Not only that, but I felt like I became a part of their family as I felt a strong connection to each member. These people were not only my colleagues, but my friends.

Almost everyone from the JL Zwane Centre showed up, which was about 30 people. We all had a blast eating, sharing stories, and enjoying each others company. After we finished eating Bongani stood up to give a speech thanking me for everything I did to help Siyaya. It was very heart felt and then he proceeded to have the group sing 2 songs that were to be dedicated to my last day. At that point I started to cry as I couldn't hold it back any longer. The songs were so beautiful and I felt so honored for them to sing to me. Once they finished I regained my composure and stood up to say a few words. I thanked everyone for welcoming me with open arms and making me a part of their family. I told them it was an honor to work with them and get to know each and everyone at the centre. I began to cry again and sat down while many people came up and gave me hugs and held my hand.

After dinner I was able to spend a little more time with the group. When the time came for me to go it was already late at night. Once again I broke down in tears giving a hug to everyone. Everyone was so supportive and helped me regain my composure. Bongani drove me back to his house so I could have some food and then proceeded to drive me home. We talked a lot on the way about keeping in touch, which made me feel relieved.

Overall this was the most difficult week of my journey. I don't usually cry unless it's dealing with death of a friend or a family member, but this time I couldn't help it. I really believe that the people of siyaya had a large impact on my life and I really tried to cherish every moment I had with them. I can only hope now that I can return as soon as possible to this wonderful place called South Africa. It was hard for me to understand the impact of this experience until I knew that I was leaving. I felt like I became so acclimated to life out in South Africa that I had no idea what it was going to be like to leave.

The people I've met through Cross-Cultural Solutions including the staff, volunteers, and people at my placement have been some of the most compassionate people that I've ever met. I feel very blessed to have had this journey. Thank you everyone for your love and support. I wish you all the best of luck in your future endeavors. I will miss you all.

This will be my last blog until I return home on October 31st. Upon my return I will write a reflection blog based on my experience in South Africa and my reactions to returning home. I just want to say thanks to everyone who has kept track of the "Kevin Tackles South Africa" blog. I've really enjoyed writing it and I'm very grateful for all of your comments and feedback. I feel very blessed with all of the support you have given me and I hope you all got a little taste of my experience in South Africa. Once I return home I will be planning a slideshow viewing of all my pictures and will be giving some presentations at my church to inform everyone on my travels.

Enkosi,

Kevin Gschwend

U.S. Address
7300 Brickyard Road
Potomac, MD 20854

U.S. Cell # 301-758-7916

E-mail - kevin.gschwend@gmail.com

Week #9 - Getting to know your township

2009-10-04T07:17:00.000-07:00

On the morning of Saturday, September 26th I woke up to meet Reverend Dr. Spiwo Xapile for breakfast. Dr. Spiwo is the main Reverend of the JL Zwane church and also the main director of the JL Zwane Community Centre. We had talked before about meeting up and having him show me around the townships. He wanted me to see how the JL Zwane centre gives back to the townships. He also wanted to give me a more in depth taste of what township culture is like. The last time I actually walked through a township was my first week here in South Africa and that was very much a culture shock. I was curious to see what it was going to be like when I was more acclimated to the sights of shotgun shacks, overwhelming trash piles, stray dogs, and everything else that makes up township living.

I met Dr. Spiwo at a restaurant nearby my house for breakfast. He was with another gentleman who was apart of the church and he was coming along for the ride. As we ate breakfast we discussed the issues of poverty in South Africa, how the centre helps in terms of community service, and how the centre and church are funded. I found out that there are no government appropriations used to help finance the centre and that much of the funding for the JL Zwane centre comes from grant funding from partnering churches across the United States. The money is used for all the essential functions of the centre including programming, employee salaries, stipends, maitenance, etc. It was very interesting to here about the lack of government support to fund community innitiatives like the JL Zwane Centre. It seems like much of the support for any community based endeavors in South Africa are all supported from outside parties including churches in the US, Non-profit and Non-Governmental Organizations. We continued to chat about the prospect of my presbyterian church back at home, called Bradley Hills Presbyterian, becoming a partner. In this way my volunteer wouldn't be just associated with Siyaya, but with the JL Zwane centre as a whole. In the grand scheme of this program I want to establish sustainable relationships with my placement in South Africa so I can really make a difference.

After breakfast we drove into Guguletu to visit some of the orphanges that the JL Zwane Centre supports. Our first stop was an orphanage for children that have disabilities (i.e. autism, cerable paulsey, etc.). One of the many issues in South Africa is that many of women who give birth to new borns with disabilities will abandon their kids due to the burden of taking care of them. Many of the children will be found in dumpsters or trash piles where they'll be taken to social services. Most of the time social services will not have enough resources to actually provide any real support so they get in contact with one of the many independent 24 hour care orphanages in the townships. Being in the townships, these orphanges are no where near the type of place that these kids should be raised in terms of the unsanitary conditions of the townships, but it's all they have. The JL Zwane centre provides funding to these orphanges for food, clothes, and activities. It was a very impacting experience as at least 15 children were packed in one very small room. Some of the children very ill, while the others played on the floor with the balls or other small toys they had. One of the children immediately spotted me and jumped into my arms. They were so excited to see some one different and just enjoyed the feeling of being held. The manager of the orphanage asked me if I had a questions and I had a few, but it was so hard to speak because of how emotional I felt towards the situation. Next, Dr. Spiwo took me to another orphanage with non-disabled children. This time comparing to the first stop I was pretty impressed with the accomadations. I mean in reality it still was not a great place to raise children, but there was a new bathroom, new flooring and new bunk beds that had all been paid for by the JL Zwane center. The children were all really kind and the main care taker was extremely kind and welcoming. It was very interesting to see all of this, especially when I discussed with Cross-Cultural Solutions program director, Luann the other day about my trip and she informed that the JL Zwane does more funding for community services like these than the governments' social services.

The next stops were around the Guguletu open air market where people gather to buy vegatables, meat, play pool, and other activities. It was very busy so Dr. Spiwo had his friend walk me around to look at everything that was going. Over in the corner was a big fire where they cooked a very distinguished food called "Smileys". A "Smiley" is the head of a goat, sheep, or cow and is a popular feature in the township diet. They call them "Smilies" because you can see all the teeth once they finished cooking. Don't worry, there was no way I was thinking about trying one. My guide then took me around to the surrounding Shebeens. I was a little hesitant at first because Cape Town Shebeens are not always the safest, but it was daytime and I was with my guide. We quickly went into a couple shebeens where people were drinking, playing, pool and listening to music. One of the shebeens had food and a person came up to offer me what looked like buffalo wings. My guide insured me that it was safe to try and I didn't want to be rude so I ate a piece. I quickly found out that they were actually chicken feet. The taste I have to say was pretty bad and there were many bones.

The rest of the week in my volunteer work included me going to other shebeens and clinics with siyaya to help promote the group and book them gigs. They are now preparing a township tour where they'll be performing at different shebeens and clinics through out the month of October. I'm sad to say that I'll be missing it.

Thanks everyone for keeping in tune with this edition of "Kevin Tackles South Africa". I'm sorry I wasn't able to go into more detail about my week, but I've been very busy working on burning mix cds for everyone in siyaya and preparing for my departure. The next blog will be very short as well due to my very hectic schedule.

Thanks everyone,

Kevin Gschwend

Week #8 - major south african rock group comes together with township musicians

2009-09-29T05:04:00.000-07:00

In Cape Town during the winter months the weather is extremely sporadic. In the morning you could wake up and not see a cloud in the sky and then an hour later you could be going to your volunteer placement in the pouring rain.

After a weekend of nothing but rain, Monday, September 21st was a blessing. The sun was out and it felt like spring was coming. I came into my placement feeling rejuvenated from the weather and ready to teach the rest of "And So It Goes" to my group. Before I got there I thought about all the times I was in high school and college choir where we sat inside practicing music while we were missing the gorgeous weather. It was always a big distraction, especially when you were practicing a huge piece like Handel's Messiah. I decided I was going to change that today and have a choir rehearsal outside in the middle of a township. Now how many people can say they've done that!?

We set up the chairs outside behind the JL Zwane center and started listening to "And So It Goes". Everyone seemed to enjoy the change in scenery and I think it helped everyone learn the piece quicker. Shortly into the rehearsal, I was able to pick out soloists and at that point the group had already learned most if not all the song. It was a fun and productive day. when I came back to the home base I told the other volunteers about my outdoor rehearsal and they all seemed to enjoy my story.

The next day I was scheduled to stay at the home base to work on marketing for the group. I've been trying to set up an internet EPK for Siyaya on a website called www.sonicbids.com. An EPK is an Electronic Press Kit. It's a web link you can send to promoters, booking agents and other people to help promote your music group. The link takes you to a page that has bio information, pictures, streaming audio mp3s, and video footage. A lot of people use EPKs now-a-days to try and book shows at venues all around the country. If you're a new group trying to make it in music, EPKs are a very useful tool. I was having trouble once again with the internet and uploading anything on to their page seemed to be a big challenge. Again it seemed that technology would the major obstacle I would need to overcome.

That evening we were celebrating one of the volunteers' birthdays. Jenna was turning 22 and we all decided to go to a Mexican restaurant nearby called "Panchos". Everyone came from our group and it was a blast. Jenna even got a happy birthday phone call from one of our drivers, Wonga who lives in Guguletu.

The next day I was preparing to finish teaching my group "And So It Goes", but I was in for a completely different surprise. I got into the JL Zwane center at my normal time around 8am and usually I have to wait for about an hour before everyone arrives. It's just the way it works. The drivers take everyone to their placements at 7:45am and mainly everyone starts at 8 or 8:30am, but for me I have to wait. No big deal though, I always bring my 700 page book about modern African politics so you know it's a good slow read. Anyways, I was waiting for people to show up and at around 9:15am I realized that no one had come in yet. I didn't know what was going on and no one else in the building knew either. I called Bongani and he sounded very busy with a lot going on around him. He said that most of the members were at HIV/AIDS workshops to spruce up their education. He had to go and told me he would call back in 15 minutes. Just like clockwork he called back and told me that Bolo, one of the Siyaya members was coming to pick me up. I agreed and hung up, but in reality I had no idea where I was going and what was going on. I assumed that I would be attending the workshop, but that was not the case at all. I was actually going to be attending a rehearsal for the 31st Annual Loerie Awards. The Loerie awards is a huge deal in South Africa. It's like the Grammys for the best marketing companies and marketing campaigns in South Africa. People all over come for it and there are live music acts including one of South Africa's hottest funk/house/rock groups called "Goldfish". You might not recognize the name, but they blew up internationally due to a Kia car commercial for the new Kia Seoul. The commercial has four hampsters crusing in the car blasting Goldfish while many other hampsters are on the road, but they are caught in their hamster running wheels while the other hampsters roll past them in the Kia Seoul. Goldfish was going to be one of the performing artists at the award show and they needed a back up choir for one of their songs. Bongani had been in touch with a coordinator from the Loerie awards several weeks ago and they had arranged for his 40 person African choir (made up many of the Siyaya members) to perform with Goldfish.

It was an amazing opportunity for 40 kids from the townships to come out and perform in such a glamorous venue and with such a reputable rock group. Bolo and I drove up to the Cape of Good Hope Center in downtown Cape Town where the award show was to be held. At the rehearsal all sorts of stage set up preparations were going in place. The place was plastered with sponsor posters like Heineken, Postnet, etc. It looked like it was going to be a crazy event. The band came out and introduced themselves. They were all really cool and I got to talk to some of members and audio tech people. The rehearsal went very well and everybody seemed excited for the Saturday performance.

After the rehearsal we had more things to take care of that I didn't know about. At this point in my journey I'm very use to the idea of spontaneous schedules and just going along with the flow. Our next task was to go to the Cape Peninsula Institute of Technology for a Siyaya performance. They were performing in a Heritage day festival. Heritage day is a national holiday that was happening tomorrow (Thursday), but the school was celebrating through out the entire week. It's a holiday where people celebrate their cultural heritage by dressing in traditional African clothes and have many traditional musical performances. Siyaya was one of the main acts and I have to say they blew all of the other performances away! Using my digital camera I recorded many of the dance and music numbers they performed. A lot of their entertainment portions of their repertoire are complex dance numbers with extravagant costumes. They had a large audience and I met many of the coordinators of the performance as I introduced myself as the publicist for Siyaya (ha!). After the performance Bongani drove me home and we discussed ideas for marketing both Siyaya and his choir. I now have a lot of footage that I will be burning to cds and giving to Bongani to show to promoters.

Thursday was supposed to be our day off to Heritage, but once again I had to run off with Bongani for the next rehearsal with Goldfish. Today I was picked up in a large van filled with members of the choir. The van could maybe fit 10 people, but of course they manage to stuff 15 in it. A lot of the times I'm pretty quiet in the van, because all of the members speak in their native language "Xhosa", which I know very little of. I do enjoy listening to them speak, because they all have such colorful personalities and seem to really enjoy each others company. The really remarkable part of drive to rehearsal was the fact that the group took up most of the time by rehearsing pieces that they were learning in their Choir. This is once again a testament to their love for music. The way they sang together in a stuffed van really showed how much they love the music they perform. Nobody was using an ipod or reading a book they were just singing their hearts out and I loved every minute of it.

We arrived at the center and this time they rehearsed on the main stage, which was a very colorful set up. There were large screens behind the performers where they ran music videos during the performance. I also managed to sneak in some footage of the rehearsal even though in retrospect I probably wasn't suppose to. It looked like it was going to be an amazing experience, unfortunately I wasn't going to be able to attend the performance being that there were no left over tickets.

After the rehearsal we once again had to run for another Siyaya Heritage day performance, but this time it was in Guguletu at the sports complex. It's always an experience to go into the townships and walk around. Mainly because everytime I go around I'm the only white person within miles and everyone around you is definitely taking notice. I really don't mind it at all and since I'm with the people in my group I feel safe. I also love talking to the people to get their views on everything that happens in South Africa. Siyaya gave a great performance that had a couple mess ups, but nothing too huge. We stuck around for some of the other performances, which were some dance numbers given by middle and elementary school children and then a hip hop group made up of South African teenagers that really got people dancing. It was another packed day for me while all the other volunteers had the day off, but I didn't mind.

By Friday I finished teaching "And So It Goes". I told the group about the significance of the piece to me and about Katie. I told them that Katie's family was very honored to hear that they were performing the piece, which was very inspiring for them. Bongani listened to Siyaya perform the piece and I was really happy to hear that they all had the piece down and they were already teaching it to the other members in the choir. I'm really excited to hear them perform the piece.

The last thing I want to mention in this blog is that another one of my fellow volunteers Tyler Eversaul aka "Ty Guy" has left after 8 weeks. Ty was one of my roommates from the beginning and he was a really nice guy, full of energy, and personality. He definitely made an impact, as everyone still talks about him even after he left. This blog is dedicated to him for keeping a smile on all of our faces when he was around. "Thanks Ty Guy, we'll miss you!"

Thanks everybody for reading this weeks edition of Kevin Tackles South Africa! It's been a crazy journey so far and I only have 2 more weeks of volunteering to go. If you haven't heard by now, after I'm done volunteering I'll be doing a 20 day trip around Southern Africa. I will be starting From Cape Town and then going to Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. It's through a very reputable tourist agency called Detour Africa that does many of these trips, so don't worry about me going out all by myself! One of the other volunteers did the trip before volunteering and said it was amazing so I decided to pursue it. This means I'll be coming home on October 31st.

Thanks again everyone and keep sending your comments!!

Kevin Gschwend

Week #7 - Cape Town Revival

2009-09-21T06:12:00.000-07:00

On the afternoon of Friday, September 11th the 5 Robertson volunteers and I drove back to Cape Town. It was very interesting that Robertson had such a large impact on us when we only spent 2 weeks there. I think many of us agreed that it was the people who really made the impact on our stay and not necessarily the city of Robertson itself.

As we saw Table Mountain in the distance I could feel an overwhelming sense of relief. I really felt for once like I was coming back to a home that I had not seen for a long time. Although Cape Town isn't as peaceful as Robertson, it has so many other qualities that make it so memorable. In that way Cape Town seems more like a place to stay then a place to get away from, but that's just the opinion of someone who has been living in South Africa for 7 weeks.

Although I was excited about coming back I was also pretty nervous. Unfortunately we were not coming back to the same Cape Town we once knew. Our homebase in Rondebosch was no longer a CCS residence. We were now moving into homebase 1 in Rosebank where a whole new group of volunteers had arrived the day we left for Robertson. It's not always easy to meet new people, especially when those people have already been acquainted with their own group for 2 weeks. I also had my own friendships established with the people that I originally came to Cape Town with. In that way I was just as much at risk for judgement of others.

Meeting this new group was another experience that opened my eyes to what else has been so wonderful about the Cross-Cultural Solutions program. The idea that people would pay to go to another country and do volunteer work for free really says a lot about the character of those individuals. I didn't realize this until meeting the next group of volunteers. There were about 13 new volunteers that were living in the CCS house in Rosebank. Again they were from all over including California, Minnesota, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico and Scotland. Even at the first moment we walked through the door we were greeted with many smiling faces asking us questions about our experience in Cape Town. For once I felt like I was the knowledgeable and cultured individual from Cape Town. It was a good feeling, but more than that it was good to feel like the individuals that you were living with were happy to have you among their group even after they established their bond. Finally, they all seem to really enjoy their volunteer work and had the same enthusiasm to be in South Africa.

On Monday, September 15th I was extremely excited about returning to my placement in Guguletu. I came into the JL Zwane center to everyone coming up and giving me hugs and asking how my journey was in Robertson. I showed them pictures and brought chocolate as a welcome back present. Warning to anyone who does volunteer work in South Africa: Make sure you bring enough for everyone if you decide to bring food to your place of work. It eventually worked out where everyone got a piece of chocolate, but man I thought people were going to kill each other for one of the bars of Toblerone. That day they had a concert going on for a little over 100 primary school kids at the JL Zwane Center. The concert involved an intense message about HIV/AIDS awareness. The concert was also to be attended by 4 major representatives from South Africa's largest insurance company. The company was looking to sponsor Siyaya in some of their performances and programs. It was a very important day so I stayed longer than usual to help set up and break down the show. Once again Siyaya put on a dazzling performance that had the students up and dancing like they were at a rock concert. During the encores Ntutu a soloist in the group brought some of the kids up to have dance competitions. This was definitely not planned for, but the kids loved every minute of it. It was a very emotional day with me coming back and seeing the group again, but also because they gave such a memorable performance.

Although the week started off well, a lot problems arose throughout. I began to move away from working on music with the group to working on promotion. I tried to give myself a set schedule where I would work on researching venues for Siyaya to perform at and organizations willing to sponsor them. Siyaya at that point was having a lot of issues financially and were struggling to keep the program going. I was very nervous about that idea, because I didn't want any the people in the group to lose what they had and end up on the streets. I believe that the JL Zwane Center is a wonderful place for people in the townships to keep their minds occupied and away from violence and drugs. If only there were thousands more of them around the country maybe things would be a little different.

The big issue with marketing a township group is technology and resources. The JL Zwane Center only had so many computers and everyday I went in there the computers were either not working or someone else was occupying them. I resorted to working at the homebase, but just as I switched work places, the Internet in our house wasn't working and I didn't have other available programs to upload pictures or MP3 tracks for the group to send to promoters. It was a very difficult week where I felt I accomplished very little. I did make several phone calls to promoters who were interested in having the group perform, but they needed information about the group via e-mail mp3s and jpeg pictures and so I'm still working on acquiring that material for them.

Although there were issues with my week there were a lot positives as well. The new CCS volunteers came to see Siyaya perform on Thursday and they blew everyone away. It was a great feeling and once again everyone congratulated me on helping teach them music and vocal technique.

After being here for 7 weeks I feel a very large connection with my group in terms of their passion and dedication to music. Although I'm no longer a musical performer, I can still remember the days of high school and college choir and steel band where I stood on the stage and felt a surge of energy in my body. Each performance was very euphoric and brought me to wonderful place. That's why I love music so much and I can see that same energy flow through my group Siyaya.

As I continue on my journey I will not give up in terms of working to promote the group and hopefully acquire sponsors that will keep this program going. In the future I hope to reach out to people in the states and spread the word about the Siyaya so maybe one day we can get them back to the United States to perform.

Thanks for reading this week's installation of Kevin Tackles South Africa. There are only 3 more weeks to go!!! I'm very excited, but also nervous at the idea of leaving this wonderful place. Please feel free to send you comments. Everyone has been so wonderful in their support so keep it up. Thanks again!

Kevin

Week # 5 & 6 The Robertson Chronicles

2009-09-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

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

Week #4 Transitions and new beginnings

2009-09-02T11:57:00.000-07:00

Waking up Sunday morning on August 23rd was very strange as the house seemed extremely empty. Only 4 people from homebase 2 left, but their personalities and their connections with myself and the other volunteers were big losses.

Although it was tough to say good bye, our group still kept their spirits high. We knew we still hadn't explored all that Cape Town had to offer, as that is almost impossible with just 3 weeks. On the positive end we knew we were done with the formal programming of CCS, and now the weeks to come would be up to us. We could explore as much as we wanted and at our own leisure. That afternoon we decided to take a trip to Hout Bay to relax and enjoy the beautiful weather. The beach was very nice, but I was dying to go out on sea and experience the Atlantic. We found a tour boat that went out to the coveted seal island, which is supposedly populated with over 10,000 seals. It was a pretty amazing sight along with an old ship wreck and a whale sighting. The best part of the tour for me was the fact that I was on the water. The beauty of the Atlantic was breathtaking. Surrounded by the mountain scapes you could see the waves crashing up on the rocks like something you saw in the movies. I also loved the waves crashing in mid ocean. There were many spots in the ocean, far away from the shore where the waves would break and create a wave that seemed so out of place that they were almost magic. Of course in reality the waves were breaking over rocks that were under the water and invisible to our sight, but to me the mist that came off the white foam of those waves seemed to belong to the uniqueness of the dynamic South African oceans.

The next day I was excited to get into placement because I was planning on teaching the kids of SIYAYA one of my favorite choral tunes. "And So It Goes", by Billy Joel has a special place in my heart as it was a tune that I did a duet solo performance with a girl named Katie McManus. It was the first time I got to sing a solo in my high school chamber choir. It was always a big deal in school to get solos in choir, and being that it was my first I definitely felt like I made my mark. More than that though the girl I sang that duet with, Katie was an incredible singer. She was also a wonderful person who was full of life and had an immense passion for the arts. At our final farewell performance she did a solo performance of a Sarah Mclaughlin tune that literally brought tears to my eyes. Katie was a good friend and she was very successful going off to the University of Rochester to do studies in religion and studio art. Unfortunately her journey was cut short as she died shortly after she graduated in a car accident when she was on vacation in the Virgin Islands. It was a huge tragedy, but every time I hear "And So It Goes" it always makes me think of her and that she's in a better place now. If anything I have to dedicate this blog post to Katie "I miss you and hope you've found peace" The kids of SIYAYA were instantly pulled in by the song and started learning the melodies and rhythms quicker than with the previous tune. I knew this song would be successful with the group and would definitely be something new that their audiences wouldn't expect.

The next day at placement the group did another couple performances at the health clinics to entertain people while they waited for their doctors. A couple other guests from America dropped by to check out the group. A gentleman named Marvin and his son came by from I believe Atlanta, but don't quote me on that. Anyway Marvin was part of a church that was interested in financing SIYAYA to go into a studio and record a CD so they could further promote the group. I thought this was an amazing opportunity for SIYAYA. The largest problem with the group that I want to try and help them with is they have no room financially to promote themselves. Another part of my job with SIYAYA is to investigate how I can get the group out to perform more in South Africa. It's always terrible to see talent go to waste and I knew exactly what that meant when I heard this group. They come everyday to practice, but very rarely do they have places to perform. I'm currently investigating opportunities for the group to perform in clubs, museums, theaters, schools, malls, and any other performance venues.

That evening I went out with some friends to the South African National Gallery of Art. While being on this trip I try every week to get some sort of cultural enlightening experience. visual art has always had a large impact on me and some of the art that conveyed the images of apartheid were very strong statements. The one that stuck out the most was a sculpture of an old wooden table with a sheet laying on top full of broken glass. At the end of the table was a bible chained to the table. This expression was extremely impactful as it represented the broken hopes and dreams of the South African people during the oppression of Apartheid.

The next evening was very interesting as I was planning on attending a choral rehearsal that was made up of 40-50 kids from the townships. Several of the members included SIYAYA personnel. The director of group Bongani, was also the director of SIYAYA. He had been asking me to come for weeks and I was finally able to free myself from the CCS programs. The rehearsal was in a township called Niyanga. Bongani picked me up along with a couple people apart of the group. When I heard the group perform it was a huge amount of sound. The volume of the group made them sound like a 120 person ensemble. They were rehearsing original tunes and western classics like "Ave Maria". They finished the rehearsal by performing African choral works in Xhosa, one the native click languages of SA. I've been taking some Xhosa lessons since I've been here and to even use the clicks in regular speech was already hard enough, I couldn't even imagine singing them. The African choral works included alot of dance choreography which brought the works to life. I have several of videos of the group that I plan on putting up on my facebook when I get a chance. The rehearsal was very much an inspiration. I was so happy to see a group of kids all so passionate about music doing something creative with their free time. One of the things that I worry about when it comes to the township life style is how so many people don't have the opportunity to participate in things like this and because of that they resort to drugs, gangs, and violence.

With all of my experiences with SIYAYA I really felt like I was establishing a strong bond with the group. The unfortunate thing was that this weekend would be the weekend I would be leaving for Robertson, South Africa to do volunteer work there with 5 other volunteers for 2 weeks. Cross-Cultural Solutions has another program in South Africa in the beautiful winelands of Robertson. This year was there 1st year for the program so it was a pilot year to test out the success of the program. Unfortunately they were not able to get enough participants so there was a decent discussion of whether or not they should cancel the program early. Our program director was able to influence myself and 5 of the other Cape Town volunteers to give 2 weeks of our time to come down to the Robertson program for no extra charge so they could keep the program going. We all decided to give it a try thinking that it would be a nice change from the Cape Town scene. As I write this blog I'm sitting in our homebase in Robertson, but I will have more about my experience in next week's blog. Just to let you know it's been really great so far. Anyways, although I was planning to leave my group for 2 weeks I knew I would be back for another 4 weeks in Cape Town to try and work more on getting performance opportunities for SIYAYA, but still it was always a little tough to say good bye and transition to a new beginning.

As the week came to a close I was able to make a stop to the botanical gardens in Kirstenbosch and a tour of Robben Island where they imprisoned Nelson Mandela for 18 years and thousands of other political prisoners during the time of Apartheid. Robben Island held a special interest in my mind as I read Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk To Freedom", which I strongly reccomend to everyone who has even the slightest interest in South Africa or the political happenings of Apartheid.

Now the time comes for me journey off to Robertson, South Africa. The beautiful farmlands surrounded by mountains resonate with a quaint farm town. The people have been extremely friendly and have welcomed us here with open arms. I'm excited to share my experiences in Robertson in next week's Kevin Tackles South Africa blog, until then thanks for reading and please feel free to e-mail or check out my pics of my facebook page!

Kevin

Music & Art Collide in the "Art of Healing project" to make South Africa a better place for their children. Departing Volunteers is bittersweet

2009-08-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

First I just want to apologize that I was not able to put up this blog sooner. Apparently I decided to follow the rest of the volunteers at my homebase by getting sick. I'm doing better now, but I swear I thought was going to have to come to our house and put up a quarantine sign.

Anyways, this past week was filled with many activities starting Monday, August 17th when all of the volunteers in CCS were invited to come see SIYAYA, the music/drama group I've been working with. After our placements our drivers picked us up and we went straight to a township restaurant called Mzoli's for lunch. The restaurant was located in Guguletu, which was definitely a great experience. All of our experiences in going out to eat have been in the heart of Cape Town among the middle class and upper class, and now we were going to eat at a restaurant that was surrounded by the tin shotgun shacks of the township. Mzoli's was a barbecue restaurant that was covered by a large white tent where we gathered to eat varieties of chicken, lamb, and beef. At the tables were a variety of sodas, but if you wanted a beer you had to walk across the street with an escort to a neighbor's house who sold the beer directly out of their refrigerator....I'm not joking! The atmosphere at Mzoli's was very lively as a local Marimba band called "Marimba Vibrations" played for the customers. A couple of the volunteers and our program director Luann got caught up in the music and started dancing in front of the group in the middle of the restaurant. It was a blast!

After lunch we loaded up the vans and headed over to JL Zwane Community Center to see SIYAYA perform. I was really excited for everyone to see the group that I've been working with for the past 2 weeks. I knew they were amazing and I wanted to see everyone's reactions. The performance included a combination of small dramas intermixed with operatic solos, afro pop tunes, and complex dance choreography. They started the performance with "I've Got you Under My Skin", the choral number that taught them in 4 days, which went really well. The diversity of repertoire and the energy of the group left everyone of the volunteers with looks of disbelief. The show was a major success and many of the volunteers in my group came up to me and congratulated me and some even said they were jealous that I got to spend my volunteer time working with such talented people. It was very gratifying.

The next day I woke up and my neck was still very sore from the weekend. I couldn't even move my head side to side. I knew I needed to do something as I didn't want to deal with back problems for the rest of my time in Cape Town. I set up an appointment with a Chiropractor, which was a very interesting experience. I've never been to one so it was kind of scary at first. I laid on the table as the doctor cracked my spine a couple times and in my mind I was like "What the hell is going on!? Is that supposed to happen!?" She did it a couple more times and I got up and I could actually move my neck and back a lot better. For those of you who have never been to chiropractor or who don't believe in them, let me just say I'm very much a believer now.

Later that afternoon we went to the District Six museum. District six is a very historic area of Cape Town. Before Apartheid it was a black area that was homed to thousands and then during Apartheid the government forced the population out into the townships and declared District six a white area. Eventually the Apartheid government decided to level many of the houses to create new buildings. They leveled the houses, but never actually did anything to build, so district six was left as almost a barren waste land. Since Apartheid the government and many organizations devoted to the advocacy of the area have spent the last 15 years building houses and giving the opportunity for the people who were originally forced out to move back into district six. One of the Cross-Cultural Solution drivers, Kimmie is from district six and after talking to him about the area, you can tell that the people of the area have a passion for where they live. One of the exhibits in the district six museum was a huge blanket covered with notes on it from people who were able to move back after Apartheid. These notes conveyed the people were able to retrieve a big part of their life that was missing for over 30 years.

The next day you could see that the volunteers were getting tired from the full agenda of activities that CCS planned for the week. It was tough for some of people who were leaving after this week. Not to say that the programs weren't interesting or fun, but everyone needs their freedom. That night we had yet another program, which some of us shrugged at. I was one of them, but I also thought that it might be interesting. It was a music/drama performance from a man named Themba. The volunteers walked into the room while Themba was playing a hypnotic melody on small instrument that looked like a small metal finger piano, but sounded like a small marimba. It was called a Mbira and it had a shell enclosing it to create acoustical depth and help project the music. Once everyone sat down he stopped playing and introduced himself and gave us the opportunity to have each one us introduce our selves to him. Themba told us about how he worked for an organization called "Healing of Memories", which contributes to the healing process of communities that suffered through governmental oppression such as Apartheid. They work to build and open the lines of communication between different races and have healthy discussions about the wounds of the past and establish cultural understanding. Themba then presented a musical poem using the Mbira. The poem was an intense look into the ideas of racial oppression and how we need to go about the future in terms of races finding a common goal to fix the problems of South Africa. I have to say this program had probably the largest impact on me out of all the other programming since I've been in South Africa. It really opened my mind in terms of realizing how long it's going to take for things to change in South Africa. We all came to the agreement that the many years of Apartheid manipulated so many people to believing that many blacks were terroists or communists setting out to destroy the whites. Since the end of Apartheid there are still many people out there that are residuals of that mindset. In my mind I believe that the youth will have the largest impact on the future of South Africa. They need to grow up in place where there is an established mutual understanding of what happened in the past with Apartheid and be able to put those hardships past them to create a better world where whites, blacks, coloreds, etc. can work together. It's going to take a long time, but like the civil rights movement, even America has made big strides, but still has a long way to go.

Going into Thursday, August 20th there was a lot of expectation. It was the day that a major community project sponsored by CCS and the Nomzamo Center for Abused Children, called "The Art of Healing Project", was taking place. The project was the volunteer focus for the 18 New York University students. They all studied "Art Therapy" and there job in this project was to design a giant mural on the back wall of the Nomzamo center. This was all to be completed in one day. So of course the rest of the volunteer crew from CCS took part in various rolls. Children and students from different schools in townships all over came together with CCS volunteers to paint a beautiful mural on a once white cement wall. The process was a blast as we had a dj play music as we all painted. Then we also had a wonderful musical intermission with the SIYAYA group. I helped them set up their instruments and they gave a magical performance full of percussion, marimbas, and energetic dances. The students loved every moment of it. We then finished the mural, which included wonderful images of oceans, ships, fairy tale figures, trees, flowers, and of course the flag of South Africa. Evan Spiegel gets a big shot out for helping design the flag! All of the volunteers and I walked with a great sense of pride accomplishment as we saw a sea of children from underprivileged areas come together and create something beautiful. Our director Luann stood in front of everyone and gave a heartwarming speech thanking everyone for being apart of such a influential project. The director of Nomzamo also extended her gratitude to everyone for their hardwork. It was a wonderful day and very much another day we all felt that we made an impact.

As much as the week was filled with joy and accomplishments it also had its' bitter-sweet ending. Much of the group was about to disappear as a lot of volunteers were doing a three week program. This included volunteers that I grew extremely close with. Matthew from Vienna, Austria was one of my roommates and very much a music lover. We related on many different levels in terms of our passion for music and explored a lot South Africa in the same group. He was also a great friend and easy to get along with. Laura from Toronto, Canada was also in our homebase and her optimism was extremely contagious to our group. When someone was having a tough time in the group she was very much always there to cheer that person up. Emma and Cody from Las Vegas were also in our homebase and were always there to come out where ever we went and just became the life of the party. All of the NYU people were wonderful as well, unfortunately I didn't get to hang out with them as much as I would like due to our housing separation. It was hard to say goodbye, but we all knew that we would stay in touch and plans are already in the works to make some hometown visits!

That's about it for now. Again, I apologize for the wait. This week was crazy with illness and friends heading out. Thanks for following week 3 of "Kevin Tackles South Africa".

Week 2 - Taxi Cab Strike, Sore Neck, and Soccer mosh pits, but yet there is Hope... the Cape of Good Hope that is.

2009-08-17T11:54:00.000-07:00

Another week in Cape Town has passed and even though it's only been a short while, I already feel like my Cross-Cultural Solutions house in Rondabosch is my second home.

After returning from the Garden Route I was very gratified to sleep in my bed and excited to talk with the other volunteers about their weekend experiences. All of us agreed that returning to the homebase felt like coming home. The meals that were being prepared for us at the homebase were already feeling like the comfort food that we all desired...well maybe with an exception to the squash soup...haha..

This short week began with an interesting twist at my volunteer placement. I came into the JL Zwane Center on Tuesday with the expectation that maybe I would finish cleaning up the choral piece that I worked on with the SIYAYA group last week, but instead the director, Bongani wanted me to teach everyone an individual voice lessons. So I was going from the first time teaching a whole group of kids to sing to teaching individual voice lessons for the first time.

Even though there were some benefits to teaching individuals, like the comfort of dealing with one person at time rather than a whole group there were also some obstacles. When you are a voice major in college and you really only know how to sing a bass/baritone part it's really difficult to try and teach female students who sing alto or soprano parts. Although it took some time to get used to the changes overall I think the individual lessons worked out. I worked on a lot of breathing and vocal exercises with each student to establish some basic technique that they might not already know. These exercises were all part of my memory of what my college voice teacher Benjamin Smolder taught me. Towards the end of each voice lesson I worked on teaching each student an Italian aria from a book that I brought with me. The aria was called "Caro Mio Ben" a very well known aria that many voice majors from America might know. It was a song that I sang back in school and it was something that I felt at least somewhat comfortable with teaching. The kids seemed very enthused because a lot of them didn't know anything about the realm of classical music. They all put a lot of effort into learning the words, rhythms, and notes. Some learned the tune faster than others, but overall I was really proud of them for each of their individual vocal prowess.

In cultural news there was a lot of tension coming around regarding the taxi and bus systems and a worker's strike was imminent. A warning was sent to all of the volunteers around my placement saying that our placements might be delayed or cancelled due the possible safety concerns with the strike. According to resources sometimes people that protest in these strikes will throw rocks at other bus or taxis that are still in service. The next day our volunteer placements were cancelled due to the fact that our driver couldn't even make it to our house to pick us up, because of the immense traffic caused by the strike.

We were warned that strikes could last up to 3 or 4 days, but for some reason the strike didn't even last 24 hours. Just like that things were resolved and we were at our placements again Thursday morning. Although I made it to my placement I found that only 3 students in the SIYAYA group made it to rehearsal due to unknown circumstances, but I'm guessing that a good deal of them thought the strike was still on. The day was still productive as I took the 3 students on individually to work on vocal training and the Italian aria.

After that we went on a tour of the Cape Malay area, which is an Islamic area of Cape Town with many mosques and interesting pastel colored apartments. It was almost like something out of "Edward Scissor Hands", except they were apartments instead of houses. After touring the town and eating at a very cozy middle eastern restaurant that had a incredible view of the city, we headed over to a museum that focused on slavery in South Africa called the Slave Lodge. The museum was very interesting and presented a lot of information on not only the history of racial oppression, but also had exhibits that dealt with more recent Apartheid issues and celebrated the lives of movement leaders like Nelson Mandela, Desmund Tutu, and Steven Biko. Steven Biko had one of the more memorable exhibits. He was a leader of what was the BCM (Black Conscious Movement), which focused on racial oppression in it's psychological aspects rather than the politics. It worked to encourage black Africans to be self sufficient and not rely on the help of white powers. Being a music fan I immediately turned to a featured music video in the exhibit that was a Peter Gabriel song called "Biko". I'm still not sure why of all people that Peter Gabriel would write a song about him, but I guess I need to look into it more.

The weekend was a mix of a lot of fun, exciting adventures, and a really sore neck. I started with some friends by going to Long Street on Friday and hitting up the African markets, which if you have ever experienced going to a car dealership or any other store where the employees hassle you until you buy something, this is about 10 times worse. I got pretty used to it quickly telling every market I passed by either no thank you or that I would come back later. I repeated that until I found exactly what I was looking for and then worked on my haggling skills, which seemed to go well.

Saturday we went to probably the most beautiful scenery I've ever seen in my life. The landscapes of the Cape Point and The Cape of Good Hope hike are something out of a fantasy world. This area is the most southwest point of South Africa and encompasses cliffs that overlook endless waters. There is a beach that lies between a canyon that you can sit on and watch some of the most beautiful blue and green waves come in crashing. It is very secluded, but a gorgeous memory. The only problem with the whole trip was that I developed a terribly sore neck that I've been trying to work out every since. Thankfully one of the volunteers, Cody is a massage therapist and has been life saver and also just a good sport. Thanks man!!!

That night we decided to go to a soccer game with the Cape Town Ajax and the Johannesburg Kaiser Chiefs. It was a bit of craziness as I thought I was apart of a mass protest as the people trying to get into the game were literally bowling over the guards to get into the stadium. It was a massive mosh pit and even more crazy than a lot of concerts that I've been to, but I'm happy to say I'm alive and the game was a lot of fun.

That's all for now, but I should have a good deal more next week and will post up pictures as soon as possible. Just to warn everyone if you want the true experience of seeing the Cape of Good Hope and Cape point you really just need to pick yourself up and get down to Cape Town, South Africa. But I guess if you can't do that then I'll just have to make it my duty to keep you informed with Kevin Tackles South Africa. Thanks everyone!!!

For questions or comments feel free to e-mail at kevin.gschwend@gmail.com

The Beginning

2009-08-10T08:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a week since I've been in South Africa and I've already done so many things. To begin I started my journey by staying up until 5:30am putting the finishing touches on my packing at my home in Potomac, Maryland. Most of the time was spent putting together intricate paylists on my ipod nano, which is for my enjoyment and then a separate educational playlist on my really old ipod for my supposed music education volunteer placement.

The 24 hours of travel included a stop in Atlanta, then off to Dakar, Senegal and then finally Cape Town, South Africa. Along my flight I met up with 3 other Cross-Cultural Solution volunteers and chatted with many other international travelers. Everyone on the flight was very kind and the excitement about traveling to SA seemed to radiate within everyone on that flight. The combination of that, a very enthusiastic conversation with my seat neighbor and having the exit row seat made the flight very comfortable and it didn't seem much worse than taking a flight from Washington, DC to Los Angeles. I reaffirmed this idea after hearing that a couple of the volunteers had 9 hour lay overs in Dubai and London.

My flight landed in Cape Town at 5:30pm on Saturday, August 1st. I congregated with the other 3 CCS volunteers and 2 more that we met at the airport. We all seemed very disoriented from our sporadic naps and lack of movement on the plane. Our driver, Kimmie was their to greet us and escorted us to the car. Everyone seemed very nice as we chatted on the way to the homebase. That's when we witnessed our first glimpse into the overwhelming world of South African poverty. It was a field close to the airport full of miles and miles or tiny, tin metal shotgun shacks. Some of the people I talked to before I left for SA told me stories about this area, but to see it was another experience all together. These structures resembled more of rusty tool sheds that were clustered among piles trash, but were actually the homes of about 3 million blacks and colored South Africans in the Cape Town area. "Colored" meaning a mixture of black and other racial orientation (i.e. Indian, white,etc.).

After a 25 minute drive I was dropped off at 1 of the 2 CCS homebases, which was located in an area outside of downtown Cape Town called Rondebosch. A pretty nice middle class area that is located minutes away from the University of Cape Town. The house was very nice and reminded me of the neighborhoods outside of LA like Silverlake and Echo Park. I met my roommates, Matthew Prokop from Vienna, Austria and Tyler Eversaul aka "Ty" from Vancouver, Washington. Both of them were very nice and eager to be in South Africa.

After I met my roommates and checked out the house I realized my body was so exhausted from the great length of travel that I was able to write a small 3 sentence e-mail to my family, letting them know I was ok and then I went straight to bed.

The next day we started our 2 day orientation where we met the rest of the volunteers at homebase 1 located 2 minutes away from our homebase. The first day of orientation went through a lot of logistics and a bunch of exercises to evaluate our expectations and to get to know each other. Afterwards we had a festive lunch with lots of lamb, chicken, potatoes, vegetables, and a wonderful salad with melt in your mouth avocado slices. From there we did a driving tour of Cape Town in which we drove up one of the many picturesque mountains called Signal Hill. From there we could see beautiful views of the cascading ocean crashing up on the rocks and shoreline of downtown Cape Town. There were also gorgeous views of Table mountain, Devil's peak, and lion's head. After the tour we went back to have dinner and my roommate Matthew and I decided that beer would be the perfect remedy to subdue the intensity of our first full day in SA. We went to a bar we saw earlier that day called the Fat Cactus, which was a perfect evening treat.

The next day we had a 9am meeting to continue our orientation, which focused on our individual placements. We started by talking about the history of South Africa, which lead to a somewhat heated discussion about Apartheid and the current politics of SA. We then took a township tour, which none of us knew what to expect.

For those of you who don't know what a township is, it's basically the American equivalent to a ghetto. During the time of Apartheid, legislation required the 75-80% black and colored population majority to move in these South African ghettos that took up 13% of the land in South Africa. This is while the white minority population took up the rest and the majority of land in South Africa. This forced blacks and colored population into these isolated, dangerously under kept neighborhoods known as "Townships". The field by the airport that I mentioned earlier is what an ordinary Township consists of. Since the removal of the Apartheid system in 1989, the black and colored population are now able to live anywhere in South Africa. Unfortunately many of the families are too poor to live anywhere else in Cape Town.

There are +/- 10 different townships that encompass the majority of the around 4 million total population. We toured three of those townships including Khayelitsha, Guguletu, and Langa. Khayelitsha is largest of all the townships, followed by Guguletu. The structures in the townships varied from tin, metal, wood, and cement buildings that were all mashed together along dirt fields and under kept roads that went for as far as I could see. It was very much like Cape Town disappeared and was engulfed in a sea of this housing, which in reality is only 25-30 minutes away from the center of downtown Cape Town, which is a complete 180 in terms of wealth.

We had a tour guide who was from one of the townships that took us around and introduced us to the people, the houses, and the culture of township life. The images were very emotionally intense, as I have never witnessed poverty on that extreme of a level. The first thing I remember that was both heartwarming and sad was the flood of children that saw us and came running up to us to be held and played with. It was really adorable. I remember a little girl around 3 years old came up to me and kept grabbing my hand so I would pick her up and hold her for a little while. Or grab my hand and another volunteer's hand and have us swing her by the arms. That little girl had so much spirit and was having so much fun with us that she never wanted to leave our side. We had to go at some point, which was the sad part. I wanted to know what that girl was going to do with the rest of her day and what was going to become the rest of her life. The other memory was going into one the houses that was a daycare center that housed 70 kids everyday with only 6 people looking after them in a extremely tiny 1 or 2 person sized building. The women care takers were very nice and had some of kids sing for us. They sang songs about the days of the week and other things they were learning in daycare. It was another instance where my heart was very warm with love and compassion for these kids, but also saddened by the conditions in which everyone was brought about. I guess though in the end all they are making the best of what they have, which is wonderful, but I also feel that they deserve so much more. At the end of the tour we were all pretty exhausted and went back to our homebases to have dinner and relax to prepare for our first day of volunteer placement.

Volunteer placement the next morning for me was located in the township of Guguletu where I was to work at a community center called JL Zwane. There the center works to help promote programs for education, healthcare, and the arts. I was to work with the music & performing arts group there called SIYAYA. I met the head of SIYAYA named Bogani and the director of the center, Edwin. Bogani took me out to see SIYAYA do one of their weekly performances at a local clinic that served hundreds of HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis patients everyday. The patients at these clinics start coming around 5am to stand in line and wait to see a doctor most of the time if they are late they are asked to come the next day and wait once again to see a doctor. SIYAYA performs at these clinics usually 3 times a week to provide entertainment and promote HIV/AIDS education to the patients in the waiting room while they wait to see a doctor. This was an amazing experience as the members of SIYAYA put a drama performance on that had everyone in the clinic laughing hysterically. At first when you entered the room you saw a sea of somber faces eagerly waiting for a doctor's attention, but when the guys from SIYAYA came they whole demeanor of the room changed completely. It was a really amazing experience for me to watch and gave me a great idea of how talented these guys really are.

SIYAYA is made up of 15 young adults both females and males from the ages of 18-26 who are all extremely talented in music and live in Guguletu among the rest of the township people. They sing, dance, act, and perform on all sorts of instruments. I've had the pleasure to work with them on vocal training and introduce them to choral works that they will include in their performance repertoire. I've also worked with them on an individual basis to teach them new music from old moetown pop tunes to mainstream pop to jazz. In another week SIYAYA will do a performance for the volunteers of CCS in which I will conduct a choral arrangement of the Frank Sinatra tune "I've Got You Under My Skin". I sang it in high school and so far I've been able to teach them to sing the tune in 3 days. For some one who has never taught choral music that's pretty impressive, but more of the credit is deserved on their side. They are already amazing and talented musicians and after the first day when I introduced the tune they did a full showcase performance for me personally, which they did all of their musical numbers and I have to say if I would of saw that before I started teaching them, I would have been extremely scared to teach at all! haha.

Other then the placement, my life in Cape Town has been coming together. In our CCS programming we've started our language lessons in Xhosa, which is a click language of South Africa. I've gotten to know and get along with all of the volunteers which has been amazing and I just came back from an amazing weekend trip on the Garden Route, which was organized by one of the CCS drivers. It's a tourist destination about 5 1/2 hours southeast of Cape Town where the drive was surrounded by beautiful landscapes of mountains, oceans, and canyons. We stayed for 3 nights at a really cool backpackers lodge and went around to all the attractions including Zip lining and the world's largest bungy jump (Sorry Mom, I had to do it...but I'm still alive!). We also went to animal sanctuaries where we got to pet elephants and baby cheetahs. Finally we went to the Cango caves and many other scenic areas where we took in all of the beautiful surroundings.

As the journey continues I hope to immerse myself more in the culture and life of South Africa and I hope to share as much as I can with all of you following Kevin Tackles South Africa. Once again I'm thinking of all of you who supported me in this journey and I want to say thank you so much for all of your support. In the next day I will put up pictures on here and my facebook so you guys can get a glimpse of what's going on. Take care and feel free to e-mail me!

-Kevin

Day before I leave for South Africa

2009-07-30T19:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

I really wanted to post a blog before I left. Due to the craziness of preparing for this trip I of course left this to the last minute. So I apologize if this is short, but I need to get to bed soon before I leave tomorrow.

I just wanted to reflect quickly on my time here in DC and leading up to participating in the Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteer program in Cape Town, South Africa. As many of you know I came back to the DC area from my 2 year term at Telarc records before getting laid off due to the poor economy. When I came back I spent 3 months ambitiously looking for other music business opportunities. I finally decided that pursuing volunteer work in South Africa was the best option as the job market proved to be impenetrable. I'm really excited about this opportunity as I've wanted to travel and experience Africa for many years. Although I'm extremely excited about this opportunity I have to say that I'm going to miss all my family, friends, and the DC area a lot.

When I first left Cleveland I wasn't totally looking forward to the idea of coming back to the area. I was in the mindset that I wanted to stay in the music industry and to do that I needed to be in New York or Los Angeles. I also felt that I've experienced DC to a large extent being that I grew up in Potomac, Maryland so I wanted to experience something new.

I soon realized shortly after that I really hadn't experienced DC as an adult. Understanding that realization, I grew a much larger appreciation for DC than I ever thought I would. I got reacquainted with old friends, made new friends, enjoyed time with my family and went out to experience all that DC had to offer. It turned out to be a wonderful experience that I definitely do not regret. At this time I just want to say thanks to everyone for welcoming me back with open arms. That might sound a little cheezy, but seriously, I mean it.

Not only did I get to reacquaint myself with my hometown and set up a trip to South Africa, but I also pursued a 2 month internship at the Smithsonian American History Museum's - Jazz Appreciation Month Program. This internship was an amazing experience. I had the opportunity to develop a proposal for an educational program called the Jazz Mirror Project. It's a program that will take students from South Africa and students from DC and have them communicate via webcast to have discussions about jazz and what it means to their cultural heritage. So far the program is in the submission stage. We have submitted proposals to different arts organizations and the State department for funding. The really exciting thing about the project is that if we do get the funding I will have a full time job as the project coordinator.....not something I expected! haha. So even though I didn't pursue a career in New York or LA I might actually work with music once again in a different context, but we'll see what happens. I should know around September.

Finally, this past week I found out what my actual volunteer work will specifically consist of. I know a good deal of you have been asking me what I'm going to do while in SA. So to assure you that I'm not using your donations to run off and party it up in Cape Town, I figure you all deserve to know. I'll be working 5 days a week at the JL ZWANE community center in the Guguletu Township outside of Cape Town. It's a very underprivileged area where the schools are extremely undeserved and can't afford good materials for education or after school programs. The JL ZWANE community center provides educational programs and after school programs to help sustain this need in the Township. I will be working with their music and drama department called SIYAYA, in teaching voice lessons, music appreciation classes, and marketing music. It's pretty much right up my alley...so I'm pretty damn excited to say the least.

Well time to wrap this up because I need to get a couple last minute things together before I head to bed and get ready for the 24 hours of travel time I will be spending tomorrow....woohoo! Thanks again for everyone's support. Whether you donated or just listened to me rant about how psyched I am about traveling to South Africa. I will be posting hopefully every week when I get down there, so keep a look out for "Kevin Tackles South Africa"!!!

p.s. feel free to contact via e-mail at kevin.gschwend@gmail.com Thanks!!!

Welcome To Kevin Tackles South Africa

2009-05-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, welcome to Kevin Tackles South Africa!

KTSA is a volunteer program through a renowned non-profit organization called Cross-Cultural Solutions. CCS coordinates volunteers all over the world to help developing countries in Education, Healthcare, Community Development Projects, Care Giving, and many other sustaining causes.

I (Kevin Gschwend) will be traveling and living in Cape Town, South Africa for 12 weeks, starting August 1st, 2009 and going through October 24th, 2009. During that time I will be involved in any of the above volunteer projects that are needed to help the people of South Africa.

Since Cross-Cultural Solutions is a non-profit organization, all of their funding for programs comes from volunteer sponsorship contributions. That means I'm encouraged to fundraise for my volunteer project and gain sponsors from other organizations, family, and friends. The cost I need to raise for my 12-week program is $6,414 (does not include airfare). The costs include: Housing, Travel & Medical insurance, Food, and in-country transportation.

I've been asking people I know to sponsor me and donate any amount of money they can to this wonderful program. It's a really great cause and if there's any way you can help that would be wonderful. All donations are 100% Tax deductible so that's a plus!

To become a sponsor and make a donation you can go online to my volunteer web page and make the payment via credit or debit card. All you have to do is go to the following link.

https://my.crossculturalsolutions.org

Then under sponsor login you will type in my full name with no spaces.

kevingschwend

I need all donations by July 1st, 2009 as that is when my program fee is due. So the sooner you can put in your donation the better. When you are finished with the donation process, you will receive an e-mail with the tax deductible form. If you wish to make the donation via check or money order let me know and I'll send you directions for that. If you have any problems or do not receive a tax form let me know.

To learn more about Cross-Cultural Solutions, I invite you to visit their website www.crossculturalsolutions.com. Also, I'll have facebook group up soon called Kevin Tackles South Africa, so be on the look out for that.

I really appreciate everyone's consideration in donating to Kevin Tackles South Africa. Every since my work at the record company and my music studies back at college, I've grown a deep appreciation for the music and culture of South Africa. I know this will be a life-changing experience and I look forward to sharing those experiences with all of you. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or just want to chat.

All The Best,

Kevin Gschwend

301-758-7916

kevin.gschwend@gmail.com