Finding solid ground: Day 2

 Safe Line

            After dropping off all of the volunteers and Stephanie, Jim drops me off at the Athlone Safe Line office around 9:00 am.  I wave goodbye to Jim.  He waits to leave until I am in the office.  Today the office is quiet.  There are two small girls playing in the waiting area, but no workers.  I smile and greet the girls before heading to the back office area.  Finally I come across the director and the community workers.  The community workers are busy preparing for the last parenting class.  The lead worker takes me and another community worker aside to go over the outline for the session.  She assigns the other worker and me with tasks to lead.  I am assigned to lead the line activity and assist with the “dream collage”.   The worker is very open to sharing information and tasks with me.

            After we finished planning, we had to wait for the driver to come to Safe Line to pick us up.  The other community worker and I sat on the two couches in the kitchen area of the office.  She shared her insights into the upcoming local elections, the lack of housing development over the past 20 years, and the limited resources available for NGO’s.  She also shares that the government has a welfare program like the State’s TANF Temporary Aid for Needy Families AKA the Bridge program) that provide parents with 260 Rand per child a month for food.  260 Rand is about $USD 37.00 per month.  We continue to talk about our frustration until the car arrives.

            We packed all of our supplies and headed to the nearby petro station.  I lean across the workers to see the petro (gas) prices in South Africa.  The worker tells me that petro is 9.95 Rand ($ 1.25 USD) per gallon and Diesel is about 10.05 Rand (~$ 1.35 USD) per gallon.  We discuss the increased price of oil while waiting for the petro attendant to fill up the driver’s car.  Soon we merge back onto the road and arrive at the Assembly of God church. 

            Several women are waiting for our group inside the Assembly of God church.  We quickly set up two tables and chairs.  The lead worker introduces the topic of protecting your family and writes out names tags.   The church is cold this mid-morning from the rain.  The women gather around to listen to the worker talk about Safe Line in Afrikaans.  I enjoy listening to the rhythm of Afrikaans.  It is similar to listening to a mix of English and Dutch with a unique tempo.  After a few minutes of talking about Safe Line’s services, the workers lead an icebreaker (“You are invited to a picnic” name game).   After the icebreaker, the lead worker introduces the activities. 

            The first activity has the women create two group collages about their dreams when they were younger.  The women cut out pictures of jewels, cars, houses, and food.  Then each of the women present on the images they pocked out.  One woman expressed that she dreams of having soap that smell good.  Another woman pointed out a picture of money and said she dreams of having enough Rand to feed her family for the week.  Sometimes it is difficult to comprehend how incredibly privileged I am to have access to clean water, soap, and food. 

            After presenting their images and breaking for tea, we have the women stand in a line and close their eyes.  Today I read the scenarios and questions about how they speak to their child and another worker read the child’s reaction.  For example I read, “You are angry at your child and tell them to shut up.  If you say this to your child please step forward.” while the other worker reads the child’s response, “When you tell to shut up you are teaching me to not tell you anything and hide my feelings”.  We then end the activities with the “Mirror box”.  The “Mirror Box” is where you tell the women that there is something incredible and unique in the box.  You then show them what is in the box.  In the box there is a mirror and you can a reflection of yourself when you look inside.  Many of the activities focus around building the women’s self awareness and self-esteem.  We end the day by talking with women about how it is important to be open with your child and supervise your child.  As we clean up, I talk with the other workers until the CCS van comes to pick me up for lunch. 

The Green Market

           After lunch, the other volunteers invited us to join them on their excursion to the Green Market on Long Street in down town Cape Town.  The volunteers show Stephanie and me how to call a taxi from the home base.  The taxi whisks us through Cape Town.  I have my first glimpse of the ocean from the car.  About 15 minutes later, we arrive in the downtown area. The downtown area looks similar to any other large city.  There are tall buildings interspersed with street level department stores and beautiful gothic churches.  The Green Market is a collection of vendors selling.  The venders clump together under blue tents to sell cheap jewelry, art, scarves, and knick-knacks to tourists.  The goods are bright and colorful, but clearly made for foreigners looking to bring a piece of the generic “Africa” back with them in their bags.  I enjoyed walking through the vender and down town, but refrained from buying meaningless mementos.  As sun set closes in, we call a taxi and head back to