Back to School!

“Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books, But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.”


Forgive the Shakespeare, I just saw A Midsummer Night's Dream on Monday and am still on a Shakespeare kick.

School’s back in session! The kids were more than excited to get their break back in December and it’s sad for all of us to say goodbye to the summer holidays. Overall, I feel pretty darn lucky to get TWO summer breaks in one year. Sounds almost too good to be true, eh?

The last class started out the year in their old classroom which meant getting TONS of hugs from the kids I grew to love over three long months working hard and playing hard with them. When the newest bunch came in there was a weird feeling of “I’m going to love these children soon.” At that point I couldn’t even pronounce all their names (give Sibusiso, Umulo Kiara, Luqmaan, and Kuhle a try) and they were already getting pretty riley with first-day jitters.

By now it’s the third week of school and we’ve already started with the reading assessments and funny songs. Already I’m getting hugs and excited “Jen!”s when I come to the classroom. Handing out all the stickers in class and play with them at breaks has that side effect, it isn’t hard to win kids’ affection.

Here’s a picture of the teacher I work with, Mrs. Tshivhase! She’s a truly inspiring, strong woman single handedly raising her own family of four girls. Working with her has been a true inspiration in the dedication she shows to her students inside and outside of the classroom. Mrs. Tshivhase is a phenomenal teacher and already has me half convinced to become a teacher myself. This photo was taken by me for a book about South African teachers.

A Second Look at Unemployment

Walking laps around the house for no reason, watching an entire 3 seasons of a TV show, resorting to watching terribly made (yet terribly entertaining) Bollywood movies…. With December summer holidays came a LOT of free time, almost more than I felt like I knew what to do with. In sitting around the house, having little money to go anywhere, going through all the stages of not know what to do with myself set in. I’m “employed” but mandatorily on break during school holiday.

In getting frustrated with all the free time, it got me to thinking about what it is like to be unemployed and to have that much time free on a regular basis. Feeling ready and able to help but having nowhere to go was frustrating. Going through that on a small, temporary scale, it’s hard to even imagine the depth of frustration in having a family to feed/being properly educated/having ambition and simply not being able to get a job.

Unemployment is a rising issue, especially with the economic downturn of the last few years, but it never became personal until coming here. The rates are staggering, reaching almost 80% in some areas. Cape Town hovers between 25-40% which is better but still crushing when you think of its scale. The youth without jobs too often find themselves in trouble which is partly why my neighborhood isn’t safe. Without other means of getting money gangsterism thrives in Cape Flats and feeds off the drug use happening in lower income areas.

The perceptions too often of the “laziness” of people in other countries is also tied up with unemployment. Yes, it’s true that a large percentage of people here don’t have jobs. Yes, they do often sit at home because of that or find themselves sitting in the streets for lack of better things to do. But it’s sobering to realize that it’s not cultural “laziness” but a lack of a place to go and work. It has nothing with lack of desire to work. Hearing the stories of people wanting to work but stuck in unemployment brings a whole new face to the issue.

Disturb Us, O Lord

A powerful prayer from South African priest and freedom fighter, Desmond Tutu:
Disturb us, O Lord
when we are too well-pleased with ourselves
when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little,
because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, O Lord
when with the abundance of things we possess,
we have lost our thirst for the water of life
when, having fallen in love with time,
we have ceased to dream of eternity
and in our efforts to build a new earth,
we have allowed our vision of Heaven to grow dim.

Stir us, O Lord
to dare more boldly, to venture into wider seas
where storms show Thy mastery,
where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

In the name of Him who pushed back the horizons of our hopes
and invited the brave to follow.
Amen

Christmas South African Style

Christmas here turned out to be pretty similar to home—lots of food, lots of family, lots and lots of food. Just the meat included seafood, prawns, stuffed chicken, pineapple chicken, beef, leg of lamb, tongue. Ya, you read that right. My host mom asked me to carry over a closed container next door to the feast table, I open it and there’s a two-foot long tongue in all its glory innocently licking the pan. I nearly dropped the pan in surprise.

I made all the deserts for the day which included pumpkin fritters, a couple of huge Christmas trifles, and my specialty peach cake. If you’re up for some pure joy in culinary form, here are a couple of the recipes for you. Enjoy!

Pumpkin Fritters
-pumpkin, boiled and mashed (a pre-made can would probably work)
-sugar
-cinnamon (nutmeg might be a nice addition)
-flour
-eggs
-baking powder


1. Attempt to cut the pumpkin. Look cute until someone(my host dad) takes the knife away and cuts it all up for you. To cook pumpkin chunks, heat up pan with butter and oil, when hot put in rinsed/water soaked pumpkin pieces and cook til soft. Mash like there’s no tomorrow.
2. When cool mix in a couple of eggs, a pinch of baking powder, cinnamon, and lots of sugar to taste. Add flour until it’s a thick batter consistency.
3. Heat a pan on medium-low with oil. Drop in a few large spoon fulls at a time and let each side cook until firm. The middle will be soft and it will turn out thicker than a pancake.
4. De-grease with paper towels carefully. When cool dip in cinnamon sugar. 5. Gluttonously eat all of them before anyone else gets the chance to steal them away.

Christmas Trifle
-sponge cake
-sherry
-several jello flavors
-custard
-whipped cream
-fruit

1. Prepare about three flavors(the more colors the better) of jell-o and set in the freezer.
2. In a large serving bowl (glass looks best) layer sponge cake until the bottom is fully covered.
3. Pour sherry on top until the cake is just about soaked on all sides. 4. Put a layer of fruit on top, canned fruit cocktail works well.
5. Take jell-o out of the freezer. It should be thick without being solid having not set yet. Pour in color layers over the fruit.
6. Layer custard then whipped cream, completely covering the pan.
7. Decorate as desired. Cherries on top are the traditional decoration.

I haven’t had measuring cups since coming here so bear with me and make your own judgments. They’re both delicious so enjoy :)

Some Long Awaited Pictures

Here's a view into what my life here looks like :)

Ready? 1, 2, 3 AWWWWW. All the kids got dressed up for the school concert. It was adorable chaos.

I made all the flower face masks and they loved showing them off.

When all of us volunteers got together for the retreat we went hiking in the Drakensberg mountains. This is where they originally wanted to film Lord of the Rings.

Look! We climbed Table Mountain! This is taken from the top after our hike with Cape Town in the background.

For Christmas the 8 year old next door, Tshialidzi, and I made hot pink, fairy dust sprinkled cookies. Things got a little messy along the way.

Dreaming of a White Christmas

It’s a scorching 34°, the sun is shining, summer is just heating up…perfect timing to take out the snowflake-covered Christmas decorations. Wait, what? Snowflakes? Snowmen? Picturesque cottages all nestled in snow and pine trees? With all this heat I doubt even a snow cone would last very long.

All I can say is I feel incredibly sorry for the poor man in a fur-lined Santa suit as I’m sweating in my shorts. He deserves and a raise and an ice cream cone.

When I came halfway around the world I guess I expected things to be a lot more different. Don’t get me wrong, South Africa is incredibly unique and vibrant in its diverse cultures, long history, breath taking landscapes, and mix of languages. But no matter how far away it is, Westernization still plays a huge role in modern culture here. It can be seen in the music on the radio (the same I blasted this summer around CA), the hair extensions that look like smooth European hair, face bleach creams, and, yes, even the visions of Christmas. Pictures of snow and pine trees for the holiday sure didn’t originate here, that’s for sure. Oh, and I still haven’t heard anything about Kwanza.

While as Westerners we may not have planned for our culture to be broadcast around the world that doesn’t change the fact that it’s happening. There are always gains to be had from learning about other cultures, but what about when it is one-sided? We rarely see African movies/music/stories/photos (other than those of hungry children and safari animals). What is lost in the process?

There’s no way change what’s happening but we can make it more even—to take the effort to listen to what’s happening around the world, hear their stories, learn from their experiences.

Maybe it’s our turn to return the favor and simply pay attention.

Time in the Wilderness

Nothing quite screams “camp” like a simple cabin put out in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. Add in a group of high schoolers, a bunch of unhealthy food, Bible studies, rocks to climb, baboon warnings, and some firewood and you’re good to go.

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to help run my church’s high school Confirmation Camp out in the mountains for the weekend. Shane, a pastor-in-training from a nearby town, and I coordinated the whole endeavor and it went of surprisingly well. We even got to see wildlife! I saw plenty of it in the form of sleepy high schoolers at wake up time, but we also caught a glimpse of a huge baboon family while driving on the way out. I’m pretty sure this is the one and only time in my life I’ve had to seriously factor baboons into an event I’m planning. They can be quite the troublemakers and we weren’t sure if they’d be feisty enough to ruin our bonfire plans.

It was humbling though to be part of such an incredible experience for the kids. As city slickers few had spent time (or wanted to) so far away in nature. There were a couple of teens committed to turning their lives around after being in gangs too and to watch them experience swimming in a river for the first time was great. One made it from shore to water in ten seconds flat and began yelling “I’m a fish! I’m a fish!” as soon as he started sinking to the bottom, gleefully smiling all the while.

Beyond all that though, the time away from everyday life was a reminder of how much God speaks through the wilderness. It’s an opportunity to be quiet and simply listen that doesn’t get to happen often in our busy lives. On the final day Shane and I sent them out to the wilderness to pray after the final Bible study.

It’s funny, I spent the whole weekend surrounded by towering mountains, a gorgeous river, and the quiet of star-filled skies. But the most beautiful thing I saw all weekend was watching one of the reforming gang members sitting with his Bible on a nearby rock query and looking up to heaven.