Organic Farming & Animals

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Something I have realized quickly about Africa is that something is always burning. Every night since I have arrived there has been a visible grassfire in the distance. In fact, last week there was a large brush fire that came close to Open Arms and resulted in us having to cancel a trip to the beach for lunch on a Saturday afternoon. That fire was actually quite scary as it covered the hillside near Open Arms. The fire traveled several miles as the next day I could see the trail of ash across the farmland below us. The brush fires are unlike those in the US. They are very slow moving and according to the Komga citizens do not burn down the houses. Still, when I hear the crackling of wood and smoke rising in the air just about a quarter of a mile away from me I still get alarmed. There have been several occasions that while I am driving down the dirt road to Komga that I have pretty much come to a dead stop since the air is filled with the dense cloud of smoke and ash.

For instance, tonight there is a fire several hundred feet long outside of Open Arms. The ominous red, orange light can be seen from my window in my Rondavel. It is a smaller one appearing to be several hundred feet long that Jeff and I already checked out. It poses no risk towards Open Arms. However, it is quite an adjustment to see fires all over the landscape. Some are intentionally lit to help the soil for the farmers and others, like those that are quite close to Open Arms, are probably started by someone tossing a cigarette or something.

The last couple days have been quite rainy which for traveling on dirt roads makes it incredibly more difficult. As I drove the kids to church today – I had to dodge pothole after pothole that was filled to the brim with water. Additionally, the rain has washed away a small part of the road resulting in almost a mini-creek in part of the road. We are in the progress of purchasing a tractor to fill in and fix the dirt road but I am unsure when that will come. Until then every drive out of Open Arms is basically off-roading as all of the passengers are bounced around every couple feet or so. Sometimes I’ll see a little pothole and give the car a little acceleration to make the kids really bounce around. I laugh so hard at hearing their moans and groans as their little bodies are tosses around.

Another thing I always have to watch out for on the road is cows and goats. The animals will leave their farm each day and wonder all over Komga grazing everything they can find. The goats especially love Open Arms as they always try to sneak onto our little campus. When goats are spotted, the kids and I always form a plan. One child will go left, another right, and I’ll start sprinting right at them. We all start bellowing, “GOAT” as loud as we can as we try to scare them away. They always leave but apparently our tactics aren’t that scary as the goats always come back the next day. What is amazing about the cows and goats is that while they wander miles away from their farms, every day at dusk the animals begin to wander back to their farms for the night without fail. I was also surprised that there isn’t a problem of people stealing other people’s farm animals or slaughtering them for meat. There seems to be a mutual respect all over Komga to let the animals wander where they please which is too often a herd of cows in front of my car as I try to drive down the road to town. So far the animals I have seen are: Ostrich, Wild Hogs (They were huge), Vervet Monkeys, tons of birds (apparently this part of South Africa has more birds than North America), Springbock, other Antilopes, some hawks and bats. One cool thing Bob Solis showed the kids and I to do with the bats is watch for one zipping around you then throw a pebble in its general direction. The bat will then dart towards the pebble and do a little dive bomb towards the ground thinking it is about to get a big juicy bug to eat. It quickly realizes the pebble is not a bug and then flies away but seeing the acrobatics by the bat is quite interesting.

I spent a lot of the time this past week working on our sustainable, organic garden which grows much more produce than I expected. The garden consists of 4 plots that we replace every 4 months – in an order though so that every month one of the plots is being replaced. I got to join China and Letta (our gardeners/groundskeepers) in planting beetroot, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, green onion, and carrots. While eating the vegetables tastes amazing, planting all of the seedlings sucks. It took us about 2 days and all of our backs and hamstrings were quite sore from the constant bending down and planting. It was rewarding although as I cannot wait till I can eat the produce that I actually planted and fertilized with that the chicken poop (a joy I get to experience every month!)

That chicken poop must do wonders since vegetables taste crunchy and fresh. Yet all of our vegetables here prepared by the Mammas are always boiled or cooked. We never have them raw and I learned that in the Xhosa culture here they never eat the vegetables raw. So I decided to prepare a little ole American salad for our cooks. I ripped up some spinach, lettuce and sliced tomatoes – all tossed together with a creamy salad dressing. The Kitchen Mommas has never had a salad before so they were all eager to try it. I made 5 salads (4 for the Mammas and 1 for me) and we all ate it together. They were all surprised at how tasty it was and jokingly tried to steal salad from each other’s bowls. I’m hoping we can start introducing salads to the kids – though I’m sure many of them will fuss a lot as they won’t like the change of meal.

I’m going to try to get into the habit of walking into the garden each day and picking my own spinach, lettuce and onions and begin to create my own little fresh salads each day. The diet here is full of starches so I try to eat as many bananas, apples, pears and now salads as possible. This weekend we had some nice meals though as we had fried chicken for lunch today, pancakes yesterday morning, and scones this morning before church. The kids had never had pancakes before and found them to be great without any syrup or toppings. I personally had my pancakes rolled around a conglomeration of chocolate chips.

Another little trip I got to go on was traveling to the dairy farm where we get our milk. I drove up and down the hills of the N2 to pull into a tiny little dirt road. After traveling some distance we eventually made it to the cows wherein there must have been at least 300 some cows all over the farm. I waited and watched some of the baby calves while the farm workers filled up our huge 50 litre jugs of fresh milk. One thing I have had to get use to is drinking unpasturized milk that comes straight from the cow. Accordingly I was a little surprised to feel the warmth from the milk as I picked up the jug and placed it into the "backi" or pickup truck. The milk doesnt taste that much different when it is cooled in the fridge but it is definately very thick compared to 2%!o(MISSING)r skim milk.

Since my last blog post we have added 3 more children! The board of director’s goal for Open Arms was to get to 50 children as soon as possible and after several months of stagnation – suddenly we have been bombarded with phone calls to take in children to our family. However, with the joy of adding the most recent children came some sadness. We were expecting to accept a family of 3 boys and one girl last week. I was practicing karate at the time with Master Difference, a Komga police officer who comes to Open Arms two times a week to teach the children self-defense and karate. Master is truly a selfless man with a kind, gentle soul who loves the kids here. He has been volunteering at Open Arms for the last 3 years and serves as a positive male role model for the children – something I aspire to be for the children during my time here.

The children arrived with social workers and I continued to practice karate with the children and Master while Auntie Margaret left to welcome the children. The children arrived with their shirts caked with dirt and their hair knotted. The children appeared quite famished as the youngest girl, 14 months, weighed only about 12 pounds. While we were told that the children did not speak any English and were aged 1, 3, 5, and 7 – we were not informed that the oldest child was unable to speak at all, had epilepsy and was disabled. The boy was as sweet as could be and thrived with the love and attention he received from our Aunties while he was at Open Arms but we had to tell the social workers that we were incapable of providing the boy with the care he needed. With broken hearts, we watched the boy leave while his two brothers and sister remained at Open Arms. The hardest thing we face at Open Arms is to turn children away when we do not have the resources to adequately care for them. I pray that the child will be placed in a special home soon but until then his neighbor has graciously taken in the boy and will take good care of him.

The five year old boy appeared apprehensive upon his immediate arrival. At dinner time he stuffed food down his throat appearing to be famished from his previous environment. After the meal, I walked with him into his new room and he was apprehensive being surrounded by a bunch of 5 year old boys whom he had never met. However, entering the room he exclaimed in Xhosa, “Wait, I have my own bed!” and was quickly relaxed with his new situation. The boy’s name is Ticoso (spelling questionable) and he lives up to his name which is translated to “Joy” as he is always smiling everywhere he goes. Every time I see him he is always grinning and waving towards me. I am so thankful that he now has a safe new home at Open Arms – one where he will be clean, fed, and most importantly for him have his own bed. His younger brother and sister are the same way as they are always full of smiles.

I find it so beautiful, even inspiring, that even though their harsh backgrounds, they are still always so full of pure joy and so excited for the hugs and love that all of us volunteers provide. It really makes my troubles seem trivial as I am so blessed to be having my friends and family with me always.

Speaking of backgrounds, even my accounting degree has come in handy of late when working with the kids. I expected that I would mainly utilize my Anthropology degree but every bit of education can be of use here. In the South African academic curriculum, the children take accounting classes as they reach junior high school. I have spent several nights this week explaining to several of the older boys the difference between revenues, expenses, liabilities and assets. While it may take some time, I hope the boys will eventually gain some basics of accounting. Eventually, I can start digging into some basic debits and credits with the boys.

As were on the accounting note, as some of you know I spend some time studying for the Audit and BEC sections of the CPA this summer. Since I did not get my study materials until about a week before my BEC test, I spent 5 straight days studying about 8-10 hours a day only to take the test feeling pretty unprepared. I then took several days off from studying rebooting my brain to repeat the 5 straight days of studying for the Audit section. I was convinced that I most likely only passed one of the sections but I was extremely pumped to learn that I passed both sections with some decent scores though all that matters is scoring above a 75.

So I have been here a month so far and would love to hear some updates about people’s lives! I know many of my friends from Chicago have started working while many of my roommates decided to go for a victory lap at ND (not really if you count Master’s degrees as a victory lap). I’d love to hear some specifics about people’s lives though!

Also, if you have any games or activities that you think our children would love please let me know as I am always looking for ways to entertain the children. Email me at [e-mail]

Or if you would rather write letters or send little packages to the kids our address is:

Kevin Rahill
PO BOX 165
Komga, East Cape 4950
South Africa

Make sure you let me know before you send packages as that is something that will take a little planning on our end to get them.

And if you have WhatsApp you can text me for free at this number (make sure you include the + for international numbers): +072 948 8765

I hope to hear from many of you soon! And please feel free to share my blog or contact info with anyone you think would be interested! I hope all is well with everyone and say hi to your families for me!

P.S. Great win for the Irish on Saturday. I swear I will return home for a National Championship game if we qualify. I cannot believe we are ranked #11 in the country. Go Irish beat Wolverines this weekend!

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