Waterfalls and Rainy Season

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Hello Everyone, I hope Sandy didn’t hurt anyone too bad and that all is well! So far here we have not had any terrible storms but rather rain almost every day. In fact, this morning (Thursday morning when I started writing this blog) as I opened up our kitchen and dining facilities at 5:30 am, the fog was so thick I could barely see in front of me. As I opened up the doors to the dining hall, I literally saw wisps of clouds float into our Emmanuel Hall. I stood there in awe as a little puffy cloud leisurely hovered past me then slowly dissipated into the air. We are quite elevated here at Open Arms and it is quite common to wake up in the morning to walk out your door into the middle of a cloud. It can be quite eerie especially at night when it is dark out and not even a flash light can penetrate more than ten feet into the fog as you never know what’s around you. While I have not yet seen a monkey on the Open Arms campus, I have heard their noises and rustling in the trees at night occasionally.

So as you can imagine, yes the weather here has been quite wet for the last two months. In fact, we have not had more than 2 days of sunshine in a row for over 6 weeks now. For those of you who expect Africa to be all dry and desert, the rainy season is real and long. I cherish those days when we get a couple hours of sunshine as I have become habituated to the grey, overcast sky. I heard on the radio the other day that this is the most rain the Eastern Cape has ever gotten in October and that the annual rainfall is on track to also be the most ever. Waking up every morning to thick mists and rains has been quite depressing. While it is never cold here like in the United States, we are located on top of a large hilltop about half a mile above sea level. Therefore, when it rains e also get torrential winds that feel like you could go flying up in the air like a kite at any moment. The rain and winds combine to punish your body and make you feel a chill that is only comparable to the worst winter days in South Bend when I had to walk to swim practice at 5:30 am in snow storms. Thankfully this past weekend has finally had three days of sun in a row something I haven't seen in almost two months.

This has made life in our garden especially difficult as we need to gather chicken manure before we plant new crops. The issue is that the chicken manure has to be dry before we load it up into our soil bags and drive it to the garden. This means that the next time, hopefully tomorrow, I have to gather double the normal amount of manure since we were unable to collect any in October.

The rain does not preclude me from my other duties as the “Generalist” which basically means my title is that I do everything that is needed. Lately I have spent my mornings and afternoons converting our former t.v. room into a toddler room. This involved re-plastering some walls and repainting the whole thing from a yellow to a mellow white. In addition, I have had to replace 6 broken windows all around open arms. While I was replacing one in our little boys rondavel, chipping away the old puddy and pulling out broken pieces of glass.

Note: If you think you know where this is going feel free to skip the next paragraph.

While I was working on a particularly stubborn piece of puddy my puddy knife slipped and a piece of glass sliced right into my index finger knuckle. All of the blood faded from my face - I was terrified that the glass has just cut right though the tendon on my left hand.

Slowly, I moved my finger greatly relieved that the tendon was not totally sliced. However, the cut was deep enough to where I could partially see the tendon in my index finger. Quickly, I ran to our first aid kid and sterilized my cut and put pressure on to stop the incessant oozing of blood. I was the only volunteer at Open Arms at the time so cleaning and applying dressing was a little awkward but after spending some 7 years working at pools and being first aid certified I was able to take care of it. I placed some padding on my hand then wrapped in up in medical tape. Thankfully, the cut while deep was very thin and has been healing up nicely. I probably needed a couple of stitches but I would rather avoid going to the hospital unless really needed. Moreover, when I get back I will always have a reminder of my time in Africa every time I look at that scar on my left hand.

Whenever we have had nice days in Komga, I have made sure to take full advantage of them with the kids. While rain or shine, some of the boys would rather play FIFA 2012 on the WII or watch WWE wrestling (which all of our kids love), I made several of them come with me to explore some hiking trails about 15 kilometers outside of Komga. We took with us 9 of the kids, the child care worker Ayanda (who is my favorite worker but don't tell any of the others) as well as Uncle Jeff and Auntie Anne. We got directions from the owner of the trail to head towards the Ngwenkala River or "River of the Spotted Animals," its translated name. This is the name since there are wild leopards and other spotted cats that roam the area. They are all nocturnal though and are very rare so we had nothing to worry about. While sometimes I forget, I am really in Africa.

We hiked for about an hour in very wet, muddy conditions crossing though fields surrounded by huge bulls with even bigger horns that could easily impale myself or anyone. The bulls all stared at us inquisitively look only moving away when Ayanda would yell at them. As we passed through a particularly large field, we saw a large herd of springbok grazing on grass only to bounce and sprint away as we moved closer.

We continued our trek through the field towards eventually towards a forest of trees wherein there was the unmistakable sound of rushing water. We continued to hike having to cross over the river by walking on a makeshift bridge that consisted of half submerged stepping stones. I was on one side of the river (i should admit here that it was more like a fast-moving creek) while Jeff was on the other and we slowly assisted the kids in crossing. After another 100 meters or so of dodging, dipping, ducking around tree branches while always being cognizant to watch for spider webs, we arrived at the top of a 70 meter waterfall.

The view was spectacular. We were surrounded by bush and forest. The air was crisp and the sky blue for a change. One by one our guide brought the kids to the edge of the waterfall so they were able to look down at the drop below. We were standing on wet rock which could be incredibly slippery so we kept the rest of the kids far away from the edge. There were no guard rails or anything and one slip could easily send you falling a full football field in distance below to the jagged rocks. After about 30 minutes at the falls, we gathered the group together and began our trek back to Open Arms. The guide told me that if we come back during the children's holiday in December, he would take us to the bottom of the waterfall where we can all go swimming.

Last Sunday after the three of us volunteers attended the home's church at "Resurrection Life" down the street in Komga, we decided to go to the Catholic mass that started at 11 am which occurs once a month in our little town. Anne and Margaret had both been there once before but I chose to go to Ayanda's church instead in the location (which after talking with Ayanda the event which I attended at St. John's only occurs once a year). The priest over the mass was an old, hunched over hearty Irishman who even though he had been in South Africa since the 1960s sounded like he just jumped off the plane yesterday. The mass was particularly long as two babies were baptized and the priest humorously narrated many of his actions explaining that the history of the oil that he was about to pour on the babies among other things. He was an awesome man and after the mass concluded invited us to come eat with all of the other parishioners for lunch.

We sat down and were offered huge amounts of food and desserts. I ate SO much it was quite satisfying although I could not move for several hours thereafter. As Margaret and Anne had explained to me after their first visit to mass, the Catholic community is quite small but it is really a close knit group of wonderful people. For their mass in December, the community invited us over for their Christmas feast which they told us specifically to only bring ourselves and nothing else! Given the feast we had last Sunday, I have December 9th circled in on my calendar.

In other news, one of the programs I have worked on implementing here at Open Arms is working on the elder kids basic math skills. On Monday – Thursdays I work with 10 different kids for about 45 minutes to master complex addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. I am using a computer program to create worksheets and diagnostics to mark the kids progress in their learning. When I gave the first progress test, I was bummed to see that the kids all scored poorly in subtraction, very poorly in multiplication and really struggled in division.

For the past 6 weeks, I have created each child his/her own individualized math worksheet to focus specifically on what each child needs to learn. The kids average scores on the subtraction diagnostic improved over 30% on average so I was very happy to see that I was able to make a difference in these kids abilities. They have gone from being unable to carry in subtraction to mastering it in a short amount of time. What I have found is that all of these kids have so much potential but the public school fails to tap into that potential. Thankfully, we have the opportunity to start homeschooling the kids from the public school starting in January. Given the progress we have made in one month I cannot wait to see where these kids will be by the time I leave in August. The end goal of the homeschooling program will be to catch the kids in school and possibly even get them placed into a good private school by grade 9 at the latest.

Speaking of which, thankfully we found out the other day that three of our kids have been accepted into St. Christopher’s. This is great news as all three kids that were accepted will be leaving the public school for St. Christopher’s. No doubt it will be a huge challenge for them as they will have homework every night for the first time but at the same time, they will also have the opportunity to learn for the first time in their lives – something that has been completely devoid thus far in their schooling experience. They will be living in the hostel during the week then come home for the weekends. Until they leave in January, I will be tutoring them in math every night to try to catch them up so they are not shell shocked when they arrive in January. I have the fullest confidence in all of three of the kids as they are all motivated to learn and establish better lives for themselves and understand the opportunity at hand. I do have to admit that there is a selfish part of me that is sad they got accepted since I will be unable to spend as much time with them as I do now but I know that this is a great opportunity for them.

Our directors, Jeff and Suzanne, left on Thursday for a month vacation in the United States to visit family and friends. So you may ask, "Who is in charge?" Anne, Margaret and I are all in charge for the month of November and early December. Scary right? No worries though, Jeff and Suzanne definitely prepared us for their leave and things are pretty much the same as when they were here. My added duties are to pay the bills, coordinate the staff scheduling (which is very fluid considering we have like 40 something staff), as well as having Jeff's cellphone (which ends up being a whole other responsibility as staff/people are always calling his cell for Open Arms business). Of course, our first day in charge resulted in my having to bring two cars to the shop to get fixed and order some new parts but all is well.

Yesterday I spend the morning at the Indian Ocean with our 4-7 yr old boys, many of whom had never been to the beach before. Some were absolutely terrified of the water. We slowly habituated the terrified kids to the water and soon enough most of them were splashing around the waves enjoying the rare sunshine. It is so weird to think of where I am on a map now standing here in the Indian Ocean on the most South Eastern tip of Africa. Quite a change from Chicago.
The best of all news is that I have been able to secure a high speed internet connection for Open Arms starting on Tuesday. I have spent the past month working with a cellular phone company called MTN and they finally approved us to get small business status. The router, while it won't be lightning quick, will be a much needed improvement to our internet situation. The internet will connect through the cellular phone towers of which we do not get the best reception but anything will be better than what we have now.

I hope everyone is well and I am off to church with the kids on this Sunday morning then off to a braai (a barbeque) with some locals for the afternoon! Glad to hear that Alabama lost. Now all we need is a KSU or Oregon loss.

Go Irish, Beat Demon Deacons

Kevin

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