The Earls and Birthdays

The Pendla toilets I helped fix continue to receive attention. So much attention that they have become the focal point for a lot of activity within the PE township schooling systems. I recently found out that the Kwazakhele school district, which is near Pendla, sent a delegation to Pendla to meet with the "USA professor who fixes toilets." Apparently they want me to come to all of their schools and fix the broken toilets in their district. I further discovered the value of my toilet-fixing contribution when I received a special invitation to attend a celebration at Pendla that was honoring a group of American students who have been working with them in a service-learning project over this past semester. I was invited as a special guest due to the contribution I made to the repair of the toilets. Kathy and I attended and were amazed with the event. The school choir sang beautiful songs and a representative from the Mayor's office provided a speech with special emphasis on the beautiful toilets at Pendla and the movement that is being born for the beautification of the toilets in all the schools within the Eastern Cape. The Department of Education also acknowledged the beauty of the toilets and offered support for improving the toilets in all schools. You should see these toilets. After my application of handyman skills in March, the American students scrapped and painted the toilet building and worked with all the children in the school in painting murals on the walls using the children's handprints as the means for applying the paint. Ms. Mfunda, the principal of Pendla, invited all guests in attendance to come see the toilets and go in just to relax. I have since come to believe that the new toilets have given the students, staff, and school a bit of dignity that they lost along the way. To be hygienic while living in the most unhygienic environment provides one with a sense of dignity in self and in their surrounding environment. Seeing the faces of these children as they proudly pointed out the toilets gave me a tremendous sense of pride. Of all that has occurred here with my work, I believe fixing the toilets at Pendla has been my greatest accomplishment. Over this past year I spent numerous hours replacing septic drains, toilets, sinks, and faucets at our farmhouse back in Michigan. I even rerouted all the septic lines, even to the point of cutting off the old black iron septic pipes and replacing with PVC, and running a new vent stack from the basement, up through the walls and ceilings, and through the attic roof. Talk about a major disgusting job. In the midst of November, as I was standing on the roof with a reciprocating saw trying to cut a hole through two layers of steel roof, I found myself questioning what the heck I was doing. Surely we could have afforded someone else to do the work? If not, there's always Visa. Sitting at Pendla this week listening to the Mayor's representative talk in the same breathe about the importance of never going back to the ignorance that was bred during the apartheid era and how it all begins with beautiful toilets, made the entire past year's worth of, excuse the pun, "crappy," work have tremendous purpose and meaning. Kathy and I were both moved to tears. The celebration ended with Xhosa dancers performing in the courtyard. Truly spectacular.

The day after our Pendla celebration our friends, the Earl's, arrived. The Earl's are the first friends we met when we lived in Utah 13 years ago. Kara and Aubree (their oldest) were 2 and 3 years old at the time, and we became best friends with the family. So much so that Debbie and Tyler are Katilee's Godparents. Many would say, "Hey, wait a minute. Aren't they Mormon? How can they be Katilee's Godparents?" Mormon, shmormon. The 3 years we lived in Utah taught us that the Mormon culture is a beautiful family oriented way of living. I have never met a kinder, more generous group of people in my entire life. Mormon is a word used to describe a religion, one that believes in God and Jesus and the bible and rituals and other things like any religion would. They just have an additional set of prophet-guided beliefs that are central to their daily living. Just like Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic beliefs are different then Protestant Christian beliefs. Okay, enough Mormon education. And, no, I have no intention of becoming Mormon. But at the same time, I do intend to keep the Earl's at the top of my list of human beings I respect. So, now that I have jumped on the defense of a religion I do not practice; let's get back to South Africa. We took the Earl's out to Kragga Kamma game reserve. If you have been following our story, you'll remember that it was the first park we went to back in January. Although since then we have been able to experience bigger and wilder game areas, we enjoyed being at Kragga Kamma as much as we did the first time. This time I was able to get a picture of the rhinos and we were able to see some Cape buffalo. That makes it 5 out of 5 for the "Big 5" (elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo, and leopard) for me. The rest of the family still needs to see only a leopard.

The day after Kragga Kamma, we again went back to Pendla, this time with Kara, Katilee, Jack, and the entire Earl family. We wanted the Earl's to be able to experience life from a shantytown perspective and so scheduled to help out at Pendla for the morning. Ms. Mfunda gave us all a nice tour of her facility, with special notice of the beautiful toilets, and instead of putting us to work, she wanted to take us to a high school that made her school look like a million bucks. Her reasoning was that she didn't want us to feel sorry for her school, because compared to others, Pendla is on the top. So, we went to Thudebalihle High School, just up the road from Pendla in the Kwazakhele township. As it turns out, this was the school that the delegation wanted the "USA professor who fixes toilets" to come and visit. Now, I've seen deplorable before in my life, but this school takes the cake. Every window in every classroom was busted out, blackboards were torn off walls and ripped in half, broken glass and trash were everywhere, and the principal was AWOL because he couldn't take it anymore. But what took the cake was the condition of the toilets. They obviously hadn't worked for quite some time, but that didn't stop the students from continuing to use them. And if not the toilet, then just right there, on the floor. Tyler and I checked around a bit and found a similar problem to that which I discovered at Pendla; thugs had swiped some copper pipe and the water had been shut off. Nobody has bothered to fix it. For about $20 and a day's work, these toilets would be in working order. I suggested to one of the teachers who was still at the school that maybe the kids could take ownership by cleaning up the toilets and painting the walls. Seemed to work at Pendla. Why not here? I got a blank stare, a scowl, and then another blank stare. Like one of those stares you only see in the movies when someone is completely depressed. We left feeling both sick and rejuvenated for how we could help. I have been discovering that there is much talk here in Africa that wellness exists at a community level. In the U.S., wellness tends to be individual focused. But I am discovering more and more that the application of American wellness is a community focus; hence the need for Americans to continually engage in service-learning and community assistance.

The toilet crisis has even hit us here at the flat. About a week ago a water pipe broke on campus. When they finally fixed it and turned the water back on, the pressure just about blew open every rusted and corroded washer. Our bathroom sink blew a faucet and the toilet died. Having been up to my ears recently in toilets and knowing that the university owns the flat we live in so they probably are interested in fixing their toilet, we phoned for a plumber to be sent over to fix the toilet. After a week and a number of phone calls using that American "Listen-pal-the-toilet's-been-broke-for-nearly-a-week-and-you-haven't-been-over-to-fix-it-yet!" attitude, we finally have an outside plumber who knows what the problem is and is going to fix it, or so at least we think.

The Earls left for a Cape Town trip after a few days with us. It was great seeing them and we are glad we'll be able to rekindle these memories with them sometime in the future. They actually left on Kara's birthday (May 16th). Kara turned 15 this week and chose to spend most of her birthday at home with her family. She did go out for a bit with her friends to the "Boardwalk," which is a touristy shopping/arcade type extravaganza where Kara and the rest of the teenagers in PE spend most of their free time, but chose to come home and watch a late movie with Kathy and I. Sitting there I realized I have only about 1,000 more days with her before she is off to a life of her own. It made me appreciate the time together all the more. Kara did get to spend time with friends the next day, as a half dozen or so of her friends had a sleepover party for her at one girl's house. That was cool for her. So all in all, I would say Kara had a good birthday. If you know our family, you know that Bekah was born 3 days after Kara's birthday. Her actual birthday is next week (the 19th) but she had her party with her friends the day before (the end of this week). So at this point I will leave her actual birthday until my next update. We had her party at Holmleigh Farm, which is a petting farmyard about 20 miles outside of PE. She and five of her little buddies (and the de Jagers and the rest of our family) got to spend the afternoon hanging out with goats, sheep, ostrich, rabbits, and other barnyard pals. Bekah had a great time and Katilee even got to milk a cow!

After Bekah's birthday (next Monday), we have a day to rest before Kathy's folks arrive for their 2-week adventure in South Africa. They leave 2 days before Katilee and my birthday (June 6th). Yes, a very busy week! Click here if interested in seeing what Art and Ruth's trip will entail.