Wow. One hell of a day.
I just got back from Pietermaritzburg, a city about an hour away, after a long day of work. We (myself and Tom) left the house this morning with a few set goals but we had much more in store for us. Our task: Visit 10 houses and get parental signatures that are necessary for filing passports for minors (those under 16 years of age) and then take these papers, along with the kids, to Home Affairs, where we can actual file for the passports.
After 20-25 minutes down the road, I realized that the printer had printed 10 copies of only 3 of the required 4 pages, so we quickly turned around and went back to the home/office to print some more for the trip. We drove into Edendale, a township located outside Pietermaritzburg, around 10am or maybe a bit after with no idea of where we were meeting our correspondent, Bonginkosi, a community member in charge of the program in all these townships. Our director was preparing to leave for holiday so it was just myself and Tom, another member who arrived here only a week before me! Nevertheless, we called Bonginkosi and had him meet us at the hospital (we had no idea where this was and simply drove towards the largest structure in town). Luckily, our intuitions proved useful. We met up and started our sojourn throughout the townships. A brief background to update you. Pietermartizburg is a central city and is surrounded by townships. The townships (Ashdown, Edendale, to name a few) are generally where poor black persons live in very small shacks or two room homes (there are a few well painted and well kept structures and I hope to have pictures in the near future). I do not feel that the word dilapidated could even accurately describe these homes. The UN's standard of adequate housing is barely even visible in many parts of these communities. And it is a very strange setting because these townships, in particular, have been built on hillsides with many roads that do not intersect. One must often drive to the bottom the of the hill or back to the top to get to an adjacent street. Often one does not find a street but rather a gravel or dirt road worn and littered with holes after years of use. However, after a couple of hours, we managed to round up three children and their documents and headed into town to see what we could accomplish at Home Affairs. We arrived around 12:30pm and it turns out that two more kids had been waiting there to meet us since 7:30am. After a scramble to get passport photos and waiting in line for about 45 minutes, we finally reached the desk. The attendant was quick to tell us that the identification numbers of the parents/guardians (in many cases, the child's father was either in jail or dead and/or the mom was dead or at work) did not match the children. These children were without "legal" guardians and therefore we could go no further. So of our 5 children, we managed to get one application through. After a late lunch (KFC!! it is a huge chain in South Africa), we headed back to the townships to drop the kids off and discuss the situation with their respective guardians. We hope these guardians can gain legal custody in the coming days so we can file these passports and make sure we get them processed in time for the trip to Germany in August. Realistically, it is not something that I'm sure will work, but we can only hope. We went to visit a few more families of prospective players to get signatures and it looks like tomorrow should be much smoother. One girl had been waiting in her home since 8am and we didnt get to her house till around 5:30 or 6pm to let her know that we're going tomorrow. Communication is difficult. A language barrier is hard enough, but we have to deal with technological ones as well.
I have to admit the system is quite frustrating. I believe this is the first time that I've witnessed, first hand, a system that simply overlooks an entire demographic of persons. There are a countless number of children in these townships whose parents are never home/don't care/are deceased/are separated that are living with other family members or just other members of the community without any legal documentation (where and when are they going to get it? It took us almost 30 minutes by car and many do not own cars nor do they have enough for public transportation). The system just works against these people and makes it hell for anyone not of direct kin to help the child through the process.
While we have found frustration throughout the day, we haven't lost hope. Tomorrow is another adventure, and this time we have a good idea of how to play the game. However, this time we'll be fitting a good 8 people in a small 5 person buggy. Should be one hell of a time :)
Oh, and I spent most of the day throwing short Zulu phrases out. Some of the families responded in Zulu, to which I responded with inquisitive looks and then probed Bonginkosi for a translation. Others just laughed at my pronunciation, but it's still fun to try.
More pictures and reflections on the way.

"First" Day on the Job

Well, I write first in quotations because my tasks have sort of had a bit of ambiguity over the first three days, and I wouldn't have called what I did on Monday a real day of work. Nevertheless, work is great. We currently work out of the home of my boss, Marcus, and it is also where I will be living throughout the summer. I guess you could call it sort of a home/office. And, of course, there are always pros and cons. Pros - you work when you want to, you stop working when you don't feel like working anymore. That part is wicked sweet (for instance, it is now around 1:40 or so and I just felt like taking a break, in addition to my one hour lunch break!). The only real cons are that I was not able to get out of the house really for the first couple of days (minus quick trips to the supermarket). However, yesterday (Wednesday) we traveled to Edendale (a township about 60-70 km away), and actually got to hang out and do a bit of coaching/playing/relaxing with the local kids. My boss, Marcus, was asked to bring a team of seven kids to Germany for some international underage Streetfootball tournament in August, and so we had a sort of pseudo tryout session to pick the seven players. These kids have amazing touch and ball skill for their age. It is always great fun to watch. However, talk of regional undernourishment is far from a myth. The oldest child (who will be 16 in December) does not look more than 10 or 11 years in age. They are indeed much smaller than your average American at that age. Now, the task is develop that sense of teamwork and establish good ball movement and positions and less individual effort. As it turns out, Marcus is putting myself and a semi-pro (Paul) in charge of this whole venture. Paul, of course, will handle most of the soccer training skills, and I am in charge of pretty much everything else :) Passports, parental and school permissions, sponsors, jerseys, and most importantly, educational tutoring. I have to tell you that it was disheartening to hear that all the kids thought England was in Germany and know very little about anything geographically outside Durban, let alone South Africa. From what I've gathered, the educational system here is very different, and you have to work to not make any assumptions on basic training because in many instances, they haven't received the proper instruction. I am excited to have a whole host of things put before me and to have the ability to create my own time line for completing all of these tasks. Oh, and I tried my Zulu while I was out on the soccer pitch with the kids and wow it was just hilarious. They all just kept laughing at my attempts, but I am determined to keep at it!

Arrival and Adjusting

Well, it is a little after 7pm here on a mildly cold night in Durban. I just woke up from a nice two-hour nap and decided it was high time I start this blog to record my travels while in South Africa.
I'll give a brief background. After a small mishap at the airport, I arrived here in Durban just two nights ago (Sunday) instead of Saturday. Delta was delayed so I missed my connection from Capetown to Durban, but fortunately, Delta made nice accommodations in Capetown, and I was able to see a good bit of the city. I'm very excited to go back at the end of my internship and spend a few more days there. Think tall majestic mountain surrounded by beautiful Dutch style homes next to an oceanfront with a beautiful commercially developed waterside. It was a cloudy day during my lay over so the I was not able to ride to the top of the mountain and take panoramic snapshots, but it really is one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
On a different note, Durban is much more Westernized that I had originally anticipated. There are lots of Mercedes, BMWs, and Audis, not to mention supermarkets with most of the name brand foods I buy at home. I'm still waiting to get out and see more of the community and rural areas. I took a nice walk around town today because you cannot really go out at night (really any time past 5 pm...) even in most good neighborhoods.
More on my actual job is to come, that is, when I figure out exactly what it is I'll be doing here...