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Umzimvubu (South Africa) |
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VISITING UMZIMVUBU: From February 18th
to March 6th, Reverend Rob, Jenny
Coultard from St Minver and Lesley
Booker from Week St Mary were visiting
Umzimvubu, in South Africa. Their
mission was to visit and assess proposed
development projects in agriculture,
rural crafts, schooling and child care
and to report back on the needs that
might be addressed by funding from our
Diocese and from other grant sources. |
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Email from Lesley
Booker: 28th February 2008
Manora Guest House,
Kokstad, South Africa.
Dear David
Just to let you know we are
getting on very well out here.
We have just come back from the
mountains where Mzi Fodo's
parish is. We got a fantastic
welcome there and I have a lot
of video for you to edit!
I gave half of the gifts to a
school up there - Mbumbazi
School - and the principal said
it would be 10 years supply
(they can't do much writing at
present!). We also left money
with them for library books,
toys for their pre-school, seeds
for their school garden project
and tools for a chicken rearing
project. We became celebrities
up there as many of the younger
children had never seen white
people before - it is very
remote and the new road is
dreadful, heaven knows what it
was like before it was built!
Everywhere we went we were
greeted with singing and
dancing.
They are doing so much to help
themselves that it was pleasure
to give them what we could, so
little to us was so much to
them!
We have now come back to b&b in
Kokstad for 2 nights - and a
proper loo! Perhaps you may like
to make this into a report for
the website?
All the best,
Lesley Booker |
The children and teachers of the
Lapumalanga Orphans project
to whom we have given R1000 and
promised R2000 to complete
their feeding facility in front
of which they are all standing. |
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As you can see it's a very
long way to Umzimvubu, involving
both air travel and long
overland journeys in a dry,
dusty environment. |
The Diocese of Truro has a
‘twinning’ link with the Diocese
of Umzimvubu in Eastern Cape
South Africa. In order to give
support to each other, there
have been a number of exchange
visits with clergy and lay
people travelling between the
two countries.
In
January of this year 14 people
including Bishop Roy, from Truro
went to South Africa to provide
moral support and to look at the
various aid projects which the
Truro Diocese Fund for Umzimvubu
supports.
In
February, RevdRob, Lesley Booker
and Jenny Coltart went on a much
smaller mission under the
auspices of Truro Diocese but
with very specific local aid and
unity aims in mind as well.
Our
South Africa guide and
chauffeur was Canon David Steven
who has supervised the link
since its revival some 4 years
ago. Also, as the film
presentation that we hope you
will be able to see fairly soon
shows, the generous donations
that many of you gave to Rob and
to Lesley before the trip were
very well received by the people
and the projects to which we
gave them.
Surprisingly, in South Africa,
what we might consider to be a
small donation goes a very long
way to the relief of poverty and
to raising people’s optimism
that somebody on the other side
of the world who they have never
met cares about them. It was in
so many ways a very humbling
experience. |
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Since our return from South
Africa, Rob and I have been very
busy trying to catch up with the
work that we didn’t do when we
were away and trying to organise
our thoughts about the things we
saw on the trip to Umzimvubu.
My
own over-riding impression was
of the beauty of the country
itself and the enthusiasm of the
people that we were introduced
to. South Africa is huge and in
the area that we visited, very
green. It resembles the up
countries of our Lake District
or Yorkshire perhaps. Scattered
widely over the hillsides are
the tiny rural houses and groups
of family houses called kraals
where the majority of the rural
black population live. The
houses range from traditional
circular huts with wattle and
daub walls and thatched roofs to
oblong block built single
storied houses with tin roofs.
Most houses have a garden or
yard. Some grow their staple
mealie maize and cabbages and
others have smaller areas
outside which are kept swept
spotlessly clean. |
We were frequently told that
women wanted their children and
themselves to have the
opportunity to leave South
Africa as they firmly believe
that there is no future for them
there. We were asked in a
semi-joking manner on three
occasions to take small children
home with us. |
On the outskirts of the towns
are densely packed RDP (Rural
Development Project) housing
which is built by the government
and given to the homeless rent
free. These houses have usually
only two rooms and outside earth
closets.
They are a serious problem as
people with no work have to
somehow make a living and find a
purpose to their lives. This
increasingly results in a high
level of crime as the youngsters
with no work help themselves to
the crops and belongings of
their better off neighbours.
There are few middle aged men in
evidence. Many of them go away
to bigger towns or cities to
work, many have died of HIV/Aids
and the families led by women
and particularly older women are
left to scratch a living in the
townships.
Women work wherever they can and
it is normal to see them taking
jobs in household service, in
shops, as road workers, teachers
and selling fruit at the side of
the road. They strive to pay for
the school uniforms that their
children need and a great store
is set by education as the way
to escape and to make progress
in the world.
We have a fine set of
photographs and a video to share
when we can arrange a date for
this and we have a long list of
needs in many different
development projects that we
want to promote with you all.
Hopefully we can encourage and
help the people that we have met
and also continue to feed money
into the Truro Diocesan Fund
which contributes regularly to
the Orphans and Vulnerable
Children’s Project and makes
funds available for other
projects to apply for. |
Our visit was widely welcomed
and a great effort was made to
celebrate everywhere we went.
Our guide and mentor,
Canon David Steven said that we
received more enthusiastic
welcomes than any of the groups
that he has led there before. |
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hope to be able to provide
information and presentations
for any groups who would like to
know about the projects that we
saw and about life in South
Africa and we want everyone with
relevant expertise to help us
with advice and fund raising.
Our experience of people in
South Africa is that they have
boundless enthusiasm and are
prepared to work for themselves
but that they have a low opinion
of their own abilities and
potential. They need training
because during apartheid they
were prevented from learning
past age 15 and when at work,
always had a boss to tell them
what to do. The vast labour pool
meant that men did not need to
be versatile, they only ever
needed to learn one job and
there was someone else to do the
other jobs. The need for
training is massive. People do
not have experience in solving
problems for themselves.
Sometimes it only needs a simple
suggestion to set a project back
on track. So our message for the
time being is – watch this
space! |
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