Building Adventures

This post will have little impact if you have not read the post before this one.  In that post from 11/1 I talk about the building project in general, how it was introduced to me, the type of work we did, and how it affected me.  It was a lengthy post, and I didn’t want to bore you guys any longer, so I decided to save some building project stories for this post.  Again, it’s hard to convert these real, vivid experiences into words on a blog post, but I’ll do my best.  I have taken some pictures to help the cause and I’ll tack those on as we get on with the stories. 

 

Meditation

Before my journey, I had the privilege of going to yoga under the instruction of my seventh grade world history teacher Kathy Zetterberg.  Although I only attended three or four classes, I gained great tools on how to relax, center myself, and stay grounded, all tools that have been helping me immensely on my trip. 

As Deen, our Hindu building manager, is no foreigner to meditation and its wonderful effects for the body, mind, and soul, we asked us how we would feel about daily meditation before we began working at the site.  We all were very excited at this idea and eagerly awaited our first building meditation experience.  So the day came, and Deen’s son, Cash (our volunteer coordinator), lead us.  He told us to imagine ourselves as ships being pushed and pulled by the winds of all external forces in our lives.  He told us there is a social wind and your familial wind and your friends’ winds, etc.  He then said it’s not the wind that commands where your ship will go, it’s how you set the sails.  In other words, you control how external forces impact you.  That summed up our first round of mediation and we set off to work.

The next morning, Deen turned to us for mediation.  He called on one of the glappers who had obviously never had experience with meditation or yoga.  So jokingly he said “Everyone close their eyes and go ‘ommm’”, and everyone laughed.  Still, Deen wanted one of us to lead meditation, so I stepped up to the plate.  What happened next, I can barely explain.

It’s all a blur now, but I apparently told everyone I would be leading them in some meditation based off of techniques I had learned in yoga from Ms.Zetterberg’s class.  I then instructed everyone to close their eyes and to listen to the sound of my voice.  I asked them to place their arms at their side and gently rock from the balls of their feet to their heels while allowing their arms to move forwar and back in sync with the movement of their feet.  I told them to silently reflect on how it felt to be in the township, how it felt to be in another culture, and on how they all uniquely fit in to this township, this culture, this world.  I asked them to set an intention for themselves, meaning I wanted them to identify a goal, to think of something they could strive to achieve in the day, whether it be to fill 20 sandbags or something more spiritual like to learn how to work with others or try to really see and understand the others or to figure out how to see how they felt working in the township.  We then stood in silence, reflecting on what our intention for the day would be.  After I had given my fellow volunteers ample time to set an intention, I ended the mediation with a few words on grounding oneself in this foreign situation and on staying centered, at peace with oneself.

The response I got from those who participated was astounding.  Vash (the volunteer coordinator who gave us the ship metaphor the day before) called my yoga teaching “epic”, and many other people thanked me throughout the day.  It was an incredible feeling knowing my peers and supervisors appreciated what I had said and that it had positively affected them.

Deen spoke with me about making my meditation a regular thing every morning.  I was surprised that people had actually enjoyed my meditation enough to want more of it.  So it became part of the routine,  Deen would talk to us about what we were to do at the site and what happened in the township the night before, and then I would swoop in with my relaxation exercises and my speeches on staying aware in the moment and keeping your happiness first.

It has been wonderful being able to bring the group closer together through my morning yoga/meditation thing.  I hope to continue this practice in the next project, as Deen told me to do so. 

 

 

Kittens

 One of the days at the building site, I saw a cat with one eye.  Naturally, as a feline fanatic, I went to approach the cat and give it some of my love.  But, the cat fled for fear that I was coming over to hurt it. 

The next day at the site, one of my fellow global gappers, Matt, discovered 4 brand new kittens in the corner of a room we call the cool room.  He immediately reported this to Deen and soon we were all having a look at these incredibly adorable infants. 

I am sorry to tell you I was so wrapped up in the following turn of events that I was unable to snap pictures of these kittens. 

Deen was not nearly as excited as we were to have these new additions to our building site.  He was actually distraught and upset that these kittens had been born here.  He explained to us that the township is no place for animals and that the stray dogs and cats we see are being treated very poorly in the township.  I then explained to him that I had seen a cat with one eye the day before with markings similar to those of the kittens.   I told him that I thought that cat was the mother and that she had given birth this morning.  He then retorted that we needed to catch this cat and retrieve her kittens and give them to the SPCA.  This was hard for us to hear as we could all safely assume that this would result in the cats having to be put down.  Deen said that the township would give them lives full of pain and suffering and that perhaps the SPCA would be able to foster them and give them better lives.  We had to accept that the kittens needed to be taken out of the township even if that meant cutting their innocent lives short. Anything would be better than a kitten’s life in a township because of the lack of food, the dogs, and the malicious people.

So Deen took me and three other glappers to the SPCA to give up the kittens.  We had intended on also giving them the momma cat, but we could not find and capture her in time.  We had put the kittens in a lidless box with a blanket for them to rest on that we could also cover them with.  We entered the hospital wing of the SPCA and talked to the woman at the front desk.  She told us exactly what we didn’t want to hear.  As newborn kittens need to be fed every hour, the SPCA does not have the kind of man-power required to keep the kittens healthy.  She explained that the vet had the final say on whether or not the cats would live past that day.  The way she was speaking made it sound like there was no chance for these innocent kittens. 

We were all visibly upset, so Deen took the liberty to give us a powerful talk on life, death, and how everything happens for a reason.  He reassured us that we were doing the right thing by bringing the kittens in because their lives in the township would have been full of suffering.  As a devout Hindu, he spoke to us about karma and reincarnation and generally just made us feel better about what was about to happen.  Deen has a big soft spot for animals and an even bigger heart, so he knew exactly what to say in order to help us.  I am so thankful for him and his wise words.

After the talk, we spent some time snuggling the kittens.  Each of us, excluding Deen, took to a kitten, cuddling it, giving it the love and attention it deserved.  After ten minutes dedicated solely to holding the kittens closely in our arms, warming them, kissing them, we put our kittens down next to each other, creating a cuddle puddle of furry friendship and family.  Then, the SPCA people took them away and that was goodbye. 

I was left with an empty box, fur on my shirt, and tears in my eyes.  Deena, the three other volunteers, and I all came together for a hug in the parking lot, silently showing our support for one another in this sad situation.  The car ride home was quiet and full of reflection.

Those kittens didn’t deserve to die, but that is what needed to happen.  With the dogs, the merciless people, and the lack of sustaining food, the kittens would have had it too rough.  They are better off being put down.  This fact is hard to accept, as we are ignorant as to what happens post-life, but we can know that life isn’t fair.  Some beings are subject to worse conditions than others, and some would be better off dead, like those kittens.  Again, it’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s the truth.  I hope those kittens felt that they were genuinely loved by my fellow volunteers and me.  My thoughts also lie with the mother cat who will go into the cool room and find her babies missing, not knowing that they have already crossed over, passed away.  The mother cat has a better chance of survival, although she has already faced enough trials and tribulations to have lost an eye and to fear people.  She knows how to survive in a township, but would not have been able to provide for her unnaturally small litter. 

This experience has reinforced the ideas that life isn’t fair and sometimes tough choices need to be made out of consideration for what is better for others, not for yourself.  It has showed me that sometimes the sweet release of death can pose better opportunities than life.  This is rare in people, as we have the power to change our fate, unlike animals.  Moreover, it has demonstrated that you gotta do what you gotta do, even if it saddens you, even if it is upsetting. 

I hope I didn’t bum you out with that story, but that is life in a township.

 

 

 

Puppies

 There is a dog called Macy that lives in the compound which holds the community center for the kids we have been working in.  She gave birth to nine puppies, two of which were still-born, a couple days before we began work in Lavender Hill.  When we arrived, we met Macy and her brand new seven pups who still had their eyes closed.  A glapper named Marissa named all seven puppies and thus began our development of very close relationships with each and every one of these pups.

Life in a township is hard for animals from the lack of food to the malicious behavior of some of the people there.  Still, Macy has it way better off than most other mother dogs in a township.  She has people who care for her and try to keep her safe.  She has a steady flow of food from Deen, who everyday gives part of his lunch to the hungry dog.  But, a tiny bit of food once a day is not enough for her to be able to produce milk rich in the nutrients her pups need.  She will sit by her pups allowing them to breast-feed, but they don’t get what they need from the milk.  Deen says the puppies are half dead.  They don’t move around and squirm the way normal, well-fed puppies do. 

We have all formed our own special bond with these puppies and want them to live happy and healthy lives.  To help guarantee them this idyllic life, we all pitched in for a giant bag of dog food for Macy and puppy food for the puppies.  It took Macy a little while, but she finally got used to the food and began eating it out of our hands.  The puppies are too young to eat their food, but we know they are benefitting from the food we bought for Macy via her milk. 

As you will see in the next blurb I have written for you guys, a township is no place for animals, especially babies that can’t take care of themselves yet.  Deen explained to us that the only reason he has not relocated the pups is that Edward, who lives in the township and works at the community center, is planning on giving the precious dogs to his friends once they are old enough.  Deen said that some of these friends are gangsters and that he does not want to get in the middle of anything with them.  The dogs will just have to try and survive. 

The encounters we have had with the pups have been so precious.  We see the innocence and purity being bred out of such harsh conditions.  They represent a wonderful metaphor for life, and that is that even the darkest places can be brightened by the smallest source of light.  We can always find the light in the dark, find happiness when it may seem that the world is against you.  Those puppies may have it hard, but they are brightening our days.

 

Dead Dog

 Digging for sand one day in order to mix some cement, I found a dog’s skeleton buried in a shallow grave.  It was all there.  The jaw, the skull, the spine, the hips, the legs, even the tail.  Upon making this discovery, I immediately reported it to Deen to see what he had to say.

The first thing he said to me was a bit of a wakeup call “Are you sure it’s a dog?” meaning he was concerned that perhaps it was human remains I had found.  I assured him as I had seen the whole skeleton myself.  Once that was out of the way, he told me to put everything back in the sand in a deeper grave.  He explained that we were disturbing the soul of the dog.  The dog had not lived a happy life and had clearly been killed and buried by an unkind person.  Although I could not find any source of blunt trauma on the remains, Deen felt it was safe to assume that the dog had lived an unpleasant life and died an unpleasant death.

So, we re-buried the poor dog and went on building.  Such is life in a township.  Mistreatment of animals can be considered a norm in the South African slums.  With the abundance of gangs in the townships, one can easily understand why we are so worried about the animals.  If someone is totally okay with murdering a person, they probably won’t be able to empathize with a dog either.  One bark at the wrong time, and boom, done, life over.

I’m happy that this dog does not have to suffer any more, but still I am shaken and disturbed at my own imagination, at what this dog must have lived through.  Rest in peace, mystery dog, rest in peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shootings

 In two weeks of working at the building project, we have heard of two different shootings happening near the site. When this happens, the protocol is, for regular volunteers (ones that will be at the project for months), to not go to work the morning after because the situation is too sensitive and the risk is not worth it.  But since the global gaps and I are only going to be on the site for two weeks, we still go to work, but only for half the day.  This may seem silly and dangerous, but the work we are doing is important and needs to get done.  We can’t sit idly by, wasting what little time we have in the township.

The first shooting was just your average gang violence.  This is not foreign to the people of the townships.  The violence is almost seen as business as usual, but for us, we were taken aback by the intensity of the situation.  A few days later, another shooting occurred at night.  Some gangsters were targeting a couple of Somalian refugees, killing one and seriously wounding the other.  Again this shocked and saddened my fellow volunteers and me, but Deen assured us that everything was okay and that we can do nothing but expect this. 

He is desensitized to the horrors of the townships as he has spent so much time in Lavender Hill.  To me though, it all just seems so unfortunate.  It’s unfair that I have so much and the people of the townships have so little.  Then again, I see the children playing happily and I wonder who am I to feel bad for these people?  They seem happy.  They have accepted the way they live and since they have done that, they are able to move forward happily. 

I’ve thought a lot about the differences between pity and empathy on this trip.  And the difference is that with empathy, you are able to put yourself in the other person’s shoes.  With pity, you are looking down upon that other person.  If you are able to understand, you are able to empathize.  And if you are incapable of mentally placing yourself on the same level as the person you are thinking of, you are pitying and you are in the wrong.

People are able to thrive in any situation, no matter how grim.  Everyone has their load to bear, their battles to fight, their lives to live, and everyone is capable of conquering the obstacles that face them.   Pity is never necessary.  When you are thinking of people other than yourself, always put yourself in their situation and then reflect.  Never look down on them because they are people too. 

The shootings are probably something I will never get used to, but I’ve come to terms with them.  I understand and I hope you do too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are some pictures from the project

 

 Demolishing some steps in order to install the gutter to drain the water from the compound.

 

 Refilling up the hole we dug for the drain

 

  

My little friend Wayden playing on the playground.