RE-ENTRY

By   Doug Roland.

         I'm back home and don't know what to think.  We've seen friends, looked at houses, and bought a car.  In the busy-ness, we intermittently forgot about where we had been and what we have done.  33 months of our lives seemed like a dream that might have happened to us. Yet, we sense that our lives are not the same. It's confusing to leave a life in South Africa that took 3 years to build then reconnect with my homeland in a new way as a new person?  

As part of our re-entry we made a road trip through several states, staying with family and friends.  We gave a presentation about our experiences at a family reunion.  And, while I think it was generally accepted, very few asked about any details.  

Back in Tampa, the usual response was "welcome back".  Only a handful of people have asked about what it was like, what did we do there, are we glad we went.  Others had fretted about our safety, our diets and our overall well-being, but seemed disinterested in what it did for our souls, our hearts, our new vision of life.  A friend of mine who also served in in South Africa for about 4 years described the folks back home as leading insulated lives.  

Who we are is measured by what we do. It would be an insult to the people we served in South Africa to re-enter our society as if nothing had changed, just an extended vacation.  How do we use what we've learned and experienced?  

I think it calls for something bold.  Nothing is in stone but we want to challenge others to look beyond their daily lives and consider a life in service and living life to its fullest. There are a few things we are batting around. One is to design and lead an in depth study on listening for the "call" and what it means to act on it.  Another is to find ways to bring more attention to the seminary and its importance. 

Our aim is to make sure that those 33 months remain a major part of our life history and be a model for others to follow.

 

   

ALPHA AND OMEGA

  BY  DOUG ROLAND

              After the sermon on a warm Florida morning in July, 2010,  we were invited to go up to the front of the sanctuary of our home church, Hyde Park United Methodist.  We knew what it was about - our little contribution to the unsuspecting folks in South Africa.  

The clerical staff surrounded us in a half circle. This was the moment our commitment would be broadcast and become final. Until then, it was fun to think about.  Fear gripped my stomach.  I thought to myself, "Please, could we just forget about it and continue our ordinary lives"?  I also thought about making a break for it, or throwing a Hail Mary. Where were our allies, those who thought we were crazy to be leaving to serve in an unknown and very dark place? They must have decided to stay away. Instead, members of the congregation were asked to come forward and lay hands on us. The weight of their expectations sealed any notion of backing out.  Escape was no longer an option. We had been well taught, and, in the 38th year of our marriage, we heard "Who shall I send?"  We answered, "here we are Lord, take us".    

South Africa is a tough place to live.  You know that if you've read this blog regularly.  Nevertheless. the urge to bag it and go home never got traction.  We had answered a call that had been forming for decades, and we have been  surrounded  by prayers from around the world. 

 It has been very difficult this last week to say goodbye to our colleagues at the seminary, to the seminarians, to the people who helped us get an important program launched, and to our "outside" friends from Run/Walk for Life who gave us three farewells. 

 Tomorrow morning, we leave South Africa with a piece of what has been another life, one that is attached to us and has made us different. We will forever see the world differently, filtered through the struggles and successes of another culture. 

This morning, 33 months after we left Tampa, the people of Wesley Methodist Church in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa, gathered for one of several Easter Sunday services.  As part of the service, the minister, who has become a friend, thanked us for our work at the seminary, and  prayed for our safe return.  The seminary president happened to also to be there and promised that he would endeavor to build upon the program we created and nurtured at SMMS.

We left home in 2010 buoyed with a prayer. The morning, we ended with a prayer.  Between the bookends of prayers are volumes of sweet and sorrowful memories. Though it seems like the end, it may not be.  It's going to take us a long time to assimilate what we've done, though in several ways, it's a new beginning.  Life's rhythms  carry on and we would do well to listen to them.   

Finally,  we end by encouraging you listen to

ask yourself what your passion is, and step OUT OF THE BOX.

Note:   We intend to continue this blog when we return home.   A different kind of life may be waiting for us.  We have fewer years now and we are determined to make them count.

COME BACK , AGAIN AND AGAIN

by  Doug Roland

                 I wrote earlier about Come Back Mission (CBM), an organization, without which I might not have had the courage to come to Africa.  

I met the founders and drivers of CBM in 2007.  It was my first "mission trip",  leading a team of three others.  None of us had ever been here. The next year, I led a second team, including Cheri.  Two years later, we came to South Africa to serve at the seminary. First, though, we stopped in Joburg to spend our first two days with the leaders of CBM and absorb some of their dedication and determination. We felt ready to head for Pietermaritzburg, 6 hours away. It wasn't easy. CBM remains the foundation of our South African family.

I've learned many things from CBM:

a.  self-sacrifice;

b.  have a vision that extends beyond what you think is possible; and 

c. put God at the center of the project and do everything in His name.  Otherwise, it is not worth doing. 

Here's an example:

CBM wanted to purchase abandoned farm   devoid of any plumbing, wiring, and light fixtures. It was last used as a meth lab. When I saw it in 2010, all I could think of was how disappointed they would become later. It was simply to big, too risky.    There was no established plan on what to do with it or how to pay for it. But they saw a vision I could not have imagined, so I just played along. 

In early 2012, we were invited to come back to the farm and help celebrate the opening of Hadassah, a facility for women with drug and other substance addictions. It is the only facility of its kind in the province of Gauteng.  The place was cleaned up and trimmed.  The house had been cleaned, repaired, fitted with new equipment, wiring, roofing, the whole thing. Bedding was donated or made by a number of people.  One of the exterior rooms was funded in part by a member of our home church who named it after her grand-daughter. It was beautiful and ready to go except there were no women, at least not yet.

A few months later, we came back to see my nephew from Houston (after about 11 years apart).  He had written us that he sensed God's tug on his life to do something bold, like going to South Africa. He used his expertise in HIV/AIDS and served as a CBM volunteer teaching the 16 women in the facility.  His biggest surprise was how he was welcomed as a full-fledged member of this special family. The women adored him.  He wants to come back.

        That weekend, I met an arrestingly beautiful young woman named Fairyl. In a round table discussion I wondered how such a bright and beautiful  person could end up in a drug rehab facility, and remain so joyful.  

   

Two weeks ago,  we drove the 500 kilometers for a final visit and to attend the first anniversary of the dedication. Cheryl Pillay, founder and driving force of CBM, reminded the crowd of 150 or so people that, a year earlier, Hadassah had no women.  One year later, it was celebrating its third graduation.  Each women has stayed for 6-9 months.  Only 1 or 2 entered and then left. 

Today, there are 40 on the waiting list. I could not help thinking about how the very idea of buying a farm was a wing and a prayer.  In retrospect, that's what it was.  

The ceremony was a beautiful and heartfelt tribute to these women who have climbed mountains few would even think about.  Cameras flashed all afternoon to freeze in time the poignant moments of four graduates  who were starting new lives in their elegant party dresses and tiaras.  

A portion of the ceremony was led by few prior graduates. They had come to support their sisters and help them face the next step.  Fairyl was one of them.  She told the crowd that she had been at the opening of Haddasah a year earlier, high as a kite on drugs and wondered what she was doing there. She told of her steady use of cocaine, ecstasy, heroin, pot and other recreational drugs. With the help of all the people associated with Hadassah, she fought the effect of amoral chemicals and kicked the habit.  At the heart of it all was CBM.

When the girls with the new crowns spoke, each gave great praise to their supportive parents, fellow women in the journey, staff, friends, etc. One of them, through her tears, thanked her mother . . .  "for allowing me to be your daughter."  At the end of a short testimony, each women said that, without God at the center, they would not have made it. Most were planning or had already started to reconcile with their home churches to continue their journeys back to God. It was a celebration against the odds, a story of courage, love, joy and a complete U-turn for these women. 

And Fairyl?  She is now enrolled in the University of Johannesburg, studying to enter the field of social work.

This is what it's all been about - taking the risk of leaving a comfortable, life and going where the action really is. I suggest that this is what we are being trained for. It offers a reward that cannot be measured by any worldly standard.

I thank those people who met me at the Johannesburg airport in 2007.  They have inspired me and I am honored to have been a part of what has become an international effort, with support from a growing varierty of sources.

So, thanks Cheryl, Roy, Ruby, Joe, Faradeba, Auntie Connie, Ruthie, and Bernie.  You've changed the life of this midwestern white boy.  You led me back to where I should be. 

         Praise God for his limitless grace.

.  

MEDI-CLINIC 30 Payne Road, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

Last Monday got off to a bad start.  I woke up and swung my legs to the floor. A burning pain enveloped them on the first step.  I leaned into the wall with my hands and stumbled into the shower.  My legs were like rubber. I was afraid of falling through the shower door. I willed my legs to fold so they would cushion the inevitable collapse.  I sort of slithered out of the shower onto floor and tried to stretch my legs. Nothing helped. When Cheri walked in, I was squirming and writhing like a night crawler being lanced by a fish hook. My determination to revive the legs waned and fear set in. 

Cheri, a nurse by profession, was in action though I didn't know it because. I had passed out and stopped breathing for about 60 seconds, teeth clenched, arms stretched down my side and hands fisted. For all of that time she was shouting at me, slapping me around, not to correct my misdeeds, but to wake me up. I still have facial bruises. When I woke, I she helped me into the bathtub.  The pain subsided and I was able to stand while Cheri dressed me.   (Clean underwear is essential if you think you're going to a hospital.)  Cheri called for an ambulance.  

In South Africa getting an ambulance is a hit or miss proposition.  She called the number in the phone book, was given another number to call. No one answered We decided to drive to a hospital. I had the presence of mind to grab the brain MRI I had from several months ago. (It came in handy later.) We took off down our street.  Can you say, Formula One?  In route, we made a decision on hospitals - the closest one  -  3.9 kilometers, 8 minutes to Medi-Clinic.  She wheeled our little Toyota into the casualty (ER) entrance, jumped out, stuck her head in the door and called for a wheelchair. I opened my door, took one step, bumped into a gurney and didn't touch the ground for hours.   Of course, she was telling the ER staff what to do and how fast to do it. They were indeed quick, amazingly so.  I don't know if it was because of the curly-haired, bossy American or thought she was a new EMT. The truth is they were excellent  The team was well-oiled, calm, focused, and caring.  

Within about 45 seconds, I lost count of the number of times I was poked.  There must have been 4-5 people clinging to some body part.  Cheri had left.  I learned later that she was in a semi-meltdown, being comforted by the hospital team.  

An hour later, she stuck her head through my curtain and asked if I wanted any visitors.  As a red-blooded, self-sufficient, American boy, I thought it wasn't necessary, but this was not the time for pride.  The curtains parted, and in walked four members of the seminary staff.  I should not have been surprised. We work in a seminary that we call the Wonderful Village of SMMS.  These are people of faith whose mission is the care of others.  That said, the chaplain cracked that I didn't have to go through all that to get a day off. There were other greetings, a short prayer, then they left.  I insisted that Cheri also leave because of her problems with latex.  She went to the seminary and cried on a lot of shoulders.  I was stable and she needed to let down.  Could not have gone to a better place.  

For awhile things were quiet as the team tended to others.  Once in awhile someone would check on me, listen, count - all those things they do.  One lady came in with 5-6 pieces of paper and laid them on my toes.  They were the results all those pokes. She then left without comment. Another uniform appeared to wheel me to X-Ray. She was interested in the six pieces of titanium in my lower back.  No sooner had I returned from that x-ray than another gurney driver took me to the MRI room, a place I had visited before.  Not long after the Dr. in charge, Dr. Sewgoolam,  told me that things were so far looking good.  They still weren't finished. 

     I was moved to "Hi-Care, that's South African for ICU.  I it wouldn't be so  bad to spend the night, in a calm and quiet place.  Silly me.

This new team started by putting me in the oh so elegant standard issue obligatory "gown".  Mine was an off-the-shoulder number, accessorized  gadgets, tubes, and multicolored wires. Have you ever wondered what health care aficionado came up that name?  

  The neurologist , Dr. Yacoob, stopped by to clobber me with his little hammer. I tried to get the TV to work without success.  I had "dinner".  I'll spare you the description.  Besides, I had other issues.

By now, I had been receiving a saline drip for about 10 hours.  I wasn't permitted to leave my bed.  But my bladder had other ideas.  One the second request the Nurse brought me the jug and let me stand up. My back was turned toward the door to the room.  Regardless of the audience, I was going to stand there until I was done.  Feeling much lighter, I was ready to go to sleep.  Unfortunately, one of my "roommates" was suffering from dementia.  She said no to everything, tried to pull out her lines and get out of bed, and swore at the nurses.  The neurologist came back with his diagnosis and the good news that the MRI showed no additional damage.  Better yet, having witnessed the poor woman across the room, he ordered an industrial strength sleeping pill. . . . . for me.  It was effective. Monday was over, or  I thought so until the cardiologist, Dr. Chen, came in to ultrasound my heart and arteries.  He is Chinese with very limited vocabulary.  Not much was said.  It was 10pm.

Tuesday morning, Cheri put on her power clothes and came to my room.  Once I finished breakfast, she bullied the staff into arranging all the things that would have to be done to have me released.  The new team of nurses had probably never seen anyone quite like her. She made phone calls, to doctors, staff, organized the head nurse in ICU on what to do to "spring" me. 90 minutes later,  she ordered a wheelchair and took me to the exit.  She signed me out ,and 8 minutes later, I was home where I slept the rest of the day. 

Thursday morning, I went back to work.  Morning chapel was under way.  As we walked in, some spontaneous applause broke out from the back of the chapel.  Everyone I passed welcomed be back.  Eyes turned our way.  Some waved.  

It was unexpected and made me recall where we had been in our work here.  For almost two and 1/2 years, we corrected, pushed, challenged,  and seminarians who usually fought back. There was a tension between us and most of them.  But Thursday morning was different.  Something other than a short hospital stay was in play.  It will take some time to put it together, but it seemed like a major moment in our journey.  The curtain of suspicion and distrust had been lifted.  We we would be forever a part of the fabric of SMMS.

Note: I want to pay tribute to the ER staff .  They are people from far different cultures.  Most of the medical staff at Medi-Clinic is Indian.  The rest are black Africans. I think all of the doctors are Muslim except probably the Chinese cardiologist.  In other words, it was an international group dedicated to the same thing as others around the world. We are all people and we all need to be cared for. This raises a whole other subject.  I won't go into it here, but it's explained well in the story of the good Samaritan. 

HOW TO SAY GOODBYE?

by Cheri Roland

Since Facebook is blocked, we have no internet signal and the water is off for the second day in a row, I might as well jot down some thought about leaving that have been swirling around in my gut.

  

The Field Education and Ministry course we initiated in January 2011 has demonstrated that working with real folks in real life situations across the life spectrum plays a major part in spiritual formation.   This year FEM has graduated from a non-credit/non-grade course requirement into a significant part of the curriculum.  We feel blessed to have been instrumental in FEM’s development and implementation, as well as providing pivotal input into writing policies and procedures of this infant seminary.  The longer we have been here, the more we have come to understand the profound importance of these budding ministers’ mission to transform Southern Africa and beyond.  

Doug and I have been lame ducks, basically, for the past week.  And this is a good thing!  Our Board of Global Missions Intern, Hillary, is already doing a great job with our FEM program.  Despite her tender age of 23, she has gained the respect and acceptance of the staff and seminarians.

Now saying goodbye is a black cloud looming on my horizon.  Leaving folks I have come to love is hard in any situation, but perhaps having to wiggle our way into an an unfamiliar culture has forged a different quality of bonds.  Here we’ve had to work more intentionally at relationship building. Nurturing these friendships took  dedication to scrape away layers of suspicion and miscommunication before we could click as fellow children of God.  Yup, I’m dreading April first!   

What really makes any place in the world special is the PEOPLE.  The friends, colleagues, seminarians, agency partners, neighbors, fellow church members, even the folks that keep us company on TV - they will forever remain a major part of our lives, of our stories.   

And just to name a few other things I’ll miss...  

The true gift of being part of the team that leads, mentors, counsels, prays/giggles/cries/praises/sings/dances with this amazing collection of dedicated souls who are striving to save this church and nation

Working where the number one thing stays the number one thing

Working in stunning surroundings, my floor to ceiling windows looking out over the tree-studded quad to the amphitheatre and chapel

Sitting on my “front porch” grading FEM workbooks

The privilege of sharing the insights and spiritual growth of the seminarians as they confronted serving the marginalized

Walking/hiking through this arresting landscape with my new-found peeps, both human and animal

The profusion of flowers and birds everywhere

Learning and living other cultures

Working with my beloved husband 24/7 

Being surrounded by hills and mountains as far as the eye can see

The serendipty of weird critters sharing our house, inside and out 

Hiking in the bushveld with giraffe, zebra, wildebeests, impala, warthogs and monkeys just ten minutes from home

Cheeky monkeys awaiting any opportunity to sneak in the house to forage for food

So, how to say goodbye and express my thanks for the extraordinary love and care poured out to us by our extraordinary adopted family?  God only knows!

"Thursdays in Black"

  by  Cheri Roland



South African men can now claim the prize for the most violent males on the planet.
Statistics are shattering:

- South Africa has the highest rate of rape in the entire world

- national news reported that 1 in 2 South African women will be raped

- South African women have a better chance of being raped than learning to read

- 1 in 3 women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime

    February 14 is V-DAY here, not just for Hallmark chocolate and flowers anymore.  V-DAY is about God’s love that shouts “ANTI-VIOLENCE!”   An international campaign highlighting violence against women has erupted under the banner of ONE BILLION RISING, which heralds:

“A global strike                                            An invitation to dance
A call to men and women to refuse to participate in the status quo until rape and rape culture ends
            An act of solidarity, demonstrating to women the commonality of their struggles and their power in numbers
            A refusal to accept violence against women and girls as a given                                                  

 A new time and a new way of being”

                                                        See http://www.onebillionrising.org/pages/about-one-billion-rising .

     According to the SABC news reports, the Apartheid manifested its evil in black men left with emotions of hatred, despair, emasculation and hopelessness. The seminary is called to be a beacon of light standing against governmental refusal to redress this injustice.  This morning signals the first day of Lent.  We joined Christians around the world having a cross of ashes drawn on our foreheads, in memory our own mortality and the death of our sin through Jesus’ crucifixion, death, and resurrection.  Our chaplain announced that on the seven Thursdays in Lent, as a seminary in solidarity with the One Billion Rising campaign, we will all wear black.  At the Communion rail each of us received a lapel button to don with our Thursday black, proclaiming our stand against violence against women.

It just so happens that each Thursday is a big day for Field Education and Ministry course, Doug’s and my legacy to SMMS.  Two-thirds of our seminarians will be scattered throughout Pietermaritzburg, including the prison, volunteering in black clothing and sporting provocative lapel buttons, opening opportunities for dialogue and healing.  With God’s help, this seminary can chisel a crack of brilliant light

WRAP-UP Pt. III

      By  Doug Roland 

         In  WRAP-UP Pt. II, I drew a grim picture of South Africa.  I wrote what I saw and read daily on TV and in the print media. We have ourselves witnessed many troubling things.  In that sense, Pt. II is accurate. 

I received an e-mail response to the last post from a reader, a friend who is a Methodist minister in South Africa.  He commented on Wrap-Up II with the following:

"I'm concerned that whilst all that you cite is true, Doug, it is not

the WHOLE truth, and sometimes half-a-truth is not the truth at all." 

He's right. The is a second, more hopeful story.

  In spite of the painful difficulties in the land, there are also, outside the glare of the klieg lights microphones, and print reporters millions of people carrying on bravely up the long steep hill to better lives for themselves and for others . Their daly hard, battling hunger, miserable housing, lack of money to pay children's school fees and uniforms, disease, corruption , rampant crime and unemployment.  And yet, they carry on day by day often with spontaneous joy.  Most of the poor remain hopeful.  The only explanation I can see is that they have an  abiding faith to believe that the vision of 1994 will be renewed.  They know that while their government has failed them, there are others who labor without notice to revive the dream, one step at a time. 

The spirit of altruism  comes partly from the colonial era.  Immigrant farmers cultivated much of the land and soon learned quickly that the local people, dependent on them, had no training.  Many farm family wives stated projects to help their workers in basic skills and some physical comfort. While some of this may have been self-serving,  a  budding culture of volunteers took hold in the agricultural community.  This spirit of service to others continues to this day.  

Over time, an wide array of small projects cropped up to help people in need.  The founders of these organizations give of themselves to the non glamorous work of serving the needs of others.   South Africa is blessed with such these heroes,  angels working tirelessly in serving the "least of these" without expectation of material reward or recognition.  We have come to know the few listed below.

*  Gail Trollip started a children's relief project in her garage 12 years ago.  Today Tabitha Ministries is home for  60-70 parentless children.  It also shelters several hundred  HIV positive children in a large township nearby. These children cannot remain at home after school because it is too dangerous to stay there during the day without a parent. There are gardening projects and food distribution.  The agency is blessed with donors across the world. 

        *  Rob Kluge was a professor of entomology at a local college.  Years ago, he suffered significant paralysis from a snake bite that compromised his ability to speak such that he had to leave his job.  A man of deep faith, he was led to starting a project on his own in a township of approximately 35,000 people, 50% of whom are HIV positive and with an unemployment rate of 80%.  Today, 13 years later, his agency (Masibumbane,  meaning "being together") has 11 different projects such as AIDS counseling, food parcels, gardening, after school programs and managing money to make better the lives of their clients.  He also employs a manager who usually "translates' for Rob.  A local Methodist church also assists in the project.

*Pastor Jabu  heads up a multi-agency project located in the old Pietermaritzburg jail.  His personal passion is teaching skills to teens and other young people to help them become self-sufficient.  As well, he has trained and empowered a large community in building its own church.

*  Bruce Taylor left his job in business to start, Walk in the Light, a non-profit agency to serve the forgotten community of Haniville.  To sustain the program, there is a garden of rose geraniums.  The flowers are then distilled on site that yields a base liquid sold to perfume companies. There is also  help with clothing, computer training, transportation to the clinics, a child care facility and a program that welcomes volunteers from around the world.

Our seminarians have been placed in each of these projects and several more. Not all of them enjoy these experiences. In time, I think they will become more valuable to them than they can now imagine.

We have had the privilege to go to these places with the seminarians.  One day we joined them to visit two homes in Haniville,  Fewer things can get you closer to what it is to be poor than to visit the homes - lean-to's, mud huts, corrugated metal with old tires holding down the roof.  The drinking water could be a kilometer away.  Many have no electricity.  Others tap into a live line.  

In the first home, the family made space in their crowded little house for us to sit.  We talked, prayed and sang.  The lady of the house was going through some unnamed illness.  At the end, we prayed and sang again. She shed tears of gratitude.  A single caring moment can be  powerful.

We moved down the rutted dirt road to see a gentleman in his dark mud hut that he shares with his sister.  A piece of cloth hung from a wire divided the house into two rooms.  He had suffered an ankle injury and was barely mobile.  In his own language, he told the seminarians that it was very painful.  Cheri noticed this and was concerned that he would not use his leg enough, and it would eventually atrophy. She then showed him some simple exercises that would help strengthen his leg and ankle. He looked at her skeptically at first until he realized that she was helping him.  He then started practicing an exercise, painful as it was.  A seminarian prayed for him without a prompt.   As we left, the man thanked us, especially with his eyes.  A few weeks later, another seminarian reported back that we was now fully mobile and better able to care for himself.  

There are heroes all around us in our own area.  A 2011 publication lists non-profit organizations providing children services in KwaZulu-Natal Province.  I counted 119 of them.  Most are very small, often located in remote places and struggling to stay afloat.  These are ordinary people who have heard a call that gives them strength to carry on.  Their vision is to improve the lives of those in the communities who come to them or are visited.  To an outsider, small projects like these may seem inadequate.  But while grandiose plans are debated by the government for years at a time, the real work is done by these small organizations, one day at a time, one person at a time.

This is what we have been doing here for these nearly three years - exposing  future ministers to the truth that it's usually the simple things that confirm Christ's presence.  We too have learned that these visits are precious moments that affirm the dignity and value of the poor.   The mission of the seminary is to empower ministers to be true servants, to go from the pulpit to the mud hut, the hospital, the hungry, the prisons, the lame and the poor. Then seminarians take the first small steps to put the church on the front lines of transformation of the the church and the country.  

Above:  four seminarians volunteering at a school for the mentally challenged.

Note 2:   We will continue writing including when we get home and experience re-entry.

WRAP-UP PT II

by  Doug Roland

         South Africa is a simmering storm of frustrated, cynical, indignant, disappointed and angry South Africans of all colors. They are anything but united. 

Outside this storm lives a privileged class that has built a sort of economic stockade. They own very fine homes, command the business world and continue to accumulate wealth.  There is a TV series called "Top Billing" that spends an hour each week saturating the viewers with stories of the privileged, the beautiful people who live in 30,000 Sq.ft. homes overlooking the ocean.  We get to see their kitchens, their bedrooms, their horses, their artwork, their architects and their "fans".  These folks may as well be on another planet, so insulated they are.  

By contrast, most people live near or under the poverty level.  Many are losing hope.  Last week, a fire broke out in a shack settlement located in the shadow of South Africa's crown jewel and tourist magnet, Cape Town.  The fire spread in the brisk winds and left 4,000 people homeless.  

       The vision of a "rainbow nation" that delivers social justice, a better way of life, a color blind government, and the promise of  peace and prosperity is fading. The fabric holding the country together is splitting, leaving enclaves of discontent.  

        These problems arise out of a long, difficult history.  Millions of South Africans have lived lives of bare subsistence for generations. They are mostly simple folks, uneducated in basic life skills. Fellow Americans, deeply infused with the Protestant work ethic, would ask why black South Africans don't just work harder or get more training. It's a reasonable question in highly developed countries. Here, though, there is a series of deep ruts in the road the rainbow.  

These include a history of tribal conflicts that still remain. Several hundred years of colonialism took away the land of the indigenous people, followed by apartheid that broke their will.  Though the end of apartheid liberated black people in many ways, the ruts and the scars of their history have not healed. Very suddenly, black people were set free but without the knowhow or skills to survive in a growing industrial economy. 

For a couple of hundred years black Africans were ordered to do specific tasks, and only those tasks, leaving little room for improvisation, initiative or a sense of value as an individual. There was no reason to think big thoughts.  Consequently, showing initiative, going beyond what is required, and working hard to better oneself is rare.  For many, the "freedom" is an illusion. 

  

The government is looked to for answers, but few come.  The ANC was one of the main moving forces that brought apartheid to an end.  It has controlled the government since 1994.  However, many high ranking members of the ANC, along with favored contractors for government contracts, are now very wealthy while ordinary people have seen little evidence of a better life in a post-apartheid country. 

"The ANC leadership has failed to improve unemployment, housing, poverty and inequality during its 18 years at the helm of the South African government. To some extent the ANC, with its connections to big business, it's bloated salaries to party favorites and it's corruption in playing nice with friendly contractors, has become part of the establishment."  ("Rage By Miners Points to Shift in South Africa";  New York Times, Aug., 2012.)   

        Complicating this are cultural differences that stubbornly resist change.   Here's an example:

  Superstition exists even among our seminarians.  Just before exams last November,  some of them went  home to their own witch doctors or sangomas (local healers) for pieces of trees, plants roots, bark and other stuff. They came back to their apartments and boiled the concoction in water. He or she then created a sort of "tent" in which to breath in the steam.  It's a kind of Vick's Vapor Rub for improving the odds.  All this is done on the belief that it would help the seminarians be successful in their exams.  If you are wondering why people training for the Christian ministry would eschew prayer for this, so are we.  

Another roadblock is found in the Zulu culture.   A person who tries harder, goes the extra mile and improves his life, is not rewarded by his community. On the contrary he is considered disloyal because of the belief that all wealth should be shared equally. There are no honors for being outstanding.  Instead of individual thinking, we see a kind of "group-think".  As a result, individual responsibility is lacking.  All this, of course, ends in mediocrity.  It's a tough nut to crack.

What happens in South next is unpredictable.  Just how rigid are the traditional customs?  Can they be adapted to this century?  Will the people rise up and decry the corruption in all levels of government, or will they tacitly accept it as other African countries have?  

        After 18 years hopeful years of waiting to see how the new government would work out, most of our acquaintances are deeply troubled by the current state of affairs.  They have not yet given up even though the trajectory is not good.  Some have confessed that they already have an "exit strategy".   Others lack the resources to leave.

The level and frequency of problems has spawned a combination of defeatism, apathy and frustration.  This has serious implications outside of South Africa.  As the people continue to lose heart, the country is vulnerable to radical shifts such as demands to nationalize the mines and "taking back" the land of the ancestors.  If South Africa, Africa's most developed countryand the hope for the continent, begins to wane, it could trigger a domino effect. For the last 20-25 years, the neighboring countries have looked at South Africa as the model for the future. If it collapses, the other, smaller countries become vulnerable.  A new wave of economic colonialism could emerge, or other countries, fearing the worst, may pull out altogether.  

In my next piece, I will try to tie all this to what we have been doing these last months to help arrest and reverse the tide.  Recently, we've seen a couple of "green shoots" that might be a sign of correcting the course.