A Week in Shongweni
Sun 12th October 2008
by Geoff Ward
They said that “re-entry shock” might be a problem. Coming back to the UK; to families, friends and work, to problems left 6000 miles away for a week. It would all be very different from what we had seen in South Africa. People would not be able to fully appreciate what we had experienced and we might find things difficult to cope with coming home. I had no idea how right they would be.
In June 2008, our first team went and built a house near a town called Eshowe. They came back with their photos and stories. They told of unimaginable poverty, of untimely death and sadness. They also told how they played with the children and how very happy everyone was – the young faces smiling out of their photographs showed that. This was a country of contradictions. It was evident that the experience had profoundly affected all of them in one way or another.
In October this year, it was my turn and I had the privilege to go to South Africa with 10 of my colleagues to go to work as a volunteer in a settlement called Shongweni in an area called Valley of a Thousand Hills. The Shongweni Project was initially a settlement of 15 houses built by Habitat for Humanity (HfH) as part of their Orphans and Vulnerable Children initiative. Following the success of the first phase, we would be building a house in the second phase, which was now well underway.
We arrived in Durban on Sunday (economy airline seats are not made for big people!) after 24 hours travelling and checked into our hotel. Durban is a modern city with a modern airport. There are modern roads, new cars, big houses, office blocks, shopping centres and skyscrapers. There is a new football stadium being built for the 2010 World Cup and the most fantastic beach and marina complex. We were picked up in a new Mercedes mini bus. We had been told by the first group that this might happen; “why were we here? – there’s nothing wrong with this place.”
A short drive from the airport and we began to see that there was more to this place than met the eye. There were collections of makeshift “houses” squeezed perilously onto available bits of land by the motorway verges – flimsy constructions made largely from salvaged materials and rubbish. Most of the “normal” houses were surrounded fences and gates. These were electrified fences, with spikes and razor wire and signs for “Armed Security Response” companies. This was different to home. We ate our evening meal in the hotel and were briefed on the week ahead.
On Monday we were taken to the build site. The Shongweni valley and the Mountain which gives the area its name are impossibly beautiful. The area is dotted with houses; all are very modest affairs, none of them are particularly close together and they stretch for as far as the eye can see. The Project’s houses are unmistakably new and quite smart by comparison and are arranged along the road on the top of an escarpment overlooking a wide valley. We could hear goods trains making their way up and down the winding railway on the valley floor while kites soar back and forth along the cliff edge looking for a meal. As we arrived, children were running up and down and waving to us from the houses.
Our team is to build a house for Eunice. She’s 54 and a grandmother (GoGo) to three orphaned children. Her daughter died from AIDS. She gets no state hand outs and she lives on what little she can earn and gets 300 Rand (£20) a month from her son. We are introduced to Eunice – she’s going to help us with the build this week. The HfH builder had already prepared the concrete base slab. We have 5 days to convert piles of sand, cement and huge concrete blocks into a house. It will be nothing fancy, but it will have 4 rooms, running water, sanitation and very basic electricity supply. There are no machines; everything will be done by hand.
We made a good start on the first day; blocks were laid to about chest height and we set off back to the hotel. On route we stopped by the place where Eunice was living presently. Loosely describable as a house it is made from wood, mud and corrugated iron sheets. Termites had eaten the wood and heavy rain threatens to wash the walls away. The roof leaks every time it rains – which it does frequently.
In the garden there is a Jacaranda tree laden with beautiful purple flowers. The juxtaposition of something so beautiful with this miserable hovel was somehow very poignant. Eunice showed us inside and pointed out where the rain had soaked her grandchildren’s bed – she is crying because she is so ashamed. I put my arms around her and gave her a big hug and immediately dissolved into tears. I was not the only one.
We gathered back at the hotel – able to insulate ourselves from what we had just seen. Over a beer, we did our best to be the normal rowdies we are at home, but the mood was sombre and reflective. Each of us resolved to work like crazy to get the job done. And so the scene was set for the week ahead. We will arrive at site every morning and work as hard as we can to get this house built. We were told by HfH that we are a strong team and that we should get all the blockwork built to roof level before we leave. The local builder will put the roof on when we have gone.
Coming to Africa was not all about work though, we were encouraged make time to interact with the local community. We took breaks to play with the children – I preferred not to show myself up by trying to play football but instead amused them with my camera. They all know how “E Shooters” (as they call digital cameras) work and have great fun posing and looking around the back to see the picture on the screen.
On Wednesday, the local charity fundraising coordinator Sue came to site with Eunice’s grandchildren. They had just finished school and were all in their uniforms. They were shown round their new house and were given some of our packed lunch. We found out on the first day that any of our lunch that was not eaten would be given to local families. After that, we stopped eating too much of our lunches.
Sue is an insuppressibly enthusiastic woman and she’s like a machine gun; rattling off facts and figures - making sure we get the message to take home. 80% of the population (of child bearing age) where we are working have HIV. 40% of the population in Durban (that sophisticated modern city 30 miles away) have HIV. 50% of 15 year olds in the valley will not reach adulthood! I was taken with her to take some of our lunch leftovers to one of the families. I rope in my colleague Jo to give me moral support (thanks, Jo). The house is home to one GoGo; three of her daughters have died of AIDS and one is now dying. I meet the surviving mother while she feeds her infant son an insubstantial white gloop made from maize. Sue is concerned that it has little nutritional value. All the grandchildren, all eight of them, live in the house, five of them in one triple height bunk bed. I am beginning to find this all too much.
On Thursday we were invited to the local school. We were told that the children are going to sing and dance for us and it is customary that we sing for them too – it’s going to be a competition! We have heard the children clapping and singing on the hill where the school is when we break to take our lunch. It’s beautiful – they really know what they are doing! We are going to get soundly beaten.
As we arrive at the school we are met by the children. Just a couple of hundred to start with but soon more came – like an ants nest poked with a stick, there were hundreds of them! We all gathered in their school hall, the best part of a thousand children, teachers and bewildered visitors. They sang their songs and performed traditional Zulu dances of agility and beauty. The headmaster told us of the School’s history and how it cares for the orphans. We were told that a child can be put through school for 60 Rand a year tuition fees – that’s about £4.00. As the headmaster spoke, the children served us CocaCola and Sprite. I’d bet that many of the children there had never tasted Coke.
Then it was our turn to sing and we lined up on the elevated dais at the end of the hall – over 950 expectant faces looking at us. Our plans to do Old MacDonald with animal sounds had been scrapped the minute they started singing – these guys were too sophisticated for that! So in the tradition of songs with stories, we told of the unfortunate man who had gone to court his girlfriend Mary-Jane on a very cold moor in northern England without taking the precaution of wearing a hat and how he had caught his death of cold and died and we had eaten him up. There were ducks and worms too as we sang all eight verses of On Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. It was magical. Well, that’s what we thought…
On Friday we gathered for the last day’s build. There are seven rows of blocks needed to take the main wall to ridge level and some site tidying before we go. It’s a hot day. We all try to find ways of avoiding doing the worst job on site – mixing the mortar. It’s back-breaking. I avoided it by putting my back out. Unfortunately, I cannot do anything else either – except hobble about rather pathetically. So I sit and watch quietly as my friends put the final blocks in place and I take photographs to record our achievement.
Ben, the pastor from the local church and HfH coordinator, comes to close the site. We stand in a circle holding hands and share our thoughts on the week. We are told that we are the first team to do a whole blockwork build in one week – our house is special. You bet it is! There are hugs and tears of farewell all round. Eunice is presented with a Habitat sweatshirt signed by all the team.
Hing arranges all our used work gloves in the shape of a heart on the ground – its very artistic! As I photograph it, Valentine – one of the local boys – copies the shape of a heart in the sand and writes “I LOVE YOU” before hastily rubbing it out with his foot.
Some things you cannot rub out. I will treasure my memories from this week for the rest of my life. I hope to return to South Africa.
PS We heard word from the coordinators that the roof went on the following week and that Eunice and her grandchildren should by now have moved in.
