Learner

Hello again family and friends! Students here are called "learners" and teachers are called educators, just fyi :) I’ve decided on a kind of formant for this blog, one week I’ll give a day by day run down and the next I’ll share my thoughts and things I am learning. How does that sound? I don’t think I can do both each week. There is so very much I have learned since I’ve been here, it’s really hard for me myself to comprehend it let alone pass it along the interwebs back home. But I shall give it an effort.

The Dop system, also called the Tot system. I had never even heard of this before coming to South Africa, and neither had Kelly who I was certain knew something about everything J so here is another “did you know”! While we were driving to High Africa in the bush, one area of a town that we passed through Angela turned around and said, “In this area here, the dop system is still in use” She went on to explain that “dop” stood for alcolohic drink, which represents a cap of alcohol used as a method of payment, so many “dop” per hour of labor. That’s right, workers are paid, in part, with alcohol. The area we drove through, as I was informed from my Afrikaans professor today, actually holds the world record for women who drink the most. Sadly, there is a very high incidence of fetal alcohol syndrome due to this and the obvious alcoholism. Wine farmers started this system of payment for two reasons, one “they could use low quality, surplus wine that had little commercial value to pay the workers; and it resulted in a worker being held captive not by physical force but by the restraint of addiction” This practice was outlawed in the 1960’s, but wasn’t enforced until the 1990’s, and some continue to us this system. It is really quite sad. How alcohol holds so much control over lives. How it is so hard to get out of this trap because there aren’t AA or other support groups available in these areas and jobs are hard to come by and it would be foolish to quit. There is an organization called Dopstop that is working to “enable people to take control over alcohol and other substances in their lives and promote healthy rural agricultural communities in South Africa.” Check out their website: http://www.dopstop.org.za/

Last week was the opening of Parliament, and along with that President Zuma gave a speech very similar to The State of the Nation Address. Together a couple of my program mates, security guards and I sat in our living room and watched him give his speech. A couple things he talked about I found interesting to say the least, which were brought to light during our Poverty and Development lecture this morning. Zuma said that that the amount of people in South Africa under the poverty line had decreased, but he also stated that the amount of grants and other assistance had increased; implying that sustainable job growth was not really taking place to draw people up out of poverty. This is something he promised to do, create more jobs, decrease unemployment etc etc… Zuma also spoke about the mining industry, South Africa’s mining assets are valued at approximately 2.5 trillion US dollars! 2.5 trillion!!! Where is that money going, and why is South Africa still in the state of poverty that it is? In one 30 minute car ride we can drive by houses that are mansions on the ocean, with pool and beach and security systems then through inner city poverty and homelessness, then through the townships with shacks, lean to’s and slums. This morning our professor said that at the end of the course, we will more likely be even more confused than how we are now. The more you learn the more you realize how much you don’t know and how much more you have yet to learn.

Whew, that was some heavy stuff. So very much is going on in my mind right now that I want to share with you all, but I can only write in little bits at a time.

In other news I’ve decided on doing my service work at the TB Clinic at Brooklyn Chest hospital! More on what I will be doing there later.

I love you

In Afrikaans: Ek het jou lief.

In Xhosa: Ndiya kuthanda