No Easy Way to Freedom (Friday 6th to Friday 13th April, 2012)
My second weekend in SA was more interesting than the last. Although, I was indoors all through the Easter Friday, but on Saturday Tendani Muthambi a colleague of mine took me out to her home, there I handed over the flowers I bought for her, her daughter and her mom. Thereafter, she drove me and her daughter to the apartheid museum in Johannesburg. It was an interesting experience that took me over three hours to go through the entire museum digesting the information bit by bit. The museum relayed the history of South Africa and how the citizenry especially the black community were liberated from the shackles of apartheid. Apartheid is a form of government rule based on racial discrimination where the whites are usually placed at an advantage and sour discrimination was made towards blacks in the areas of land ownership and use, strict demarcations in mobility and services as well as infrastructural facilities which trickled down to the system of education. With white supremacy and Afrikaner minority rule, it reduced the beautiful gold land of south Africa to a living horror for the black masses until 1994 when Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela stood as their hero as the first black President of SA after 27 long years in prison fighting for freedom. Remember his middle name ‘Rolihlahla’ means “Trouble maker”. This blog will be too small to tell you all about the apartheid and Nelson but do Google and get more information or better still visit the museum in Joburg or the Hector Pieterson Museum in Soweto.
Interesting words from the museum and pictures outside the museum include
“Apartheid is exactly where it belongs – in a museum, the apartheid Museum is a journey not just a destination….
The basic principle behind apartheid was simple – segregate everything. Cut a clean line through a nation to divide black from white and keep them divided” - From the Apartheid museum profile
"To be free is not really to castoff one’s chain, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others” – Mandela
As you enter the museum, you will find a long show of Identity cards owned by both whites and blacks during the apartheid period. One amusing observation was that while the I.D cards of whites boldly carried the inscription “S.A citizen” that of the blacks were completely blank under “citizenship” or had their native community on them like Zulu. It is important to note that S.A comprises of 80% black people, 10% whites and 10% mixed race such as Indians, Asians, etc.
“Today I think the split between black and white in South Africa is irreconcilable” – Ernest Cole 1967
With other pictures of liberation struggles, protests, killings, prisoners, death by hanging, mayhem, police brutality on blacks and few conscience-laden whites who also fought the discriminatory system, it was no wonder that some blacks stood out as heroes such as Bishop Desmond Tutu (Nobel peace prize winner), Steve Biko, Sisulu to mention a few and Mandela who also won a Nobel peace prize.
The poem of a child was published which read thus:
“Mandela appeared in my cartoons as the child with the potential to become what he dreams of, as the prisoner embodying a nation imprisoned, as the banned face of the banned struggle, as David slaying the apartheid Goliath, as the bird breaking out of the apartheid cage, as the genie who won’t get back in the bottle, as Moses parting the waters for the masses, and as Moses leading them into the promised land, as the sunrise at the dawn of the new south Africa, as the Colossus bestriding the national landscape, as the architect of democracy, as the rider in the saddle of the GNU, as the sculptor hewing racial harmony, as the fireman dowsing the flames of crises, as an acrobat anchoring a diplomatic balancing act, as super Mandela bridging global divides, as Atlas bearing the developing world, as the wind blowing the spring jar of Madiba magic for Bafana Bafana, as the Mandela Bridge spanning the racial divide, as the grandfather dandling the infant nation, as the giant with massive shoes to fill, as the cowboy and his gal riding into the African sunset, as the tireless globe trotter outpacing all others, as the prisoner pushing open the AIDS secrecy door, as the planet in the fight against HIV/AIDS, as the beaming Nelson atop Nelson’s column, as the cupid of the divided ANC, as the conscience of the nation, as the sun setting on his own era”. - Sun Times 18 July 2008
Taking snapshots in the museum is not allowed so I could not get much of pictures but it contained a myriad of videos, pictures and music that one would absorb with mixed feelings.
The words of Cole were strong “No physical barrier separates black from white zones. What keeps the blacks from spilling over into the white preserve is the unseen power of apartheid”
Amidst all challenges the re-quotes from Mandela are courageous to the black ear
“There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountain tops of our desires”.- Original quote by Jawaharlal Nehru
Entrance to the museum
Identity Cards of Whites during the apartheid period (Notice the citizenship?)
Identity Cards of Blacks (Notice the blank citizenship slot?)
Finally, Tendani dropped me off at the guest house in the evening. Wheww! It was worth every minute we spent.
On Sunday, we planned that I would accompany Tendani’s mum to church but unfortunately Tendani fell ill probably due to the long drives we did the previous day, I felt very bad and guilty for stressing her this much. I was indoors but went for a walk later that evening.
On Easter Monday I was indoors as I worked on the literature review.
Tuesday with Megh
Upon arrival at the office, it was nice to find Megh at the office. Jagriti Megh is the OVC Technical lead/Advisor of the Lesotho project. He visits the country office at Pretoria every two weeks which affords the management team a complete meeting with useful inputs from him unlike the hitches associated with internet calls. I later had a meeting with Megh who enlightened me further on the OVC project especially programmatically which was a huge relief as it allayed some of the misconceptions I earlier had concerning the project. It is interesting to note that Megh is an Indian doctor who has long years of experience on OVC and public health issues with most years of his developmental work in Nigeria – Benue state specifically. He has sat at high level plenaries with top-notch public health workers in Nigeria to develop a lot of working documents, supporting the push of bills into laws and supporting many policies in the area of OVC and HIV/AIDS. Speaking with him would reveal an unmistakable personality of humility and compassion towards mankind and the work he does. He knew a lot about Nigeria and in his gentle manner, had a humorous way of interjecting communication using my native language (Ibo), I found myself often saying – This man is speaking my language!! His well-kept long beards depicted him somewhat as a man of wisdom.
From our discussions and other reports I have read, the BLC 5 year OVC project works with the government through relevant Ministries, Civil Society Organizations, Community Based Organizations, and Faith Based Organizations to improve the quality of care and support services for the OVC (now VC – Vulnerable Children). Existing and new BLC sub-grantees receive effective OVC programming training and subsequently provide improved and comprehensive services to 46,585 OVC and 19,972 caregivers by 2015. Through the Inverted pyramidal model, services are rendered to OVC in a bottom-up approach where the capacity of relevant stakeholders are also built to provide support for the vulnerable child as a sustainability/exit strategy focusing on the household rather than the child wholly.
BLC Project Lesotho Capacity Building ‘Inverted Pyramid Model’
So far although the OVC enrollment targets given to each of the CSOs is as high as 1,500 per quarter, yet it’s a bit flexible all through the year. One interesting thing I learnt was that, Megh envisions every community and school having at least one social worker who understands the needs of the VC. He made me understand that because the local councils already have a list of VC in the community, it would not be too necessary to use the OVI tool to identify them all over again. Nonetheless, at the end, he gave me an interesting news – the OVC project team has decided to incorporate the Child status Index tool into their collection of M&E tools, Bravo! This will indeed help to monitor the wellbeing of VC around the 6+1 services overtime.
By Wednesday 11th April, I was elated to find Zuzelle back from her leave- At last!! As usual, she had put me on my toes as she sat beside me to see how far I had gone incorporating the corrections she made on the literature review. Today, the left corner of the office was empty as Jabulani and Roselyn were off to Lesotho on strengthening the project’s M&E systems.
On Thursday, I joined other staff to attend the staff meeting as the country Director – Donald Harbick judiciously answered the array of questions from staff. For an hour, we looked at reporting channels, structured technical matrix formation, capacity building, gender issues and staff development.
I was busy most part of the day developing the Focused Group Discussion (FGD) tool and editing the Interview guide that we would be using during our field visit to Beitbridge on Sunday. When I was through, I sent it to the M&E team led by Kathryn for review. Later that day, I re-sent invitation to all staff to join me on Wednesday 18th April to look at key strategies employed by the CUBS-Nigeria project which was accepted by most of the staff.
I was busy most part of the day developing the Focused Group Discussion (FGD) tool and editing the Interview guide that we would be using during our field visit to Beitbridge on Sunday. When I was through, I sent it to the M&E team led by Kathryn for review. Later that day, I re-sent invitation to all staff to join me on Wednesday 18th April to look at key strategies employed by the CUBS-Nigeria project which was accepted by most of the staff.
Finally Friday came, with a theme – “Cheese and wine”. Worthy to note that Naume joined me today to make it a traditional Friday and she really looked beautiful in her attire. But earlier that day, Kathryn, Zuzelle and I had a review meeting on the FGD tool as we made corrections, deletion and other edits. At the end of the exercise, it was like starting all over again incorporating the changes. Zuzelle was also busy making preparations for our journey and contacts with the North Star staff, it was only then it dawned on me that I had still not gotten my Zimbabwe visa even though I had applied for it in Nigeria before I left, but their 7 working-day stringent requirement did not afford me enough time to pick up the visa amidst series of calls to the embassy. Of course I could not cancel my flight reservations to SA so I left the Visa behind. What can I do? As we cracked our heads on what to do, I sent the final review of the FGD guide as well as the respondents’ consent form to Zuzelle and Kathryn for a final look. By now, the office upstairs was already full of staff as we all joined in the Cheese and Wine event organized by Don to ease the official tension. There I met the wider BLC family as well as Eileen from the home office in Arlington. It was fun I must say. Work and pleasure did take some of us home late, although Charles was off to drop some other persons, Carole the COMU Director was kind enough to drop me off at the guest house. We came to know ourselves better during that drive.
White bearded Don (Country Director)[right], Eileen (from Arlington)[middle] and others
Cheese and Wine indeed!!!!!
This is the end of my third week in SA. I remember that most part of the second week and this week, Kathryn was always keeping in touch about my logistics and picking me up from the lodge anytime Charles was away or busy.
The last weekend in SA would be a swell one as I made arrangements for Saturday. Watch out for my next blog!!!!!!
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