A message from Marilyn Traugott
Hello Everyone,
As I get ready this weekend for my departure Monday evening, I feel I’ve neglected you. This has been my longest stay in South Africa (almost 4 months) and I’ve written less often than any other time. I’ll spare you the same old excuse but apologize nevertheless. It has been a different kind of experience this time in that I didn’t do quite so many task oriented things, but once that Arts for Health project ended – and that took a solid month and a half – most of my time was spent in the role of some combination of mentor/coach/counselor/advocate/mom/friend to a spectrum of people including our management team, staff, and kids in the neighborhood who attend our Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program.
Loveline Madumo, the opera singer I wrote about last time, was so touched by the OVC girls I brought to the fundraiser last month that she invited me to bring as many of the kids as I can to a full-scale performance of her group, Black Tie Ensemble (you can Google it) at the State Theatre in Pretoria tomorrow. The car I drive can only fit four or five kids, so I went to the taxi rank last week and persuaded one of the drivers to pick us up at King’s Hope and take us. That would now be me and sixteen kids between the ages of about 11 – 15. I could have taken one less kid to make room for another adult to help herd them as needed, but I want to take as many kids as possible, so I persuaded the taxi driver to give us a reduced rate in exchange for a free ticket. I didn’t mention the herding to him but the kids won’t know that. Because Loveline does outreach to the underprivileged in the townships, Black Tie Ensemble will pay for the [minibus] taxi. That was an unexpected bonus.
I’ve never seen fireflies here, but the night security guard brought this little creature in the first photo to show me one evening a few weeks ago. I have not seen one of these before or since. Have you? Is it a firefly larva?
Many of you commented on the photo I attached in the email before last of the painting of the Ndebele warrior. My artist friend, Mcloud, also paints on clothing, so check out the picture he put on a t-shirt. I’m bringing a few of these hand-painted (washable) t-shirts home. And yes, his father did indeed name him after the TV character.
We have some very talented artists and craftspeople in Olievenhoutbosch, but no one will ever know it outside the community; and inside, no one can afford to buy art when they can barely afford to buy food. I arranged a meeting to connect some of the artists with a company that does tours to townships and the tourism people were impressed enough with the samples they saw that they agreed to have Olievenhoutbosch as one of their destinations where people can have a locally catered meal and an art exhibition, with all the proceeds of the sales going directly to the artists.
Last weekend, Sonny and I visited Sibusiso and his wonderful foster family again. He is thriving beautifully and has become a strong, healthy, confident 10 year old. We’ve known him now for three years. He’s lucky I’m not one of those aunts like we’ve all had who we used to anticipate zero-ing in for a bright red lipstick smackeroo – but I can sure identify with the temptation, minus the lipstick. The kid is just so darn cute. He’s the one on the far right in the photo. The first two boys on the left are his foster brothers and the small one is the grandson of the foster mother. These kids are inseparable.
A few weeks before that, we visited Thabile, whom we’ve known for almost four years now, and like Sibusiso, from the hospice in Jo’burg. She is also doing great with her aunt, uncle, and cousins. I forgot my camera, so no photo this time. This precious fourteen year old girl who had been found in 2007 wandering alone on the streets with her little crutches has been close to death more times than I can count. I held her comatose body in my arms on the way to the hospital once a few years ago. She is now advancing in a local chess tournament!
Some big projects are awaiting my return which will probably be at the end of August. I’ve been asked by someone to help start a multi-faceted community development program in Limpopo. That is a province about 3.5 to 4 hours northeast of here, and aside from the one major city of Polokwane, it is a very rural and extremely underserved area. It will be interesting to see if the project gets beyond the “good idea” phase. A couple of opportunities like this have come my way before, but the other times obviously didn’t pan out. The first time, the guy with the idea left town with no word to anyone for a year. The second time, the guy with the idea had no practical sense of how to accomplish such a thing and I wasn’t willing or able to carry the ball by myself, given that I’m not in South Africa full time. I have a good feeling about this current situation though. We’ll see…
Ngithemba ukukubona masinya (I hope to see you soon)…
Love,
Marilyn