Braai in Zwide Township

Not content to only volunteer two days a week, several of our students who are not in South African Political Science on Thursday afternoons have been volunteering as homework helpers at a high school in a nearby township.

Jim McKeown

Our South African Literature professor Mary West told us about it.  And, we soon learned that an ex-pat has a hand in it as well. His name is Jim McKeown.  Jim was born north of Philadelphia, went to college at Columbia, and after graduation got a job at Morgan Stanley.  But, he soon decided that life wasn't for him, quit and came to Africa.  His brother was in the Peace Corps at the time in Kenya.  Jim visited him for awhile, then traveled through Uganda and Kenya.  He kept on going until he reached Port Elizabeth, where he felt "at home."  Only in his late twenties I'd guess, he has been living here for at least two years.

Jim M. has started his own non-profit with several initiatives.  One is to identify the top three kids from each high school in the New Brighton township area and help them get into college.  Sometimes the only thing holding them back is finding out the application date, understanding the forms, or paying the 100Rand application fee for financial aid; sometimes it is much more than that.  His hope is that if kids in the township see others who get into college, they might start considering it possible for themselves.

This is not posed.
  Isaak Jones has the students captivated!

His non-profit also works at the other end of the continuum - working on after school programs in really weak schools academically.  That is the case with the school where our students are volunteering.  (I'm not going to name the school in this case.)  I'll just say that these kids are struggling to graduate, and our students and other NMMU students go once a week to coach small groups of them after school.

Ryan Longley - A natural

These young women later
re-braided Margaret Peyton's hair 

 Yesterday, during this after school time, we traded English and Xhosa idioms, or sayings that have an alternate meaning than the words imply.  Some Xhosa ones that I especially liked are:
• Ufe ehleli - The words literally mean 'He's dead while alive' - but means he's useless.
• Imfene yakho indala - Literally: 'Your baboon is old,' but means You're late.  Or, as they explained: "You're so late, the baboon you rode in on must have died."
• Maxalanga ndityeni - Literally:  'Vultures, come eat me!' but means "Put me out of my misery."

For one small group, I contributed these American idioms:
• Break a leg - which actually means 'good luck'
• A stitch in time saves nine meaning 'prevention is better than a cure.'
• Don't count your chickens before they are hatched.  
The Xhosa students liked the last two, but I was surprised that some of our American students had never heard of them.

Meat counter

After the school volunteer time, Jim M. took us to an authentic township braii.  I'll try to describe it.  You walk into a butcher shop where there are cuts of meat inside a windowed cooler.  You pick out the meat you want, pay, and then walk around to the back of the building.

Stop by, if ever in Zwide township

There are picnic tables set up under a tin roof, and six or eight grills going, with a big stack of wood alongside.  (The charcoal heat comes from the embers of the burnt wood).  You can cook your own meat or ask the staff of the butcher shop to do it.  We had ours done; here is our cook.  My Jim says that the cook turned each piece of meat over a hundred times.

Our chef

My salad remained in the glass bowl

Knowing I was going to a braai, I had brought a couscous salad along, but I also brought it home again.  Apparently no one brings a side dish to a township braai, as there were no plates, or silverware, or napkins.  The meat is served in a cardboard box on brown paper.  We were actually kind of fastidious, I suppose.  We bought a loaf of sliced brown bread to use as our napkins on the table.  We ate with our fingers, of course, but occasionally put our meat down on our "bread plates."



I sat next to Nkululeko Mdudu, a student from NMMU.  He told us about his own initiation rites to become a man, and graciously answered my questions - some about the month he went to the mountain, and more about how much it meant to him and his family.  I thanked him for telling me information of such a private matter.  He answered, "Not at all.  I find that it is always best to share information.  Otherwise, we tend to think of another's practices as secret and strange."  True words.