Today’s quiet time title is “Put Away Evil” : So you shall put away the evil from among you. Deuteronomy 22:21.
Then we go with Gary on a tour or Paarl and the different townships and extensions of MCM in the community.
Gary stops at a river that divides five communities. The rich the poor, the coloreds from the blacks etc… We go to meet the Dream Team @ Miqlat. They are a group of young adults from all over the southern portion of Africa who come to live in this house and devote themselves to God for at least a year and learn more about them and reach out to the community to spread the word.
We met today because tomorrow we will be splitting up and going to two schools to teach a life skills class. In America we do not have this class but it teaches the students I believe 4th grade and up about some life skill. An example of a class would be if we taught them about respect/attitude/AIDS/Safe Sex Practices etc…
There are two schools we will be splitting up and going to. One school is called Paarl Zicht and it is the safer of the two schools. The other school called Orleansville and it is in the heart of Chicago and the toughest area in Paarl East. I was on the team going to Orleansville. The plan was to get together with the groups and discuss tomorrows plan. There was a mention that the teachers inthe Union would be riotting in Cape Town so many students would be without teachers leaving us in charge for the entire day rather than the intended period of class.
We planned a few activities and left to finish our tour. We drove through Paarl East. The Chicago community. There are shacks everywhere and it is somewhat dry now so people are outside again.The folks who live in the townships are very community oriented people. They don’t stay indoors and mind their own life with a closed environment. They are very much outside, talking to their neighbors, playing games. This was different from even just the local area near the bed & breakfast where we stayed at. It was also different than what I see back home in Irvine. Most people stay and socialize indoors.
The shacks are very small, the common materials of the shacks are corrugated metal but there are wood materials used also. Some shacks have windows. I see a lot of Coca Cola advertisements everywhere. Lots of stray dogs too, just wandering the streets. Everyone is just doing what they are doing and it is just outside. A Tuck Shop is like a local 7-11 so the folks in the community do not have to go to a larger market often. There are tuck shops all over and not very far from the other.
There are no fire stations in the townships and since the shacks are very close together if a fire starts, it spreads fast. They are very effective to where they will disassemble a few shacks past where the fire is headed so it will not continue and they do this very quickly.
The roads through this township are paved and like any other. We drive through and Gary gives us information and if he knows someone he stops and says hello and the person greets us as well.
Gary mentions that the biggest concern with Chicago is what the kids do after school. Many of the Africans are very into sports. Especially with the World Cup, soccer has been pretty popular. MCM and Francisco have finally obtained rights from the municipality of the soccer field across from Chicago. They brought in a tractor and cleaned up the field that was supposed to be maintained by the local municipality. Francisco grew up across the street in Chicago. He grew up and wanted something for the kids to do rather than get into gangs, steal or something worse. He wanted to find a solution for them to get out of that environment and so he had this calling to make a soccer field. They also have field hockey the same field.
It took them 3 years to obtain the park lease and then 7 months to prep it so kids could actually play on it. There are large containers on one end of the field for changing rooms. There are more for supplies and so on. The food center where we will be doing some work later also makes muffins that have enough nutrition in it that a child needs a day. The food center is also connected to MCM. So the children play soccer after school or learn on weekends, eat nutritiously. It is wonderful. We donated soccer supplies to this group.
We continue to drive and we pass through Fairyland, this is the poorest community and they are all shacks. Both blacks and colored live in the same area. Government is starting to build 3 bedroom homes in the community. They homes have running water. Butterfly House a hospital is in Fairyland. Butterfly House is an AIDS/HIV resource ctr.
Mr. Stevens is the caretaker of Butterfly house. He is also a retired pastor. In the community there are power lines overhead, they are somewhat sloppy but pretty good given the fact that they are actually spliced and rewired from local electricity so the township can have electricity. The electricity is wired to this community without permission from the electrical companies.
We go to Mbekweni, another township. We will be back here on Sunday for Church. All government homes are less than a year old. Some still live in shacks and there is a waiting list to get an actual built home. Dogs are everywhere, not wildly running. Some dogs are just on their side sleeping.
There is a research center here called “Be Part” by the Gates Foundation. It is a research center for microvcatial??? Gel to test on women who have HIV or Aids. 500 women are being tested and and it is a vaginal gel to kill the virus. There is a constant struggle for woman’s control over HIV/AIDs since they have the least say. Men usually have the power and control over the relationships and women have very little voice in the relationship.
Among the shacks there is another area that has stalls like an outhouse. the doors have numbers painted on them. 6 shacks share one stall.
We drive by the food center. We do not go in. The food center opened in May ’08. We will visit the food center later but they provide nutritious quality food at low costs for schools, hospitals etc… Their goal was to feed 5000 children a day and their capacity is 10,000 a day. They already surpassed 5000 a day. Aletia runs the food center and she was my prayer partner and my focus of prayer. 20 liters of food feeds 1400 children and (supposedly) the children love the taste.
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