Old Haunts

 

“Where have you been so long?” 

“I live in the States now.  Wisconsin.”

“Is it cold there?” my questioner asked warily.

It only he knew! I took advantage of being back in Johannesburg to visit my old writers club, Writers 2000. The group meets the last Saturday of the month in the elegant clubhouse of a retirement center surrounded by manicured gardens. 

Dreams for a Hope and a Future

 Today for Tomorrow lesson one was about journeys—to places like Mpumulunga or Johannesburg or the one each of us makes through life. Lesson two is about dreams of where we would like to go on our life journal.

I took a stack of library books about places one might visit—Namibia, Swaziland, the Drakensburg Mountains of South Africa—and another stack about jobs and professions. It does this librarian’s heart good to see the children sitting on the steps devouring books. One girl held an armload, not wanting to give any to one of the younger boys.  “He can’t read yet.”

Playstation and Soccer stars

I got there early.  Very early.  I was afraid of rush hour traffic, but of course, it was Saturday and traffic was light.  Even though I was early, children streamed ahead of me through the gates of Central Johannesburg College, Alexandra Campus.  They were neatly dressed, many in T-shirts that said Rose-Act Saturday School. The program out of Rosebank Union Church in the wealthy suburb of Four Ways rents the college facility for an extra-tuition school for children from the crowded Alexandra township across the road. (For my American readers, “tuition” here means “instruction”, not the money paid for a private school, although these students do pay a modest fee to demonstrate their commitment to be in class.)

Today for Tomorrow

“Has anyone here been on a journey? I asked. For most of the children in the after-school programs for orphans and vulnerable children in Tembisa a trip into the city of Johannesburg would be an adventure. One boy tentatively raised his hand. 

“Where did you go?” I asked him.

The Author of Your Story

Six hundred girls in blue cotton pinafore dresses with crisp white blouses looked up at me from the auditorium floor at Kingsridge Senior Primary School in King Williamstown, South Africa.  They sat in neat rows from grade four to grade seven, while we talked about the stories they tell and the stories told to them. 

The Museum of English Literature in South Africa

I first met Crystal Warren when she presented a paper on HIV&AIDS in South African children’s books at the Potchefstroom University conference on children’s literature in 2007. Although I was in the process of leaving South Africa at the time (I had literally moved out of my house, but not yet made it to the airport), I knew we were kindred spirits. When I discovered I would be traveling through Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape recently, I determined to stop and visit her and the marvelous collection at the National Literary Museum where she works.

Out of My Comfort Zone

 As my daughter drove me to the airport, I was suddenly reminded that I was leaving my comfort zone. What have you forgotten? my cramping stomach asked. What all-important detail have you let fall between the cracks? Usually my husband takes care of travel logistics; I am notoriously bad at them. But he was already in Africa.  And he would not be meeting me in Johannesburg to pick up the pieces either.  This time I would be the one to pick him up when he arrived at Oliver Tombo International from Mozambique on Saturday.  I was on my own to pick up the rental car and find my way to the mission guesthouse.