Luxury to Poverty.

On Monday, Emily and I headed to a meeting with some local women to discuss entrepreneurship in their community of Bo-Kaap. The women were very warm, inviting and inspirational. Their call to action came a few years ago when male unemployment in their community due to the recession trickled to women helping one another put food on the table. These are women that have cooking, sewing and other skills that are marketable. The two women that we met with took it upon themselves to facilitate a monthly cultural fair where the women can sell their goods and simply be around one another for support. Emily and I will go to the market Saturday and hopefully enjoy a feast of delicious local foods and crafts. Pictures to follow:)

Tuesday we went into the townships (even went into a cresh daycare) then to Stellenbosch, the Western Cape’s wine country. We drove into town and had a delicious lunch, complete with an American waitress! She recommended the “golden circle” of wineries. So we took her advice and visited three wineries. I hate to sell-out my home, but this is a whole different level of beauty compared to Napa. There are HUGE mountains, an endless sky (the Montana sky of S. Africa), significantly cheaper everything…a tasting was less than $3 and then if you bought a bottle, the tasting fee was waived…so for $5, you got lovely ambiance, tasting and delicious BOTTLE of wine to take home. Mmm!

Yesterday we headed to Gugulethu, a township east of the city. We helped a community farm with weeding in the hot African sun. It has been there for about 20 years as part of this project: http://harvestofhope.co.za/ We weeded a bed of “spinach” which is what they call chard here. I enjoyed the first hour or so of stoop labor—found it meditative and glorious, however, the nettle got to me and I was ready to be done after the second hour;)

Emily has also connected with an after school program called Beyond Experience Environmental Program (BEEP), so after farming, we met up with the two staff, Lindela and Khanyiswa, that are from the township and have been leading the program for a few years. They work in four primary schools with grade 5-6 students, providing workshops to teach children about the environment and then they go on overnight camping trips throughout Cape Town. This was my first real township experience and Emily and I were separated at different schools. Lindela thought that it’d be a good ice-breaker to allow the students to ask me (aka LaurRRRRRen) whatever they wanted (without telling me this). I learned that I look 21-22 yrs old to Lolonga, an 11 year old studentJ (Clearly I had to reciprocate the question) We did some extreme nominating and cutthroat voting to see which students were going to get to go camping on the next trip. The students all speak Xhosa, the language that involves lots of clicks, and English. The students had to write an exam for the voluntary afterschool program (I was highly impressed with their behavior and respect). Lindela and I made sandwiches for the students: bologna + ketchup + white bread and hot dog + mayo + brown bread and as they completed their exams we distributed sandwiches. The children were VERY polite, patient and waited until food arrived. No one complained and everyone was appreciative. It was clear these students were hungry and it was difficult for me to see. I am so grateful to be here healthy and happy, being granted the opportunity to meet beautiful people and re-evaluate my worldview.