January & February 2008: SOLID News

Here's some stuff we are working on:

January 17th: Two more SOLID volunteers are making the long journey to Malawi to volunteer their energy, expertise and enthusiam at Nkhoma hospital and Ndi Moyo Palliative Care Center. This mission follows in the footsteps of Anna Callegari and Beth Gessinger who spent three months working alongside Health Care Professionals in four Sub-Saharan African countries early last year. Sala Hantle Africa!

January 19th: Meron, Phil and a couple of Global Awareness kids go to the 2008 Change Conference to represent SOILD in a workshop. The kidz and I will be presenting our Peace Tiles tale and Phil will sing his story about his work in the Export Processing Zones of Kenya. He needs some help as his partner will be away so I'm reading the Maggie part. No, I'm not going to sing!!! That wouldn't be pretty.

[Note: Our Peace Tiles story will be coming out in the next edition of AWARE Magazine. Thanks Chris!]

Heather and her lovely daughter Eswen are still in Lesotho, we look forward to their updates about our projects there.

Working on our new website and partnership at Solar Energy Host. Aaron is going to host our site for free and as an added bonus for every new account $5 will be donated to plant a tree in Africa though the Gardens of Hope project! Also we'll get a commission for every new account we send his way. So if you are thinking of switching ... just mention SOLID sent you.

March 16th: Planning for the Walk/Run fundraiser for Sala Hantle Africa being hosted by University of British Columbia.

There's more but it escapes me right now ... it's been a looooong day. I'll update when I remember.

Last comment added: Sat, 23 Feb 2008 22:08:45 PST

Comment 1 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Some of the logos that have been suggested for the Sala Hantle Africa Walk Fun-Run fundraiser being hosted by the University of British Columbia. Thoughts, suggestions, feedback appreciated!

Comment 2 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Heather's latest letter:

Dear all, Happy new year...I forgot to wish you that in my last e-mail. I have decided that I will not bother with spell check any more, as I have lost countless e-mails during the long spell check process, so go ahead and have a laugh at my expence if you like...I just don't care any more.

Aside from internet woes I am very pleased to be in Lesotho. The container has not yet arrived, but we expect it some time this week.

Our timming for arriving in Africa was not very well planed as the children are still not back from their summer break until the 19th. In the interm Eswen and I have been getting up early and going to work in the gardens, which are large fields. On arriving at 6am to a great welcome and undulations we are still an hour late. The second morning that I arrived at 6am and they said "you'r late" I threw my hands up in the air and made a playfull jesture to leave. We all had a good laugh. The 3rd mornning Eswen and I really tried to get there on time, but made it by 5:30 am. It has helped us to feel that our time is at least put to good use while we wait for the children to come back to the project. By 11am we have put in a 5 hour day and look like we have been slogging it out in the dirt. I will go to the fields again tomorrow, hopefuly by 5am. The gardens are starting to look very good, but we have not had rain for the past 5, or 6 days, so some rain would be welcome. There is a large group of volunteers in the gardens each day. I love listening to the soft, guteral sounds of their language and laughter. It dosen't matter that I can't understand, it is comfortable. The conversations (and gossip I am sure) are interspursed with words that I do understand, like HIV, AIDS, CD4 count. It is amazing how often in the 5 or 6 hours of garden work that I hear those words. The prevelency of HIV is so high here that it is a part of every day talk.

We have met some very sweet little ones who are HIV positive. A real problem arrises when the project closses down for the holidays and every one goes back to their home villages to stay with family, or care givers. The medications get all messed up and this can cause resistance to the ARVs. Resistance meens death. The 3 year old that Mamello is carring for went home to her granny and when we picked her up she had not been given her medication properly, despite constant education on how to administer properly. She is such a sweet little girl, but her prospects seem bleak at this point.

I miss the rain. I love when it rolls in over the mountains, usually accompanied by a strong wind, thunder and lightening. If you get cought in it you might as well just serender, because you will get wet despite the rain gear. Our rondoval is holding up very well to the rain and wind despite the 2 broken and taped windows. We have purchased the things we need to help make a simple and functional nest and quite enjoy our little home away from home. When we leave we will give some of our things to the woman who is providing us with the rondoval free of charge and the rest will go to the project.

When I am standing in our red earthed yard looking out over the fields and mountains I feel so poetic, but by the time I grind my way though the internet nightmare that is our reality, I'm less poetic. We can see the project from our yard just a 10 minute walk through the fields below us. We are surrounded by mountains on all sides. They vary in shades of green, red and brown. One can see the exact shape of the mountains for lack of trees to obscure the terrain. They are rugged and breath taking! They go on and on into the vast distance. In the evening we have a sun set out the front door, which turns the red earth a wild colour that I can't even describe.

I need to send this now so I don't loose it. I know that I have missed lots that I could say, but have to get this out while the getting is good.

Love to you all

Me Lorato Makhata,

Heather

Ps. Eswen's Sosotho name is Ausi Limpho pronounced Dim Po

Comment 3 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

#2 by a landslide for me, clean...and the image works and tells the story without even seeing the words.

I would clean it up so that the black and red never touch and there is white that separates the two.

Loved reading Heather's update.

Comment 4 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

I agree - I also like #2, its very articulate.

Comment 5 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

And I meant to add, I too enjoyed Heather's post. Thanks!

Comment 6 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Brought over from the October 2007 SOLID discussion thread:

Dear Meron and All,

I have just joined this family of Ned.com and i have learnt of the wonderful jobs you are doing in Salt Spring agaist the pandemic that is revaging SubSaharan African.I would indeed wish to be part of this thread as a concerted effort,and as a victim because of the region where i come from and particularly my village Town, Nangongera,paya subcounty,Tororo District in eastern Uganda where much attention has not been paid yet Aids claims lives there day after day and no one takes keen interest in the situation.The Ugandan nation with generalisation can say there is a decline in pevalence rates,but this is not very representive with what is on the ground. In my community there is still no or less awareness created about the deadly disease.Infact most of people there, think the disease is non existant therefore resorted to unprotected sex and polygamy is at rise there, which to me is dangerious not only to my community in Tororo,but also the whole country and the world over. Worse still the few who are informed about the disease have limited access to ARVs.So if some thing is not done such as sentisation and instensfied access to drugs, i'm afraid the whole generation could easily disappear.

Gerald Wandera Obbo.

Poster for the Saturday night "We Continue Forward" event. Thanks Phil!

Thanks for highlighting the "We Continue Forward" poster. It's Phil and Maggie's presentation that we will be doing as part of the SOLID workshop (as well as the Global Peace Tiles Project) at the the 2008 Change Conference this Saturday. I'll be doing the Maggie part as she will be away. YIKES!!! "We Continue Forward" is the English translation for "Tuendelee Mbele" (try saying that twice in a presentation!) the peer HIV/AIDS educator group that Phil and Maggie are championing in the Export Processing Zones (EPZ) of Ruaraka (just north of Nairobi), Kenya.

Mark asked: Gerald, I'm curious, if people are dying of aids day after day, why is it that you think most people think it is non-existant?

Comment 7 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

I agree - #2

Comment 8 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Thanks for the responses. I think it's pretty much #2 by a landslide, we all agree here as well.

We've asked them to try it by adding Africa to Sala Hantle (the full name of the campaign is Sala Hantle Africa which translates to Stay Well Africa) and moving all the text to under the 'runner'. Will posted it when we get the edit.

It's WONDERFUL to have the support of the University.

Comment 9 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Only just saw this - glad to see #2 in top spot - it's a great design. Very crisp and immediate.

Me too on Heather's post. (I'm either first or last given the timezone differences!!)

Comment 10 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Nah, I get to be last. #2 is #1. Did anyone vote for any other?

Comment 11 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

~Nah, I get to be last. #2 is #1. Did anyone vote for any other?~

Nah, I tried to like some of the others but it didn't happen.

Comment 12 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

i dont know what your timing is but making t-shirts for this kind of event is exactly the capacity we are growing in the Destiny program.

Comment 13 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Hi John, the event is March 16th and they are talking T-shirts right now. Can you give me a quote or something? I could fly it by the planning committee. Would love to encourage them to support you if I can and it's a fit.

Edit to add: The planning committee met this morning and have taken up my suggestion that we put the crosses display in on campus about a week before the event for a media blitz and advertising. Some of you may remembering me reporting on the A Day of AIDS 8,000 crosses installation in the other place (which btw like an idiot I forgot to download! does anybody know if we can still download threads? When I go back I can find some stuff but only the 1st page of any thread. There's a few things I'd like to have now, didn't need 'em when they were available.)

John, better hit me while I'm hot and they think I have good ideas LOL!

Comment 14 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Hmm, March 16. We are just opening Destiny on Tue and our first order of blanks probably well not come in till mid Feb from our main supplier but I could probably get some earlier. I guess this depends on how many shirts you need and what you are going for. If you want crisp exact color match silk screen we will not have that in place by then. We could have your logo done as a block print or even batik and then we are talking about a more artistic presentation.

As per pricing, to be honest Im not even really sure yet, especially for a Canadian market as I have no idea what the tariff scheme is. I know our costs but have not done enough research or selling yet to know what kind of premium people might be willing to pay for a Made By Survivors shirt. We are really working more for the "I want to make a statement with this shirt" as opposed to the "hey we need a shirt like everyone else has" kind of customer.

What kind of prices were you getting? Do you need a lot of sponsor logos like there often are on sports shirts(not really our thing)or do you want to have a real keepsake piece of clothing?

Comment 15 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Hmmm, there we are, on the workshop list. I don't know how I let them talk me into things like this!!! Oh yeah, I was the only one around! Yikes and oh well.

John, I'll get back to on your above comment, a little to preoccupied and a lot to nervous at the moment to respond. And I really need to get my a$$ off to bed and maybe sleep, I hope Early ferry in the morning :S

Comment 16 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Please dont worry if the t-shirt thing does not work - thanks for even considering it. But it would be great if you could collect data for me on what kinds of ideas people had, pricing, and what extra premium they might pay for a shirt with a double benefit.

Comment 17 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Hey John, Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. Kinda' got side tracked by Gabriel being shot at in Chad and a few other things. Honestly we haven't had much say in the planning of all this, that's being done by the UBC Pharmacy department. We just get copies of the meeting minutes and sometimes Anna is there via a chat feature. From what I've been reading, being a large university they already have a T-shirt connection that they will be using for this event. We don't have much input ... like this is the logo they've decided on:

In the email it was sent around in it's actually blue but when I uploaded it to flickr it turned out red (tried to upload it to the files here but <ned> said it couldn't be displayed because it contained errors) so I'm not exactly sure what colour it is LOL!

Comment 18 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Tomorrow Anna and I go to Mayne Island (one of the smaller outer islands) to do a SOLID presentation and fundraiser on Sunday in support of Jo who is going to Sipho's orphanage in Swaziland the end of April.

Saturday is gonna' be girls night where will hang out Mayne chez Jo and hot-tubbing it : )

Comment 19 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

The Volunteer signup for the UBC SOLID Walk/Fun Run Fundraiser link is up on the web. The committee had another meeting this morning (Anna was there on Skype) but I haven't received the minutes yet.

We'll be setting up the crosses on the grounds at UBC on March 9th where they will stay until after the event on the 16th.

March 7, 8 and 9 is the Our Island, Our World Film Festival where we'll launch the <ned>SaltSpring Fair-Trade store.

Man, there are so many things happening with SOLID right now it's difficult to keep up. I think every one of my weekends is book until I leave for Swaziland on March 26th!

<goes to look for her roller skates>

Comment 20 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

The web site for the UBC event, complete with on-line registration form, is now live Stay Well Africa.

Comment 21 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Our proposal on FaceBook Razoo Speed Grant, to raise the funds to buy school uniforms for the children at Sipho's orphanage in Swaziland, just went live!!! Should we be able to raise the funds we intend to be Ray and Jackie's women's sewing co-op's 1st contract! We are working in collaboration with the Global Awareness Group at Gulf Islands Secondary School. Please VOTE! and support our students on both sides of the ocean : )

School Uniforms = Education for Orphaned Swaziland Children

Comment 22 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

LMFAO!!! My mom's on FaceBook! and she got herself there! Thank you so much mom for all the support, I really appreciate it. See you can teach an old bitc ... er ... dog new tricks : )

Comment 23 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Just got home from a very successful event on Mayne Island. Probably brought in about $1,000.00 for Jo and Nancy's trip. They actually made me speak! Good thing they didn't tell me until just this morning that way I didn't have too much time to fret and panic about it.

Comment 24 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

Letter from Andrea:

So, What's happening?

It's been awhile since the last update, mainly because it has been outrageously busy and full-on. Also, there have been a number of people kicking around from 'over there', as in, English speaking friends who share some frames of reference, to philosophize and share with, so I haven't felt the need to put thoughts to paper. Until now. So here we go:

Our first batch of guests were Chad, Pixie, and their two kids Jalia and Okoyo. These lovely people are Kootenay farmers who also come to Africa regularly: 12 year old Jali has been here 9 times. Pixie, a painter, graduated from university in Cape Town and then found the west coast community in Canada along her journeys. She is back 'home' to participate in a huge, city wide art festival that is taking place now in Cape Town, and found the time to come up to Lesotho for 5 days of walking, talking, hanging out with the community and whipping up great meals for 12 on a single electric burner. Pixie spent time drawing portraits of grandmothers, sitting and reflecting on the deep faces of these African elders, while Chad fixed the roto-tiller recently arrived via a Salt Spring sanctioned shipping container and thus liberated the same grandmas from their pickaxe-afternoons. The grannies reserved the role of planting for themselves, precisely laying rows of carrots and beets into the freshly tilled garden beds.

The day Chad and Pixie arrived we held our first house party. We were spontaneous and planned it on Wednesday; by Saturday we were part of a crew putting up a huge striped tent, setting up a 'sound' system comprised of a microphone held up to the speaker of a shitty little boom box, and four ladies who took over my tiny kitchen with their enormous pots and wooden spoons. These mamas cooked up a storm for the 100 odd guests who showed up. Once we were all assembled, representatives of the various groups of guests were called to express what they were doing here this afternoon. After long speeches, where people who see each other every day took the opportunity to express their mutual admiration, the food was served and the dancing began. The craziest moves came from the small people: the kids clustered in a mosh around the speakers and funked out with Heather and Eswan, who are the same size as the thirteen year olds. In their pointed Basotho hats and holding their fighting sticks, they looked like groovy womenfolk of the elfin tribe. Chad did an impromptu performance on this lovely little instrument called a shepherd's flute (length of hose pipe, curved, and then blown into 'just so': he made it sing like a bird) to cap off the evening. For those of you who know him, Phooko, who was also there, says HI!!! as do Heather and Eswan from Salt Spring, Scotty, Rebecca Valian from Vancouver whose last night in Lesotho this was. We all gave speeches and we all stood listening. What was really great, though, was stepping into the tent and seeing all of the members of the Phelisanong community sitting in our yard, in their wheelchairs and in makeshift chairs, dressed in their fine blankets and nodding to the yes yes yes of this particular vantage point. The people came. The party shifted those working relationships into silly and serious sharing: being together with no particular objective but to get to know each other better and entertaining each other sure shifts acquaintance into friendship. Work into play and tentative curiosity into ha ha ha ha.

I've been teaching English at the project lately: it was an idea I had after spending too long here unable to communicate with the community beyond goofy charades. The classes started with the project volunteers: the grandmothers, the craft ladies, the kitchen crew, the women who care for the special needs kids, and the maintenance men. It is a great time. We laugh our heads off: I play the clown, and we all enjoy the torturous tongue twistings we experience as we try to lick each others' languages. Sesotho is amazingly full of sounds and pronunciation that I have never encountered in any of the romantic and germanic languages I have dabbled in, and according to my students English is similarly weird and challenging for native Sesotho speakers. We do the food rap: so much of life here is about food, or the lack of it. Using an empty bowl and spoon, we pretend to pass around bowls of porridge. "Do you want more?" "Please pass the porridge", "This is delicious" .... and so on.... eventually ending with us all banging the spoon on the bowl chanting "We want porridge! We want porridge!" Everything is so rhythmic and musical here, you just ride the vibe and teaching is so easy.

It's a bit challenging teaching English in the primary school. Keeping order is part of the challenge; the other bit is inviting the participation of kids who seem folded in on themselves. This is a school comprised of orphans and vulnerable children: what are their stories? What homes have they come from this morning? Many of them are half listening, half fantasizing: what will be served for school lunch? the one meal they can count on today? Here there are classes of 40 odd kids, depending on the grade. There are also special needs kids integrated into the classes. In the older grades, this is working better than in the younger classes: unlike in Canada, there are no special education assistants for these kids, just the one teacher juggling all of the wide-ranging needs, attention spans, and talents of her class. A shortage of chairs means that those in wheelchairs are the elite: in each class there are a few kids who share their small chairs, or sit on the floor. When I walk in to the class, all of the kids (except for those in wheelchairs, who straighten up instead) spring to their feet and chant in unison: "Good morning Mrs. Masechaba! How are you this morning? We are FINE!" It definitely wakes you up. We do stories in the younger classes ? thank you Robert Munsch for the most appropriate book ever, PIGS. This little book has been so much fun to read, and it's 'culturally relevant' in part because it deals with pigs in the classroom, which was a very real occurrence at the school during a transition period when the pig pens were not quite ready for occupation and Grade 1 became a temporary pig house. The kids really like the part where they get to shout: "Hey you dumb pigs!!!" It'll be interesting to see how this little phrase I've introduced comes back at me..... In the older classes the English compositions kids write are interesting windows into their worlds. One girl wrote about the orphans in her village, and how all the kids should include them so that they do not become 'angry people' but rather 'part of all of our families'. Another wrote this loopy, surreal story about the elders in her village: "The grandmothers are many, like beers: the grandfathers are small like butterflies." It wasn't that she didn't comprehend the words she used: she was being playful and daring with a language newly discovered. Wow!

The other day we went after school with a bunch of Canadians, led by Mamello's husband Ben, down to see a cave which we'd heard about for a couple of years but never found. Ben led us, and some of the kids in the villages who were on their way home from school came along. There was a merry parade of kids clambering along a perilously steep ridge, into this spectacular river valley where the water had carved the sandstone into a natural chute/waterslide. Suddenly the water was alive with kids splashing, launching themselves along a swift narrow channel, which opened gently out into a wide pool. It was wet, shaggy mayhem: the puppies who had come along had their first swims, and we all got soaked in spite of not bringing bathing suits. Then we wandered up to the cave, which nobody had mentioned was decorated with San rock paintings. Delicate forms of cattle and springbok etched onto an overhang are rendered in rusty red and chalk white. Beneath, a pit of ashes is fresh. How deep are those ashes, I wonder, how many nights of sitting, singing, around campfires have been passed here, looking out at the thin slice of stars and telling stories of the day's hunt to sleepy kids? We snap photos: this place is entirely timeless, though, and there is no 'getting it' until we slow down and dwell in the ashes ourselves. Maybe next time.

Cool, though, the next day in front of the class, getting these conspiratorial glances from kids I recognize from the day before. There's the girl who was wild in the river, sitting up straight and combed in her chair, smirking. There's the kid who fell in accidentally in all her clothes, and bravely didn't cry though all the other kids laughed at her. There's the boy who shimmied up a peach tree and tossed half-ripe peaches down to his friends, and there's the guys who had a footrace through the cornfield on the way home. There's Jalia, who cried for a bee stung her as she reached for a branch of artemesia.

Oh, guys, there's so much to tell and I just can't find the time to write it all... it's almost 8:30 and I've got a date with Class 1, who will be finding out Why Hippos are Hairy and practicing the dance moves that go along with "These are my ears, these are my eyes, this is my shoe, this is my belly button". Gary is off meeting with the Tsepong Clinic about a film he is producing around a series of Health Talks to be played in clinic waiting rooms around the country: this project has the potential of educating people living with AIDS about not only the disease and how it is prevented, and treated, but also how as Basotho people they can organize and support people living with AIDS in their communities through the type of outreach we have seen work wonders at Mamello's project.

Grampa summed it all up. Gary's dad, Scot, who is 80, is here for 3 months. He has found his post at the project, sitting in the shade beside the office building, where everyone checks in as they come into the project. He is a curiosity for all with his shock of white hair and merry blue eyes. He fits in among the disabled and the strange: he's at home. He has been fixing wheelchairs and wheelbarrows, though his arthritis has him good for 2 hours work at best, what with the hike up the mountain he's got to look forward to at the end of every day. Grampa says, "You know, I've discovered something. If you walk slow here, you can go a lot further."

So, walking slowly, going further every day, I sign off now: your semi-faithful correspondent reporting from the front lines of nowhere/eternity, somewhere in brightest Africa...... love Andrea

Comment 25 on January & February 2008: SOLID News

After a bit of a battle with the web site I finally got my Sala Hantle Walk/Run donation page up!!!