A Refilwe Wedding.

On Saturday we attended our first South African wedding. It's not every day that you get invited to an African wedding, but in actual fact, we were invited almost as soon as we'd arrived at Refilwe back in February! The happy couple, Richard and Dudu, have both worked at Refilwe for a number of years. Dudu (or Mama Dudu, as she is known by everyone) has been a God Parent to six children for almost three years. Until now, she has been parenting them alone, which has presented more than a few challenges! Richard works in Refilwe's health care programs and currently works closely with Amanda during the week. The couple met here at Refilwe and fittingly had their wedding here as well.

The African Wedding is a very Big Deal. This wedding involved many people and a huge amount of planning and preparation (no different to anywhere in the world, really!). All of Dudu's foster children were in the bridal party, along with several other Refilwe employees and volunteers. Ever since we arrived at Refilwe, the bridal party was having weekly dance rehearsals to master the different steps involved throughout the day. Richard's family came from Zambia in order to take part in the day: there were literally people from all over the world at this wedding!

Something we have recently learned is that many South Africans do not get married because of the great cost involved. Not only do you have to pay for dresses, suits, food, a church, photography and all the other wedding paraphernalia, but in the African cultures there is also the issue of paying a lobola. Traditionally, the lobola is a monetary or material gift paid by the groom's family to the bride's family to secure a marriage. A long time ago it would have been negotiated in terms of numbers of cows, but these days it is more likely to be discussed in terms of money. The bride's family can set an amount that is considered to be an honorable price for their daughter's hand and any prospective husband must be able to pay this before making her his wife. With so many people living in poverty, many men are not able to pay the necessary amount, so do not marry their partners, further adding to some of the social problems in some areas.

Being a tradition that stems from ideas of male dominance and of women as possessions, you would think that younger generations would be baulking at paying lobola in this day and age.

Yet, in my conversations with different women and girls about this issue over the past couple of months, I have learned that they do not see it in this light (must be my feminist side coming through!). One of the Mamas here described to me how disrespected she would feel if a prospective husband of hers discarded the tradition of lobola. Another girl explained how the tradition is important for her family to ensure that she is well taken care of. It seems that there is a sense of honor and pride that comes from the expectation of lobola and that this sense is more prevalent than notions of ownership and dominance. To be honest, I am still a little skeptical of the whole thing, however I am realising how necessary it is to look at everything from more than one, or even more than two, angles to understand its meaning.

My mum and dad arrived in South Africa on Thursday, which meant they were just in time for the festivities! We have so far had a great time catching up with them and letting them spoil us! We are heading off later in the week for a holiday at Kruger National Park. You can expect lots of photos upon our return!

Below is some of the video I took of some of the many occurences of dancing at the wedding. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did!

June 16th: National Youth Day

June 16th, 1976 marked the beginning of significant change in South Africa. The Apartheid Government had recently introduced an edict stating that all students were to be taught in Afrikaans or English only, and many black students had had enough. In the township of Soweto, situated on the outskirts of Johannesburg, several high schools in the area began to protest for their right to education in their own language.

Black children's education standards had been in a steep decline since the early 1950s. The government systematically removed large amounts of funding from the black education system, redirecting funds towards schools for white children. A law passed in 1963 prohibited black children from attending 'white' schools, forcing these children to make the choice between attending underfunded schools or not attending school at all. Although populations in townships such as Soweto grew, no new schools were built to accommodate the rising numbers of students in these areas until 1972. When the government did begin to build schools, it was for the sole purpose of training black students to be labourers in specific industries. Black students had very little control or power when it came to their education; the edict that they must now learn only in the language of their oppressors was, in many ways, the straw that broke the camel's back.

June 16th was the day of what was planned to be a peaceful protest. Thousands of students streamed down one of the main roads in Soweto, picking up students from the high schools along the way. Unfortunately, the Authorities did not allow the protest to progress, raising tension levels and giving way to violent riots in which many students were killed. Outrage at the unnecessary brutality and violence by the authorities gave way to protests and riots throughout South Africa for the remainder of 1976, with over 600 individuals killed as a direct result of the movement. Suddenly, the black population was no longer quietly allowing injustice to dictate their future. South Africa was changed.

Thankfully, the world began to take notice, too. A photo of a 12 year old boy called Hector Pieterson (below), the second child to be killed by the police during the riots, became a symbol of the violence and brutality behind the Apartheid regime. The photo was given global attention and the world began to take serious notice, with many world leaders publicly criticising the government system, introducing economic sanctions and calling for immediate change.

It took another 18 years of struggle, but in 1994, instead of engaging in a civil war that would probably still be raging today, South Africa peacefully ended apartheid and began the road to healing and justice. June 16th, now a national holiday, is a significant reminder of the day it all began.

A Week (or so) of Netball Madness

Since coming to Refilwe, I have been very involved with the girls' netball team. Every Wednesday as an afterschool activity another teacher and I take our team of 10 girls up to Refilwe's netball/tennis courts for netball training. Now, in my early years I was a keen netball player (I may be using the term 'keen' loosely here; my memories of netball games involve me as Goal Shooter having friendly chats with the Goal Keeper the whole game while the ball never came down our end...) but since I was about 11, netball was a PE only sport for me. Needless to say, over the past three months I have grown much more affectionate towards the sport as a whole and have even started tearing up the court as the Wing Attack for Refilwe's All Star Ladies Team.

The girls that play for our school team have varied abilities, but are quickly learning to play together as a team. Last week we took them to a nearby high school for their first 'real' game against another team. What an experience it was for our poor girls: we drove in to the carpark, got out of our cars and had to walk the length of a large quadrangle, feeling the stares of the 200 students watching us arrive. The "netball" court (which was actually a tennis court with chalk-drawn lines and circles) was then surrounded by said 200 students, singing and cheering for their home team. To say that our girls were intimidated would be an understatement: they had strange bewildered looks on their faces the entire first quarter. As they grew more comfortable their confidence grew, to the point where they even scored a couple of goals. At the end of the day I was quite the proud coach! 

Now, I realise most of you reading from the US probably have no idea that netball is even a sport. I'm not going to explain it to you here; get your uneducated selves on to Wikipedia and learn all about it.

Netball has also been the topic of the week for many of the ladies here at Refilwe. Friday afternoon we also had a 'real' match against a team sent by one of our corporate donors. (The photos dispersed throughout this blog are from our game- I was too busy [badly] umpiring the girls' game to take photos. Next time!) In preparation, we had a couple of practice matches during the week that consisted of half of the Refilwe mob heading up to the courts for some crazy netball times. You know you're comfortable with a group of people when you're running around screaming their names and jabbing them in the ribs! It was certainly hectic, but such a reminder of the way in which sport can bring people together.

Community development organisations often use sports as a way of connecting with and building communities that may otherwise be difficult to reach. I remember learning in my uni days about soccer programs started in some African countries as a means of HIV/AIDS awareness and education. Sport can be a universal language that teaches about healthy living, teamwork and community building. For young people it can be a means by which they become engaged in something new and productive, drawing them into an organisation without any strings attached. In South Africa, there are so many things going up against young people living in poverty: difficult home lives and a lack of resources and/or motivation to engage in positive activities mean that many young people end up using alcohol or other drugs and entering into unhealthy relationships (either friendship or romantic). Both have the potential to put a young person at a higher risk of contracting avoidable diseases and making unwise life choices. It sounds simple, but just providing free alternatives such as regular sporting activity can be life changing for some.

Some of you netball enthusiasts may have scrutinised the photos well enough to notice that the game we played on Friday was not the most professional of matches. It was good fun, though. Playing against a corporate sponsor's team, we had the chance to put faces to an otherwise faceless body and teach them a little bit about what Refilwe is all about (as well as a few netball rules to some!). And this time our team won, 16-7. Not that winning is the point, but it's still nice!