Good Food, Good Conversation.

I recently had the opportunity to partake in an Afrikaaner Feast. Catered by some good friends of Refilwe, I sat down to experience some of the cuisine unique to the Afrikaans culture here in South Africa. The spread consisted of biltong soup and cheese bread for entree, springbokjies (cherries wrapped in bacon), pumpkin fritters and steak kebabs for main and mini malva puddings for dessert, giving us more culinary delight than we could handle.

The feast was thrown for some of the teenagers that live here at Refilwe. Jaco and I arranged a time for them to come and enjoy themselves, eat a good meal and to give them an opportunity to talk and ask questions about their experiences here. You should be aware by now that I have been working with most of these teenagers at Refilwe's Hands of Hope school in the role of teacher and counselor. In my conversations with Jaco about some of the issues that seemed to be themes for many of the teenagers, we came up with the idea of giving them some time and space to forum some of these issues for themselves.

After an hour or so of wonderful food, we settled down with coffee and dessert to get to the business of talking. Having had conversations about the various topics with most of them, I was able to facilitate some discussion around issues such as relationships and dating, feeling trusted, discipline procedures, etc etc. One of the most interesting topics that has come up for me lately with my students has been 'outsiders' views of the children here at Refilwe. To quote one of my students, he asked of Jaco 'Why do they say we are orphans? We all have families that we live with here.'

This idea is a good reminder to me of the work that Refilwe is doing. Yes, some of the children living here have been orphaned and many have come from difficult and unlivable family situations, but the moment they became 'Refilwe Children' they were no longer orphaned or vulnerable. There is keen significance in this fact for the children who live here- their identity is not in that they are orphans, but in that they are part of a family who loves and cares for them no matter what. The struggle comes for many of the teenagers when they read and hear donor and other volunteer organisations' descriptions of Refilwe's role in their lives. It seems that the idea of 'neglected and orphaned' children draws sympathy (and money) from the public, inaccurate as it may be.

Ultimately it is the teenagers' individual decision which identity they choose. Refilwe receives a lot of different support, donations both financial and in kind as well as regular volunteering. It is easy to assume the role of needy and vulnerable child here, what with the amount of donors and volunteers coming ready to 'help the poor children'. The kids must take some responsibility in how they allow themselves to be viewed, not just choosing when and how they want to be indignant about the misunderstanding of their situation. In all of this, the challenge for Refilwe is to direct some of this good intention to the many children just down the road who truly are vulnerable.