On Monday morning I went with Lunga and Roland to visit some self-help projects in the rural areas outside of Durban. I was in what is called the “INK” area (that stands for something but I forget what it is!). We first went and met with a group of about 8 gathered outside a tiny one room house of the convenor of the group. It may have been a tiny house, but it was on the side of one of the endless number of hills – with a truly spectacular view of the valley and the small lake in the center of the valley. We sat while chickens scratched around us. This group gathers every week and collects 1 rand (about 15 cents) from each person that is kept and used as operating capital for their business ventures. As we sat outside in the hot sun (and cool breeze) the chickens had to be constantly swatted away. We had arrived late and one of the jokesters in the group told us, in Zulu, that we would have to pay a late fee. Our conversation had to be translated back and forth in English and Zulu. They all introduced themselves – first their names and then their church affiliation. Conor and Jordan got a big kick out of the fact that I was introduced to the group as “grandfather” by Lunga (it was her own little joke). They use their money, their capital to buy things like beads and fabric, to turn into hats and jewelry. They have been meeting for about a year and they laid out what they have made before us. They tell us about how they have about 250 rand that they have collected together. They each have a book where they keep track of the money and there is one book for the group as a whole. Each week they rotate who is keeping the money. They talked about the discipline of that for themselves – the realization that they couldn’t spend this money – when they might need it – because it is not theirs alone. They usually meet on a Tuesday, but had been asked to meet on Monday so that I could meet them – I was very grateful. At the beginning they had taken part in an exercise which I enjoyed quite a lot. Two of the people had volunteered and each had been given a piece of bread and told that they could eat, but that they had to hold the bread out straight from their bodies and that they could not bend their elbows! Of course, they couldn’t eat that way – but they soon figured out that they could feed each other. They were then asked to reflect on what this exercise had taught them.
Then we drove over to another hill, not to far away – where we met in an empty building – a community center with a relatively new group of about 20. They had their own exercise – where in the bare concrete center they laid two large pieces of newsprint on which were drawn three circles. They were to list the gifts that each of them had inside the center circle and then all the ways in which those gifts were shared within the circle of their community (mainly economically) and then the ways in which gifts inside their community were shared just outside the community and then all the way outside. Then they looked at what resources come from the outside in. It took about an hour and they agreed that next time they would meet that they would “un-pack” this experience. They asked me questions and I asked them questions – and I hope and believe we learned a few things from each other. Again – I was impressed with their commitment. They did talk about the real difficulty of crime in their area. They particularly spoke of a rise in child rape. They wondered what they could do about it – and they said that in many cases they new the perpetrators – that they were people of their community. These are people in the new South Africa who act like citizens – people who are committed to their own development as well as the development of their neighbors and their community. Impressive. They talk of hard things – but they see them as their problems together and that they need to work to resolve them (with the assistance of government and neighbors).
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