Welcome to Botshabelo

I’m arrived and settled at Botshabelo, at last. I arrived here about a week and a half ago and it’s been a fascinating combination of easing in slowly and being pushed into the deep end.

I got a transfer from my hostel to the Johannesburg airport where a man named Joseph met me to drive me out to Botshabelo. After a long, but mostly uneventful drive through the traffic headed out of the city, we pulled onto the property late in the evening. After stepping out of the car, I was treated to a muddy greeting by a handful of the dozen or so dogs and given the keys to my new home.

I am staying in one bedroom in a small two-bedroom house with a bathroom, an airy and open kitchen/dining/common area, and a large deck shared with a currently empty two-story house next door that is used as a conference room and to house volunteers. A woman named Dipuo occupies the other bedroom in my house with her 1-year-old daughter. Dipuo is a year older than I, has two other children living here (one in the daycare and the other in school), and grew up here herself.

To give you some perspective of Botshabelo and the way it operates, I’ll share a story from my very first hour. After I arrived, I was told that Nicole Cloete, the woman with whom I’d communicated prior to my arrival, would stop by to meet me around 8pm and in the meantime, I was invited to unpack and get settled and left alone. So, I did just that. I unpacked my bag, put away groceries, and rearranged the furniture in my bedroom. Suddenly, a little girl appeared in the living room area carrying an armful of something in a plastic bag. I guessed that she was about 9. She said that she was going to wash in the restroom. Given that I had been here about 4 minutes, I assumed she knew what she was doing and perhaps lived in the room next to mine with Dipuo. Shortly, I realized that she meant she was going to bathe in there and shortly after that, three more girls arrived to do the same. I was grateful that there were at least other kids there with us now, but then suddenly they were all naked, the bathroom door was open, they were asking me questions, and then the hand-held faucet was turned on accidentally and sprayed down the entire bathroom, soaking everything. It was . . . hectic. I couldn’t find any towels, the girls’ clothes were dripping wet, I didn’t know who to talk to or even where to find anyone else (my house is at the front of the property and by now it was pitch black), and all the while my child abuse prevention training from 7 summers as a camp counselor was throwing up red flags and blazing sirens for me to get out of that situation. Obviously, I did nothing inappropriate, but standing around in the living room trying to have a conversation across a language barrier with four naked girls was uncomfortable at best.

About an hour and a half after I first arrived and 20 minutes after the girls had left, Nicole and her twin sister, Leigh, stopped by to say hello and let me know that my induction would be at 10am the next morning. I mentioned the girls coming in to bathe and they said that they’d mistaken this place for a different bathroom that they were supposed to use. Mystery solved. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch which bathroom it was that they were supposed to use, so I wasn’t exactly helpful to the next girl who knocked on the door 15 minutes later.

That initial experience has been extremely characteristic of my first week here. Everyone else here knows exactly what’s going on and is absolutely too busy to hold my hand and walk me through how it all works. And there is not an ounce of sarcasm in that comment. It’s completely accurate. There are 160 kids of all ages living here, about 80 of whom go home a few times a year and 80 of whom live here full time, and the small group of family members, employees, and volunteers must see to it that all of these children are fed, cleaned, dressed, educated, medicated, loved, counseled, and parented all day, every day. That’s not including what they must do for their own families or with the village of 800 people at the back of the property. I mean it’s honestly an absolute miracle that this group of people makes it through the day. It’s incredible to watch and thrilling to take part in. I’m learning as I go and starting to ask better questions. I have every faith that I’ll figure this place out about two days before it’s time to go home.

Helping to ease my transition into this new environment are the dozen or so dogs that are a part of this community. Marion told me on my second day that they would look after me and I’ve officially been adopted into the pack. There is one dog in particular, a peculiarly adorable “street special” named King, who has decided that I am his and he is mine. It’s remarkably comforting to know that they are asleep on the porch outside and to hear them bark and chase after the butterfly that threatened the perimeter. He’d probably sleep with me in my bed if he didn’t consistently have ticks. Country dogs, right? Many people in the area are actually afraid of dogs, so having them follow me everywhere I go is also a great comfort while I get used to my new surroundings and meet new people. They even came with me on my run the other day, although they looked a little ragged on the way back down the hill . . .

"My" dog, King, taking a sunny snooze on the deck outside my house while I work.

I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell I’ve been doing with my time, since that was a question I was unable to answer before my departure. And while I can safely say that no two days are alike, I can give you a bit of a picture of what my typical day might involve.

During the week, I’m up eeeeeeeeeearly in the morning to be in the children’s rooms by 5:15am to help get everybody get up, dressed for school, teeth brushed, beds made, dirty laundry collected, trunks packed, and rooms cleaned. There are around 7 connected bedrooms filled with bunk beds and children and their things, all of which are connected to Marion and Con’s bedroom. Marion and Con are the couple who started this place and still run it today. It’s an absolute madhouse in there during these transition times like waking up and going to bed. Once the kids are ready, they go through Marion’s room where she inspects them, and then to the dining hall for breakfast. From there, it’s straight to the classrooms for school, which starts between 7:15 and 7:30am.

Once the kids are in school, I usually head back to my house to exercise, bathe, and eat some breakfast. The kids are in school until 3pm, so I spend the day working on my tasks, such as helping Botshabelo catch up on its bookkeeping, creating files for each child that will include detailed genealogies (or as detailed as possible) to help maintain the child’s lineage even after their parents have died and to aid in dealings with the home affairs office around identification, prepping to aid Marion lead a sex education program for all of the children here, or working on readings or assignments for school.

[Sidebar: The accounting stuff is a crazy story. Several years ago, a big accounting firm in Johannesburg reached out to Botshabelo offering to do their books as part of their corporate social responsibility. Great! Except that they then sent Botshabelo a bill for nearly R40,000 (that’s about $3,500). They were barely eating at the time, so when they said that they couldn’t pay it, the company then held their records ransom. By the time they got them back, they were four years behind in their books, meaning that they cannot apply for grants or other funding, or even access the R20,000 in their PayPal account. Huh-what?! This is something in which I hope to put a serious dent before I leave.]

When school is out at 3pm, the children have another meal (they eat 5 times a day), and are then free to play soccer or sing or work on homework. Then, around 5 or 5:30pm, every child on the property bathes. It’s a herculean effort. Supper is around 7:30pm, at which time I duck home to cook for myself, then there may be evening activities. There is a choir that practices Wednesday evenings, house meetings on Tuesdays, family meeting on Friday, I may read stories to some of the kids before bed, and there’s probably other things I don’t even know about yet. Bed time is technically 9pm, but I gather that Marion and Con spend at least 1.5-2 hours getting everybody in bed and asleep.

Once a week, I also go into town and spend the day at the Wimpy, a fastfood restaurant, where I can use wifi and submit school assignments undisturbed. The problem is that it’s not unlimited free wifi. I get 30 minutes or 50MB. Not a lot when you’re wanting to Skype with your professor or send and receive lots of emails . . . Or check Facebook . . . . . Or upload a blog post . . . . . . .

On the weekends, I may visit a client in a juvenile detention center in Rustenburg, take a child to visit his father in a maximum security prison in Krugersdorp, play and talk with the kids, greet and look after visiting parents, help with chores, or any number of other things. And on Saturday nights (and sometimes Fridays) the kids have a dance party in front of the classrooms. It’s the best fun!

Oh, and Sunday is technically my “day off.” We'll see how easily I manage to maintain that boundary.

Other highlights in my first week and a half include administering a rapid HIV test on a woman from the village (it was negative!), sitting in a disciplinary meeting for the entire group of students in grades 7, 8, and 9, breaking down on the highway into town, witnessing Marion negotiate a relationship dispute between a couple in the village, sitting in on a meeting with a group of people wanting to facilitate a type of movement-based therapy with the children, welcoming a volunteer who will be here for three weeks, and assisting with a family from their initial inquiry to Botshabelo to assessment to intervention, in which five children came to live with us (this is a story for another blog post).

Folks, this is a place to watch. So much happens here in a day and it will be my honor and privilege to give you a glimpse inside the work happening here. Until next time!