Whit in South Africa: Community Visits

The last couple days have been AMAZING!!!!!!!! Megan, my roommate, and I went up to the clinic on Monday to join Maria and Joyce as they walked around Joe Slovo. They are a beautiful and kind women called caregivers that work for the local free clinic and do home check ins and ask about the needs in the particular community. Joe Slovo is very close to my heart and my home. It is a township that has been built on government property and consists of tin and brick homes. They’re about 200+ people who live there. Joe Slovo is located right behind Refilwe so there is a lot of interactions between our two communities.
We visited 5 people all soo sweet and not feeling well plus chatted with people as we were walking though. We helped a women who lives in the community, her name is Elizabeth, she was born in 1915!!!!! I cant even imagine all the things she has seen! I wish she spoke english so I could talk with her and learn all about her life. We had to bring her down to the clinic because of her leg. When Sister Didi (doctor) saw her, she made her get up and they started dancing!!!! Haha so funny and such a cool thing to witness.
Megs was asking a lot of good questions about the community as we walked and about some of the biggest needs. The two biggest Joe Slovo needs were running water and Electricity in the Homes. There is one large light that sits in the middle of the community and lights it at night because there is no individual lights in the houses. Maria was saying that that was more a want and a lot of people were “content” without those things. I guess its more of a they’re more important things that needs to be addressed first. Joyce was saying that when they ask about more personal needs and biggest issues it was actually food! That would explain why gardens have recently been popping up a lot.
What was brought to my mind was Lunch that kids club provides. Every Saturday a group of us volunteers get together and go up to Joe Slovo and gather all the kids (around 70) and bring them to Refilwe. They are able to play on the playground, we sing songs and then talk about a Bible story. At the end we feed them a nutritious lunch before bringing them back home. It was encouraging to know that we are filling that need already on a small scale.

Joe Slovo

Path to Joe Slovo along the Refilwe fence

Joe Slovo At Night

On Tuesday Rachel and I went out again with Joyce and Maria to some more communities along Malibongwe, which is a main road in Johannesburg. It was cool to see up close other communities away from Refilwe. We visited three different areas all on foot. The first family wasn’t home but we were able to talk to the mans’ neighbors a bit. The second area was a super small community of wooden and tin houses. Maria and Joyce talked with different families about the variety needs in the area. We visited a super sweet old man who sat in a chair in his hut for most of the day. Then we saw an older couple who were called “the lovers” in Tswana by the caregivers because they loved each other after so many years of marriage. They really were just too cute : ) Our last couple that we visited suffered from aids and were being vacated from their house and were temporarily living in their employers broken garage.
It was so incredibly eye-opening to see such absolute poverty up close. Now I have to find the balance of looking at all the needs and being overwhelmed with wanting to help all of it and then becoming callous to the hurt and not letting it affect the deepest parts of the heart.