GAPA entries for 5/3 and 5/4

Monday, 3rd May 2010
9:15AM – 3:15PM

Today was a great day. It was random, but that’s what made it great. When I first came to GAPA two weeks ago, Vivienne and Althea told me that many unplanned things come up throughout the day, and you just learn to handle and adapt in the ever-changing schedules.

I arrived a little late, but Althea was not yet at GAPA. I started doing the “Photovoice” reading for the research class, which put simply, is a way of understanding the community and having the community documenting the reality of their lives and critically reflect on the factors that might oppress them. Two coincidences. One, last Friday, in my free time, Althea had me read an article featured in a women’s magazine about one of the grandmothers. The article was of a grandmother’s schedule in a normal day, which included waking up at five, heating water to bathe her grandchildren, taking care of her mentally disabled sons, etc. Two, over the weekend, Althea was reading a book about the method “Participatory Video,” which has essentially the same approaches and benefits as photovoice. I looked through her book and read through the ethics and limits of the method. Really interesting. I love how what I’m learning, combined with my interest of taking pictures and gathering stories was all combined in my work.
I met a man named “Conference” today. He lives down the street from GAPA, and he is absolutely brilliant and has actually had several of his writings published in the local newspaper. Conference came to the office and hands a huge sum of money to Althea. He wants her to keep it safe for him; Althea thought it would be better to open up a bank account for him. Later, Althea would share with me that many people in the community come to GAPA for help, and she likes doing it (“I try to help people when I can”).

We drove to the Khayelitsha mall after going to the Cape Town city hall, and it was extremely crowded. Yesterday was payday so people were withdrawing money because their paychecks are automatically put into their bank accounts. I also saw a sick young man, lying down in the middle of the walkway. People just walked by and/or stared; no one knew what to do. Penny, one of the GAPA employees who was there with us, shared she saw someone a few days in the same position in her neighborhood, and she had no idea what to do. This reminds me of what Jarred, a Stanford student here on a fellowship, told me about the emergency response system in the townships. It takes an average of 3-4 hours for an ambulance to arrive, and in that time, the person has either already passed away or is in a much more critical condition. He is working to educate people within the community to be able to respond before ambulances arrive. Also, when I was in Gugulethu, another township, while I was talking back from the liquor store, I saw a man being carried out of a house by three people. What’s going on, I asked. “Alcohol poisoning.” That reminds me of…I could go on and on about stories I’ve heard while being here or things I’ve witnessed relating to health, inequalities, and interventions in South Africa…

While waiting at the bank, Conference showed us his notebook which contained hundreds of unorganized phrases. He read some to us, and though they were not organized; they were lovely to listen to. Toothless and smacking his lips, Conference shared with us one of his most recent entries: “I have things I want to do. Whatever I want to do, I follow through. No matter how hard it gets, I follow through. Come rain, come shine.” Like I said, lovely to listen to.

When I came back, I got a chance to talk to Sylvia, the grandmother who translated for me on Friday. We talked for a while, and I shared with her the video I taped last Friday of the grandmothers singing and dancing to one of the songs. It was my favorite one they were singing, and she translated it for me: “O Lord, keep us safe. Hold me in your hand. Keep us safe from the Devil. You’re the only one who can keep us through.” Sylvia and I continued to talk about our Christian faith, and our faiths in God providing us all we need.

Afterwards, I started doing my work. I typed out the lyrics to Xhosa lullabies that were sung by the grandmothers for their children. Xhosa is so pretty when song. The grandmothers translated for me, and I learned how to say baboon in Xhosa! “Imfene.” Afterwards, Althea and I met afterwards and talked for a long time about work that needed to be done in the net few weeks for the documentation project and the health club. I’m really looking forward to all the work that we’re doing, especially that it relates so much to what I’m learning in my service-learning and research classes that it’s almost creepy, i.e. documentation, research methods, public health interventions, surveys, cultural humility, etc.

One thing I am anxious about however is all that has to be (or should be) accomplished in the next few weeks. Every day (especially in social sector work), challenges and unexpected situations come up that need to be addressed. Inevitably, in handling these oftentimes-difficult situations—whether they may be bureaucratic decision-making, filling out paperwork, or someone from the community needing to be taken the mall to open up a bank account—organizational tasks get pushed to the side, and things get delayed. “You have to learn how to handle with whatever comes up because you never know what’ll come up when you arrive in GAPA,” Althea told me as we were leaving Khayelitsha mall. Deadlines do not necessarily change with the unexpected and unforeseen needs and situations, which results in more stress for the women at GAPA. Plans and project implementations get delayed.

Hopefully we will be able to carry out some of the plans, especially that Althea has given me specific tasks she wants me to do in the next few weeks, i.e. lead a discussion about health tomorrow at the health club to gauge their understanding of “health” and their perceived needs. This is the plan for tomorrow, early afternoon, but we’ll see what happens. To be honest I’m pretty excited about this, because this is exactly the type of stuff we’ll be talking about in research class this week. How to structure health interventions with the community by getting the community members to critically reflect and analyze their own situations.
Regardless though, if tomorrow’s agenda follows through or foils, I hope I can just be of service and learn in whatever situations arise. “Come rain, come shine.”

Tuesday, 4th May 2010
12:15PM – 4:00PM

Today I got to meet Kathleen, the original founder of GAPA. She is an elderly, white South African, who actually was the madam for the mother of Vivienne, GAPA’s current director. The perfect way to describe Kathleen is this: think of a basketball coach. Replace the young, athletic coach with an elderly woman. And instead of coaching players; she’s coaching women working in the non-profit sector. Tough love. She’s real and says it the ways it is. Her words may sound harsh, but she’s careful about her words and she knows it’s what the listener needs to hear. She’s strong and passionate, and listening to her talk to Vivienne and Althea, I was inspired by her words. She reminded all of us of the values GAPA was founded on.

Their meeting was mainly about the inter-group conflict that exploded the previous week. She was giving her opinions and thoughts about the situation, and also critiqued GAPA’s current work. Kathleen talked about what she saw as potential problems and how to handle different problems, emphasizing that we all come from very different backgrounds, cultures,  and ways of understanding. I wrote down some of what she was saying…Isolated, they may not sound that profound, but hearing her and knowing the context of the situation, her words were just what I needed to hear. They gave me a different perspective on the situation, on the grandmothers, etc.

On what action should be taken to resolve the inter-group conflict
    •    “My ‘fair,’ what your ‘fair’ is, and what ‘fair’ is for a grandmother living in poverty her whole life – our ‘fair’s’ are not the same; they’re different.”

On sharing profits with the group v. keeping profits earned by an individual
    •    “[Making them share their profits] is what created the system. Knocking them down once one person starts advancing.”

On what Althea and Vivienne should be (not) doing
    •    “They are adults, [you] can’t work it out for them. Sort it out among yourselves [the grandmothers].”

On some of the personal hardships of working in GAPA
    •    “[The grandmothers] they’re bullies. But they’ve gone through a lot. Take off your hat for them and I always do that for them.”

Althea expressed what many people in her work oftentimes feel—even I’ve felt this way. She was telling Kathleen how sometime she wonders if she’s making a difference because she’s not from the Xhosa culture, she doesn’t know the language…before Althea could finish, Kathleen cut her off:
    •    “Don’t worry about that!...Show them the way, give them a gentle nudge. But you can’t do it for them…can’t be all things for all people.” You do what you can, but in the end, it’s their decisions, Kathleen was essentially saying.

I felt pretty pumped listening to Kathleen. Especially with yesterday’s reminder that things can’t always go to plan and how progress seems to be slow-moving and inefficient, her words could not have come in a better time. Yes, the “planned” agenda of me facilitating a discussion on health today did not happen, but I’m learning to adapt with the situations.

Later, Althea had me go through the health indemnity forms that were filled out by the health club members this morning. I did a lot of data input on Excel and looked for trends. As boring and tedious as it may sound, I was actually really enjoyed doing it for a number of reasons. One is that I now have a better understanding of the health profiles of the women with whom I’ll be working. This is only a technical assessment of their health; hopefully with a discussion I’ll have a social assessment. Eventually however I will have a better idea of creative ways and solutions of addressing their different health needs.

One of the directors of the Clothing Bank came and talked to the grandmothers. Though I was not in the meeting, I can overhear most of what was being said. Imagine what it’s like getting females with dominant, strong personalities and opinions all together in a room discussing a topic such as money. It was apparent that everyone—the grandmothers, the GAPA directors, and the Clothing Bank, all had different assumptions and agendas for the partnership. The conversation was intense, but it was open and honest. Everyone listened and attempted to understand where the other was coming from.