2004 Interns

CAPE TOWN

Linda Arnade
South African Red Cross
Week One

On my first day at the Wynberg chapter of the South African Red Cross, I attended a staff meeting and introduced myself, explaining my general purpose for being in South Africa. After the meeting, I met with Dr. Doug Davidson, the director of the provincial branch in Wynberg, and learned that my official job title is intern. Dr. Davidson and my other two supervisors -- Julianne Rodgers who heads the youth training department and a lady named Pearl who directs the home-based care HIV/AIDS unit -- are aware that I have to do a research project. As an intern, I’ll go along with Julie, Pearl, or another member of the Red Cross almost daily to the townships and assist with their activities. They seemed against my doing paperwork or secretarial type of work because they thought it would be boring and prefer that I am out in the field. However, Dr. Davidson suggested that I conduct a project about the strengths and weaknesses of the Red Cross youth department, home-based care unit, or possibly even another department. Dr. Davidson also encouraged me to collaborate with other organizations the Red Cross works in conjunction with such as Doctors without Borders, Treatment Action Campaign, the Red Cross hospital, and researchers from the University of Cape Town, as well as all the departments of this chapter of the Red Cross and the National Red Cross. He also mentioned that transportation might be an issue, but that it would probably sort itself out.

The principle projects and programs of my organization coincide with the mission of the international Red Cross. These projects are first aid training, disaster relief, home-based HIV/AIDS care, HIV/AIDS emotional support, food parcel distribution, youth training, and public relations/fundraising. The main projects are in the townships and the two foci seem to be the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and flooding and/or fires within the townships. Townships are slum-like areas where blacks were forced to live in during the apartheid movement. This chapter of the Red Cross is below the regional and national levels. There is an even smaller office that is located directly within the township of Khayelitscha (which means in Xhosa “New Home”). Interestingly, I seem to fit somewhere in between these two offices. I am the visiting intern in both offices, but have involved myself more in the activities of the local township office because Julie wants me to be involved in the field.

I don’t yet have assigned tasks, but I have been shadowing Julie to see what they do with home-based care and youth. We’ve been going to the township of Khayelitscha every day this week. I helped hand out food parcels, attended a support group meeting for women and men of this township with HIV/AIDS, observed the income generation project of bead making (and ending up buying a bead bracelet), and spoke to the women who run the AIDS support group. The main challenge was that the support group meeting was completely in Xhosa, so I was dependent on translators during the meeting. The other days were spent going to different houses that require special assistance. Three were child-headed households where both parents had died from AIDS and another was a man who was paralyzed from the waist down after getting shot three times in the back. At all of these houses I was able to informally speak informally with all of them about their “story.” I was slightly taken aback and deeply saddened by some of the stories. I also was able to tour the offices of Doctors without Borders, Treatment Action Campaign, and the “Memory Box” Project.

I think my roles and responsibilities will change to some extent as I become more involved in my organization and understand their principal projects and programs. However, in a certain way at this point I feel more like an ethnographer than a volunteer. I have been able to conduct more informal interviews and speak to people about their experiences with HIV/AIDS than really assist.

I think the different communities that I am interacting with perceive me in a different light. I feel that the Wynberg office of the Red Cross where I am working perceives me as the “young American intern.” I think they aren’t really sure exactly what I am doing on a daily basis, but they do know that Julie serves as my main supervisor. I feel the people within the township perceive me as the “curious American who wants to conduct interviews and hear people’s stories.” I almost feel that they believe I am there more to learn than really help/serve/assist. My question, should these two things be separate entities? I wonder if this is because of previous Americans who conducted research within this township.

One of my main questions at this point actually is which research topic I am going to undertake. Many of my colleagues have given me ideas and I am not sure which one to choose and how specific I should make it. Dr. Davidson, the director the Wynberg branch, seemed really keen that I should address the strengths and weaknesses of the Red Cross. This seems a little broad and I plan to ask him if he has a more specific area/department that he would like me to address the strengths and weaknesses of. I am also questioning my jurisdiction as an American to come and offer constructive criticism of an organization as well country/culture I am just becoming familiar with. Another idea proposed to me in the township office was assessing the number of children who are orphans. I am questioning how feasible this would be since I don’t speak Xhosa, but of course it’s not impossible. Another question I am dealing with is whether to conduct research that would be interesting or more along the lines of being “useful knowledge” for the organization (hopefully both). So far, all of my work has been very intellectually stimulating. The transportation issue is still a question, but it will get settled this week as I begin to ask around more to others who work in the office or look into public transportation or even possibly biking to work. Also, Julie plans on going back to the Youth Department next week full time so I am wondering if I will continue working with her or more with Pearl. I was refreshed though because on Friday we planned out a tentative schedule for the following week and set up a number of meetings with different Red Cross related groups. I am very excited about the coming weeks.

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Tomas Lopez
Southern Africa Environmental Project
Week One

I have been in South Africa for four weeks, and having reached the (approximate) halfway point of my time here, I am going through all head-slapping and scratching that goes with that kind of retrospective moment. “Where did the time go?” “What have I done here?” “But have I done anything at all?” “What more can I do with the five weeks I have left here?” I wrote two weeks ago that I really didn’t yet feel as if I was in a foreign country. I don’t know how much more “immersed” or not I feel today, but I think there may be something to the idea that I’m compartmentalizing my life here in reaction to the intensity of everything around me. Let me elaborate.

Adam, Linda, and I live in a well furnished flat in a well-to-do neighborhood called Rondebosch. There’s a park in front of the mouth of the private road that leads to our house. Despite ever-present concerns about crime, I’ve seen men and women jogging by themselves around here well into the night. Down the street is Bishop’s, an exclusive prep school that reminds me a lot of the one I found myself in back in New York. Across is Rondebosch Boys’, Bishop’s equally fancy rival. Up Campground Road I go work out nearly daily at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa alongside Olympians, professionals, and other Americans. I can get all the soy food and oatmeal I want at 4 nearby supermarkets, and I can get a bottle Castle Lager, a fine South African beer, for six rand – or one dollar. As David and I have exchanged over, living well here is relatively inexpensive. I certainly feel wealthier than I’ve ever felt before in my life. Naturally, it’s a nice, secure feeling.

I work at an NGO out of a house in Rosebank, another pleasant upper-class neighborhood 15 minutes away by foot. The Southern Africa Environmental Project (SAEP) conducts extramural programs at three high schools in the black townships on the Cape Flats, outside of the city’s original borders. The townships consist largely of informal settlements; my very first impression of Cape Town came from the sight of tin and plywood shacks stretching over the horizon. At SAEP, I get to visit very modest high schools surrounded by extreme poverty (and all that goes with it). While I don’t work at the schools as much I expected to (my internship coincides largely with school exam periods and holidays), I have been well exposed to this side of South African life through my interactions with the 5 township high school graduates who are SAEP’s gap year interns.

SAEP takes on five township high school graduates annually to commit to a gap year with the organization while they apply to universities. These interns work out of the organization’s office in Rosebank (which doubles as its directors’ home) and their efforts are central to SAEP’s programs. They are teachers (they conduct many of the programs themselves), journalists (they publish an SAEP newsletter which they sell for R1 at the schools), artists (several are avid poets, and others aspiring filmmakers), cultural border-crossers (they are often called upon to translate English into the complex, click-filled Xhosa spoken by many here in the Western Cape) and learners (their English language skills are far from polished, and their university acceptance prospects are uncertain). I spend more time with them than any other group of people here, save Adam and Linda. Part of my job at SAEP, aside from my research involving one of the high schools, involves mentoring the interns and preparing them for university. I edit their writing, brush up their CVs, work on their English, and discuss their hopes and dreams. They have taught me a lot about South Africa in both knowing and unintentional ways.

All of these interns have led intensely challenging lives to this point. Getting to know them has led me to believe that my numbness is not unique to being an American or a foreigner or an English speaker or an oblivious person. I believe that it may be central to life for nearly everyone here.

I spend much of my day in a small room in the SAEP house with the interns and four slow, buggy computers. We have a boom box that plays the latest South African hits, most of which are American. I spend a lot of time hopping from computer to computer co-editing articles or poems. Last Wednesday, Asanda, one of the interns, wanted me to see a poem that he was working on. The title wasn’t anything memorable, but I began to read the piece. It was well written but cryptic. It seemed to be about a funeral and made passing references to Christmas and family. It was clearly very emotional.

“What do you think, Tom?” Somehow, the interns have taken to calling me Tom. The only other people who call me Tom are family members.

“Well. I think it’s strong. Your language is very sharp.” I wasn’t sure how to proceed.
“I’m not sure about some of my metaphors. It could be clearer, maybe.”

“Hmm. What are you talking about here exactly?” I highlighted something in the first stanza.

“My brother was murdered a few years ago.” Asanda was very offhand about it.

“Ah. Well. And… Christmas?”

“He was killed Christmas night. The next day usually everyone goes to the beach, but we didn’t do that then.” That explained the Christmas references more than adequately.

Before I had the chance to respond, a popular kwaito track started playing on the radio. Kwaito is South African hip hop that’s sprung from the townships and is particular popular in the townships. It’s one of the few genuinely local aspects of the popular culture here. As “dinosaur” came on, Asanda and Khangelani started dancing – and they wanted to see my moves. Dancing to “dinosaur” involves stomping around like a velociraptor. I kept my elbows pinned to my sides and froze my fingers in a clawing position, attempting to mimic what the guys were doing much more smoothly and knowingly. I bent my knees and spread my legs a shoulder-length apart. I took heavy steps around the room, alternating each leg’s push forward with a ginger shoulder shimmy. I did a circuit around the whole room – and, I’m proud to say, I didn’t fall. The interns couldn’t stop laughing. Nossisa tried covering her mouth, and Sandiso just looked down at his notebook and shook his head. Asanda was hunched over in a fit.

Then “dinosaur” ended, and an American tune came on; Ginuwine or Glenn Lewis – something smoother and mellower. We all returned to what we were doing four minutes before. For me and Asanda, that meant editing that poem. We were talking about Christmas again.

“So I used the Christmas reference because my brother was killed Christmas night. I don’t want it to be not clear.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“I want this poem to be great, so I want to keep working on it.”

“We will.”

Just as I said that, Norton came in and pulled me out for a meeting.

Ten minutes before, Asanda and I started talking about his poem. Three minutes later, he made its meaning clear. Just then, “dinosaur” came on, and we danced and laughed like we’d been doing it all day. Four minutes later, we were back on the original topic: murder and mourning. And as soon as we were back on the topic, I was on my way out and the issue was closed. Asanda closed Microsoft Word and went to check his email on another computer.

Asanda’s ability to jump from talking about his brother’s murder to dancing to kwaito and back reminds me of the way I go to Philippi, walk among tin shacks, and return home to eat toast with some fancy apricot jam. It just seems too easy to me. One day last week I saw ten street children walking up to car windows at a single intersection in Rondebosch. Then I went and goofed off on my computer. I want to be more effected by what I see here, but it just seems as if I store it away on some dusty shelf in my brain’s medicine cabinet.

I’ve been really bothered by the fact that often I don’t feel like I’m in this distinct place called South Africa. The ease with which I seem to have handled the challenges I’ve encountered so far seems kind of fucked up. I’ve wondered if I’m oblivious, self-centered, ignorant, or just that laid-back. I’ve been thinking that maybe I just seek out home, as in America or Duke or New York, in everything I see here. But when Asanda told me about his elegy, stopped suddenly, danced “dinosaur,” hunched over laughing, and then resumed matter-of-factly relating his brother’s murder, I saw his emotional separation demonstrated in a shocking but personally familiar sequence. I think I might be more in South Africa than I’ve suspected.

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Adam Yoffie
Gun Free South Africa
Week One

I am working for Gun Free South Africa this summer. I have only been able to work for two days yet they proved to be two very eventful days. I spent Thursday meeting the five other employees in the office. I was treated to a very nice lunch and given plenty of materials to read. I managed to endear myself to my boss, Margy, by helping push her car to a petrol station after it broke down in the middle of the highway. I then spent Friday morning stuffing envelopes for three hours. Although it was not exactly intellectually rigorous work, it gave me the opportunity to bond with the office administrator June. I was finally able to meet with my boss and discuss my work for the summer over lunch that afternoon.

Let me first explain a little about Gun Free South Africa. In addition to the main office that is located in Johannesburg, there is my office in Cape Town and a few newly emerging branches in the townships. The organization’s name succinctly explains its mission. South Africa has one of the highest murder rates in the world. Firearms are used in a number of crimes ranging from car hijackings to robbery. Gun Free is dedicated to eradicating the violence by lobbying for strict gun control legislation and ensuring that such legislation is actually implemented in the streets. The non-profit employs a wide array of tactics, such as prevention education, training seminars, and the media, in order to achieve its goals. Gun Free cannot limit itself to one specific community since gun violence is all too common throughout the country.

Along with the office administrator and my boss, there are two other full-time employees and one part-time employee. Jasmine, who only works with Gun Free a couple of days a week, helps organize Women Waging Peace – one of the organization’s major programs that focuses on empowering local women to combat violence. Lewina does a little bit of everything in the field and Thembani provides support to the new branches and also works with youth.

I will be spending a lot of time with Thembani, who was shot twice last December when four armed men tried to hijack his car, since I will be exploring how Gun Free can best work with youth. Margy informed me that the only thing the organization knows is that youth want something different from adults and are unwilling to sit through training sessions. As of now, my work is divided into three separate yet interconnected segments that will span the entire summer. I will be working on all them simultaneously in order to produce a final report that will include my recommendations for the organization. First of all, I will be doing oral histories throughout the summer in order to speak with youth about their experiences and ask them what they believe it will take to get more youth involved with the organization. I hope to be able to archive them at the University of Cape Town and begin an archive for Gun Free. I will also meet with different non-governmental organizations in the area, such as the Treatment Action Campaign, that work with youth in order to find out what works best for them. Finally, I will be researching different curricula used by schools and other organizations that emphasize conflict resolution and non-violence.

I am sure that my work will change over time as I begin to make appointments and actually go out into the field. It is unclear how willing other organizations will be to meet with me and whether I will be able to conduct enough research in such a short time. Nonetheless, I am confident that the organization will build upon my work in the future and actually take my recommendations into consideration. The whole project is a little daunting since I will be on my own. Yet I am sure that my co-workers will provide support, advice, and most importantly – detailed directions. I know that I will be accompanied by Thembani whenever I am in the townships and will also be included in the weekly planning meetings. It is clear that the rest of the office views me as a full-time employee, and I really appreciate the fact that I am not seen as just another young intern. I only hope that I will be able to develop similar relationships with the other non-profit organizations and interviewees.

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