Kwa Mashu, Inanda, and "Fat Cook"

Yesterday was a big day. We went to two townships, Kwa Mashu and Inanda, with a team of four to speak with high school principals about the possibility of doing Life Skills programs at their schools. In general, the response we received was positive. Whether it's due to a genuine interest in our program or a genuine disinterest in creating their own curriculum, I'm not sure.

But being in the townships was an experience in itself. I'm continually amazed by how little people need to live. So many of these families are packed into one- or two-room homes. They are without running water or a bathroom. They have few personal belongings. But they love each other - and love is what makes a home.

Dealing with a history of apartheid is incredibly challenging for me, as an outsider. I can't even imagine how difficult it is for the blacks and Indians. The end of apartheid was in 1994 - only 12 years ago - and I don't think that 12 years is nearly long enough to forgive and move on from something so terrible. One member of our team yesterday was a white South African who volunteers here at the Y. We were talking to one of the principals about getting a large group of students together and he said that they don't have a space that holds more than one class at a time. She was surprised and said, "Don't you have a hall or something?" And he looked right at us and laughed. I felt like he was saying, "You kept us under the rule of apartheid for decades and gave us no money to build and maintain our schools. What do you expect?"

In one of the towships yesterday we stopped to buy "Fat Cook" - which is probably not how it's really spelled, but that's what it sounds like. I think it means "cookie of cooking fat" in Afrikaans and it sounds more like "fet kook" when they say it. But it's essentially fried bread dough - and it is the most delightful combination of carbohydrates and saturated fat I have ever consumed. Really. Yum. Apparently the tradition is to eat it with polony (imagine the disgusting artificiality of bologna x10) and cheese but I passed on those.