Welcome to Baphumelele, Time to Pull Out Your Hair

This week I started my volunteer work for a children's home in Khaylelitsha. Baphumelele, the home's name, was started by Mama Rosie, who "was disturbed to see young children going through the rubbish dump in search for food while their parents were away during the day, either at work or in search of work" (baphumelele.org.za). Her response was to set up a home for children who needed supervision, nurturing, and education. Although many of the children have parents, they, for one reason or another, are not being cared for by them.

I had no clue what I was getting into as the bus pulled up to Baphumelele. The drive had been through a poor township filled with hap-hazard shacks, children playing by the side of the road, and stray dogs running in and out of traffic. What I witnessed was poverty that I will probably will never see again. As we piled out of the van, children ran to us and started tugging on us to follow them. A scene of chaos ensued as the children ran to their schooling locations. Me and my partner, Maggie, chose to be with 7-8 year olds, which we thought would be a cute, but behaved group based on their age. We were sort of right.

The beginning started out alright with me going through a slide-show of the English alphabet and different animals that started with each letter. The children surprised me by knowing a fair amount of English words. Maggie and I had been warned before hand that the children's first language was Xhosa, and therefore may not know any English. The first hour passed without incident, but the second hour turned out to be a test of my patience and of my ability to control a crowd. It all started when I decided to break things up by doing a "freeze dance" contest, where I would play music and stop songs at random places; the children would then stop and "freeze". If they moved an inch, they were out! For this game, I had put together an extravagant South African playlist, which I was proud of. As I started playing Miriam Makeba though, the children begged me to play Michael Jackson. Thankfully, I had his greatest hits CD on my iTunes, which made the kids cheer. The game quickly got out of hand, and Maggie and I were sent scrambling for a new activity to keep the kids under control. One little boy started kicking another boy, making him cry. A girl decided the mayhem was beneath her and walked out to the house. I started feeling very panicky and racked my brain for any structured activity that I had done in my past. Fortune Tellers! Fortune Tellers are flower-looking thing made out of folded paper. Under different flaps one writes different fortunes. There is a whole game that follows picking numbers that correspond to different flaps- In the end, a flap is lifted and the fortune underneath is read to the person playing.

My second time at Baphumelele proved to be easier. We had a math day that included "Math World Cup", which was a play off of a math game called Math NHL that I played in 4th grade. Towards the end the group again got antsy and out of control. Instead of trying to think of something last minute, we just let the kids play outside on the playground. It was on the playground that I started to fall in love with the kids in my group. Kids started lining up to have me spin them, and I was definitely having a great time physically playing with the children. I have already particularly felt a connection with a boy called Ayenda. Although he is quite the troublemaker, he excels at English and in math, and has the best Michael Jackson dance moves.

I'm excited, but already stressed about my visit tomorrow. I'm hoping as time goes on, planning and allocating supplies for class will get easier and getting through the class time will be stress-free. Next class we'll be teaching the kids about Halloween in the U.S. and doing various activities such as mask-making, balloon ghosts, and bobbing for apples.

I can already feel as though I will have a strong connection to my kids and to Baphumelele by the end of this program. There will definitely be many tears of stress, frustration, love, and longing throughout my time here.