Day Eight: Monday, Monday…

Life will always serve up funny moments in the absurd. Whether or not that is a Murphy’s Law or not, is should be.

Today, we were stopped by the police as we were driving through Soweto. Now, Soweto is a Johannesburg township, but it is so much more than that. It first came to the world’s attention in June 1976 in what is now known as “The Soweto Uprising” when police opened fire on thousands – mainly students – who were marching against the government. Official statistics of how many died remain sketchy but it triggered the anger and the passion that eventually lead to the fall of apartheid. Nelson Mandela lived in Soweto before he was arrested and imprisoned on Robbin Island for decades. Soweto is referred to, by tour companies, as 'the symbol of African struggle against Apartheid. ' I love watching the tour buses roll in to visit the museums or Mandela's house. The pasty tourists roll of the buses and take photos like they are at a human zoo. But I digress.

Soweto was, and still is, overwhelming black and many parts of it are in absolute, abject poverty; a lot of our grannies live here in tin-roofed shacks, no bigger than the size of a small bedroom, where they are usually housing anywhere from one to seven or eight grandchildren. Sure, there are wealthier parts of Soweto– something a lot of tourists aren’t aware of – but we’re not talking mansions. Poverty, unemployment, and HIV are still the main game. Many South Africans, white and black, don’t like going to Soweto. Some think it is too risky. I’ve been more than a half a dozen times and I’ve never felt threatened, but that’s only my experience.

So, when we were stopped by the police today – four white women, being driven by one black woman – they raised some eyebrows. The funny thing is the black woman was Sister Meisie, basically the boss of all of us. We were heading to a furniture store. The policeman got us to stop, took one look at us (three volunteers, one staff member) and said:

“You’re in Soweto. How do you feel?”

Maybe he wanted us to say we felt safe, I don’t know. He seemed honestly curious. It was pretty funny. We had the giggles as we drove away.

Why were we going to a furniture store? A wonderful reason: One of the smaller businesses here in Jo’burg saw a DVD on Cotlands’ Home Based Care program and asked to sponsor one of the grannies. Home Based Care is the program where we are active in the community, bringing food and medicine and support to the myriad of children, mums and grannies coping, or not as the case often is. Sophie is a 72-year old granny with four grandkids living in horrific conditions. She was featured in the DVD and this company called up Cotlands and to ask what they could do for her. They have now bought her a house – no more than a couple of rooms, but way more than she has – and furniture and will buy clothes for her kids. It reminded me of Rose, a granny I’d met last year who had had such a huge impact on me. And then Meisie told me Sophie would be living beside Rose and we were going to visit her. I could barely contain my excitement at seeing her again.

When I came last year Rose was living in a leaky shack, with one large double bed, no running water and seven grandchildren under her care. The day I met her she burst into tears sporadically: when she showed me the pamphlet for Oprah's school (her daughter was on the shortlist), how she struggled to feed and care for the brood of kids left to her when all her children died of AIDS. Two of her grandchildern are positive and the one I met that day a year ago had massive diarrhea; he was running down a dirt path 10 times a day to go to the neighbor's washroom. Rose was severely depressed at the time, but Cotlands had just secured funding for a new house - like Sophie's - and some of her tears were tears of gratitude: how she had no food for her grandchildren before Cotlands, how they brought her medicine and were buying her a house, how her granddaughter may be going to Oprah's school.

When we walked into her new home today Rose embraced me. I got shivers as I looked around – you could see the pride she has in her home. There is a small bedroom where some of the grandkids sleep, a larger sitting room with pull-out couches, a stereo and a television, a little stove, pots and pans and a fridge which keeps the ARVs. “Cotlands changed my life,” Rose said emotionally. She is a different woman, smiling and happy. She showed me photos of her grandkids: the daughter never made it into Oprah's school but is still studying, the one who was so sickly is doing much better and her eldest granddaughter is studying her matric, what you need to go to university. Rose hugged me tightly, her large bosom crushing my tiny one, and I could feel happiness. A new home, and promise. That's all.

So here’s my Sally Struthers pitch: Rose is one of many, many grannies. Cotlands has an adopt-a-granny program. For R2000 (that’s about $330 Canadian) you can buy a house for a granny like Sophie or Rose . That small act will completely and totally change their life. You can make a one-off donation – honestly, Cotlands are not the type of people who will hound you. If you email Lyndsay Barr, the volunteer coordinator lyndsay@cotlands.org and in charge of the granny program and say, “I’m a friend of Erin’s and I want to buy a granny a house” she’ll take down your details and then we’ll provide you with all the follow-up of how your one act of generosity has changed the life of a granny. I know it is hard to imagine the poverty, the dire circumstances they live through but it is real, it is happening. It is shocking.

I came back to the office from Soweto and the day flew by. I did a photo shoot with the kids - god I love them - and interviewed more staff for work I'm going to do after I'm gone. I’m going to update my blog all week as I holiday through the wine region and on the coast near Cape Town – Tony and I deserve a mini-break, I think – but I don’t want to race through the other amazing things I’ve learned this week. Like how ARVs are saving lives but the kids are cognitively challenged and aren't developing intellectually, how some of the darlings I’ve gotten to know and love didn’t walk until they were 3.5 years old. I will continue to talk of the many projects Cotlands is running and the challenges it - and South Africa - faces in the fight against AIDS. And I have to remind you and myself, AIDS is everywhere in Africa: 25 million (at least) are living with AIDS. There is so much work to be done.

All I know, as I wrap up my first stint with Cotlands and move into my cyber-role as Cotlands' volunteer communications go-to-girl is that this has been one of the most life altering, rewarding and fulfilling experiences of my life. The people I interviewed at Cotlands said one thing to me that stuck: you either “get it” or you don’t. I think I got it. I hope some of you, did too. I met Jeannie today who has been volunteering for 11 years; I interviewed Jackie, the amazing executive director in charge of all this, who has been here 10 years. When I asked them what keeps them going they had different answers but they both amounted to the same sentiment: They see the challenge, and they rise to it. The work will never be done - like the hole in the bucket - but the reason they do what they do, whether it is once a week or everyday, is simple:

It’s all about the children.

Stay posted for photos. They’ll blow you away.