Return to Alex

Tuesday I went back to Alexandra, the township where I visited before with colleague Ruth Maxwell and the team from Rosebank Union Church. (See the blog entry for April 27, 2008) We made a second visit to Takalani pre-school. When we arrived in April the children were just exiting the building to use buckets on the porch as substitute toilets since the neighbors were not excited about that many ‘extras’ using their public toilet. This time we saw three new toilets being installed for the pre-school. A group of men hacked away at a cement patio to make a little niche to hold the sewer pipe. Of course the new toilets are in the next courtyard where the babies stay. The pre-schoolers will have to go around other houses to get there, but hey! It’s better than buckets!

We dropped off some toys and food supplies, and I read We All Go on Safari; a Swahili Counting Book. We skipped the Swahili since it isn’t a Southern African language, but the kids had fun counting in English and identifying the different animals.

At the next place we also dropped off supplies. Maria, who runs this little pre-school, wants to reach the poorest of the poor. She only charges fifty to a hundred rand (US$8-15) per month, depending on ability to pay, and provides a hot meal for the children. There were forty-two of them plus three workers in a sheltered courtyard about 10 by 15 feet. The floor was on a couple different levels, neither of them smooth or even. Two tiny, windowless rooms on one side provide a place for napping children. I suspect they also serve as family bedrooms at night. Oh, yeah. One toilet. Maria is making plans to add toilets and close in the courtyard a bit more from the cold Johannesburg winter. Rosebank Union Church with will do what they can to help.

I read Our Gran and We all go on Safari. I was struck that not only do the children enjoy the books, but the workers seem to be encouraged by someone coming with an interesting activity. Part of the tiny courtyard was taken up with a jungle gym, hung with laundry and a few storage boxes, although they didn’t stop children from climbing. In one corner a tattered sign hung from a string: Music area. Five feet away in another corner a sign read, ‘Art area.’ I didn’t see any particular difference in the two cramped corners, but the signs said to me that this woman with little formal training is trying to put into practice what she has heard about how to run a pre-school. Her heart is huge. The need is tremendous.

Ruth is trying to recruit people who would be willing to go into the many similar pre-schools and day care centers in Alexandra Township on a regular basis. A child psychiatrist in the church said, “Read to these children every day, and you will change their lives forever.” Seeing the enthusiasm of my Tembisa kids being read to weekly, I can imagine it is true.