Granny Evelyn

Alexandra Township outside Johannesburg, South Africa, has little in common with the Northwoods retreat where I now live. I used to think it was so crowded nothing green could grow there, but this picture shows there is at least one, no, two trees in the area. In the background is one of the notoriously violent hostels built to house workers brought from the African homelands to the city to fill job needs under the old apartheid regime. I have been told that more than two thousand men live in that building. Surrounding the hostel are small houses. Some are reasonably comfortable, but to pay the high cost of the mortgage (or bond, as it is locally called) multiple shacks were built in the yard and rented out. I described one of these courtyards when I visited Imelda.

Granny Evelyn lives in a similar courtyard. She is one of the grannies from the group at the Baptist Church that I talked with about reading with their grandchildren. Besides her own grandchildren, Granny Evelyn does child care for a dozen small children whose parents are trying to make a living in this challenging environment. My friend Ruth dropped off a box of chocolate Easter eggs for the little ones to enjoy. Eleven teenage orphans living on their own will stop by in the evening for the hot meal Granny Evelyn prepares.

Only a few grannies came to the meeting that day. They talked about how to grow the group. "You can be a granny without being old," they said. "Can the younger grannies come?" These older grannies have a lot to teach younger grannies like me about unselfishly giving of ourselves.