Saturday's Cool

"Saturday's Cool" their T-shirts proclaim. If you say it fast, it sounds like something your kids probably want to avoid. But four hundred and fifty learners grades five to twelve are eager to participate in the Rose-ACT tutoring program run on the boarder of Alexandra Township by Rosebank Union Church, Hurlingham, South Africa. There's even a waiting list of a hundred and fifty to pay the fee of sixty South African rand a term (about US$6). Classes are taught by 115 volunteers, about half of whom are from Alexandra Township, home to most of the students. Many are graduates of the program. I arrived in time to wade through the jam around the "library"--a tiny office lined with bookshelves and bins of books.

"This is nothing," said Anneke, the Dutch volunteer who works for IBM during the week, and runs the library on Saturday. "You should have seen it a few minutes ago!"

The dance club was just getting started after the academic classes ended. Later I checked out the science club where learners were engineering balsa wood structures for a coming competition. There's also a chess club.

I was there to meet with student volunteers who help in various creches (pre-schools) and after school programs in this community deeply affected by poverty, unemployment and HIV. There was a good bit of confusion getting started. (This is Africa, after all, and a North American like me needs lots of flexibility.) But eventually we were eight teens, Anneke and me. We read sample stories and talked about what to look for when choosing books to read to little ones and how to interact with them in the reading. (See my notes.) Although a couple looked like they were wondering why they were there, most were interested. One girl came to find out about reading with her five-year-old brother. It was exciting to see eyes light with understanding as if a proverbial bulb had been turned on.

During the week the facility is a technical college. The room echoed terribly, and it was hard to carry on a discussion, but I read Rosie the Brave and demonstrated different ways to involve listeners. It is the end of term or I would be eager to go back and meet with them again. I would love to hear them practice reading with each other. Next time...

The Rose-ACT website is being up-dated but check it out for more information. The entire program has one paid employee.

Alexandra Grannies

There was a line hundreds long outside the Alexandra fire station.

"That will affect numbers at the grannies support group," my SIM colleague, Ruth Maxwell, told me as we drove by. We suspected the government was handing out food packages and making sure everyone knew which party was in control of this bounty before next months elections.

Sure enough, numbers were down. Eventually six older women and one man joined the young ladies who work in home care in the area. One woman brought a grandchild who hadn't gone to school that day due to a tummy upset. Some spoke fluent English, although they lapsed into South Sotho when they spoke among themselves. All understood me well enough to laugh heartily at Marjorie van Heerden's Lulama's Long Way Home and nod their heads to my reasons why reading with their grandchildren was a good idea. (See Reading with Grannies .) They even knew the locations of, not one, but two public libraries within walking distance, and we talked about how to get a library card and borrow books for free as long as you return them on time. (South African libraries are still into heavy overdue fines.)

Ruth had told me that one of the women, Nkele, is an acknowledged artist in the community. Her creativity was obvious as Ruth brought out a box of fabric scraps and asked for ideas how they could be used to raise money for the group. I am going to be talking with Nkele about possibly illustrating one of my stories. Ruth has contacts who know how to write grants for such projects, and using a local artist will make it a good project for the church.

While the ladies sorted through the scrap box and exclaimed at their finds, Bonolo, Nkele's nine-year-old granddaughter, poured over the sample books I had brought. She told me her name means 'soft'. I thought how soft and cuddly her parents must have found her when she was new-born. Now her father is dead and her mother is very sick--an all-too-common story. Bonolo has a loving grandmother, reaching out to her neighbors and fighting for her family's future. That's why Ruth, Selina, Octavia and others consider it a privilege to stand along side them in their struggle.

Back to Tembisa

Africa. It's never quite what you expect. I arrived in Jozi Tuesday evening exhausted from two long flights. Wednesday afternoon I headed to Tembisa. I knew my way. I've been to Tembisa Baptist Church dozens of times. But that place by the train station where I always leave the asphalt to follow the dirt road along the tracks to the church--they're paving it, and there is no way through.

Paving is good.

No way through is bad.

Of course, there must be a way around, but I haven't been that way before. Try this street. No. They're paving there too. That one? More construction. The streets don't go in straight lines and form predictable squares like back home in the American Midwest. They twist and turn, and there is no point in looking at the street signs, because no one uses their names anyway. They use landmarks like the BP station I'm looking for. Except they have closed the BP station, and the sign is no longer there.

"That must have been it," I realize when I come to where the road goes under the railroad tracks that I wish I had been able to follow. I turn around for the fourth time.

When I arrive at the church, I get what I am expecting--an enthusiastic welcome. Kids spot me through the fence when I get out of the car and come running. We have a round of hugs and hand shakes. (Even the smallest African child knows how to shake hands politely.) They flutter after me as I greet the adults who cook their hot meal and keep things running at the center. They show me the cement slab and brick walls of the new church. And when I pull out the books sent by one of my friends at Solid Word Bible Church, they pounce like kittens on a ball of yarn. Fortunately there aren't a lot of children today probably due to the rain. There are enough new books to go around and soon a row of children, each engrossed in a new book, sits on the steel girder that waits on the floor of the new sanctuary for the engineer to raise it to hold the roof.

"Let me read to you," one girl says. So I listen to part of The Wild and then to a whole lot about sharks and some of another book.

We read until the raindrops begin to splatter on the pages, and we start home. The children scatter on foot. I get back in my borrowed mission car.

"If I turn left at the former BP station," I reason, "I should come to the road that passes near the library."

Bad idea. Did I mention that the streets don't make straight lines and right angles like they do in the Midwest? Twenty minutes later I have no idea how to find either the library or the Baptist Church, much less the road home.

A lot of my white friends would be nervous about coming to an African town like Thembisa alone. I'm not, but "Lord, please get me out of here before dark."

By the time I find the library, it is closing time--too late to visit my librarian friend, Poppy--but it IS still daylight, and from here I know my way home.

Reading with Grannies

Why should an African grandmother raising children orphaned by AIDS bother to read to them?

Next week I'm returning to Johannesburg, South Africa for three weeks. I'll be visiting the two after-school programs in Thembisa where I read books when I lived there. I'm anxious to see how the library bins I left behind are being used as well as to spend time with all my young friends. Hopefully I can be an encouragement to the children's librarians working in Thembisa.

I am especially excited to have been invited to share with some African grandmothers and godparents of orphans in near-by Alexandra Township. Most of these women have no pension or social security. They expected that their grown children would care for them in their old age. Instead their children have died, leaving them responsible for young grandchildren. Community organizations attempt to come along side these families, not only to help with practical matters like groceries and filling out government forms for assistance, but also to provide the respite of simple day care and advice on raising children in a modern world that is very different from the South Africa in which these grandmothers grew up. I will be very surprised if any of these grannies owned a book as a child or had someone read to them. They may have had a granny who told them stories, but that role in modern urban culture has been taken over by the television even in the poorest of homes.

So why would an African granny read with the children she is raising?
1. Reading together builds a close relationship with that child who has lost the security of parents. It is a way of spending focused time and saying to that child, you are important to me; you have worth as a person.
2. Reading together prepares that child for success in school as he sees how much Granny values reading and learns some basic skills and concepts. And success in school will translate into better jobs in adulthood.
3. Reading with children opens doors to conversations about faith, good choices and even the process of grieving. This is the most African of reasons since traditional culture has long used stories for teaching and indirectly solving conflicts.
Of course, I will flesh out each of these ideas, and we will have fun reading some favorite books.

I hope these grannies will catch some enthusiasm for sharing books with the children in their lives. If I can get even one to sign up for a library card, I will have achieved the ultimate success!
[Picture is from Our Gran by Susan Binion, illustrated by Kathy Haasdyk (Pietermaritzburg, UBI, 2007)]

New Writing Blogs

Christmas is over; the new year has begun. I am typing this on my old PC (not the new, hand-me-down Mac), and I still don’t have an office to work in. (The builder will be here next week!) But it is time to get back to writing more regularly. This fall I have produced so little that I have been ashamed to call myself a writer.

Some of you have shared with me from time to time your own desires to write. Two new blogs about the craft have just started up. Between the Lines was launched this week by my agent and her colleagues at the Books and Such Agency. The plan is to introduce a new topic each week. Feedback and interaction is encouraged so tune in prepared to learn. The Newsflash column on the right scrolls through “juicy tidbits” from the world of publishing. Between the Lines is part of the agency website which is full of information like a list of recommended reading for potential authors, a page on how to find the right agent, and submission guidelines for this agency. I hope you will find it useful.

Seven Christian fiction authors connected with Books and Such have also started a blog. Novel Matters seeks “to engage and explore irresistible fiction – specifically fiction written from a Christian perspective.” They define that as “a perspective that explores the dignity, humanity and mystery of the human experience in light of God’s character.” This week Bonnie Grove, author Talking to the Dead (Cook, June 2009) shares about herself and her ideas about Christian fiction. Promotions and resources are promised for the future.

The internet has given us a huge body of resources, so if you want to become a writer, either for money or for ministry, there are lots of ways to develop your skills.

Not in South Africa anymore

I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. Brazilians stick cotton balls on their trees. South Africans spray 'snow' in the corners of shop windows to simulate what they see of the Northern Hemisphere. But this year we get the real thing and lots of it. It was twenty-four degrees below zero Farenheit last week. (That's thirty-three below Celsius.) Today feels almost balmy at ten above (negative twelve Celsius). (Well not quite...) I look outside my window and know I am not in South Africa any more.

(I am trying to figure out a new computer so you probably won't hear from me again until after the holidays.)

Jesus and the sick children

A few months ago a community nurse in Malawi wrote Hannelore, the children’s ministries champion for our mission (SIM), asking for pictures of Jesus with African children.

“I work as a community nurse,” Helen wrote, “visiting the sick and handicapped in their homes...around Blantyr, Malawi.... About one quarter of my patients are children, some of them orphans, some are handicapped, and some are living with HIV. Just two weeks ago one of my children, a girl of 13, died from severe heart failure.” As well as monitoring the child physically, Helen and her colleagues had told her about Jesus, his desire to be her Saviour and to take her to heaven.

Helen was hoping to find a picture of Jesus with a sick child. She wrote, “I would like to be able to give a picture to each sick child, so that they have a visual reminder that Jesus cares for them.”

The letter was forwarded to me since she also asked for a book “about an African child who is suffering from AIDS.... if there is one.” I was able to refer her to Lindiwe’s List for books about HIV/AIDS for African children, but none of those books contained a picture of Jesus with a sick African child.

Hannelore informed me that there were some funds available. I have been an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators in South Africa, so I posted an invitation on their site. From the illustrators who applied, we chose Siobhan Blundell . Just because she lives in Africa doesn’t mean that Siobhan has first-hand contact with black African culture. It took some going back and forth for her to understand that we didn’t want an upper-class, suburban African home.

Helen had some specific ideas of what she wanted: a mat, not a bed; mosquito netting as an important part of fighting malaria. It wasn’t hard to make the child in the picture pass for either a boy or a girl since children of either gender often wear very short hair. We wanted a cross to be a reminder of how great Christ’s love is and what he has done to make it possible for the sick child to join him in heaven. Siobhan worked it beautifully into the window and surrounded it with the light of hope.

The picture is finally finished and will soon be available for workers all over Africa to download to use with children. We anticipate posters in clinics and small cards to send home with sick children as Helen originally dreamed. We may even print note cards as a fund raiser for supporting churches. But the most important part is that sick African children understand that they aren’t forgotten. Jesus, who healed the sick when he walked the earth, who shared their suffering when he died, who blessed the children; this Jesus wants to adopt them into his own forever family.