No Words

Because sometimes it's hard to find the words, I thought I would show you some of my experiences through pictures.

Here are some of my favorites that I've taken in the last few weeks. There are more to come and I also have several albums on my facebook if you're interested. Enjoy.

Bongeziwe Mabandla poses for a photo before he goes on stage at House of Nsako. His music is a mixture of African folk, world, and soul but his Xhosa lyrics seem to strike a chord with even non-speakers.

Chris Wilson and Mothusi Thusi jump against a graffiti wall at a school in Melville. The school paid for local artists to paint it and some of the messages read "Stay in School". The artists were arrested while painting because the police didn't believe them when they said they were hired to do it.

Students in Mpumalanga province pose for the camera while playing soccer during one of their breaks from class.

A Grade One learner who is learning to read in her mother-tongue language takes a break from reading for her teacher.

This child stayed and stared at me through the window for almost all of my visit.

Remembering the Rain

I’m in the coffee shop and can smell the rain before it comes down. In sheets it starts slowly and then dark clouds mask the sunshine and hail balls pound the pavement. The sky cracks and thunder echoes outside, providing a backdrop to the Norah Jones soundtrack that plays softly in the warm café.

I look out through the padlocked French doors and see the violet petals now flattened in small pools of water. I wish I had my camera because right now, the reflections are beautiful.

A little girl with nothing wrong, and she’s all alone…

I momentarily flash back to my living room in Portland. The gray outside, the fire in the fireplace—perhaps it’s a Sunday. Norah Jones is playing on the old CD player that was a gift from an ex-boyfriend of my mom’s. Or is it a friend of Ben’s?

My mom and I are reading in the living room. Muffy is curled up next to the fire. And I have this feeling that runs through my entire body: I am so content in this little world. I never need to go outside, I can stay in all day and do exactly this. If it is possible, I feel nostalgic for a moment that is happening as I am experiencing it.

My mom looks over at me and says that the song reminds her of me. I smile and understand why.

Spinning, laughing, dancing to her favorite song...

When I was really little, my mom used to play Bach on the piano. There was one song in particular that was my favorite and I would spin around the living room, twirling and twirling as the music climaxed. I would jump up on the couch and then down again completely uninhibited. When the music came to a close I would fall dramatically in the middle of the floor.

I don’t know if my mom noticed as she concentrated on the keys. Her long fingers elegantly stretching the octaves, pressing down as she glanced up again to check the music.

Eyes wide open, always hoping for the sun…

There are few distinct memories that I have. I have always wanted to be someone like my friend Kyle who can remember nearly every moment that ever happened—what was said, who was there (for better or worse)—but rather my memory is composed of feelings contrived from a series of events.

But the rain always takes me back to Portland.

To the warmth of the house, the smell of the fire (slash Duraflame log).

To Christmases spent running down the stairs in the morning and finding oranges in the bottom of my stocking. 

To stripping off soaking wet running clothes or shin guards and feeling cold to my very core-- even after a shower and takeout from Du’s.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m traveling to search for something. To search for a place that was as comfortable as my childhood. I have met people and learned about myself, I have encountered sadness and turmoil no matter where I am in the world.

But yet, whenever it rains if I close my eyes I am back in the living room-- spinning and twirling to the music. I am unsure if the knot in my stomach signifies my sadness at a time that has passed or my yearning for another complete moment that perhaps won’t slip through my grasp so easily this time.

Crooked little smile on her face. Tells a tale of grace that’s all her own.

The rain clears and they push the windows open letting in the sunlight. The music switches to salsa and my cloud of memory is gone. Through the French doors, only the puddles and petals remain.

At the Heart

I feel like I’ve sat down to write a blog post so many times, but when my fingers start punching the keys nothing of worth has come out.

I guess it’s partially because it becomes harder to be a spectator of the experience you’re having once it stops being an experience and starts being your life. It has also become harder for me to detach myself from what I do every day to ask: what would people at home think is interesting? Which tidbits of life, who have I met, what have I seen would resonate with someone on the other side of the world?

To my luck, I’ve been able to express some of what I’ve been doing through photos and video, so at least that will paint the picture that my words can’t.

I do learn a bit more about myself and about South Africa and America every day. Last night (and nearly every Wednesday since I’ve been here) I’ve gone to a bar/club/restaurant called House of Nsako for Bantu Boer night. The idea is very progressive and aims to bring together the diverse generation that is shaping the future of South Africa.

We normally watch a thought-provoking and somewhat controversial documentary about Africa, and then have a discussion about what it means for this country. Nsako is like a mutual meeting place—there are both white and black South Africans and also a number of international people come to discuss the issues that are facing the nation.

Each time that I go, I listen attentively to the discussions that are very often racially charged. But I still haven't gotten the courage to speak confidently.

Last night we watched a documentary about Zimbabwe, what has happened under Mugabe, and how it is a microcosm of Africa as a whole. The discussion moved towards which type of government is best for South Africa and the rest of the continent.

It’s so interesting to be in a place where this generation of people really has the power to shape the future of South Africa. It was very clear last night that the days of the ANC are limited and people are starting to question which party, which leader, will actually be the best for South Africa. There is no other country like it in the world, so why should it try to emulate those governments?

The speakers challenged democracy and challenged each other to just look at South Africa: Without comparing it to the democracy of the West, what would work here?

There is so much potential for this country to set the standard for Africa. It is the first world, it is the third world, and if this generation of people can rise up and make the country what they want it to be, I think it will eventually bring the baseline, poverty-stricken people up.

But I think it also has to start with the classroom.

I have been around enough to see the discrepancies in education. I have gone to schools where teachers don’t show up, where they neglect the given curriculum, where their passion is dead, or never existed in the first place.

If something isn’t done in these rural areas, the wealth discrepancy will continue, only perpetuated by access to good education. How is it that in 2009 a nine year-old in Johannesburg knows how to surf the internet, create little videos, upload photos... and a child in the Eastern Cape has never been read to in his entire life because there are no books in his mother-tongue language?

I have faith in the passion of the people here to make this country what they want it to be, and I only wonder if I will be part of that effort, or if I will be watching it from the other side of the world.

My Video for Umuzi

Dave and Andrew from the Umuzi Photo Club (umuziphotoclubnews.blogspot.com also has a better version of the video) are doing an interview for eTV (it's national!) and asked me to make a short video for them to show what goes on in the classroom.

Needless to say, I slaved over Final Cut for several days and this was the end result. 

Special thanks to:

Andrew and Dave for some of the footage and photos from the gallery. 

Thanks to Thato for giving me Final Cut Pro.

Thanks to the students for the amazing photographs and inspiration. 

Music: Amagugu "Ulimelani Endleleni (Why Are You Cultivating Near The Path?)"

Inside the Umuzi Photoclub Classroom from Emily Coppel on Vimeo.

Maybe it's Instinct

Hello wonderful family and friends,

I really regret that I haven’t been as on top of the blog (or emails, or messages etc) in the last month, but thank you all for being patient with me.

As most of you know, I started volunteering at another charity in the beginning of September. I can honestly say that there are few times in my life that I have worked so hard. I was literally coming home every day exhausted, and started cutting off from a lot of my friends here because I just didn’t have the energy to be social. For those of you who know me well, that is a BIG sign that there is an imbalance in my life.

I did enjoy the work, even though it really took it out of me. On top of what I was doing there, I was still working at Molteno and the Umuzi Photoclub (while trying to stay on top of my work for Mizzou). Combined, I think I was in a little over my head.

I’m not really going to go in to everything that transpired, but as of last week I stopped volunteering with the new charity. When I come back to the states, I promise I will fill you all in on some more details, but for now this isn’t the time or the place.

Please know that I am doing okay and that I welcomed the change and new chapter of my experience here. Thank you all for your messages and words of support-- they mean the world to me.

I have to say that going through this past month without the people that I care about most was probably one of the hardest things I have ever done. People have said to me that I’m so brave to come here and leave my family. For a long time I didn’t see it as bravery—Shelly is brave for getting her second tissue expander, Gladys is brave for taking on a new life when she knew no one and had no money—but me coming to South Africa never really seemed brave. Rather, it was expected.

But after experiencing so much emotional stress, and not being able to talk to the people I love in the moment of need is an ache like I’ve never felt before. Perhaps facing that pain and knowing that you don’t have a choice is one form of bravery... but I guess you can be the judge.

.....

On Thursday I left the house around noon. It was warm out and I walked the familiar way to Seventh Street: down Main—the busiest street in Melville—and then I turned on Fourth Avenue. The Car Gods shouted at me and I smiled and shook my head; I didn’t have any change for them.

As sun beat down on me, all of the events that had happened kept running through my head. The realizations stuck to the pit of my stomach and I felt nauseous thinking about what I was going to do now. I felt that lump crawl from my chest up to my throat.

Almost immediately I thought about my dad who I hadn’t talked to in a couple weeks. The urge to talk to him became almost overwhelming and I wished that it wasn’t 3am in Alaska.

I kept walking to The Loft (where I steal free internet from the place next door), wishing that I had left earlier so he might have been awake.

In the back of my head I thought about the quickest way to tell him what had happened. Seeing as he is a new facebook member, I decided to update my status to say that I had been fired. To my surprise he responded almost immediately. I jumped on Skype and found that he was online despite the obscene hour.

It turns out that he hadn’t been able to sleep and had had a feeling that something was wrong. He checked the computer and saw my status, responded, and stayed on Skype.

It boggles my mind that all the way (literally) on the other side of the world he had some how thought of me just when I needed him the most. This exact thing has happened with my mom and others since I’ve been in SA: My mom and I will miss each other at the same time—once I was in tears – and I later found out that at nearly the exact same moment she was thinking of me as well.

I will think of a friend from home and then check my facebook later in the day to see a message from that exact person, sent at almost the exact same time I was thinking about them.

Now you could say that all of this is coincidence. You could say that it is only natural for us to think of each other because it has been so long since we’ve been together. But so many people have experienced something similar that I can’t help but conclude we have some instinct that transcends time and location. Whatever it is, words can’t express how thankful I am for it.

 .....

Moving forward I am going to be planning a backpacking trip soon. I don't know how it is all going to come about or where I'm going to go-- but I know somehow it will. 

I've been fortunate enough recently to visit some schools in Limpopo (a province north of Jo'burg by the border of Zim) to see Molteno's new digital literacy program in action: (think old African women who barely speak English, with their hair tied back in cloth, learning how to click a mouse, drag and drop, and put words together in their mother tongue languages all on the computer). There is a video coming soon I promise. And yes, I took photos.

The photography workshop is going really well. I'm continually impressed with how thoughtful, daring, creative (the list goes on) these high schoolers are. They showed us around Hillbrow last weekend, which was definitely something I won't soon forget.

Now that I have more time on my hands I'll make more of an effort to put up multi-media content. Fridays are going to be my Umuzi/school days so I should be on the internet most of the time if you ever want to Skype/ struggle to make facebook chat work.

I love and miss you all, nine weeks to go-- can you believe it?

The Adult Ward

We walk down the halls of Jo’burg Gen (Hospital), Shelley is showing me the way because she’s been here before. I hand her the file and think to myself that I am completely useless and completely unnecessary because of my naiveté towards tissue expansions. 

Yes, I came weeks ago with the young boys who didn’t hesitate before jumping up on the hospital table, taking the syringe from the doctor’s hands. One, two, three. They pushed the saline solution into the “ports” behind their ears and I watched as the tumor-looking bulges on their heads began to expand, stretching their skin to accommodate the inflating bags under the surface.

But Shelley is 18, and this trip would be much different than the one in the children’s ward. 

Later I will try to voice my unease about the hospital with my boss and Chris, but I know it comes out trivial. They’ve seen this before. They’ve done this a million times. They’ve seen fresh burns, smelled the melting skin and waited for surgeries that never came soon enough.

And now it’s just Shelley and me, waiting in the queue with the coughing man and the woman with gauze on her neck who walks a bit sideways… and dozens of others.

Shelley has her hat on. It’s pretty and white and frames her beautiful face. Her eyes take everything in and she is quiet. I ask her meaningless questions that I convince myself will keep her distracted from where we are and from what is about to happen. She answers me politely and concisely then says nothing more.

Tissue expansion is a simple concept. The doctor who later treats Shelley says that it originated from the novelty of a woman’s pregnant belly: when forced, skin will expand.

Many burn survivors are left with spotty hair if they’ve been burned on the scalp. Tissue Expansion is one solution to give patients back their own real hair.

First they will undergo a surgical procedure where doctors will place a silicone bag under the part of the scalp with the most hair on it. The bag is similar to a breast implant but comes in different shapes, depending on what the patient needs. In addition, there is a small tube that goes from the bag to a small port that is also strategically placed under the patient’s scalp.

Over the course of three months, the patient will visit the hospital once, twice or three times a week depending on availability and a doctor will inject saline into the port. From the port, the saline will travel through the tube and inflate the bag, stretching the skin that has the most hair. After the patient has undergone all of the injections, they will have a large tumor-looking growth on their head covered with their real hair.

For the final operation, the bag is deflated and the skin that has been stretched with the hair is put over the patient’s head, eventually giving them a full head of hair.

This is Shelley’s first saline injection since she had her second Tissue Expander (the bag) put in. I can tell she is nervous and I ask her a little bit about her history with Children of Fire. She says she likes the charity and explains a little bit about how her dad found it. I ask her if she’s had a tissue expander before and she says yes. I can sense the dread.

Watching the three boys the week before, I remember being shocked at the ease with which they injected themselves. I remember asking myself if I could hold this needle and poke it in to the back of my head knowing that it is going to push my skin further into deformity all in the hopes that it will be fixed eventually.

I don’t think I could do it.

The silence in the hospital waiting room is unbearable. The room is unbearable. I look around at the rugby player whose arm is in a splint, leg in a cast, the boy whose parents have accompanied him, most likely wanting to fix his sagging purple eye.

There is the short white man with a small tumor looking abnormality on the bridge of his nose, blocking the eyesight out of one of his eyes. There is the old albino woman with her head down, wrinkles sagging from her face and her eyes closed. Next to her a black woman has taken up the identical position. 

I watch the old white couple in front of us who are trying to control an anxious three-year old colored girl who seems to have infinite energy that they may have had a handle on were they 20 years younger.

After waiting in the “Appointment” line we give our card to the receptionist and sit down. We wait.

I suggest Shelley and I play dots. She knows how and I find myself loving that the game is universal.

In between drawing lines I look up and watch an older over-weight black woman walk up and down past the waiting sick people. She has a clear tube hanging from her neck but I can’t figure out what it’s connected to on either side. She calls out names and hands out large pink folders to people waiting. When they get their folder they sit accordingly in the chairs next to the two offices where the doctors keep coming out of.

The Doctors

I would say the majority are some-what attractive Indian men. They strut up and down among the sickly, barely seeing the people suffering in front of them. Perhaps there are too many. Perhaps they have lost the sympathetic view that I can’t seem to escape. One or two cast me a glance-- they probably caught my glare.

We wait.

Half an hour goes by, an hour. An hour and a half. I ask Shelley if it normally takes this long. She says no, but says that the man with the lump on the bridge of his nose has been waiting for his folder as well.

Finally after the second game, she hears her name and takes her pink folder from the woman with the tube. We wait again outside one of the doctor’s rooms.

The other four, two kids who were getting injections and two volunteers, one of whom is writing an article about tissue expansion join us.

Shelley doesn’t seem phased and greets the kids.

We shift chairs as the patients in front of us go into the room. I look up at the Indian doctor guiding them in. I feel like even if I saw him on the street, without his white coat, I would still know he was a doctor.

Finally we sit in the chair next to the door and he invites us in waving the next patient on. Myself, Genevieve, Sizwe, Karabo and Maura follow Shelley into the room. She sits on the chair and takes off her hat.

Dr. M looks into her pink folder.

“Oh, you have a tissue expander.”

The doctor feels her head gently and asks her if it’s sore. She says it’s not. He feels its placement and talks to Maura about what a tissue expander is and how it works.

I watch Shelley’s face and wish I could tell her how brave she is without sounding cliché. I nod quietly at her and make eye contact. She looks at me then looks away.

Dr. M takes us in to the next room where hospital beds are separated by hanging sheets.

He continues to explain to Maura about how tissue expanders work. He draws her a diagram and then fills up a syringe. She will be getting 260ml of saline solution.

Shelley covers her face with her white hat and he sticks the syringe in the port behind her ear. She shudders.

I imagine it's me. I am in the chair, with the hat over my face. Waiting for this solution to be released so the bag on my head will expand. Later everyone will leave the hospital room. Later, everyone will forget about the three syringes. But I won't. I will be reminded every time I look in to the mirror. 

Where was I when I was 18? Wanting a boyfriend, shoping with my freinds, getting ready for college... where is Shelley?

I watch as he pushes the full syringe in, desperately wanting to say something to Shelley. Her face remains hidden.

When he fills up the next dose I feel the blood drain from my face. I watch as he pushes it in to her scalp. My ears start to ring and I’m fading, I know the feeling and I look away, breathing quietly.

Karabo who is 8 takes my hand. I wonder if she knows she will be next to go through all of this. Today she just asked if she would be going to sleep at the hospital. I told her no.

Dr. M takes the next syringe.

I walk in to the next room and sit down, putting my face in my hands until my mind comes back to the room. Karabo is drawing on my lap.

When I have it together I walk back to Shelley. She removes her hat from her face and puts it on over the now inflated tissue expander.

I hug her gently. She puts her earphones back in.

Her next appointment is Wednesday the 30th of September.

Gladys

Rustenburg

We leave Johannesburg around 3:30, it was supposed to be three but she was running late. Soon we’re on the road and the gray fog of the city morphs into brown hills and dry land. Short trees stretch upwards, their branches bent and crooked—characteristics that only perpetuate their sense of wisdom. There is some green but it is sparse and pale waiting for the summer rains.

Johanna from Molteno tells me we are driving to Sun City in the Northwestern Province. I think to myself that it’s so convenient the provinces are named after their location, otherwise I would have no idea where we’re going.

I would define this area as “rural” but I’ve found in recent weeks that ones' definition of rural is pretty relative. The outskirts of Sun City is rural compared to Jo’burg—but then again almost any place would be. This rural has groups of shacks spread out on large stretches of land. The communities are small and poor, but there are streets and schools and people selling avocados and oranges along the road.

There are some gas stations every so often and Johanna will later show me a “mall” which has quite a few shops, a Chicken Lickin’ (South Africa’s Popeyes) a supermarket, a furniture store etc.

On the long stretches of road in between the fenced in communities there will be a man or woman walking ever so often. Looking forward and behind me, I can’t see where they are coming from or going to.

 The B+B

We eventually find the Bed and Breakfast that I am staying at—it’s a beautiful two story house with a high fence and fresh paint. It stands out from the houses around it and I feel that sense of dread in my stomach when we pull in.

It’s not that I don’t appreciate having nice accommodations that are paid for. I could say that makes these excursions more like a vacation than like work. But to be honest when I look at the housekeeper, I wish I could have just stayed with her and given her the money. Even if it meant living in a shack, it’s odd but I think I would prefer it.

The staff is very welcoming and nice. They’re eager to find out what I would like for breakfast and I struggle to make a list for them.

Gladys

Gladys is tall and thin and could pass for a model in the United States. Here, she is a housekeeper for the Bed and Breakfast. Her hair is a light brown wig that compliments her mocha complexion. When I first see her eyes, I’m convinced that they’re color contacts and they remind me immediately of a pair my friend bought in middle school. When I think about this twice, I realize they’re not fake.

After I’m settled Gladys comes into my room and I invite her to sit on the bed. When I tell her I’m from the United States she lets out a yelp, throws back her head and claps her hands.

“Wait until I tell everyone that we have someone staying here from the U.S!”

I tell her that one day she can visit me and I’ll have biscuits for her just like she has for me. She shakes her head vigerously and beams when I ask her if she would like to come to the U.S. someday.

She eagerly says yes.

We start talking for a while and she says that she came here from Zimbabwe three years ago. She says that she had nothing there and it was her only choice to come here. She has a three year-old daughter and I ask if she was pregnant when she came. She tells me that is a story for another time.

Gladys found a job once she got here but it paid so poorly that she was only making R50 a month after taxes. That’s the equivalent of six dollars. She said she had to live in a shack and eventually work another job.

After moving several times, she gave birth to her daughter. They wouldn’t give her a birth cirtificate at the hospital because she is Zimbabwean—even though her daughter was born here. I ask her if she wants to enroll her in school when she is old enough. She says desperately yes. I ask her what she is going to do about the birth certificate (children can’t be enrolled without one) she says she is going to keep praying that something will happen.

A little bit after her daughter was born, a friend phoned Gladys and told her her mother had died. She says she still hasn’t come to terms with it. Because she didn’t have enough money to fly home for the funeral, Gladys worked as hard as she could for a few months before she flew back. Her job would only let her off for a week and because that wasn’t enough time to grieve her mother, she quit and flew to Zimbabwe.

Listening to her talk I felt that familiar, overwhelming urge to do anything for her. To help her get the birth certificate for her daughter, to give her money to move in to a better house… anything. But in reality, I realized there was little I could do.

As the week went on we became closer and closer. I asked to photograph her and she let me even though she was embarrassed that she hadn’t done her hair. She showed me a picture of her with her hair showing on her cell phone, it’s short and sticks out from her head, framing her face. She says she cut it off when her mother died.

She touches my hair gently and is shocked when I tell her I don’t put anything in it, just wash it and let it dry because I am too lazy.

She feels it with her fingers, “I wish I were white.”

I think she means, “I wish I had white hair” but the comment sticks with me.

On Wednesday I am so sad to leave this family that has welcomed me. I promise to come back and visit, especially the little boy, Kabello, who is ten.

I hug Gladys and tell her that I left her a present by my bed. As we drive away I imagine her walking up the stairs and finding it: a rock with “courage” imprinted on it and R50. It’s all I had.