First Couple of Days in South Africa

So here is the deal:

I'm staying in a rural farm house which is very nice and borders a poor village of tin shacks and small mud brick homes. From inside the house, I feel like I could be in the Poconos or something. Very rustic, stone walls, open ceilings, and exposed beams. I imagine this place is a nice respite for the missionaries and volunteers who spend their days caring for the sick and the poor.

I'm still waiting on T-Mobile to unlock my new phone for international use. I'm using the phone of a fellow volunteer from Holland. I can't spell her name correctly, but it sounds like Froy-kya.

For some reason, I am unable to check my AOL mail, so if you want to email me, send it to ryan.kellermeyer@gmail.com . I guess you have to be in America to get Online.

This morning I woke up and went to the store to buy groceries. They have a lot of the same stuff that we have and there is even a KFC in the middle of this poor rural town. I wonder if they use local chickens or if they get the superfreak genetically modified ones from the US?

When I came back from the store, I was asked to lead church because a young man that the missionaries know had hung himself last night after having an argument with his girlfriend. Yesterday morning they had gone to a funeral, earlier in the week Randy had went to a morgue with a local family to pick up the body of their 3-month old child, and today this. It seems like death is part of every day life here.

I agreed to lead church since I didn't really have a choice. So me and 15 Africans had church today. In reality, one of the local guys, Spencer, led the whole thing. I had met him yesterday and when he showed up, I said "Spencer, you're the boss." He even put on a special jacket just to lead the service.

The church service was great. They sang some beautiful songs that I didn't understand and a couple in English that I did. We read in Luke about loving your enemies and everyone shared what they thought about the passage. Then some more singing. An offering. More singing. Prayer. More singing. I wanted to capture it on video but thought that was a little intrusive, so just imagine it in your head.

There is a long and unfortunate history between black and white people in South Africa. One of the results is that the black folks look at white people like they know everything. When I would stand up in church, everyone else would stand up. I think for years they have been told that they are inferior and must still believe it to some degree.

After church I asked Shadrack, the guy who milks the cows at the farm, to take me on a ride through the village on his 4 wheeler. It was a lot of fun. Everyone we passed stared at us and I must have waved 300 times in an hour. Until you wave, everyone looks serious and then after you wave this big grin sweeps across their face. All except for a few groups of young guys who seemed to be kind of mocking us. Overall, I got the impression that everyone is very friendly.

Tomorrow I will start visiting the various projects and ministries associated with MCDC and Mukhanyo Seminary. So that should be interesting.

I'm waiting on this second video to upload, and at a rate of 4 kb/second, it might take all night. I will probably not be able to keep posting video regularly. It's such a slow connection. But I'm kind of addicted to the whole idea of putting video up in almost real time, so whenever possible, I will find a way. For my own sake, really. I just think it's cool.

I am sure that I will see some difficult things in the following weeks. I'm trying to figure out how to approach that with the whole video thing. I think it is important to document these things and communicate them, but at the same time I want to be sensitive to the people involved as well as fully participate in the moment myself. So we'll see.

I will post when I can. Do me a favor and drop me an email at ryan.kellermeyer@gmail.com if you're checking this stuff. If no one is reading I don't want to waste my time. I can just save the files and mess with it when I'm home. But I am very curious to see if anything can come from me sharing my experiences here. I know it is only three weeks and I'm not the most brilliant person, but maybe there are others out there who are fascinated by the tremendous realities of poverty, beauty, disease and life that exist here in this place. And perhaps there are others who wonder if it is right or even possible to shield ourselves from these realities.

The Road to Kwendebele


Shadrack Gives Me a Ride