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March 10, 2004, The Community Meeting, by Jim
On Sunday, the eight of us arrive in Ndawana at 7:30 AM, the community meeting time set for 8:00. By 8:00 only some of the team have arrived and there is some question about the venue for the meeting. We go to the most likely place, and there is no one - no chiefs, no elders, no children - no one. We had talked for months about "the community meeting" where we would tell the entire community about the possibilities the chiefs and the team had been discussing. Now we are here and there is no one else. We had talked about announcing the meeting with a loudspeaker, which proved to be lost. We had discussed posters, and had concluded that if the team talked with the right people, everyone would hear of it.
By 8:45 one chief and a few others are here. Two male team members and I go off in the bakkie, they shouting "community meeting" every few metres as we drive through the village. We pick up Petrus in his wheelchair and his group of boy dancers. When we return at 9:15 there are about 50 people, both chiefs are here and have declared the meeting open, and Chris is explaining her diagram of the proposed community centre. We are outside a three room, dirt floor schoolhouse, with a few chairs from the bottle store and a few benches from nearby houses. Some sit, others stand in the knee high grass. It's a fine sunny day, and the view across the valley, and beyond to the mountains, is magnificent.
The Basotho Chief (Mr. Mohlaoli) says the clinic should be on "his side" of the village. We point out that the Zulu/Xhosa Chief (Mr. Zala) has made land available for the community centre and clinic on his side, bordering on the Basotho side, that in the ten years we plan to be here we may be able to build a clinic on the Basotho side, and meanwhile the community centre is basically in the middle of the village and is for all the people. Mr. Mohlaoli gracefully accepts that. And so it goes. Questions are raised and often answered by another community member, or a team member, or by Chris or me. There is no rancor, no raised voices, every question or statement is in a respectful tone. Sometimes everyone claps. We share information and hopes and wishes and thanks going both ways. Theirs for us being here to help build community, ours for their warm welcome and beautiful singing and smiles and waves everywhere, every time we come here. The community is strongly supportive of the plans.
The business of the meeting is concluded by 10:45 and the boys dance. It's called gumboot dancing, and is very popular here. There is singing and by this time another 50 or so people have arrived and Khali explains the whole thing to them again. Then handshakes and hugs and excited voices sharing more ideas and thoughts in small groups.
We leave by 12:00, taking Petrus and the boys back to their homes. People stop us to ask where the meeting is, and are disappointed that the meeting is over. An ambulance comes to take a man who tried to rape a woman, and was beaten by neighbours, to the clinic in Underberg, along with the woman he assaulted. Another woman is in pain and there is no room in the ambulance, so we take her to Underberg, then Chris and Zanele take her on to Centacow hospital, an extra two hours of travel. We are all very tired, but very happy to have had our community meeting.
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