Children did this... thoughts for talk 6

1 The young person who was the senior server in the chapel, stored his marijuana in the tabernacle behind the altar .He reasoned that nobody ever looked in there and he had a key.

2.They broke into the dininghall one night and silently removed all the furniture. They set it all up outside on the "parade ground" (atrium) in exactly the same way as it was in the diningroom. Next morning early, a round of telephone calls among the staff and we colluded to pretend that it was not a surprise and to carry on asif nothing had happened. Absolutely without comment breakfast was served.
In the afternoon after school we all laughed about it.

3 Asked a resident child care worker to look after his pot-plant during the holidays. The child care dutifully watered and cared for it for the duration of the holiday and handed it back. .... He didn't know  it was a potted marijuana plant.

4. There was  full fire-drill one night with alarms, fire-tenders and hosepipes arriving . There had to be a full evacuation of the houses and a roll-call. The firemen checked each house for any stragglers. A boy was stopped re-entering a house. When the fireman asked what he was doing , the boy said " I left my skateboard in there !"

5 A real fire this time !! The drill in this group home was that a rope with knots and ribbons was used to mark a place for each child. The child care worker could easily check that there was a child at each marker to lead the young people to the assembly point outside. As she did so, a half sleep adolescent broke away, went back into the house went to the toilet and had a very long pee.

  .

"Its our culture".. child care workers, what say you?

It's June, the month of the initiation schools.. It is toward the end of this month that the newspapers will feature stories of young boys who go to the initiation schools to participate in the rites of passage into manhood especially Xhosa boys ... the Abakwetha. At the height of this rite is performed the act of circumcision (Ukwalusa).

 On 30th of June 2010, for example The Daily Sun recorded a count of deaths among these boys as 40 in that month alone _ with dozens more lying wounded in hospitals. The blame is placed on 'ligcibi' traditional surgeons , the men who perform the circumcision. Many the newspapers say are "untrained and greedy ".

City Press of 27 June 2010 also records " initiates have filled up the hospital wards" - many have had to have their penis's amputated to save them.

According to MSN ZA News by SAPA 2010/12/03, Four brothers took revenge against such a bogus  traditional  surgeon. They stabbed and circumcised him.

Everything is being done to ensure that health regulations and proper procedures are followed initiation schools. Officials say they will close down initiation schools that do not comply with rules and regulations governing them because ignoring the requirements put the children at risk ( Traditional Affairs Minister 28 June 2010)  But yet these unfortunate deaths and wounds continue and similar reports appeared last year 2011

It's June and time for the initiation schools.

Hospitals and now especially opened clinics perform circumcision. ( the clinics are a bid to reduce infection of  HIV and AIDS, as research supports circumcision as a inhibiting factor in the spread of the disease.) But parents and boys want to go through the entire traditional rite to manhood. And you can't blame them ""it's our culture".

Ethical questions then arise for professional child and youth care workers in Africa.

 What will you say and do when you have boys in your program and when they and their parents insist on the full rite, in the remote hills, in the traditional way.?

What will you say and do?

 It is an ethical dilemma that comes out of the tensions that frequently exist between professional ethics and culture in Africa.

Here are some more:

Virginity testing.

A father in your program insists that his daughter of 14 year also in you care, serves him at table by entering the dining area from the kitchen with a plate of food whilst on her knees and shuffles on her knees across the room to hold out the plate of food to him.

A young unmarried Zulu mother in your program with a new-born child tells you that the child is particularly restless and constantly crying.She intends having the baby cut with 'elevenses'. This procedure involves the baby being cut around the naval with four sets of two parallel cuts that look like the number 11. This, she says will settle the child.

A young male in your care approaches you and tells you that his family want him to participate in the Ukweshwama Harvest Festival. He wants to do this because his father really wants him to participate in the ceremony. It has to do with his manhood in the Zulu traditional culture. It will win his father's approval which he has never otherwise had.. You find out that in this ceremony about 20 Zulu youths slaughter a bull with their bare hands. You also learn that witnesses have reported that the eyes of the bull are gouged out, the tongue pulled from its mouth, the genitals twisted and soil pushed into its mouth to suffocate it to death.

Ethical dilemmas that come out of the tensions between culture and professional ethics.

When it is... 'our culture'....... What will you say and do as a child and youth care worker in Africa ?

When "do good" ..... does harm.

She was the 'Spring Flower' Queen of beauty. She might just as well have been the '4x4 Wheel Drive' Queen or the 'Pineapple Queen' - - it makes little difference really. These beauty queens predictably say at the contest that in their reign they want to help children - especially the 'orphans'. To live out their promises to the  judges, they have to  put some walk into the talk. They came routinely, looking for all the world like barbie dolls - black or white barbie dolls, to help the children.

Just before my time, the well intentioned Spring Flower Queen young beauty queen came. She said she could teach the girls how to apply facial make-up.

It was fashionable at the time to surround the eyes with black, giving the eyes a sunken look outlined with black around the entire perimeter of the eye -  like pee-holes in the snow. The rest of the face was then given what looked rather like stage make-up - exaggerated, heightened, lightened and coloured. It was called 'attitude'.

The girls loved it. So they applied it to each other. They practised on the little girls too.

 We had a Children's Home of girls from 5 - 20, parading around in the afternoons after school .... even in their swimming costumes at the pool, in full glamour gunge.

 The intention was good. The results were disastrous.

The program became highly sensitive to the possible learning and experiential outcomes of people from the community wanting to help the children in all manner of ways. We called the them... 'do gooders'. People who, with every good intention, develop in children, more harm than good... in the immediate or in the longer term.

Many 'do gooders' sound convincing and enticing and have to be very carefully thought through before being allowed loose on the children or to have their projects included in the programme.

One such group are the people who say " life has been good to me. I have made a lot of money and it is time that I give something back. They want to take one or two children into their homes to allow the children to experience for a day or two, or every now and then, something of their lifestyle.

One child, now an adult who had this experience said, " Someone should have told me that you have to work bloody hard to get a fridge or a stove. Life doesn't just deliver them to your door as a package"

Companies with a 'Social Outreach" policy, or what used to be called 'Social Conscience" can, with every good intention, do long term harm. They will put out that what they want to do is to help the children - free meals, free clothing , free funfair, free circus, free vieo loan over the weekends, free admission , free. free, free.

If life has dealt you a series of hurtful blows... almost everything comes handed out free. This expectation built repetitiously into a life/world view can encourage ' learnt dependency'

 Then comes the sting at the end of the corporate tail. - publicity photographs. Not only do you get it free, but you get your photograph taken too. - shaking hands with the big boss.

Or, even better - hugged by the Spring Flower Beauty Queen.

Chicken heads and feet.... food for thought.

It was a camp at the coastal campsite in Kwa-Zulu Natal. The young people were divided into groups, each with a child care worker as a group leaded. A group of senior boys was allocated to me.

 In the programme was an exercise in which each group was given a specific sum of money in cash. They were to buy the ingredients  they could afford from this and cook a full evening meal for the group.

A small team of selected people then judged the meal on the basis of appearance, suitability ,taste and the effectiveness of the way in which the budget was used. My group had money left over.

 The group decided on a dish made of chicken feet and heads  - -it was economical, culturally appropriate and tasty they said. I was to sit with my group for this meal and eat with them.

A question often asked of me is whether I eat "African" food. My response is always the same...  "yes".

The big test is usually posed in the next question...."do you eat Mopane worms"? (a type of tree grub). These I have enjoyed - especially when properly prepared. Unclean tripe - the same.  I of course knew about "walkers and talkers", heads and feet, but had not yet ventured into the dish. This was a first for me, and I HAD to support my group of boys...... "hooters and scooters".....  here goes !!!.

My group won

This, again, was an experience of learning cultural competence for me, as an adult, culturally long separated from my African brothers and sisters because of the realities of living in an Apartheid South Africa. And although Nelson Mandela on his release from incarceration said, " never again", many of us are left, even now, with the effects of cultural separation. This must not be allowed to happen to our children and young people today. In multi-cultural programs, and especially in residential programs we are ideally positioned to create opportunities for cultural learning and the development of cultural competence. Food is the least of our problems really, but it in our programs it still creeps in to colour long standing stereotypes and prejudices.

Whenever this question was asked of children and young people in residential treatment, the answer was always the same....

The question?  " Apart from missing your family, what do you miss most about being separated from home?."

The answer.  " My mothers cooking - she makes the best...............(whatever)

Participation appears to be something of a buzzword right now and in a multi-cultural setting in Africa, real participation seems to me to pose particular cultural competence learning adjustments and acceptances.

But let's focus now only on food ....and I'm not talking of Mopane worms on Heritage Day.

"Did your mother teach you how to cook that? Can your mother come in and show us how to do that.... prepare our meal? Can we sit down together and plan a the month's menu together... we can call it a "rainbow menu for "rainbow people". Can our central kitchen with its kitchen supervisor be part of this planning and talking together about food with the children. Are children or a parent going to be allowed into the kitchen anyway? Can we accommodate to having real child and family participation in what is prepared and eaten?"

hmmmmmm .... food for thought.

But the hot water tap is ALWAYS on the RIGHT !!

Working in the bathroom yesterday a true story came to me.

A woman 'phoned a plumber and asked him to come to her house because the hot water tap and piping had to be repositioned .It was on the left where the cold water tap should be and incorrectly marked. The plumber asked her why, to which she responded that she had newly acquired the house. The tap on the left was running hot water but was marked correctly  'cold'. The tap on the right was running cold water and was correctly marked "hot".

The plumber told the woman " You don't need me madam. You don't have to go to the huge expense and the inconvenience of changing the plumbing. Just carefully clip out the little red and blue discs on the top of the taps and exchange them."

The woman flatly refused.

" Why not?" asked the plumber.

"Because", she said, " Hot water taps are always on the right hand side , The plumbing must be the way it always is."

The story was a reminder of a hundred similar incidents experienced in children's programs.......lots of time , money and effort put into keeping things that way because that is the way it always is, when a tiny change will more effective.

There was a program which prided itself on its' in-house tuck shop. It was run as a business by the program, within the program as the delegated responsibility of a senior child care worker. Apart from the valuable child care time spent on this, there was effort, energy and often heart-ache and anger when the young people broke into it and stole the sweets.But it went on. Right across the road from the programme facility was a friendly little store which stocked the same range of sweets, a little more expensive, but then that's what children would normally have to pay. It is "normal" for children to shop in a community located shop, but long standing program interested objectives made the tuck shop "right". It was always like that.

It was really hard for everyone, even the children, to 'switch the tabs'.

There have been many such "always on the right" situations that had to be faced ...

small shifts.......... Big advantages .......huge problem.

Can you think of examples in your programs?

Superstition? ..... NO " It is true " said J

" You must listen to Zodwa, she can 'see',  I think she will be a diviner in 4 years. But she makes a mistake. When she 'sees' she goes and tells tells the person. She must not do that. She must just keep quiet"..... It was "J", She knows Zodwa well. This all came about because I told her what Zodwa had said to me.

" Mr B", she had said, " see that butterfly there, near you, on the wall in the house?In my culture that is your late wife. She is visiting you. - Have I given you pain telling you that?"
" No" I said.

  " Yes. It is true"   said J. "What did the butterfly do?"

I told her." It was settled on the wall near me but later it moved into the lounge and settled there too."

"She was looking around" said J. "Sometimes it might be a bird" she said.

For Sbongile it was a bee.

" My grandmother visits me. Always she is a bee." he told me.

If I am going on a journey in my car, then there can be this bee in the car. If I gently lift it and put it out on the pavement on the side of the car and drive to Durban, then when I stop to get out in Durban, on the pavement there will be a bee. It's my grandmother. She is protecting me"

This was Sbongile's third story. The first was about a mole. The second about his transporting of his late mother as an ancestor from Kwa-Zulu Natal to Johannesburg, and now the bee. The mole had to be avoided desperately and diverted away from the house to avoid misfortune. The bee had to be protected. The one was misfortune. The other protection.

I can hear 'Superstition!, Superstition!" You may want to call it all superstition, half belief, unbiblical, irrational. But we are partly irrational. Some of our best achievements in Science, Philosophy , Religion and relationships have come out of irrationality> Even the word 'superstition' tells us of its' power for us. 'super' means 'above', 'state' means 'to stand'. It stands above or over us. But we are not talking about superstition.I  cannot walk under a ladder as it will bring me misfortune, but if I do then I'm not all that worried - it is a half belief.

But J said "It is true".

There is a true story told of a woman in a psychiatric hospital who refused to eat. All the experienced psychiatrists did all they could to but she wouldn't touch the food they brought her. I desperation they told a junior psychiatrist to see what he could do. Whe he saw the woman he said " I understand that you refuse the food". She said " Yes, they are trying to kill me.. They put poison in the food."

"It is true" he said " They are trying to kill you. But they are trying to starve you to death!".

The woman immediately started eating again.

It's simple really. We all know that what what we believe is what we hold to be true. Its not a superstition.. it is true.... just as J says.

That young psychiatrist walked in his patients shoes for just one moment. He looked at the world through her eyes and experienced her truth. He found her meaning for one moment and he was able to help her from there.

 There is a lesson in this for us in as child care workers in Africa.

 If the young people say say it's witchcraft, it is true. The portent is experienced and it does come true.  I perform the rite and my fortune changes.  My wife visited me. My grandmother protects me.

  It is all true.

We all know that the only practical, effective intervention for a child or young person is the intervention that is experienced by that child to be meaningful from the world view of that child. SO, in South Africa we have to step right into the African world, African experience, African spirituality, African meaning because therein lives the truth.. Only then can we be really helpful to to our children, young people and their families. It is the African way.

" Yes, it is true" said J.

A snippet.... just for fun.

Dormitories and bedrooms were often seriously littered all over floors with scattered clothing . Some clean and just left. Some in need of laundry. The children were told that the clothing on the floor did not allow the child care worker and the cleaner to do their work properly. If it was not tidied up to allow the adults to do their work, then it would have to be cleared by them. What they would do is to put the clothing into large plastic garbage bags and put them in the store-room. The bags would then be made available in preparation for the laundry in about three days time. This became a regular procedure.

A child care worker commented to the children in the vehicle whilst driving the "school run". She said," I very nearly didn't do the school run this morning. I was sitting on the floor in the girls dormitory sorting laundry and forgot. I would have been left sitting there. Then what would you have  done?"

Little voice from the back., "Put you in a garbage bag and left you in the storeroom. "