holiday gifts

Last Thursday Becca, Alicia, and I went into town to get flu shots (it's not flu season, the US government thinks that the regular flu shot will prevent Avian Flu). I came home, expecting to find everything as normal. Instead, our living/dining room is filled with plastic bags full of tea, coffee, sugar, mealie meal, soup mix, corned beef, biscuits, pasta, oil, candles, matches, and jam. 51 packages were left for the elderly people in my community donated by the local Afrikaner farmers. I'm pretty sure that Elna and Jan-Paul's church got all of the packages together.

Elna volunteers at the pre-school in my village. She and her husband, Jan-Paul, grow cabbages to give to the elderly in their "peace garden." Neither are completely bias-free when it comes to race, but my they and my host parents respect each other. It's refreshing to see Elna driving around the village on errands (alone) when the other Afrikaners I've met are afraid to come into town. Equally refreshing is that her family is trying something to give back to the community and reduce the negative memories of Apartheid. I can see the vast economic differences between the two groups of people added to the recent history of repression I don't think I'd like Afrikaners either. Elna has a simple complaint: most people in the village won't give her a glass of water. If I asked would they share their water with me?

Above is a picture of an elderly woman carrying away her holiday food bag on her head just outside our gate. Below is all of the bags in our living/dining room.