Mud, Thatch, Boreholes — Mentoring and Hope
- GSGC
- Jul 26, 2022
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 29
By Suzanne Firth, GSGC supporter, Toronto, Canada
In a coach heading south from scenic Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, we are 13 North American travelers. Our two-week trip to Southern Africa has been organized by the safari company Global Sojourns. Thanks to COVID-19, we’ve been waiting two years to experience the promise of culture, safari, conservation and philanthropy.
Global Sojourns Giving Circle is the philanthropic arm of Global Sojourns. As a GSGC volunteer/donor, I’ve joined the trip to visit several programs the nonprofit supports financially.
Through my GSGC work, I’ve been in contact with all Mentors by WhatsApp and email. I’ve written about their club activities and seen images of the safe spaces they use for them. But such modest glimpses into their lives have not prepared me for the deep poverty most Mentors and club members experience on a daily basis.
Our group is just minutes away from Lupinyu, a small town located in one of the country’s least populated areas. Two of GSGC’s Zimbabwean-born Mentors, Sfe Sebata, and her husband, Shorai Matambanadzo, have planned our visit. After eight years with GSGC, they now work with more than 200 youth in their 11 RiseNShine clubs. All focus on art.
En route to Lupinyu, we’ve learned that some 85 percent of Zimbabwe’s 15 million people are unemployed. The majority are under 30. The country’s economy is based on tourism (which was decimated by COVID-19), cattle and coal.
We pull off the highway onto a dirt road leading to the town’s main street. A handful of one-story, concrete buildings runs along one side. They include a butcher shop, a general store, a mechanics shop, and three bars.
Sfe has arranged a visit to the home of club alumna Jada Clarance Dube, where we will meet her grandmother, Eustina Dube. Before disembarking, Sfe explains that invited guests are expected to offer gifts when arriving. We’ll look for these in Lupinyu.
I head off to the open stalls opposite the stores. In one, a hairstylist is weaving stunning extensions into a young woman’s braids. The second offers a display of carefully laid out food specialties. The shopkeeper greets Sfe warmly. Zimbabwe’s national dish is sadza, a porridge-like staple made from ground maize reminiscent of Cream of Wheat. Any number of additions to it are acceptable. I opt for packages of dried Mopani worms, a delicacy; dried fish resembling tiny sardines; and the husks of soya beans. I’m assuming all three are rich in protein.
Across the street, I see several of my fellow travellers with Sfe’s alumnae at the local borehole, the town’s water source. Together, they strain to move the pump’s eight-foot arm up and down. With difficulty, they finally succeed.
There is a story behind Zimbabwean boreholes. Before independence and the national name Zimbabwe, then-Rhodesia’s British rulers legislated blacks off the country’s best agricultural lands which they handed over to whites. In 1955, the British forcibly relocated members of the country’s main tribes to rural forests, where they drilled boreholes for them.
Our safari group continues to explore the main street. What is most striking is the scarcity of everything from staples such as flour and maize to fresh fruit and vegetables. In the general store, however, we notice an abundance of snack food such as potato chips.
When we have purchased our gifts for Mrs. Dube, we follow the four GSGC alumnae into a bar that is playing dance music. They immediately step onto the stage. It’s heartwarming to see the exuberance of these young people as they express themselves on the dance floor. At the same time, it’s sobering to imagine that for Lupinyu youth, this is one of the few means of self-expression available.
When the music stops, we make our way to Jada’s home. From our bus trip, we have an idea of what to expect. We have passed village after village, all with individual family compounds surrounded by protective fences made of thick branches. Each compound consists of small, sturdy, mud-walled buildings covered by thick, thatched roofs. All villages are situated on ochre-colored sand blown there over centuries. Most have a community garden.
The Dube compound includes three sleeping huts; one for Jada’s grandmother, one for Jada and her younger sister, and one for Jada’s twin brothers. There is also an open area for food preparation and washing, and a latrine.
After offering our gifts, we take our seats facing Mrs. Dube. Jada explains Sfe’s RiseNShine club has helped improve her English. Previously, her schooling had focussed on African languages.
And then it is her grandmother’s turn to speak. With her arm around her youngest grandchild, Eustina begins. Words of welcome. A thank you for the gifts. Then what is uppermost in her mind. With absolute composure and self-confidence, she begins.
“I wish to thank GSGC for the work it does with girls. Too many girls from Jada’s school have dropped out. Their only interest is the night-life in the bars in town. I am so grateful and proud of the fact that Jada, my granddaughter, is working hard to complete her secondary education. And she is also in training with Sfe and Shorai to become a GSGC Mentor.”
During the bus trip, our driver has explained that Lupinyu is a stopping-off place for big rigs. Among other things, these tractor trailers haul coal from Chinese-owned mines in the Dete area to the south. Many school dropouts from Lupinyu spend their nights in the bars with the drivers of these rigs.
Too soon, our visit ends. I approach Eustina. I’ve tried to memorize “Thank you” and “Good-bye” in Ndebele, her native tongue. Miraculously, I hear myself say, “Siyabonga” and “Sala Kuhle.” A huge smile crosses her face as she takes both my hands in hers and thanks me in Ndebele. I shall never forget that moment.
Before leaving, we are able to glance inside the huts in the Dube compound. Scatter rugs cover the sand floors. Each has a bed with mosquito netting over it. One has a large wardrobe for clothing. Shoes line the sides of each hut. One has a box with a litter of two-week-old kittens!
On the bus ride back to Victoria Falls, I mull over all that I have experienced in Lupinyu, beginning with the absence of running water. I think of the Dube family’s daily needs… water for drinking, cooking, washing, bathing, watering animals and maintaining gardens. Every drop must be sourced at a borehole. In the huts, there is no space for study desks or chairs. Nor is there any electronic equipment such as laptops in evidence. Sfe’s GSGC alumnae do have cell phones. Internet access must be paid for, however, and it’s expensive.
I reflect on the lives the GSGC alumni we have met. Our travellers’ group subsidized several visits for Mentors and alumni. On one, we all visited Victoria Falls; on another, we went on a conservation safari. Alumni were invited to lunch at a local Victoria Falls restaurant. We learned that this was their first time in the town, at the falls and in a restaurant.
My perspectives on deep poverty and its impact on young people have shifted. Lupinyu did this. As we left the town, I looked back on its main street, and my heart wept. In the majority of GSGC communities like this one, there is little hope for a real tomorrow. Few of their young people have the tools or the support they need to even begin to realize their full potential. The Lupinyu visit took me to the very heart and soul of GSGC.
Hope is the most valuable gift Global Sojourns offers its youth and their families. Hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. Hope is the lodestar which guides the course of a young person’s life, beginning with self-awareness. Mentoring expands on this until it becomes self-confidence and self-esteem. The mind and heart open next to dreams, and then to committing to the realization of these dreams.
GSGC’s approach speaks to each girl and boy individually: “I see you, I hear you, I believe in you.” GSGC lights and then builds on such a spark of hope in youth, their families and their communities. The reasons are multifaceted: 1:1 work with individuals; the use of safe spaces; compassionate listening; emphasis on academic success; encouragement of creative, innovative thinking; career advice; a commitment to gender equity; and much more.
Were it not for GSGC clubs in rural Zimbabwe and other similar regions in Madagascar and Zambia, there would be little, if anything, for youth to aspire to.
