We Just Want to Work

The last two days of work we have been trying, fighting, driving, yelling, kicking, and screaming to work. We decided to run a SKILLZ Holiday this week to try to make up our numbers and just get something, anything going. I have spent the last two days out at a site called Soul City and Albert has been out at Platfontein. Platfontein managed to conseguir (get) 58 kids for their intervention on Monday and still had 35 show up today. Of course when I say show up, I really meant the coaches ran around the township and dragged kids over to the Isibindi Safe Park so they could teach them. At Soul City we maybe got 30 kids to come out yesterday and 4-5 show up today. So sad, the coaches were mad, Thuso was mad, I was frustrated, I am sure Mandla was frustrated because we are all just so tired of this strike and we want to get the programs back up and running. Right now I spend all of my time shuttling people around in cars and picking up last minute supplies that we forgot we were going to need for the intervention as well as trying to get my paperwork done and partake in the activities themselves.

Yesterday was special in that I got to actually be a part of the intervention. I got to see the coaches at work and I got to play during the activity. We played a game called Numbers, which for those of you that worked at camp, it is exactly the same numbers game we play there. First you are supposed to just run around in the circle and then the coach calls out a number and you have to get in a group equaling that number as quickly as you can. If you don’t get into a group or you are too slow, then you have to do squats (or in camp version, you are out). So I would run amongst the kids and when Coach K yelled out a number 15 kids would attack me and I would have to pick them off one-by-one to get us to the right number. It was really sweet and fun to actually be able to participate with them. Also yesterday when I was driving some people around Galeshewe (pronounced “Hal-i-she-way”), the township, we drove by this group of guys and most of the time I just assume we are attracting attention because of the strange white-black mix, but then all of a sudden we heard one of them call a “kilo!” It was AWESOME! It is so cool to be recognized by our yellow shirts for what we are doing. At least we are being remembered, which is a start. Ideally we hope they remember the key messages as well. Again today I heard someone when we drove by yell out SKILLZ! Oh, cool side note, I got a sick Nike jacket in black that says in big block letters “SKILLZ.” Love it!