The
Oprah South African Leadership Project provides cross-cultural
immersion and international exposure through travel
and study in South Africa for Morehouse College students.
In the future, it will involve an exchange of students
between Morehouse and South Africa, and will encompass
ethical leadership training and community service
in both Atlanta and South Africa.
June
6, 2005
 Fresh
off a weekend of shopping at the Green Point Market
and seeing Cape Point, the place where the Atlantic
and Indian oceans meet, the students are ready for
their internships.
From
morning to 3 p.m., the students and Rheba Knox, assistant
director of Training for the Leadership Center, will
work at Etafeni’s headquarters in the Nyanga
township of Cape Town. The group was scheduled to
begin their internships on Friday, but inclement weather
rained them out of most of the work they complete
today: making bricks, planting trees, taking care
of children in the daycare center.
A
15-minute ride from the Waterfront, Nyanga is a different
world.
Away
from the ocean’s cold waters, seaside construction
projects and the dwellings mostly occupied by affluent
Afrikaners, the streets remain paved. But the rows
of shacks and discarded items—a stripped tire,
mounds of empty candy wrappers—strewn fecklessly
throughout the area makes Nyanga feel claustrophobic
and suffocating rather than the triumphant feeling
depicted in T.V. commercials and tourism website that
plug the country’s progress and beauty.
After
a five-minute debriefing from an Etafeni project manager
and Uli Mpahlwa, one of the architects who designed
the new daycare center, the students set about their
assignments.
 Mark
Rainey and Rheba Knox join the brick-making crew.
Later, both say that though it took a minute to gain
the trust of the men on the team, the two were left
alone to make bricks.
Knox
observed that when they first began, a few of the
men believed she was unable to make the bricks because
the mechanism used to mold the clay is heavy. But
she persevered, earning a thumbs-up and handshake
at the end of the day for her work.
The
following day, the construction foreman greets the
Morehouse students looking for Rainey, who the brick-making
crew dubbed a Superman of sorts for his agility and
quickness at making bricks.
A
WAY TO DIG
But today, four students—William Moore ’06,
Clint Fluker ’08, Brian Buchanan ’07,
and Jamison Collier ’06—wrestle with the
logistics of planting three trees. Buchanan, who spent
the previous month planting trees at his mother’s
house, is the expert. With aplomb, he handles the
tools and takes the pick through limestone too stubborn
for the shovel to penetrate. Buchanan quickly finishes
the job a few minutes after Fluker and Moore reach
the limestone layer of their hole.
 Moore,
who has been eyeing Buchanan’s adeptness with
the pick, valiantly tries to mirror Buchanan, moving
the pick horizontally behind his back and violently
thrusting the sharp end into the hole. Everyone within
reach of Moore scatters. After a few laughs and some
good-humored heckling, Buchanan moves forward to show
his Morehouse brother how to swing the pick.
“Let
me show you how to do it, man,” Buchanan says
patiently, sweat forming on a crease in his neck.
Dangling
the sharp edge over his shoulder, Buchanan begins,
moving the pick over his body and into the hole. The
lesson ends with a thud as the limestone breaks.
“OK,” Moore says smiling, holding out
his empty palm for the pick. “I think I’ve
got it now.”
FOUNDING
MOTHER
Meanwhile, inside the daycare, the other students
are taking care of the children under the watchful
eyes of the mothers who volunteer. Across the street
sits the home—a large, one-story structure wedged
between the surrounding shacks—of Rose Mbude,
whose idea for the Etafeni Playground Project sprang
from the needs that she and other mothers felt weren’t
being met in their communities.
Mbude,
a large woman with clear, gray eyes and soft skin
the color of caramel, remembers being a new mother
living in a two-bedroom house with what grew to be
seven children.
“In
my family, I am the only one who has so many children,
but I was forced to have so many children because
there were no contraceptives,” she says. “I
would run from clinic to clinic trying to find them.
I used to hide myself when I was pregnant.”
The
Etafeni Playground Project has grown from children
playing in the open space across from her house to
a daycare center, a community garden and a business
to help HIV-positive community members make money.
“Our
parents were never given the chance to ask questions,
like what it feels like to be pregnant,” said
Mbude, who was born and raised in Nyanga. “My
aim was not to open a preschool, but a place that
made parents feel responsible around issues of education
and themselves.”
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