We are constantly amazed at what can be accomplished as we weave threads from Lesotho and Salt Spring Island together.  With the ability to travel, communicate, and commune via the internet, there is no longer a ‘first world’ and a ‘third world’ — there’s only OUR world. Help us make it a better place, community by community.

Spring has sprung … time for an update from Phelisanong, the amazing village in Lesotho where Gary McNutt & I live and work for a portion of each year.  You can download the latest newsletter from the Phelisanong website, or watch Gary’s latest 30 minute film, “Now & Then”, which chronicles four years in the life of our ‘community to community’ experiment. See just what is possible when a group of committed grassroots Africans find support in the wider world for their visions, and find out how contributions from caring Salt Spring Islanders — like you —  have transformed lives.

Keeping the Phelisanong schools, children’s home, clinic, and community centre going is an international effort. This year, we are encouraging our friends & supporters to sign on to become monthly donors. With regular contributions, we can extend our programs to invite more orphans and HIV positive villagers into the Phelisanong circle of support.

Lesotho, a small country entirely surrounded by South Africa, is struggling mightily against the worst HIV infection rate in the world. One in ten children has lost a parent to the disease, and with so many people dying in their prime, a food crisis looms. The Phelisanong project (Together we Work for LIfe) is a lifeline for children and people living with AIDS, providing primary and secondary schooling for orphans and disabled children, food and farming programs for impoverished community members, and a health clinic and outreach program serving 1800 HIV positive villagers.

There are so many situations where a small amount of money can make the difference: a group of siblings who’ve lost their parents can join other children for community dinners….. a grandmother caring for small children can receive soap, candles, cooking fuel and cornmeal to ease her burden…… a disabled child who has been hidden from view can receive a school uniform and begin attending primary school…. a dozen fruit trees can be planted by a local football team….. In 2009, we were able to channel $120,000 into Phelisanong’s programs, including building two new residence buildings for orphans and disabled children, providing 45 secondary and post-secondary scholarships, and planting a 500-tree fruit orchard for long-term food security.

In 2010, we need to raise a further $100,000. It can be done, with your help: because we work directly at the grassroots, every dime goes to the people who need it most. We’ve cut out the middle-man — the offices, the charity vehicles, the costly fundraising materials — and offer donors an opportunity to be part of a direct, community to community exchange. We ask for your sponsorship, in exchange for amazing stories, from brightest Africa.

Please visit the Phelisanong website, read the newsletter, and sign on to be a monthly donor. You can give with any major credit card with our online donation option, or fill out the form at the back of our latest newsletter to arrange monthly auto-debit from your Canadian bank account. If you give $10 or more per month, you will receive a tax-receipt from our Canadian charitable partner, Glasswaters Foundation.

Phelisanong newsletter

Dear Friend of Children,

You are invited to become a Signatory in a campaign of global importance.
We have become increasingly alarmed by the prevalence of violence against children worldwide.

We believe the times provide an opportunity for a new religious moment, in which the public and the world’s spiritual leaders act in concert in honour of the world’s young. This could profoundly impact human behaviour for generations.

The Centre for Child Honouring’s Children & Nonviolence Initiative—supported by the Dalai Lama, and by Honorary Patron HRH Prince El Hassan of Jordan—provides a focal point for faith leaders to express their commitment to honouring the dignity of children.
• We invite all citizens to sign the PLEA TO FAITH LEADERS and send it to their community faith leader and to the leader of your religion or faith tradition. The PLEA calls on faith leaders to sign a PROCLAMATION in a show of unity.
•  We invite all faith leaders to sign the PROCLAMATION.

We trust that a massive outpouring of public and religious support for respecting the
personhood of children would:

a) have significantly beneficial impacts on behaviour in families, communities,

schools and institutions worldwide, and

b) bring renewed awareness and support for implementing the articles of the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Such an outpouring could also spark a historic multi-faith decree upholding the sanctity of the child, and urging the elimination of physical, mental and emotional violence against children.

Such a new religious moment would be a vital step forward towards a new era of peace with and for our young.

Please sign the Plea, or the Proclamation
at www.childhonouring.org/plea

In gratitude,
CENTRE FOR CHILD HONOURING

Raffi Cavoukian, C.M., O.B.C., founder and chair
Advisory Council members:
The Very Reverend Bill Phipps, former moderator, United Church of Canada
Carolyn Pogue, author, peace activist

I recently returned from Tunisia.  My husband and I go to a different country every year for one month.  When we arrive in a foreign city, we seek out monuments, ruins, forts, churches and mosques.  One by one we check off these touristic testaments to empire, war and devotion in our guidebook.

We travel to these sites by foot no matter the distance.  This is partly because foreign taxi drivers share the unpleasant tendency to take you to their ‘brother’s’ carpet store en route to your intended destination. However, it’s mostly because the best things to see are often found on the streets between the points of interest. Voyeuristic glimpses into a foreign daily life fuels my passion for travel.  Nothing tops street markets in this regard.

The fresh vegetables, fragrant spices, olives, preserved lemons, legumes, stinking fish, fly ridden butcher shops, cheap plastic hair clips, knock off brand name sneakers, pirated CDs, bolts of polyester cloth, tacky wedding accessories, all competing for space on narrow streets under tattered filthy umbrellas, makes my heart beat faster.   I have an unreasonable passionate interest in these places.   I crave them, envy them, and ardently wish we had them here.

In cities outside of Europe and North America every neighbourhood has a vibrant daily outdoor market selling local, seasonal cheap food. Field to table is the rule rather then the exception.  The opposite is true here in Canada.

Lots of people are working hard to change this, especially here on Salt Spring Island.  There’s an astounding array of talented local growers and food producers on this rock.  I bet there are very few communities in North America that can compete with us in this regard.

This tiny island, with a full-time population of just over 10,000, lays claim to two cheese producers, a brewery, several artisan bakers, a flour mill, a tofu producer, three wineries and dozens of organic farms producing an incredible variety of products.

We have two weekly markets in the summer (Tuesday and Saturday) as well as a beautiful and well stocked health food store where this abundant bounty is readily available.  Island chefs, activists, farmers and producers are working hard to educate locals and tourists alike about the many benefits of being a ‘localvore’.

Despite these efforts most of food Islanders consume is produced thousands of miles from our shores.  The primary reason for this is money.  Local produce, meat, cheese and other artisan products are  financially beyond the reach of many people.

It seems counter intuitive that a tomato grown five miles from my house is double, triple or even four times more expensive then one that has traveled thousands of miles.  It’s baffling that a carrot bought and sold by numerous food brokers in several countries is half the price of the one I buy directly from my neighbour.

This is about volume.  Small farms need to sell stuff for more money to make enough money to live.  It’s really hard to make a living on a small Canadian farm. The price of land and the Canadian cost of living are high.  This is especially true in the real estate mecca of Salt Spring Island.

Ask a passionate ‘localvore’ about the price of local food and he will likely respond by describing the hidden costs of items produced by multinational corporations operating in foreign countries.  He will argue that we either pay more now or else pay more later.  I ask this question of serious local food activists often and this is the answer provided.  This is no doubt true but nonetheless is irrelevant to most people.

Many Canadians struggle to put food on the table.  Spending more to feed their family is simply not an option.  Even middle class Canadians would have to struggle financially to replace even half of what they currently eat with local products.  Arguing that they must or ‘pay later’ is elitist and a little hard hearted.  Like a house mortgage most people would choose to pay it now rather then pay thousands of dollars in interest by paying it later.  However the reality is most families don’t have a choice.

It is a dilemma that I have no idea how to resolve but is a discussion we need to have if we are serious about making field to fork a reality for most people.   The question we need to ask ourselves is how do we make local products the norm rather than an expensive specialty product in a specialty store? Bring on the debate!

About the Author:  Jill has a unique combination of skills gained from her varied professional background.  She started her career in television and radio production working as a field producer on several national television shows.  She then spent a decade working with environmental organizations in the areas of strategic planning, organizational development, fundraising and communications.

In 1999, Jill traded in her fast paced urban career and bought the Tree House Cafe on Salt Spring Island.  During her seven years at the Tree House helm she transformed the cafe from a small coffee shop into the busiest live music venue on the island.

Jill currently owns Rock Salt Restaurant and Cafe in Fulford Harbour which was recently named one of the best places to eat in Canada by Where to Eat.  She is also a partner in Mobius Communications Group which specializes in on line marketing for small business. Jill is also the editor of her own blog, Island Chef.

When I drag myself out of bed on a Monday morning, I can’t help but wonder how great life would be without school.  As I eat breakfast, I imagine how awesome it would be to do anything I want, namely, eating chips on the couch, and watching T.V. with some friends. I often wish that I could do anything but participate in the monotony of education.

However, when I step off the school bus, and see the small garden in front of the faded bricks of the choir room, I ‘m reminded that I live in one of the best places in the world. Once this thought passes through my head, a feeling of calm rushes through me.

I feel grateful that pure chance led me to live in a community cherished for its originality and creativity.   I am blessed to be able to learn in a place where people can walk around with stickers and stamps on their faces without being mocked, where the dress code varies from practically nothing to Spock ears.

I remember, when a new girl to the island came to our high school, and after talking for a while, we broke down the social dynamic of our school. In her fear of loneliness and isolation, which every adolescent is bound to feel, she blurted a question rather obviously, “So, uh, what kind of groups do you have here? Any of them open and accepting?”

She meant for it to come out as a joke, but hit the most serious of melancholy chords, that I could of course identify with. Both of us came to the high school with very few acquaintances, and had the looming threat of ‘lonerdom’ hanging over our heads.

I answered by describing the various groups in our school. Although Salt Spring, in its originality, leads one to the belief that it’s a mosh pit of friendly greetings, some students do fall to stereotypes. I listed the groups off from the bottom up, according to the social ladder.

I explained that at GISS we only have one or two groups that the cruelest of my peers would classify as dorky. She, coming from a large school on the mainland, couldn’t comprehend a school without at least eight sub-classes of nerds.
 
Of course I, attending the school for almost a year now, had failed to realize the immensity of this. It was only then, with an impartial set of eyes that I remembered we were an anomaly, with our few groups paling in comparison to off-island schools. The smokers, the skaters, the German exchange students, the Asian exchange students, the music lovers, the dancers, the preppies, then the semi-populars, and finally reaching the top of the ladder, a couple mysterious grade twelves and assorted pods of ‘popular’ girls.

It certainly felt strange trying to explain this to her. I was able to explain our school’s social dynamic in less then a minute.

It made me realize just how original this school is. Sure, some kids fit into social classes, but almost every person here is unique in a way I never saw in my former school off island.  Possibly this is because people here are embraced for their differences, rather than disciplined for their non-conformity.

There is a love in our school of the quirky, the strange and the weird things in life. Students, who at other schools might be dismissed as insane, are cherished here for being philosophical and interesting.

The conversation made me feel good because I could once again grasp the way the school social order runs in a wavy line, rather than a vertical ladder.

Inevitably my aggravation caused by waking up early and rushing to school wound up again.  I felt dreary one day clomping around the school; the clouds of winter draining on my spirit, when the girl approached me again with a big smile on her face.

She had found the perfect group, placed nicely into a sub-category.  She still missed her friends from the mainland, but Salt Spring had taken her by both hands and thrown her into the wagon, trapping her in the insanity of its originality.

Once again, an air horn sounded in my head and I was reminded how much I love this little rock and how I would hate to leave.

About the author: Jacob Mulder is a grade 9 student at GISS.  He attended middle school on Vancouver Island

After announcing that his company will be moving its roasting operation from Salt Spring Island, co-owner Mickey McLeod chatted with us this past week while he was in Vancouver working on a deal to find a new location for his company’s facilities.

“We don’t have a confirmed  location yet, and we are not sure how long the roasting facility will stay open on Salt Spring, but we felt we needed to make the announcement because of our staff. They need to know our situation, and our intentions,” said Mickey during a phone interview.

The coffee shop in Ganges will stay open and Robbyn and Mickey themselves will not be moving off island though it will mean that Mickey will be spending more of his time commuting to be present in his soon to be Vancouver-based business.

The decision to move “came out of a lot of frustration and disappointment from the fact that we couldn’t wait any longer for Salt Spring to allow this to happen. We have been working on finding a good solution for a roasting facility on Salt Spring for over five years now, this ( the location on Fulford Ganges Road) wasn’t the only attempt we had made.

We did as much due diligence as we could in advance of buying the property and talked to the trustees before hand and brought them the proposals. We were not discouraged from proceeding.  The tone we understood was ‘We want companies like yours on this island and we’ll do whatever we can to help you.’  With that verbal support we proceeded with the purchase, the studies, the public engagement process, everything we could think of in order to be a responsible company doing business in our community.”

So what happened?  “ The real problem here is that the Islands Trust process is totally flawed,” said Mickey.

“They accepted our $5,000 application fee – they allowed us to proceed.  They knew what we were going to do. During the process we took out ads to inform the community how things were going and the challenges we faced with the process, spent a great deal of money and time to make this work. My biggest disappointment is that they allowed us to go down this road in the first place.”

As islanders are also expressing their disappointment in online channels and reflecting on the impact this loss will have on the community, Mickey takes stock of the Salt Spring Coffee Company’s history on the island. It is a great success story.

Robbyn and Mickey, May 2010

Mickey and his wife Robbyn Scott moved to Spring Island in the early 1980’s.  Mickey came from Texada Island in 1981 to visit his brother Ross who was managing Mansell Farm. He worked at the farm for a few years before establishing a sawmill business that he worked at part time. In 1985 Robbyn moved to Salt Spring from New York City where she had been pursuing her passion for dance. The couple had originally met on Texada Island  in the early 70’s

In 1987 Mickey began working full time on the sawmill business which had become a successful enterprise. “We cut timbers for Artspring, Creekside, Moby’s Pub and some for Grace Point Square. We did work on Bob Hassel  and Hank Schubert homes. “

In 1996 Mickey and Robbyn started the Salt Spring Roasting Company, and Mickey kept the sawmill business going until their new venture demanded more of his time and money. “I sold parts of the sawmill to the O’Donnell brothers to help raise capital for the coffee business. “

They set up their coffee shop in the current location which had been Work Wear World, and the Credit Union before that.

What was the inspiration to get into the coffee business?

Mickey and Robbyn in Peru with coffee farmers.

“Robbyn and I have always enjoyed good coffee – and we were watching the specialty coffee movement happening on the west coast in the USA. We did some looking into it thought it would be a good fit for Salt Spring.  What appealed to us is that we could reflect our own personal values while promoting the product.”

The Roasting Company was an early advocate for supporting organic farmers and pushing for suppliers of organic coffee. They were an early adopter of fair trade ethics and one of the original handfull of companies involved in Transfair Canada which was established in 1998 to certify fair trade practices.

“We educated people about what organic was. When we first started going to grocery stores to sell them our coffee, some of the buyers would ask us things like ‘What is this organic stuff all about? Is that some sort of a fad?’

"Union of Women Workers that we are working with in Nicaragua. They are a newly formed co-op of woman working in the coffee dry mill. We helped them form their co-op and will be supporting their micro finance program."

The same thing with fair trade. Now carbon neutrality is the next thing we are working on. Through pursuing these values in our business we are able to communicate and educate consumers. It is ongoing. It’s because Robbyn and I have these values in our lives that we have been able to incorporate that into the business model.

The business is more successful than I expected. I didn’t really have any huge expectations. I really wanted to do something different and meaningful. We are now roasting about 800,000 pounds of coffee a year and selling to retailers throughout western Canada. It has been very exciting and rewarding.”

Coming to Salt Spring originally Mickey says the appeal was  spending time working with his brother Ross at Mansell Farm and the unique blend of counter culture and the well to do.

“I suppose now I have a bitter taste in my mouth about Salt Spring. I feel disillusioned.  The community seems fragmented. We thought it was the perfect place to continue to support the ideals we held. We wanted to try and help build this hub of business awareness, food awareness, and though a lot of people seemed engaged in that, and I think there are a lot of aware people — the other side sort of fragments it.”

As far as lessons learned from this, Mickey points to what he perceives as a problem with the structure of the Islands Trust.

“I believe the problem is that the two Trustees have too much power. And they ended up responding to pressures from constituents as opposed to any kind of protocol.  We were very up front and open with our process, but realized too late that we were playing the wrong game.  We were going by the book and the way the “process,” if you can call it that, was presented to us. Decisions are not made by logic but by influence and emotion.

I am fine with their answer  but would have preferred that up front instead of 18 months later and about $200,000 in costs that we won’t recover, from going through this process. This is a problem with the system.

This problem goes very deep into the community besides what it has done in this case with Salt Spring Coffee.

I was sent a copy of a petition recently from a lawyer on Hornby island. There is a movement underway to look at the actual Islands Trust act. I think it is something we should look at.”

In the meantime, the Salt Spring Coffee Company looks for a new space in the city and workers jobs at the local facility will be moved off island.

“We tried hard to keep our operations on the island and I am sorry to our staff that won’t be going with us and other community members that will be affected by our move,” said Mickey.

High in the mountains of Africa, there’s a soccer team flying the Salt Spring colours.

This winter, islander Gary McNutt carried duffel bags stuffed with soccer gear to his other home in Lesotho. He distributed the gear through an organization called Phelisanong (Together We Work for Life), a group he and other Salt Springers have been visiting and fundraising for over the past 5 years.

McNutt sees this coming May Long Weekend soccer tournament as a chance to build on that connection. He’s launched a fundraiser that invites people to sponsor the purchase of balls for $15, soccer boots for $30, and donate their old soccer shirts to the kids in Africa he plays with. McNutt also plans to raise funds towards leveling playing fields, giving teams in this steep mountain terrain a chance to play fair. He hopes to raise $5000 this weekend, and encourages supporters of soccer to drop by the booth at the Gulf Islands Secondary School field and learn more about how to get involved.

This year, McNutt’s  soccer program in Africa really took off, in part thanks to the donated SS United kits. Rather than simply hand out the uniforms, Mamello, the project director arranged a soccer tournament on the Easter weekend. Kids from all over the mountains came to play, share food, and learn about the various food security initiatives that are spreading from Phelisanong centre itself out into the 14 villages. Teams from each of these villages have formed, with the goal of getting players involved, through football, in farming and fruit orchard programs.

” ‘Soccer in the morning, community service in the afternoon’ is the idea,” says McNutt. “These are the same kids who rely on food handouts, whose parents have died from AIDS. Just as a young soccer player thrives with a good ball, a good coach and a strong team, African kids’ ability to grow food grows substantially when they work together, with a sturdy fence around their plot and some mentorship from an adult.”

His belief in the importance of community gardens has been the foundation of much of McNutt’s 10-years service work in Africa. He points to a 3 acre fenced orchard, growing 500 fruit trees intercropped with vegetables, which sits adjacent to the Phelisanong centre. “Every time the kids come to school or to play soccer, they pass this incredible orchard that’s just bursting with food. This was a bare field just last year: it inspires everyone.”

The orchard has been a resounding success, and now, through the soccer program, McNutt envisions building more orchards in the outlying villages. Aside from the donated balls, boots, and jerseys, funds raised at the May Long tourney will go towards fencing, tools, and the cost of grading soccer fields and orchard areas in the villages.

“Whenever a ball appears in the villages in Lesotho, there is an instant soccer game,” says McNutt. “Until now there’s been such a scarcity of balls and gear that schools and community centres would either carefully hoard the few balls they had or let them get played with until they became totally shredded. Our goal is one kid, one ball: for $15, you really do see a kid expand, not just because they are on the team, but because they begin to see a future where they can grow beyond handouts and become strong farmers and providers in their communities.”

It’s a beautiful game: come and play!

Submitted by Andrea Palframan

March 18 – 2010. Losotho, Africa. I went visiting to a village nearby to Ha Makhata with the Warriors, the community outreach workers from the Phelisanong project. The work of these HIV positive Warriors is to deliver social services to  the orphans and HIV patients in 14 villages. Focussing on the most vulnerable cases, the Warriors do what they can to ensure that the poorest of the poor have access to medical care, food, and social life.

Submitted by Andrea Palframan.

We meet up with a group of caregivers in the village of Ha Tefo, in the yard of the chief. There is a formality to the meeting simply because of the presence of the chief, and the official nature of our visit. As such, we remove our hats as the chief rises to give us formal welcome. Mamello, who has come along as a translator and guide, then stands and explains that we are here, as overseas donors, to see how the program in the villages are coming along. Then it’s my turn to introduce myself: this little ceremony is more formal than anything I usually attend in Canada, and I employ the elaborate manners I have been taught here in Lesotho. The assembly, all women, appreciate the observation  of their customs and graces by an outsider like me. Afterwards, I take snapshots, for our mutual amusement.

Because the territory they cover is wide, the Warriors have selected and trained ten to twelve people in each village as home care workers. These caregivers check in on their charges twice a day, bringing parcels of food three times a week and helping HIV patients on anti-retroviral treatment keep track of their medications and take their pills on time.

Of the twelve women Phelisanong has engaged as caregivers in Ha Tefo, three are nursing small babies, four are elderly, and the rest appear to be in their twenties. I could sit on the grass and hang out with these women all day long. For me, the main practice in respecting the local manners is to slow entirely down, as in, pull the plug that connects me to the strivings of the busy world I come from.  Rather than ever interrupt one another, people wait their turn to speak, and, when it comes, often repeat what was said prior, for emphasis, before making their own points. These women all have work to do, and they will get to it, but they put everything aside when there is communion to be had. While it seems indulgent, (all this time spent talking when we’ve got a shit mess to deal with!)  this kind of open ended palaver is highly practical. Out of big long meetings and discussions has come a co-operative community effort that is well organized, where people know their roles well and are motivated into voluntary action to help the poorest of the poor in their village.

Today, though, is a day for action. We walk through the grass pathways that wind around people’s clusters of round huts. Chickens sprint away from our boots. I follow Mamello and the blue-coated Warriors down a lane and into a yard, ringed with a row of corn, a peach tree dangling it’s last fruits overhead. An elderly lady greets us and goes back to squatting against the warm stone wall of her hut. She calls out, and four children step forward out of the corn patch. The youngest is naked except for a band around her waist: the rest are rail thin and ragtag. The baby rubs against grandma’s legs like a cat.

We talk for a bit. She thanks the Warriors and Phelisanong for the food parcels which are delivered to her three days a week. It helps a lot, she says. She explains that she is 69, and will get a pension of R150 (about $22) from the government next year. This is a new program Lesotho has introduced for people over 70. Until then she makes thatching rope for the construction of roofs in the village. Selling her rope brings her the small amount of cash she needs to buy candles, parrafin, and soap.

We ask if the kids have been tested for HIV. She shakes her head, no. But they attend school, she adds, which means that they have had their immunizations, and that they get lunch five days a week. I wonder, then, what they are doing home on a Monday, and notice that they have no shoes. Without a uniform and shoes, orphans are often teased at school, not only by their fellow students but by their teachers. Mamello answers my unspoken question, telling me that the kids have missed school today because there is no soap to wash their clothes, and they are ashamed to go to school dirty. Soap: $0.20. An education when your parents are dead: priceless.

Next stop: a family of three kids who have no grandparents alive to care for them. There is only a mentally handicapped uncle, whose visits may do them more harm than good. Mamello explains that Phelisanong have found a caregiver in the village and appointed her to pay visits to this group of children, in part to keep the uncle away, in part to deliver food parcels and offer her tender mercies.

In their tiny compound, the dust has been carefully swept in symmetrical patterns across the little patch of yard by the head of the household, a 13 year old girl. The house is a perfect example of Lesotho vernacular architecture, a round hut topped with thatch grass.  However this version of the classic rondavel sags to one side. The wattle and daub wood work that provides a framework for the clay plaster walls is exposed in places, and the wooden door plank has been splintered and chipped away to skew in synch with the general lean of the building. Nonetheless, the eldest child keeps the place neat as a pin.

We go inside the windowless house and are pitched into darkness.  The floors and walls are smeared with ash and dung. Stepping inside out of the bright African afternoon is like being swallowed, it’s like the world has been turned inside out and I am standing barefoot in a black hole. A windless womb: more bomb shelter than a sanctuary, but that’s just the contrast, perhaps, between the  nuclear explosion of colour and light outside, and the muffling earthen walls and piled straw that enfold this cool cavern of silence.

inside this room is like being within an iron kettle. The walls encircle me in an ashen embrace. I trace the lines woodsmoke has drawn on the walls, up to the burnt black rafters curving above. Empty, thick with stillness, this dismal interior works on our merry conversation like a sedative. Hush, hushed, we shuffle in the murky dust.

As my eyes adjust, the thin wedge of light from the doorway begins to outline shapes against the walls. A plank sits propped up on stones, where I can just make out the pot, three plates, cup, and huddle of folded blankets, the children’s few possessions gathered in a neat row. Pinpricks of sky peek out like stars from cracks where the walls sag beneath the weight of the blackened grass roof. A home for three children, this eight foot ’round  hut is their earthly anchor, their only protection —  save for the fierce light behind their eyes, that look up at me now like a row of fireflies in the dark.

I wonder what it is like to lay here at night, on this mud floor, looking up? Do they have a candle that warms the place, so that the walls flicker and glow like skin? They do not have a mother who leans over them, only the memory of her in the roof she wove for them, before she died. Do the kids lay heads together and look up, or do they curl up like black fists and rush towards the void of sleep?

The woman who comes each night makes sure the middle child, a boy, takes his HIV medications. She sits with them, shares what food she can, and then, as the light begins to fade, heads back to her own home, her own children. How must these kids feel, night after night, when she turns to go?

I take pictures of the kids. A girl, 13, a boy, 10, and another girl, 8. At first they flinch from the flash, and I feel like the intruder I must seem to them to be. Then, when I show them their faces in the viewfinder, they start to enjoy it. Revealed in the little digital window, they murmur to one another and glance up at me with shy smiles.  They are so quiet, and so serious, so unlike the BAsotho children I’m used to who play and talk so boldly. But then these children, from this remote village, will never have seen a white person up close: we appear only faces streaking by in fancy cars, tourists on their way up to the Katse Dam. Our having stopped here is clearly deeply weird and probably a bit scary for them. We play the name game, which doesn’t get us very far. Then I tell them I have kids too, and nod at the eldest. “You’re about the age of Kina,” I say, and she replies, “I know, I’ve heard of this white girl Kina.  You’re the mother of Kina?” Hmm, wouldn’t you know! Without even being here, my kids  break the ice. In this African orphan’s eyes,  I am transformed from alien invader into something remotely relatable: a mother.

And Kina’s back in Canada now, with her big room and her fluffy blankets and her shelves crammed with books and art supplies, her closet a tangled mess of all of her piles of clothing. If she lived next door to this place, it would be obvious, how things could be sorted out.  Kina could learn how to look after her things, and her African sister could gain the dignity of a proper fitting shirt and a pair of good shoes.

This house is as poor as poor gets: the only further loss  these kids could possibly suffer would be losing the house itself. They could go and live in an orphanage, if there were space, if all the orphanages were not already crammed with other kids who’ve lost their parents to AIDS. But they are staying here, holding on to their ancestral patch of earth, the house, their family name, their inheritance. It is, in pure material terms, a collection of sticks, mud, and grass, but for them, it is what links them to their past and what they emerge from, into the promise of every fresh morning. They come out from their black sleeping place into the mountain range, bathed in light, that forms a larger circle around the whole of the village. They belong in that circle.

That is what they’ve got: fathomless, measureless, intangible, but enough. (I can throw in ‘barely’ and you’ll probably agree.) They do manage, are alive, they can go on with life, and by the look in their eyes, they will.  For what am I doing here if all I can do is announce is that it’s wrong, these kids lives should be different, that there is a crime being committed by humanity leaving these poor orphans all alone and suffering so…. What I am doing instead is bearing witness like a good Quaker, and learning their story.  Without freaking out and denouncing reality, I am becoming part of it.  In so doing, I may find a way to weave a bit of my golden straw into the roof that protects these lovely children.

Next! This is a whirlwind tour of Ha Tefo, so hold onto your hat. Goodbye, orphans and black silence, hello dying HIV/AIDS patient!  It’s really too too too much, as the Basotho would say. So, hang on a minute: lest you think this is a miserable experience for anyone, can I just pause here and tell you where we are?  For this village is about as beautiful as anywhere you could possibly imagine on earth. The humans are too poor and perhaps too comfortable in their paradise to have gone off and collected a bunch of industrial crap. The mark they make on this loveliest of alpine meadows is to have gathered and woven up a series of round huts, planted a bunch of gardens and corn patches, allowed their animals to roam around fence free, and hung the odd coloured flag by way of signage. White flag = place of worship, Red flag = butchery, Green flag = vegetable seller. These flags flap in a gentle breeze. Water is collected from springs which dot the green hillsides. Spikes of giant agave erupt into yellow crowned trees, sipped by nectar loving birds whose songs mingle with the tunes hummed by wandering shepherds. Soaring overhead dance blue mountain peaks, dappled by cloud shadows… the nightmare scenarios I share with you — AIDS, death, hunger, deprivation… these take place within this poet’s wet dream of a setting. Just to mention.  Anyway, back to our tour….

We visit a patient, a middle aged woman. She is lying on the floor of her hut. There is a hole in the roof of her house which allows in more light than in the previous hut. It also lets in the rain.  I see a bench, some pots, a shelf neatly lined with yellow grocery store flyers. We are greeted by an ancient old woman, bent nearly double, who rises to shake our hands then shuffles back to her place on the bench. This is the patient’s mother, who has been summoned from over the mountain to come to care for her daughter. There are no children: the patient’s five kids have all died. Somehow, mum is still here, clinging to life on her thin mat, unable to get up to use the toilet, in soiled sheets rattling breath after agonized breath. Somehow, her ancient mother manages to walk a quarter mile to the spring, collect a few gallons of water in a plastic bucket, and haul it back home to wash her grown child. Imagine.

We ask if the patient is taking any medication.  A mickey of Smirnoff is passed over, with a quarter inch of black liquid at the bottom. This is a traditional syrup, probably made from boiled herbs and sugar. Then, a few packets of pills are passed over. These were prescribed by the village ‘nurse’, a woman who has set up a private practice by the Ha Tefo roadside. She charges R60 per visit ($9) and, Mamello says, always dispenses the same medications, regardless of the illness. “These tablets are for a common cold,” says Mamello. The Ha Tefo nurse does not administer HIV tests, nor does she work with Phelisanong. “We suspect she is not qualified, yet she is charging a huge amount of money,” Mamello explains. A trip to the local hospital, on the other hand, is only $4.50. But traveling that far, until now, has been out of the question.  “If Phelisanong’s Warriors had taken this woman, and she died along the way, with no relative along with her, we could have been accused of killing her. That’s why we called her mother to come, quickly, so that she can accompany us when we take her to the hospital.” We arrange to take her in on Friday of this week.

Part of the reason for our visit is to identify people in the village who need to be tested for HIV: those four children and their grandmother, at the first house we visited; the elder and younger children of the black house whose middle brother has already tested positive; this childless mother who shows all the signs of stage 3 AIDS but has not been diagnosed.

Thanks to Mamello, a group of Voluntary Counsellors and Testers (VCTs) from the capital city, Maseru, are coming tomorrow. They will  spend a week, staying in the villages, counselling and testing people for HIV. Today’s visits are not just a reality tour for Miss Andrea: the Warriors are telling people about the upcoming testing and making sure people know when and where to come. In addition to this village, in the afternoon we will fly to seven others in the trusty 4×4 Mahindra truck to spread the word and make short visits to families in need of testing services.

But first —  our last stop in Ha Tefu. Here is a home of relative wealth, a sturdy, brick construction whose two windows let the morning light pour in. The walls are bright turquoise, and have been hand stenciled with thousands of tiny white flowers. Wide tin bowls full of dried peaches sit on the kitchen table, and row upon row of canned peaches stand on the shelf. The householder, a widow of 65, scoops up big handfuls of dried peach and hands us each a plastic bag full. The word in Sesotho for these is ‘mangangajane’, exactly the sound it makes inside your head as you jaw away at these chewy delicacies. It’s a relief to sit at a table, in chairs, in a house full of colour and light. Abundance is possible.

As we sit and munch, the woman invites a series of people to come in and sit down with us. These are people with HIV, enrolled with the hospital on ART,  whom she has taken on supporting. She keeps a record of each of their anti-retroviral and TB medications, and makes notes in the morning and night when they come to her house to take their pills. Her patients consist of two of her own grown children, plus an elderly man and woman.  The caregiver stands with her hands on the backs of their chairs, an expansive mother in her white apron, proudly taking on this modern HIV work as part of her traditional role in the village. This is the kind of sensible approach to AIDS that works. There is no moral twisting, no cultural shifting, no agonizing over who’s to blame. It’s just ma in her kitchen with her peaches and her ARVs, keeping the village alive and well.

This woman is among the rock solid people Mamello and her team have identified in 14 villages. There are ten such caregivers in each village, give or take. After bearing witness to stories like the ones I’ve shared, above, there is nothing to be done apart from getting on with it. With her outreach team, Mamello has organized an effective system to deal with the AIDS crisis around here, using the funds she receives from overseas in combination with these local, human resources to keep people alive. With treatment and medicine comes a great reduction in transmission of the illness, meaning more parents stay alive, meaning some of those kids we met today have a chance at living AIDS free.

Despite the support from Glasswaters Foundation that allows for transport, pays Warriors, and provides food packets for the 280 people enrolled in this outreach program, our resources are stretched thin. We don’t yet have funds to provide soap, paraffin, infant formula or candles to children living alone. We could use a fund to buy school uniforms for the most needy orphans we’re meeting. We could use a few dollars, to feed a crew of local volunteers, to spend a week fixing up  houses whose roofs are collapsing or whose walls are caving in because their inhabitants are either too sick, or too young, to fix them themselves. We could use another $10000 to extend this social welfare program to more families.

I promise you, the government of Lesotho does not have the resources to handle the crisis in these remote areas. There is no corrupt official stealing bread from the mouths of babes here: there just isn’t enough to go around in this poor country. It makes perfect sense to me that we in the west with our problem of over-consumption should decide to chip in.

Mamello is pleased to have showed me this glimpse into the kind of worst case scenarios she is battling. She is sharing the stories that keep her up at night in the hopes that I may be able to find her more help. So:

If you can, please, please contribute. The twenty one dollar monthly pension the grandmothers anticipate? That’s the kind of buffer these orphans and HIV patients need between their current deprivation and a life where there is a bit of light from a candle at night, a bit of warmth from a paraffin stove in the frozen winters, and a sense of protection stretching over them, from the unseen loving humans they may never meet, namely YOU, and YOU, and YOU.

sock it to me: the website takes donations at www.phelisanong.com or you can walk into Island Savings Credit Union anywhere in the gulf islands/vancouver island region and deposit directly into Community to Community’s checking account, 1926450.

Photos by Gary McNutt

On April 22, millions of Canadians will participate in the 40th annual International Earth Day. What are you doing to celebrate?

Submitted by Clare Cullen

As volunteer coordinator for Earth Day Canada on Salt Spring Island, I am hoping to get groups to work together to promote their events, engage our community and celebrate the Earth.

Please contact me, Clare Cullen, at ssearthday@telus.net or 250-537-2682 to have your event included in promotion materials, as well as receive resources and assistance in planning.

Let’s have a meaningful impact and lots of fun on Salt Spring’s Earth Day.

Front page banner photo: Alicepopkorn

Photo this page: Dirac3000

March Break is upon us!  If you are looking for something fun for the kids to do which will give them life time skills and introduce them to the art and fine craft world Clay Classes would be a good choice.

Recently back from a vacation in the  Jungle, visual artist and art therapist Tracy Harrison is offering a cornucopia of clay classes from her Creative Fire Studio. Inspired by the animals she saw in the Jungle she will be teaching children 7 years and older how to make Monkey Mugs, Toucan Pitchers and Hot Diggity Dogs!  For those keen on drifting into the fantasy world she will teach you how to make clay fairies, wizards, amulet, mandalas and angels, even leaping leprechauns!.

Tracy teaches the classes through demonstration and hands on assistance which helps each student make a successful piece at their own skill level. More advanced students are encouraged to develop aesthetic and design skills, while newbies to clay can learn the basics and how to avoid blows up and cracking.  As most Potters will tell you clay is a challenging material to work with and although there are many wonderful successes and unexpected surprises there are some frustrations, disappointments and tricky challenges to face sometimes too.

As an art therapist, Tracy is well equipped to help your child move gently through any frustration or emotional upset that may occur and as an artist she can help problem solve, offer technical recommendations and suggest successful ways to approach a piece of clay work. Tracy shares that for “the most part clay making offers children an opportunity to get messy, create wonderful and wild things that delight all their senses, boost their self esteem, confidence and social skills. Sometimes a piece breaks or collapses or comes out of the firing cracked, however with support most children can weather these challenges well and rise to a successful final piece. The struggles can help children develop solid problem solving skills, strong reslience, and the ability to transform a disappointment into a celebration.”  For those who have difficulty accepting mistakes she has a workshop where children make a “mistake cupcake” with a spot for a candle. The idea is that when they make a mistake they can celebrate what they learned from the mistake by lighting the candle!  This helps children identify what they can learn from their mistakes and realize it is all part of the learning process. Tracy stated “It’s a great way to shake up the perfectionists!”.

For a list of workshops, dates, times and cost see www.creativefirestudio.org or contact tracy (at) creativefirestudio.org or through her studio 250-538-0144

Saturday February 20 at 7 pm, Mahon Hall Salt Spring Island. Join filmmaker Gary McNutt and writer Andrea Palframan for an evening of stories and images from brightest Africa.

The evening is a fundraiser for the Phelisanong (Together we Work for LIfe) project in Lesotho. Hear about how this group of disabled and HIV positive villagers banded together and formed a group dedicated to caring for their community’s most vulnerable, the orphans and disabled children left behind by the AIDS pandemic. Through their solidarity and vision, this group has built a community centre that thrives, against all odds, in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Palframan and McNutt are headed back to Lesotho on February 26th, and will be bringing with them what funds they raise at Saturday’s event. This year they are fundraising for new orphanage buildings at Phelisanong, each of which will house 10 children with special needs and chronic illnesses. The buildings cost $20,000 each and two are already under construction. They are also fundraising for an expansion on the project’s tiny one-roomed health clinic, a computer lab, and their scholarship program. They hope to raise $4000 to top up their year-long fundraising efforts over the weekend, both at this information evening and at a benefit concert at Moby’s on Friday the 19th.

“Trying to keep up with the galloping imagination of these supposedly ‘unempowered’ people has been the greatest challenge,” says Andrea Palframan, the event’s organizer.  “There is no limitation to the goals that Phelisanong sets, and we just try to hang on. We know that every penny we raise goes directly to help the people who need it most: as the African proverb says, there isn’t much water spilled when you’re carrying it uphill.”

The Phelisanong projects’ director, Mamello Lehlotha, came to Salt Spring island in 2006. Many islanders  recognized in Mamello  a rare opportunity to channel funds directly to an indigenous, community led project in Africa free from interference of corrupt governments or top-heavy aid agencies. Since her visit, there have been back-and-forth visits to the project by Salt Springers: Saturday’s presentation is a chance to hear from two such visitors about what they learned and witnessed watching a real-time community-to-community partnership unfold.

Through it all hear how Salt Spring Islanders have played a role in funding and supporting a primary school, a health clinic, and a secondary scholarship program for girls. McNutt’s film features footage taken since 2004, when the project consisted of a series of collapsing mud huts, to today’s quadrangle of school and orphanage buildings, standing surrounded by lush fields and orchards. “We can point to each of these buildings and say the name of people on Salt Spring who’ve donated money to build them,”  says McNutt. “While Canada is famous for doing good in the world, Phelisanong is a rare example of how sustained and long term commitments on the part of small communities like ours can really make a lasting impact, on literally thousands of people’s lives.”

There have been some deep challenges, and hard lessons, along the way, which offer valuable insights to anyone involved in development work overseas. “So many projects fail because they are arranged around outsiders’ needs and timeframes,” says Palframan. “What we’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, is that any ‘aid project’ needs to absolutely involve the people who will work to sustain it in every step of the process. That goes for reconstruction in Haiti to the kind of long term development that we’re involved in in Africa.

“While people look to us to be poor and desperate, they are incredibly resourceful from having to live in such harsh circumstances. They don’t need to be saved by us, they just need us to invest in their ideas. Their approach is going to be different, their pace is going to be different, but we learn a great deal if we take the time to slow down and listen up.”
Everyone is invited to come out on Saturday night to Mahon Hall, watch the film, and join in a discussion about development, community, and international solidarity.

Find out how you can be a part of the next chapter in this evolving community-to-community story.  930-4279