Introducing Kelebogile

One of our delightful hosts while in South Africa was Ms. Kelebogile (pronounced roughly: Keeleh bokheeleh)--Kele for short--who is the executive assistant at the NGO (non-governmental organization) that helped organize our trip. She grew up in Soweto, one of the many townships on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where black people were forced to live under Apartheid. This is a picture of her with her uncle in front of the house where she grew up. When we went to visit Soweto, she took us to see her old home and introduce us to her uncle. He is a jazz musician as well as a landscape artist--as illustrated in the photo below by what he's done with his house.





Kele, was an amazing person to have working on our behalf during this trip. Not only did she graciously share her own story of the Apartheid struggle--what it was like growing up as a young black woman under the white regime--but she also worked tirelessly to organize our various excursions. She arranged our accommodations. She set up meals and meetings and never ceased to amaze us with her genuine kindness. In a particularly impressive feat, she managed to negotiate the cost of our rental van (pictured below) down from R1400 to R400 per day! (South Africa's currency is the Rand, and at the time of my trip the exchange rate was 6 rand to the dollar--so R1000/day is no small change). One delightfully appropriate thing about Kele is that her full name--Kelebogile--actually means 'Thank You' in the language 'Tswana,' one of the eleven official languages of South Africa that I mentioned in my last post. So everytime we said her name, we got to say a little 'thank you' to her for all she did for us. We have a lot of thanking left to do, but it was a start!

Above: This was our "ride" for the duration of our stay--the indomitable VW Kombi. It took us 1500km across the South African interior from Johannesburg to Capetown (a trip I will detail later) as well as through Kruger National Park.

Dr. Charles Amjad-Ali and Reverend Basil Manning

The two gentlemen pictured above were instrumental in making our trip what it was. On the left is Professor Charles, the Luther Seminary prof who taught our class and who set up the trip. Born in Pakistan, he has worked continuously throughout his life, for the sake of the gospel and on behalf of the powerless in the world--which is one in the same thing. He is currently on sabbatical in South Africa where he was drawn by his longtime friend Basil Manning who is the CEO of Ditshwanelo-CARAS, the NGO that worked with us. Please check out their website for a good introduction to what their organization is about: www.caras.org.za. Basil is, in his words, a "black South African of mixed descent, " and as such suffered the humiliation of segregation and oppression of Apartheid, but with the added twist of being told by the whites that he was some better than what they called "blacks" but of course not as good as whites. This placed people of his color in the situation of deciding (in so much as one can 'decide') whether to take advantage of this tiny amount of extra privilege in exchange for supporting a wholly corrupt system of racism. As is clear from his description of himself, he set himself against the system.

In fact, both Charles and Basil were both political exiles from their respective countries years ago and became friends while working together during this time in their lives at the World Council of Churches. They are both extraordinary men and it was an amazing opportunity to work with them--truly an honor. They are deeply dedicated to their work, but they can laugh together like I've never seen. And after catching a mere glimpse of the struggles they have faced, I can see why you must learn to laugh with your comrades--and apparently good wine and single-malt scotch don't hurt either...not that I (or my group) know anything about it...

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