Walls rising, next.

The walls of the new studio are miraculously rising and I can envision one day walking in the front door to see the weavers and their looms by their south facing windows. I tingle with the new studio becoming a three dimensional reality  but I also feel a new horizon looming. I have done lots of designing in my life. I have designed tapestries, rugs, yoga classes, workshops and South African tours  but lying awake in the middle of the night, I begin to try to envision the design of this community complex. Once the studio is complete Mapusha will relocate but what more is needed to nourish the whole, to create a vital community hub?  Granted, my role is to simply find a vision and hold it. I can’t make it happen, only the community members can do that but still the vision of the whole design feels important at this formative moment in Roiboklaagte. 

It was the grannies of rural South Africa who captured my heart ten years ago and it is Gertrude, Regina, Lindy and the three Anna's who have modeled for me both a new level of faith and how to put one foot in front of the other no matter what the circumstances. They have shown me over and over their great ability to sing, pray, dance or laugh on a dime but, sitting on the steps with Emerencia, Regina's very successful and delightful thirty-four year old daughter, when I asked her opinion of what we needed at the New Dawn Center, she shocked me.  She said bluntly, "The Mapusha women are too old. They grew up under Apartheid and it is the younger generation who must make a difference now."  

Her comment made everything stand still for a moment but, as I mulled it over I felt my vision broaden.  Now my puzzle is how to bring in that next generation. We have the creche with the small children and the art class for the medium children and the Mapusha grannies to ground it all but how to bring on that middle range, the twenty and thirty somethings who haven't moved from the village but have a passion to make something of their lives.
It helps to understand what note, what flavor is needed for the whole design to really sing but once again I am faced with a new realm, new words and tasks. Vision as I may, try as I might it will only succeed if many from the community join us and share the vision. The motto of the New Dawn Center is "Working together we have power" but how to move that forward is my current question.
 

The drilling rig will lumber up next week to dig our borehole and I will be adding 'building renovation and refurbishment' to my portfolio as we finally begin to spiff up the Peanut Building/Community Development Center. The pieces of the physical design are coming into place but creating a vital community hub means finding a way to mix, match and merge many energies. The goal is  to form a smoothly functioning whole and we aren’t there yet. I am  holding thumbs and asking for help, ideas, inspiration from all quarters!

Concrete?

I was driving home from my first full week of managing the building of Mapusha’s new studio with the list of supplies needed for next week by my side. The trenches were complete and on Monday the crew would ‘throw the footing.”  Feeling pretty smug about how well week #1 had gone, I started going over the list in my head. "Bags of cement, got that. Truckload of sand, makes sense to me," but,  the next item on the list threw me into instant brain freeze. 

Concrete, how can I order concrete? What is concrete? Isn’t that what we are making?  If that is what we are making, what am I ordering? I tried to call up an image of concrete that wasn’t a finished product; a bench, a set of steps, a swimming pool. Nothing else floated into my blank mind.  I pulled to the side of the road and texted my visiting American builder friend, “What is concrete?” I learned that when they say concrete here, they are actually referring to what I would tend to call gravel. 

Back on the road as I passed through the high grasses of the summer bush, I found myself remembering other times when, being beyond the edge of my own known boundaries, I hit the same kind of skid-to-a-stop moment. There have been lots of these in my take a leap life but I had never before understood it so clearly. Brain freeze is truly a necessary condition when you are in new world.  The new vocabulary necessitates tilt moments, you simply don’t have a reference from the past for what is in front of you. 

Most of us know the feeling of being in a foreign country not knowing what the signs or the people are saying but this is slightly different, a bit more subtle and confusing. My first vivid memory of it was long ago on a yoga mat at a weekend intensive as a raw neophyte  student. It took all my courage to sign up for this intensive with an internationally known teacher and on the first day I sat on my mat scared, awkward, ready to do my best.  The beautiful, ethereally, leggy teacher drifted to the front of the room and began the class but to my horror she used sanskrit names for the yoga asanas. I didn’t know these words, she might as well have been speaking greek. I remember my frozen self sitting there with wide eyes, a pounding heart and an empty mind. 

Week #3 on the building site was about brick building and again, I hit a  conundrum moment. If they “threw the footing” last week what does one call this brick building phase of the base? Once again a builder type friend explained that the concrete “laid” last week and the brick walls of this week together create the footing. I now accept the fact that it will take me at least through the roofing to learn the vocabulary, but by then it won’t be a new world anymore.

Next the slab is laid. The thought of this, with all that I know it involves and all that I don't know, brings a heightened sense of tension to my bones!

This week's first picture is my wonderful foreman, Demond. He is now officially Anna Mduli’s ‘son’ as she cooks pap and moroho for him daily. Probably everybody else in the world knows that the next two pictures are of the ‘footing.” And the final picture is of Elena with her father, Philip, our top bricklayer. I have known Elena since she was 3 weeks old (the women at the coop call her “my baby”) but In her seven years I had never met her father until this project began.  It was a treat for me to walk over with her on Thursday and see how she adores him and how sweet he is with her.

Water? Water! Water @#$%^&*()@#$%^&*()

Yes, week two was the week of water; the need for it and all the convoluted tangles involved with obtaining it.  Water was the ball that this juggling project manager had to keep in the air each day as I concentrated on maintaining a steady supply to feed the voracious cement mixer. The goal was to complete the studio’s footing within three days and return the mixer friday afternoon. And, though Regina and Gertrude had politely asked for permission to use the two neighboring boreholes (both within sight of our building site) one at the mission and one at the high school, they were refused by the mission and received no answer at all from the high school. 

I could go into a tangent and describe my complete hissy fit, see red tantrum on Wednesday  when I returned to the studio, triumphant from getting the cement mixer in place on schedule, to find it completely empty. I called Wonder, “Where are you all?”  She reported that the Father’s had said ’no’ to our water request and so they were getting water themselves.

I went out into the village and found the women by the side of the road scooping muddy water from a leaking pipe into containers. I protested loudly, 

“We paid the mission for water rights, we pay each month for water. It is not fair. I want to speak to the Fathers”

“No Judy, you must say nothing.” Gertrude mimed zipping my lips closed.  

“But it is so unfair!” I stormed again, to which she replied, ”It is alright for God knows the truth. We will get the water, we will carry it on heads. The women of Mapusha have power.” Finding it Impossible to argue with her reasoning, I simply sighed.
Regina kindly added,”You may  speak of it in America, but here, no. It will cause problems.” 

So my pictures are all about water - the hungry mixer, our new Jojo tank that must be painstakingly filled with containers of water, the women of Mapusha filling their containers from the leaking pipe, Veronica performing the endless transfer of water.  I have to say, after just one week of doing this intense water jig it gives me pause to consider all the people world wide who dance the need-water-dance day in, day out. It seems an arena fraught with both the potential for great conflict and the possibility of inspirational cooperation.  

The week ended on a positive note when Desmond (foreman) and his 6 member crew really stepped it up to complete the footing before the mixer had to be returned. They stayed late and skipped breakfast. I was truly impressed as I stood on a mound of red soil with my camera in hand watching them work together like a well greased machine. The buckets were filled with sand or gravel or water and fed to the machine with perfect timing and the gritty, grey, liquid cement poured into the waiting wheelbarrow which was immediately rolled down into the trench and dumped. They finished an hour early and received their first pay envelopes from Desmond and a liter of their preferred ‘cool drink”  and a hand shake from me. 

It is the way it seems to go  here.  Sometimes I am pulling my hair out at the petty jealousies that rip through the fabric of the community and other times I stand in awe of the remarkable capacity within this rural South African village to cooperate and get the job done.

 I drove home that day sunburned, tired, proud of our trenches, our footing and our crew but guiltily ready to jump into the beautiful swimming pool at the house where I stay.

Stay tuned for more water wrangling and my next learning trajectory as we move into brick laying on Monday.

Two picks, four shovels, twenty-five droppers and here we go!

Elena and her little sister Zanile

Dear All,

I am deep in the land of lush greenery, too much rain and many mangos, enjoying temperatures that never make me clench and waking each morning before dawn to bird songs.  The new studio will be sited and pegged today and despite my mild misgivings about being the “project manager,”  things seem to be gracefully falling into place. 

The Mapusha women told me in great seriousness that they must head up the building project for if people think it is me, we will be cheated. They have chosen the crew of six local unskilled laborers to work beneath a foreman and his two skilled workers (chosen by the architect.) The crew is three men, three women; Regina’s son, Lindy’s sister, Benny’s uncle, Ambrocia’s husband and two ‘good’ women from the village who have lost their husbands and need work. The aim is to get the studio up in the three months my visa allows. 

I have 2 picks, 4 shovels, 25 droppers (pegs) and a ball of string in the back of my car and will pick up Stephen Williams to head out with me today. The first challenge will be to get up the water logged, perhaps sinking, dirt road to the site. 

Last week, after getting my head around the 10 hour time change and the 60 degree temperature differential (it was 104F on my first day) I decided to surprise the women by appearing at their Sunday church service. I slipped in the door and into a back pew late and there was Gertrude sitting right next to me. She silently clapped and yululululululued and then gently put her head on my shoulder. At the meet-and- greet portion of the service, I had the fun of shocking Regina, Lindy, Anna Mbetsi and Anna Ndudzukulo. Hugs and laughter galore made it a home coming and after the service, sitting in the Mapusha studio with Regina and Gertrude it was as if I had never left, didn’t have a whole life 11,000 miles away. 
The pictures on the right are from our grand celebration of Eulender Mbetsi, who has just passed her matric! (center, black and white striped shirt) 

I will be posting weekly on the Mapusha and Me  blog  (www.mapushandme.blogspot.com) so become a follower if you want to watch the Rooiboklagte happenings.  The new studio for Mapusha will be the central action but  I’m looking forward to the building of the play structure for the nursery school children and the spiffing up of the Community Development Center, the sinking of the borehole! Those are the key tasks for this visit so please hold that vision with me - children playing on the structure,  an english class in the community building, water flowing from the garden irrigation system and the women weaving in a beuatiful, light filled new studio.

Thanks so much for your support,

with love, 

Judy

Happy Tears

Gertrude Mbetsi taking a break one day at the Mapusha studio.

I cry a lot, a musing after the school shootings in Connecticut. 

Maybe it’s genetic, as I see it in my siblings who haven’t spent near the time and energy I have uncovering and cosseting vulnerabilities. At first it was stories, books and movies that made my eyes well up and spill over with tears, then it was boys and personal pains but I find in my 7th decade more often my tears are ‘happy tears.” The phrase was coined with laugher in the weaving coop by Gertrude, the oldest, sturdiest and most outspoken of the women. She ran her fingers down her cheeks, then pointed at me, laughing, “Happy tears, you cry happy tears.” Soon all the women in the coop understood the phrase and we chuckled about it together. 

She’s right, I do. Invariably, when I hear the women singing together tears roll down my cheeks which is what Gertrude was referring to. It’s not only the beauty of their blended voices but the way they come together, sing together and the great heart I always feel in this cooperative communion. It touches me.

As far as I can tell, the women of Mapusha rarely cry themselves, not at death, not at birth not at any of the other indignities in  their lives of rural poverty. But, last year Gertrude came to me and said with a proud smile, “I cried this weekend, happy tears.”

I laughed and asked what made her cry. 

“ I watched Eulender (her 15 year old grand-daughter) running in a foot race for her school, when she passed me by I could see how hard she was trying,” she touched her chest with her hand, “ Her heart was so very strong.  I cried.”

Smiling, I nodded, I understood. 

This weekend the continual coverage of the killing of twenty first graders plus brought many tears to my eyes. I cried for what I could only imagine was a terrifying loneliness in the killer and for the shocking grief of the whole community. As the tears rolled down my cheeks, I could feel all the millions of people in these gun-filled states we live in whose eyes filled with tears this weekend. It isn’t happy tears this time but it is a sign of caring and compassion. It is a national communion, of sorts. 

I’m beyond embarrassment at my own tears whether they are the mark of a genuine sap or the response to the continued assaults on my staunch idealism or, maybe simply the stigma of caring and caring intensely. 

My prayer for this new year is for an ever stronger heart, boundaries stretched so that the well of caring grows deeper. May I shed hundreds and hundreds of tears.  

The image I hold for the world is that in this new year we increasingly join together like a gigantic youtube flash mob. More and more people becoming proclaimed members of the official network of caring and caring immensely for every blessed being and this whole world of ours. May we find a million ways for the net of our caring to be strengthened so all the pains and losses are increasingly shared, absorbed and absolved in cooperative communion.

Happy tears to all! 

Gertrude's rugs

Holiday Greetings from Mapusha and me,


Dear Friends of Mapusha, 

I wanted to give you a year end report on our favorite weaving coop as they wind down their work on Friday with a great feast, courtesy of friends here in Portland. It will be a braai, for sure, with much meat for everyone, pap and some sort of small nod to vegetables. The extra bonus is that each woman will take home a live chicken for their family's Sunday dinner! So think of the celebration on Friday when you wake up, smile as though you could hear their singing, dancing, praying, celebrating. They are, in part, celebrating the many acts of kindness and generosity that have come their way through all of you. 

I'm pleased to report that small and big miracles continue to abound for these women,  strengthening everyone’s faith.When I walked into the Tillamook’s Pioneer Museum last month and saw the walls hung with Regina, Lindy, Lizbeth’s weavings I felt such a burst of pride. Their work is beautiful and has evolved over the years I've been with them.  They made it through the year once again with a small salary each month for each woman, despite no coherent marketing plan. And, this January, thanks to the generosity of a woman from Alaska who has never even met the weavers, we will break ground on their new studio. It will be off the mission grounds, within the New Dawn community complex where currently the Katlego nursery school, the Seeds of Light Art Center and the soon to be refurbished Community Center  will join forces to become a true community hub, a center of support and empowerment for all.

Nick Verona (Seeds of Light volunteer) hanging the New Dawn sign, Gertrude with Zanile on her striped rugs, Lindy's Tillamook tapestries

When I was there in September talking with the architect, getting permission from the local chief, etc, etc. I boxed and sent home nine of Gertrude’s small striped rugs (picture of Gertrude with rugs and Zanile above). Four are already gone but I have detailed the others below, so if you or someone you know would like a bit of Gertrude’s Africa on your floors please let me know. They are approximately 2 1/2’ by 3’, hand spun and dyed Karakul wool, woven by Gertrude - $100. I could send or deliver immediately.

If you really don’t want a rug but do want to support the women in the launch of their new beginning, you can send a check made out to Mapusha Weavers, c/o Barrie Gleason, 109 Summer St., Somerville, Ma. 02134. I am hoping to start work with them in January on some new sales items especially created with visiting tourists in mind - small bags with beads and bells, natural dyed silk scarves.  All donations this year will go towards the time and materials necessary to bring our new products from vision into a reality, ready for sale in the new studio where we hope to have many visitors.

me with the women on the steps of the Blyde Lodge after our Visioning Day!, the bird and animal mobiles for display, women with new natural dyed scarves

It is strange for me to be here for the holidays. Each time I see a particularly lavish display of lights I imagine  how the children of Rooibok would respond - absolute enchantment. I set off in early January to manage this studio building project and do all I can to get local marketing happening for Mapusha. One could ask are these two actions truly within my skill set?  The answer is “They soon will be!”
 creche child,                               art class kids playing where the new jungle gym will go!

Having been a hermit of a writer for the last year I am relieved to report that I’m handing my book over to an editor before I take off. I look forward to returning from Africa in April with the new studio up over there and ready to go out into the world myself, here. I hope to see all the friends I haven’t seen for too long and see how I can bring my own unique brand of inspiration to this side of the world. 

My Mapusha story would have been very different without the support of all of you. It’s a great story of what can occur when people join together. The words in Tsonga on the  New Dawn Center sign say just that - Working together we have power!  
The women of Mapusha asked me to “Please thank our friends so very much.” So from us to all of you a most heartfelt thanks.
May the new year bring joy, inspiration and many blessings to you.

with love, 
Judy 

Pictured below are two rugs woven by Gertrude Mbetsi this fall in the Mapusha studio. They are simple, sturdy rugs, 2 1/2' x 3', hand spun Karakul wook, hand dyed and woven by Gertrude.

The cost is $100 and the benefit is supporting the Mapusha Weaving Cooperative and having something made with such craftmanship and care.

If you would like a rug please note the description and send me an email - judithbmiller@gmail.com

greens, peach, navy

soft purple, grey, rose

f

Yahoo Mapusha!

Dear Friends of Mapusha,

I wanted to share with you the latest really good news for the women of the Mapusha Weaving Cooperative. It has been ten years since we began supporting these women and I know this latest report will make you smile.

When I was in South Africa last November-January they were having a terrible time with the new head priest at the mission. Despite the peaceful and collaborative relationship between the cooperative and the mission for the past 36 years, this Father wanted them to pay a high rent and, really, he wanted their studio.

It was difficult to watch but the women stood up for themselves, put up a good fight. They applied to the executive committee but word eventually came down from on high that they must pay an unfairly high rent. Regina told me they wanted to move, they were hurt and disillusioned by the actions of this Father (have to say, it felt like my own small version of the 'nuns versus the Vatican.')

Two weeks later, without my doing anything other than resolve to help them, a donor came to a friend of Mapusha’s, Jodi Miller in Alaska. She wanted to make a substantial donation to one of Jodi’s African projects. and when she heard of the problems with the mission, she chose to help Mapusha.

I called Regina with the news. Her response was,"Alleluhia, Alleluhia! My heart is soooooo big with happiness." 

They will build a new studio with this generous donation in the nearby compound where the local nursery school and the new Seeds of Light art center are housed. They will become part of a community hub with participants ranging from toddlers to school age artists to young mothers and old grannies. We hope to sink a borehole and begin a multigenerational gardening project. The women of Mapusha will be the elders, the trustees of this "New Dawn" project.

Somehow, becoming the elders in a vital community center feels the perfect next step in the process of claiming their rightful place and power. Anyone who has met these women will know what I mean and immediately understand the value these very solid women will bring to a community enterprise.

I am leaving in a couple of weeks to spend a month with them. We will do a day of visioning the future, experiment with eco-printing with Acacia leaves/pods/bark on fine cotton scarves, get the designs for the new studio in place -  move forwards!

I'm still working on the book about my time with Mapusha, first draft done, second begun. I have an inkling that this next trip may hold the core of the last chapter, not to give anything away.

Below is a picture of Gertrude with Zanile, Ambrocia's youngest daughter, sitting atop the small rugs she has recently been weaving. Also, a picture of the whole coop greeting their distant friends in front of the new mural on the New Dawn Center.

Thank you so much for your support. I will keep you informed on how our exciting new project is going. 

with love,

Judy

P.S. If you were thinking of someday ordering a Mapusha rug this would be a good time as I will be there to precisely interpret your wishes.