Sewing Sighs

11 Nov. 2006

Tonight is Saturday night and we are spending it in our cozy flat at Mountain High with the mist hanging like pea soup and the wind whistling through the windows on three sides of our living area. We traveled to our home town, 80 km by taxi van, today, to get groceries and managed to return on the only local taxi at 1145am with packages of cheese, meat, vegetables, pasta, onions, garlic, ginger, candy (for emergencies) and loads of fabric, yarn, crochet hooks, knitting needles, wire and wire cutters for next week’s craft projects with the patients. We left the mountain at 6 am this morning, watching the village women load long bundles of cut trees onto their heads (twala) for carting down to the village for cooking and heating. Our taxi driver, Mr. Zulu, is infinitely polite but expectantly hands a lotto card to Brendon each week, hoping that the Umlungu (the whites) will provide winning numbers. Alas, although Brendon does his best at picking the lucky numbers; each week has been a bust. We leave Mountain High at its misty moisty best and travel down through the forests, rocky landforms, termite hills and hillside kraals (farms) to lower ground with sunny skies. We arrive around 7 am every Sat morning when the shops are still closed but we are country people with big eyes for the delights of the small town and hit the post office looking for mail and sometimes the lone coffee shop for a cup of real coffee and a sugar filled crepe for 1 and a half rand (ten cents). By 8 or 830 the shops open and we have a big list but small carrying capacity for the items to get us through the week and serve as recreation and therapy for the patients at Mountain View. The town looks like a small town in the San Joaquin Valley with its version of department stores, drug stores, and grocery stores but amazingly has 5 fabric stores as the local residents are excellent seamstresses. Thus I am cultivating relationships with the shopkeepers who wonder why this crazy American woman (with husband in tow) is looking for bunting, buttons, patterns and cheap cotton.
The week had some highs and lows. After the great start with the ancient blue Ganda Ganda Tractor coming to life, the sewing project had a day of isipithipithi (chaos or confusion). Tuesday started out on a very positive note as the women and men gathered to work their quilt, bootie, and tote bag crafts and were interrupted by the hospital director announcing that we had a visitor. Graham Root, a founder of the Itahla Game Preserve, former game warden, author of many South African books (including one where he adopts the mindset of a Rhino and Ostrich) and current operator of a game preserve, arrived at Mountain High to meet the Americans and proffer advice on gardening and Zulu crafts. This was an exciting event as Graham Root is a cult figure in these parts and understands Zulu. We had heard his name since our arrival in Zululand and wanted to get his advice about how best to proceed to find culturally sensitive craft projects, especially for the men. I left the sewing group to show him around the garden, have tea and pick his brain about gardening and craft ideas. He had lots of good advice about crops and crafts. By the time I returned to the TV room used for sewing, I was upset to see that almost all of the fabric had disappeared as well as the thread and scissors. This was a big blow as there were no projects for the next day and I was disturbed that the patients would not show more respect for the ownership and distribution of materials. Even the binding material for our group community quilt, which was to be hung in the maternity ward, had disappeared. I was angry and mad at myself for not safely putting the fabrics away before taking off on the tour with Graham Root. That night I was sleepless trying to think of how to make a program happen the next day and finally remembered an extra blue plaid sheet that I had brought to South Africa with our sleeping bags as bedding for the initial training. So we could at least make quilts out of old sheets just like our ancestors used to do. I have previously joked with the patients that my husband’s grandmother made quilts out of her husband’s underwear and that this was considered “Art”and hung on the wall of our home in Palos Verdes.
Wednesday morning arrived and I was in a sour mood as I arrived at 1030am in the TV room with my dirty sheet to try to make a craft program happen. I could not find the 3 meters of bunting that had been purchased to fill the quilts and immediately suspected that it had also been lifted. A nurse came in and scolded the patients for absconding with all of the fabrics, thread, bunting and scissors. To flame my anger, one of the women walked in with the green fleece fabric just wrapped around her head in twala with no sewing or any effort, just a warm fabric to ward off the chill of the day and add a little variety and fun to her life. The women sensed my anger and started bantering among themselves and talking with the nurse. The women with the green twala walked out and returned with the modest induku (head scarf) she had made the week before. My angst about materials disappearing was wrecking havoc on the budding relations that had been forming with the women and the incipient program for patient therapy. The patients were anxious, I was unhappy and the needed patient recreation therapy was hassle for everyone with many misunderstandings. After locating the bunting in my flat and apologizing to the patients, I started cutting the blue plaid sheet so that the women could continue their quilts and we finally had some enjoyable work going, albeit with a rocky start. The patient that had stashed the green fleece willingly gave it up so that another women could make booties and a patient’s secret hoard of heavy tote bag fabric was shared with a new patient who wanted to make a bag. Peace returned!
Thursday arrived with some trepidation as to where the sewing projects were headed and my realization that more support was needed from the hospital and community to keep our craft time going. I arrived in the TV room early and did my usual “Jabulele” (Happy Time). Within a few seconds, all of the angst and negative thoughts about the sewing program disappeared as Zenile, a young 16 year old girl, walked in with two folk dolls, made out hoarded fabric scraps, wrapped in the pink patchwork quilt she had made. The dolls were wonderful examples of folk art with their stitched heads, tall green Zulu hats, breasts, skirts and Zulu print leggings. Zenile will be in the hospital for 3 months; her mother is in a hospital somewhere in Durban. Zenile cuddled the dolls as if they were real babies. Maybe the best work comes from letting go and freeing others to create beauty. An additional surprise that morning was the tailor’s creation of an intricate cosmetic bag designed from scraps of the Zulu printed fabrics. The fabric with the Zulu shields, three legged pots and rondavals was matched with an African geometric print and lined in grey taffeta. His first statement was a request for a zipper to sew into the carefully made folds to close up the cosmetic case.
As you can see each day has its charms and challenges but also a huge bequest of love and kindness from the Zulu community. We are seeking ways to make the projects sustainable and representative of Zulu culture. The garden has sprouted and many hours were spent leveling the large field that was dug up by the ganda ganda. The seeds are here and it is time to plant, hoe, rake and weed!