My Zimele Projects
In my three months here, Rosetta basically wants help with three things. First is to help out with whatever office work she has. Second is to help finish building the Swayimane Accomodation Center where I’m staying (it needs to be able to hold 10-15 people in July and right now there’s only one shower and one toilet). And third which is most significant and most difficult is to start up a database of the families that we’re impacting with Zimele. I have my own personal goals as well, including seeing how I can possibly help in the future when I have my MD, but I’ll save that for another blog.
The first two are pretty self explanatory. The third will have its challenges. The first of which is that I don’t speak Zulu and most of the people Zimele helps are illiterate. So it’s not a simple task of handing out surveys at meetings and expecting them to be nicely filled out. I need to find a literate person in Zulu and English that will help me. There’s also the problem that many of the people do not like to give out their information because of the fact that they’ve been ripped off many times. So unless there’s a promise of certain monetary rewards (which Zimele will not provide), they are very reluctant. I need to convince them to freely give up their information.
Another problem is that much of the information is not the same every time you ask. For example, most of the people here have a Zulu name and a Western (Christian) name and their name changes depending on who asks. It gets utterly confusing. When I first got here, Rosetta kept on telling me that I will be in constant contact with Daphney who works exclusively with the community facilitators in Swayimane. She said I will meet her on my first trip to Swayimane. Needless to say, I didn’t meet “Daphney” on that trip. Only a couple of days later did I find out that Pomi (who I met) was in fact Daphney. Another example would be that the number of children that lives in the families constantly change and every child is their son or daughter. So I need to be very precise in the questions I ask.
I need to take a survey of 28 groups (each with 10-15 people each). When I first heard that I would be doing that, I said no problem, I’ll get it done. Now that I’ve seen the enormity of the task, my goal is still to finish, but realistically, I’m hoping that I can start the database and get a good system down and in place so it will be easy for the person who has to finish the project. There’s another volunteer coming in June that I will be able to hand the project off to.
