Mother Bear

There is a fantastic organization in the US called Mother Bear.  The organization coordinates the collecting and shipping of hand-sewn teddy bears to children living in poverty around the world.  Behind the organization is an idea that is simple, an execution that is flawless, and a commitment that is astounding.  Women (or men if they are so apt) in the US sew teddy bears and ship them to the Mother Bear Headquarters in Minnesota.  Amy, who I believe is the coordinator or “Mother” of Mother Bear, then coordinates their shipment to countries around the world where they will be hand-delivered to wanting children.

Logically Mother Bear and Peace Corps could and should be linked.  Peace Corps Volunteers, nearly without exception, either work with children or live with children.  If not, they are undoubtedly the eternal awe-inspiring foreign entity worthy of a silent shy stare among children in more than 70 impoverished countries around the world.  Send the bears to the Peace Corps Volunteers and they will see to it that the bears reach the hands of the neediest children.  A wonderful partnership indeed.

But as many Peace Corps Volunteers find, things that seem so wonderful and logical in Peace Corps are not often so.  Things that should be simple are often nuanced, frustrating, and tedious.  But the bear project was, in fact, logical and simple and executed through Peace Corps seamlessly.  In fact, I discovered the project through the Peace Corps Newsletter.  (Which, in and of itself, is promising and fantastic).

So I emailed Mother Bear Amy and voila, three weeks later, a huge box arrived at my village post office.  Through the email contacts, I explained to Amy that I was a Peace Corps Volunteer serving in rural northern South Africa.  I additionally explained that there was a medium sized Drop In Center in my “second” village of Seleteng and that the Drop In Center feeds and cares for nearly 150 orphaned or vulnerable children (OVCs) before and after school.  Amy and I agreed that the Drop In Center was a great place for the delivery of hand-sewn teddy bears.  The children at the Center are registered as either orphaned or “vulnerable” meaning that they are often without regular food or supervision at home.  Often, the oldest sibling in the family watches the younger children.  AIDS has taken many of these children’s mothers.  These Drop In Centers are actually quite common across South Africa as they can be registered as NGOs and if attended properly, can receive funding and grants and in turn provide some employment for the caregivers.

Amy explained that the bears are only shipped in boxes of 50.  That’s right, 50.  I was still shocked that the bears were coming at no cost to me or the community and now she was asking how many boxes of bears I would need!  Geez.  I decided to have only 1 box shipped and take it from there.  Although the Drop In Center has around 150 registered OVCs, generally only 50 or so are there on any given day.  I did not want to take away from other centers who were receiving bears and thought 50 would be a great start and 100 may be too much.

I primarily live in the village of Phoshiri which is about 12 kilometers from Seleteng and the Drop In Center.  I am assigned to work at 2 schools; 1 in Phoshiri and 1 in Seleteng.  When I am in Seleteng, I often stay with a second host family who lives there so as to avoid the long, cramped, and unreliable bus transport through the bush from Phoshiri.  However, due to recent developments with the chicken project and an upcoming Hydroponic Tomato Project, I have been spending more time in Phoshiri.  Enough that I have come to Seleteng only on isolated days and not entire weeks.  In fact, I have not stayed with my “second” host family in Seleteng in 2010.

I mention all of this because the host family with whom I stay in Seleteng runs the Drop In Center.  I knew that they would be elated that the bears would be delivered to the children at their Drop In Center.  I was proud that I would be able to bring something tangible for the Center and please my “second” host family.  A lift for the children and pride for my second host family.  A win-win situation.

The only problem with my altruistic double goodness: the host family was not there on delivery day.
They are almost always there at the Drop In Center.  A graduation of some sort in town I was told.

Okay I thought, so the children will be joyous and I can share the photos and stories with my host family when they return.

This all happened yesterday – the day I delivered the bears.  It was chaos.  Without the members of my host family at the Drop In Center, I was armed with a huge box containing 50 teddy bears and nobody to translate my English to Sepedi.  I would have to rely on my own Sepedi.  The caregivers speak next to no English which is normally okay for run-of-the-mill conversations.  But when the conversation involves a proper means to deliver 50 foreign bears to hordes of screaming children, communication demands climb up a notch.

The ten or so women who work as cooks and caregivers at the Drop In Center know me relatively well and whenever I stop by I am eagerly welcomed.  “Moroaswi,” they yell my South African name.  These are the same women who a year ago danced and sang for my visiting Mother from the US and brought her to grateful tears.  Literally.  And they gave her gifts of sewn table cloths.  On the outside, they are warm, loud, loving women.  Due to limits in language communication, we never venture into relations must past the surface, but the mutual respect between us is evident.

So yesterday I pranced in carrying this large brown box from America.  After the round of customary and routine greetings, I took a seat on the plastic chair amongst the circle of women.  We had about 10 minutes before the schools would be letting out and the children would begin trickling in for their doled out porridge and prayer.  I tried my best Sepedi to explain I had been given a gift from America of bears for the children.  (The word “bears” I left in English).  They understood and wanted the box to be opened.  We got a thipa (knife) and cut through the cardboard.  “oohs and aahs and mm, mm, mms” were voiced as the bears emerged from beneath the plastic bagging.

One woman asked me how many bears were inside and when I proudly said “50” she mustered the English to say “but we have 150 children here.”

And so it began.  The mixture of joy, confusion, and greed.  How to dispense 50 bears to more than 50 children?  Shame on me for thinking this would be easy!  How I wished for Mamakegeme, my host brother from Seleteng, to arrive and with his authority and command of Sepedi and English put some order into the scene.  The women were yelling in Sepedi debating the best way to give away the bears.  I could make out words about “little children” and “Grade R” to get the drift of what they were saying.  It was agreed to give out the bears to the kindergarten (Grade R) to grade 3 first.  Seemed logical to me.  And if it didn’t, I didn’t have the language skills to persuade differently.

So the children arrived and sang and prayed and ate porridge and innocently glanced at the box of bears without too much excitement.  I was taking initial photos and, honestly, expecting more excitement.  The women were yelling at the children and herding them into line for their food.  When the line became a bit rowdy, a small thin tree limb was snapped off to be used as a threat for further misbehavior.

Oh I guess I didn’t mention that corporal punishment is rampant in rural South Africa.  One of the first things we learned upon arriving.  “A definite thing you will have to adjust to” we were told.  Easier said than done.

After the meal, the smallest children queued to get their bears.  They wore a mixture of dusty old tee shirts with icons such as Spiderman and Barbie as well as hand-me-down small school uniforms.  They were all quiet and none smiled.

I smiled.  I stood behind the box of bears and started taking a photo of each child after they received a bear.  Still not one child smiled.  Something was wrong.  The children seemed to want the bears but more with the wanting that they were available and free other than a real longing.  Reminded me of times I tried to catch a free water bottle or some other trinket thrown out as a promotion at a sports event.  Sure you want it.  But that is just because it is being offered – you don’t really care for the item itself.  However, I knew the kids wanted these bears more than they were showing.  I sensed that it was shyness mixed with their customary fear of the women ushering them through the line while holding a stick.

I stopped the process.  Every time the caregiver Dineo raised the stick and yelled, I had held the stick back.  The women were sensing I was displeased with how they were handling the dispensing.  And I knew the kids wanted a bear and the wide-eyed fear on their face belied their brewing excitement.  I grabbed a bear and asked “Le nyaka bear?  Ke mang, le nyaka?”  (You want a bear?  Who wants?).  Instantly all of the children’s arms shot up and screams went out as the small crowd surged forward toward the bear in my hands.  “Whoa!”  I jumped back startled but I was secretly pleased I had gauged the children’s emotions correctly.

Unfortunately the surge of children and the excited yelling brought out the stick and fresh loud threats from the women.  I kept an eye on Dineo knowing that she would not use the stick blatantly in front of me if she knew I was watching.  I began to hand out the bears individually to outstretched hands.  The crowd was swelling and with all the shrieking and desperately grabbing hands I felt like a celebrity.  Or Santa Claus.

After about 20 bears had been given out, I closed the box and gathered the kids up for a photo.  All Mother Bear asks for in return for the bears are photos.  Preferably of happy children with the bears.  The excitement and yelling died out as soon as the women corralled the children for an organized photo.

As is the custom in the villages where I live (and those of my Peace Corps friends), nobody smiles for a non-candid photo.  Nobody.  My host parents in Phoshiri who have been married for more than 30 years can’t smile or even hold hands in a photo.  I am not sure why but it is inevitably the case.  Still, I said “Smile” to the kids in the same tone as “cheese” but the faces didn’t move.  The women angrily yelling “Smile” after me while holding sticks around the perimeter of the crowd certainly didn’t put the kids in a smiling mood either.

I turned back to the bears.  This time however, the excitement had boiled over.  The children had figured out that there were not enough bears for everyone.  Chaos brewed more chaos.  Twice the women grabbed the box of bears and moved it to shift the mobbing crowd.  I tried to hand out bears to children who were calmly standing at the side of the line.  Each time, they clapped their hands in front of them first as a show of gratitude.  I was so grateful for the shy, appreciative, calm children!

With one hand on the stick and one hand in the box of bears, Dineo fed the learners bears until there were no more.  The children had cowered up to the front of the queue wary of the stick and most went away with a bear and fortunately nobody had been hit.  Or at least that I saw.  I stood back and took it all in.

Then I started taking more photos.  Not organized photos but impromptu photos.  Basically I just took my camera out and starting snapping pictures randomly in the crowds of children.  They loved it.  I loved it.  The difference between a staged group photo and “an anything goes” photo amongst South African children is night and day.  The kids thrust their bears toward the camera and their true happiness is uncovered.  The best part of the day for me.  Easily.  And seemingly for the children as well.

The women didn’t like it.  They don’t like chaos amongst the children.  I told them (in Sepedi) I liked to see the children happy.  I tried to keep the women behind the crowd of scurrying kids.  It worked but I sensed their growing uneasiness and knew the organized cheerful chaos would not last without a reaction from the women.  So I eventually put away my camera.

Some of the kids were beginning to filter out and I was deciding that given the circumstances, things went well.  The kids who received the bears were very happy and grateful and those who didn’t were looking at their friends’ bears with smiles.  And seemingly nobody had been hurt.

Then the women asked me to snap their photo.  As they gathered, I noticed that each had a bear in their hand.
“Where did you get that?”  I asked in Sepedi
They answered in quick Sepedi in a way that they intended for me not to understand.  One of the women named Hunadi tried to translate and said that they took them “from the Grade 6 learners – the big ones to give to their own little ones at home.”  I tried to explain that the bears were for the OVCs at the Drop In Center but realized that it was hopeless.  And anyway – these women worked hard for little or no pay at the Drop In Center and had treated my own mother as a visiting queen when she was here so who was I to say they each couldn’t take a bear home to their own children?

I snapped their photo and as I was walking out, I noticed a thin canvas bag overflowing with bears on one of the caretaker’s seats.  One bear apiece I could live with but this I could not stand.  I asked directly what this was and pointed to the bag.  The woman who owned the bag who goes by “Lady” raised her voice at me in Sepedi knowing I wouldn’t understand.  I looked to Hunadi for help translating and thankfully (and to my surprise) Hunadi banded with a couple of the other women and took the bears out of the bag and began handing them to the watchful children.  They bickered with Lady but Lady was clearly outnumbered.

“Good,” I thought.  One bear per worker and 40 or so for the children.
I thanked them all and tried to leave on good terms.  When I was leaving I told them I may try to get more bears shipped.  I expected a “thank-you” or a smile but instead one of the women who I did not recognize looked at me with a straight face and simply asked “Neng?”  (When)?  Somewhat astounded, I said I didn’t know.  I left realizing that the women would continue arguing about who got which bear and how many and so forth.

As I neared the gate, I watched as a caregiver took a bear from one of the child’s hands.  I stopped and asked what she was doing.  She smiled and gave the bear back to the child and said something in Sepedi vaguely translating to “everything is alright.”  She had been caught and I felt like a principal.

I realized that the children leaving the Drop In Center clutching their bears were lucky to be walking out with their new toys.  The small boy in the Spiderman shirt tried to put his bear in his old book bag but the hole in the bottom of the bag inhibited it and so he clutched the bear with both hands.  One girl cradled her bear like a small infant as she walked out of the Center.

I tried to leave the Center feeling good and for the most part I did.  The bears had brightened some of the children’s afternoon.  These children were used to making toy cars out of old fence wire and cans.  Now they had a soft, new, colorful bear from America.  However, I also left a bit angry at the women at the Drop In Center.  I wished I could disregard the sticks and greedy bickering.  I tried to attribute my anger to cultural differences.  These women had been so welcoming to me over the past year and they really had done a number on my mother in terms of emotions.  I knew that they each were very caring women.  We just approach situations differently.

Greed and inequality are clearly parts of life everywhere.  I just have to remember to try to understand this and work within it.  I certainly can’t stop it.

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Mother Bear is a truly fantastic organization.  You can find more information at their website, http://www.motherbearproject.org

A young boy holding a bear

~ by Andrew Bernish on March 25, 2010.