Ruthann and Jan Hall, the facilitators for the I3L program, archived web site and newsletter items from their time as GlobalMinistries volunteers in KZN 2000 to 2002, which can be accessed at their 'Durban Mission Archive' site.

Their further general newsletters to friends in the US during their 2005 visit to KZN, are archived here.

1. "Greetings from the Edge of Africa" ... March 10, 2005

2. "A letter from Umhlanga" ... April 2, 2005

3. 'Missionary Letter' ... April 5, 2005

4. Letter from Umhlanga No. 2 -- Talking birds at Inanda, and The creche at Thembalihle ... May 4, 2005

(i) Talking birds at Inanda.

(ii) The creche at Thembalihle.

5. Letter from Umhlanga, No. 3 [Some ghosts of the past, and glimpses of the future] ... June 6, 2005

Their newsletters during their 2006 visit to KZN, are archived here.

NEW:  Their general newsletters to friends in the US during their 2007 visit to KZN, AND report letters and photo galleries provided to participating MaCUCC churches concerning several church visits, are archived here.

1.  "Greetings from the Edge of Africa" ... March 10, 2005

To friends and family:
Dear ones --

Hope all is well with y'all, back there in the snow. It is beginning, here, to show signs of the worst of the summer truly being past, and the somewhat dryer, and much more pleasant, fall and 'winter' to look forward to.

Here, we've actually made some progress on the 'accomodation' and 'transportation' fronts, included in which is a bit of a retrenchment on the 'communications' front. To decipher: We've decided on a 'simplex' -- that's a unit of a multi-family on one level, they tell us -- in a white brick and green roof development up the hill from the Umhlanga hotels and beach resorts, north of the city. We'd wanted to consider back up in Kloof, where we stayed 2001 and 2002, but finding something furnished up there proved too difficult, and so we concentrated our efforts on the more holiday-letting heavy areas down towards the beaches. The one we're taking actually does not meet our declared long-term requirements since there is only 1 bathroom with 2 bedrooms, so will be cramped when guests arrive. It was proposed to us as a short-term bridge to a longer lease on a different property, but when we -- well, when Ruthann -- saw the place, which has a nice little vestpocket of garden around it, all the requirements suddenly became negotiable. Well, you get the picture. We'll be moving over -- 'in' is pushing it, since it's just our clothes, basically -- on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. We've also made a decision on the long-term rental of a car, which -- in the genius of the modern world -- is costing us more, for the term, than the flat is. Go figure.

One disadvantage of the 'permanent' use of the temporary location, is that it does not have a transferable phone. There was a phone there, once upon a time, however, so there is a jack, and we have the promise of the state phone company that, of course, it will be activated within 2 or 3 weeks. Don't believe them, based upon past experience and the expectations of everyone OTHER than the sales guy at Telkom, but we've a reasonable chance to have it in by the time we would otherwise have gotten access to a phone line under the 'temporary' plan. Our internet access will have to be via internet cafe for the next several weeks, however, so it will make it less likely that a prompt response to anything can be forthcoming. Figure a couple of days' turnaround. Should there be anything of an emergency nature, the best may be to try to reach us on our cell phone here +27 (73) 646-6331; here's hoping that won't be necessary, but there it is, just in case.

It is good to be back. It is wonderful to see so many good friends again, and in many respects it's really as if we're just picking up from a year ago. Which may suggest that nothing much has changed in the interim, which is largely true. But over the not quite two weeks we've been here, now, we've been to one grand celebratory service (at a local soccer stadium) for the 50th anniversary of the ordination of one of the elder (natch) Zulu ministers of the UCCSA; and to the regional Mission Council's meeting; and up to visit a prospective church-to-church particicipant in Pietermaritzburg, last Sunday; and to the regional 'ministerial committee' meeting on Tuesday; and we're set to visit another prospective church this Sunday -- and we're scheduled for a couple of further church visits after Easter. So the 'work' end of things is actually moving along quite well, to this point. Good thing, for there's a lot, a lot to do.

But we really need to get out of the 'digs' we're in now, staying with the friends who put us up for seven weeks last year. Our hostess has been sick since 2 weeks before we arrived, and the visiting grandchild has been really sick these last 2 days. One tries to help and they are very gracious, but it is time to give them their own space. Soon, soon.

Best to you all. -- Jan and Ruthann

2.  "A letter from Umhlanga" ... April 2, 2005

Greetings from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa --

We've wanted to send a general letter to provide some impressions of where we are during this trip to Africa. We were wondering how best to do that, while gazing out the window of our rented cottage. Then we thought, let's just let the eye and the mind wander a bit, as yours might if you were here. This, anyway, is some of what we saw, and heard, and felt, starting from the view out our own windows, and some of what that reminds us of:

Looking outside our windows, there are a palm tree, and a paw-paw tree, and a bird-of-paradise flower, swaying in the breeze. There is a resident male helmeted guinea fowl who sounds to be desperately seeking companionship, especially early in the day. It is late summer here, still very humid but beginning to be cooler at night than when we first arrived. We have found this rental half-cottage for our five months here, located, as a friend puts it, 'where the rich people live.' We're in Umhlanga [umSHLAHngah], up the hill from a set of holiday beach hotels about 15 kilometers north of the center of the major city of Durban. The main advantage of this area, from our standpoint, is that with quite a lot of vacation, shorter-term rental and time-share activity centered on the beaches here, we were able to find furnished apartments to rent; this proved quite difficult in other parts of the metropolitan area.

If you go outside and look down the hill from this development, and look through the towers of the beach hotels, you can see the Indian Ocean. We are a mile or so away from a very nice promenade which runs for a couple of miles between the beach and the hotels, and we go down to stroll along the ocean a few times a week. Swing around towards the south, and look along the coastline, and there in the distance are the office towers of Durban, and beyond them the headland on the far side of the entrance to Natal Bay, the port itself. Durban is supposed to be the busiest port in all of Africa, inclusive of the Mediterranean ones; there are usually five to ten ships anchored offshore, in a string from the harbor entrance northwards to the Umhlanga Rocks lighthouse, all waiting their turns to enter the port.

We heard a day or so ago about the opening of a new, state of the art, refrigerated fruit shipment terminal by the port authority, intended for the export particularly of oranges for Japan. The fruits and vegetables that are available locally are a wonderful combination of the tropical, and the more temperate; there's something available all year round, and pretty much anything you'd want can be had, and most of it from farms in this area, or further inland where the elevation gains quickly -- so there are lots of apples and pears to be had currently, and grapes, and bananas and mangoes and papayas, and also carrots and potatoes and parsnips, and it goes on and on, even to the extent of cherries and berries to be had from the areas up around the Drakensberg mountains and over onto the high plateau in the Free State province and beyond. We like our fruits and vegetables, and this is a great place to be!

The half-cottage we're renting is in a collection of small, gated, condo-style communities carved out of a hillside above the older coastal highway leading past the beach hotels. Security is a major concern in all housing situations here. This is emphasized also by the fact that most of the time, our view is through trellis gates and bars that adorn all the windows, doors, and sliding glass doors; the sense of being caged passes in time. At its southern edge, towards the city, this development's (electrified) wall borders a sugar cane field.

There are extensive sugar cane areas extending throughout the province from southern Zululand in the north, to well south of Durban. It was to work in these fields that the Indian population started coming to Natal around 1870; greater Durban has the largest concentration of Indians outside the subcontinent, amounting to upwards of a third of the city's population a few years ago. That proportion is probably less, now, since the population has grown drastically since the end of the Apartheid-era restrictions on where people could live, and people have started moving into the city from the countryside, assuming that to be where a better life is to be found. The city's not capable of providing housing or services for all of these people, and while the efforts are ongoing to provide some form of housing, there are any number of 'informal settlements' that have sprung up wherever there is unoccupied land. The corrugated tin and cardboard and wood shacks can be seen clinging to hillsides below substantial modern dwellings, as well as tucked into creekbeds within the formal townships. These long-term temporary arrangements are part of why the eThekwini municipality -- greater Durban -- when you visit it, does not seem as if it is a city of 4 million; from the center, it feels a quarter of that size, maybe, until you wander about a bit in the sprawling housing areas out into the townships, and begin to notice the substantial communities that are wedged into the cracks between the more formal housing areas.

And things are constantly changing. The area of the city where we lived in 2000, the southern end of the beach hotel 'Golden Mile' in the heart of Durban, had been in considerable decline when we were there, but while part of it is still something of a battleground between the authorities and the (mainly Nigerian, it is said) drug dealers, there is a massive new leisure and housing area at 'the Point,' the entrance to the harbor which had been a derelict area of Victorian era housing and warehouses. The centerpoint of this development effort is a new aquarium and theme park; it's not quite linked to the city proper, as yet, but that looks like it will come in time. This development, funded primarily with Malaysian capital, is also part of the factual background of a celebrated local trial now in progress, centering on a charge of corruption against a local businessman who is very tight with the Deputy President of South Africa; but that's another story.

As to changes: When we first came to Durban, in 2000, this area north of the city, where we're now living, included the beach hotels, and a few residential areas hugging the coast, but development inland from there was just beginning. At that time, if you continued up the ridge that we're living on, over to the west towards the newer N2 superhighway running up towards Zululand, it was pretty much all sugar cane fields. The sugar company that owned this area was just beginning to push the dirt around for what became, before we left in 2002, the Gateway shopping center. That edifice is now bordered by satellite shopping areas, and car dealerships aplenty, and various housing and office developments; one begins to think the sugar company is likely to be more involved in real estate development than sweetners, by this time. As we had previously lived downtown in the city and then in the outer western parts, we had never actually been to this shopping center until this current trip; it's a major change from the sugar cane fields ... We're not exactly shopping experts, but this is the most opulent, over-done, and basically massive temple to retail consumption that we've ever seen. Besides a considerable collection of stores ranging from grocery stores and general merchandisers of the Wal-Mart type to the high-end Coach Store type, there is a multiplex movie theater, an IMAX theater, a stage theater, a wave pool and skateboard park, a rock climbing wall, multiple restaurants of course (and a number of biltong and 'pie' establishments, besides burger and pizza places), and what have you, all on a large scale. You see all sorts of people in and around there; we have a friend who lives in the township of KwaMashu, who shops there regularly.

If you go outside the shopping center, and look to the west, across the N2 superhighway, you can see over to that township of KwaMashu. This is one of those areas created as housing restricted to the black African population under the Apartheid era's Group Areas Act. In that it was racial and not necessarily economic segregation, there is quite a variety of housing in the township, probably less so as time goes along and the better off of its residents move on to what are seen as more desirable areas previously restricted to the coloured, or Indian, or white populations. There are definitely slums and shanty-towns within KwaMashu, and it is overall a poor area, but the originally official, more established, parts of the township are made up of actual houses with walls and roofs and generally electricity and television aerials (or satellite dishes) and sometimes phone lines (but almost always cell phones) and sometimes plumbing. It varies. Within this area, too, are the churches that make up the circuit of the KwaMashu Congregational Church, which we've gotten to know and which is a 'pilot' participant in the church-to-church effort we're here working on, linking churches of the UCCSA in KZN with churches in the Massachusetts Conference of the UCC.

If, from that vantage point outside the Gateway, you look to the hills beyond KwaMashu, you'd see Inanda, the remains of one of the original 'locations' -- reservations, in effect -- established in the 19th century by the British administration of the Natal colony as land set aside for the native African population that lived in, or moved into, that portion of what is now KZN. Within the old reserve, land was set aside for the Inanda mission of the American Board's Zulu Mission. This is now the Inanda Congregational Church, which we've visited several times, for it too is one of the churches participating in the church-to-church relationship effort. Across the road at the Inanda Seminary, a girls' preparatory school founded by American missionaries in 1869, we often visit American friends, Susan Valiquette and Scott Couper, and Micah and Madeline; Susan is the chaplain at the Seminary, and Scott is presently serving as the pastor of an historically coloured UCCSA church in Durban and as coordinator of the regional church's HIV/AIDS Desk. They came to Durban with Global Ministries for the first time a couple of weeks before we arrived as volunteers in 2000, so we sort of learned our different versions of the local ropes at the same time. Among the better changes we've seen over this time has been the upgrading of the Inanda Seminary campus, including the house on the campus where Scott and Susan live. We thought we might be seeing a lot of them, at odd hours, just about now during this trip, since amongst the improvements that have been instituted there over the years is a satellite dish through which it would be possible to get the international broadcasts of the NCAA Basketball Tournament.

But Duke lost in the regionals, as you know, so the desire to get up in the middle of the night to view the proceedings has considerably waned. And as it happens, a satellite dish is available in our rental half-cottage as well, so the need to wander through the townships to Inanda in the middle of the night wouldn't have been there, anyway. It's perhaps quirky to mention television viewing arrangements as part of a communication from missionary volunteers, but it helps to make a point. When we first came here in 2000, we had no idea of where we were coming, and in one sense were steeled to the idea that we'd be living in a mud hut somewhere; what we came to was more like Miami Beach than any concept of the bush. And while the original American Board missionaries to this part of the world came by sailing ship taking months and months to reach the area, and then travelled by ox cart where there were no roads at all, and were able to communicate with the 'home office' only by letters where the turn-around would be 6 to 9 months for question and response, we don't have it hard at all. We can complain that it took three weeks to get a land telephone line installed in the cottage; but it is in, and it works; we are able to correspond with you by e-mail, and we can check the news from home by the internet, or by calling up CNN on the TV. Not that tough.

But you do not have to go very far from our cottage, to see into what is not at all like home. What we've told you about to this point, while it is mostly familiar or similar enough to what we know from home, is the cutting edge of the modern face of this part of Africa. We can argue with whether this is a good thing, perhaps, but if the people here have their way, things here will, it is clear, continue to become more and more like what we are used to in our part of the world, and in Europe for instance -- it's already so in many respects ... try to navigate the highways at rush hour, and the major difference you'll sense is that you're on the wrong side of the road. But this cutting edge is, for all that, the edge: it is the fringe of the greater African experience, and you don't have to go far to sense that you are in someplace quite different. We've been to and are going to some of those places as well, and we'll tell you more about them in other communications soon.

As we cool down from summer, here in Durban, we wish all of you the blessings of the warming of Spring. God bless you all. -- Ruthann and Jan Tore Hall

3.  'Missionary Letter' ... April 5, 2005

Dear friends:

We have come to the province of KwaZulu-Natal, in South Africa, for greater or lesser parts of five of the past six years, since we first arrived in early 2000 to serve a two year term as long-term volunteers through Global Ministries. During our times here, we have come to know a number of the people and churches of our partner denomination in this part of the world, the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa. The UCCSA is a denomination formed in 1967, at the height of Apartheid in South Africa, which united different strands of the Congregational tradition in five countries of southern Africa, with Disciples churches in the area joining a few years later. In KZN, the denomination includes historically coloured and white settler churches from the English Congregational tradition, and historically black churches whose origins reach back to the American Board's Zulu Mission starting in the 1840's. The incredible vitality and diversity of the UCCSA is a constant wonder to us, and was highlighted for us during the first several weeks of our current visit.

Since our arrival in Durban, we have worshipped with Rev. Pietersen and the people of the Woodlands United Congregational Church, located in an originally coloured township near the inland capital of Pietermaritzburg; with Rev. Overall and the members of the New Forest Congregational Church, a smaller church in an originally white housing area in the southern inner suburbs of Durban; and with Rev. Dludla, the acting minister, and the folk at Imfume Congregational Church, one of the original American Board's Zulu mission churches in a rural area a distance down the coast south of the city. The faces in the pews of the two suburban churches reflect the growing diversity of their areas, as the housing patterns in this country begin to shift and intermingle with the passage of years since the time of the Group Areas Act; the rural church retains much more the sense of its Zulu origins, and will, even though the main road outside the door is being paved for the first time. We have also joined in worship at the Berea Congregational Church, a British settlers' church in origin, located in the city, where it was a joy to see and hear Rev. Thompson recite the names of their new confirmands, a rainbow collection of young people with faces and names as diverse as this vibrant and growing church, which now draws its members from across the range of this multicultural hub.

One thing, especially, unites these different worship experiences in our minds -- at Woodlands, at Berea, and at Imfume, we have joined in that most central celebration and sign of our oneness as followers of Christ, the sacrament of Holy Communion. We recall that during the second year of our first service here, we were visited by Rev. John Lombard, the pastor of our home church, Trinitarian Congregational Church in Concord, Mass. We've heard John comment, several times since, that it had not been the experiences of the nature (from the beauty of the land to the amazing animals) or even the endless fascination of the people and their lives, that had most struck him when he was here. It was the time he shared communion with one of the churches here -- it was Berea, as we recall -- that had been the most powerful moment; it had made him first truly sense the power of the universality of that statement of common faith and purpose. He'd understood that point before, of course, but to be 8000 miles from home, on a strange continent and in a reversed season of the year, and to be joining in that sacrament with people just first met, and yet to feel so totally at home and at the same time connected with those who, back in Concord and all across the world, were sharing in the same statement through the sacrament, was a supremely fulfilling moment in the visit here.

And as we've sat and received the bread cubes and little cups of red liquid in the one place, and taken communion wafers and sipped from the common cup with the deacons at another, and heard that the bread and the cup were the symbols of the Lord's sacrifice for us, the lessons of that grace have poured out to us. We are one with the people of faith in this place, through that sacrifice and grace. Your friends in the churches here, when they join in the feast which Christ prescribed for us, are with you, and you with them. It has been a blessing to us, as it was to John, to begin to feel, truly, this basic, and simple, truth and fact of our lives as churches. We knew it, in our minds, of course, long before coming here, but we have begun to understand it in our hearts.  -- Ruthann and Jan.

4. Letter from Umhlanga No. 2 -- Talking birds at Inanda, and The creche at Thembalihle ... May 4, 2005

Greetings again from KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa --

As you've heard, our main activities during these latest months in South Africa center on the local-church-to-local-church connections between Massachusetts and KwaZulu-Natal churches of the Congregational tradition. In this work, we have been ranging about the province visiting churches urban and rural, large and small, and met more and more of the amazing people of this place. From time to time, these activities connect us in other ways as well to the life here, and we wanted to share two recollections from Ruthann:

(i) Talking birds at Inanda. [Some of you will remember Inanda Seminary, the girl's preparatory school located outside of Durban, established in 1869 by American missionaries. This is where Susan Valiquette, our good friend who came with her husband Scott Couper and son Micah, since joined by daugther Madeline, came to serve as chaplain, arriving a week or so before we did in 2000 to start our two-year volunteer stint. Susan is still serving there. This is also where we heard Nelson Mandela speak at the celebration for the renovated campus, in 2001.]

I had fun this afternoon. Jenny Dunn, the Biology teacher at Inanda Seminary, had invited me to meet with the Biology Club for an hour this afternoon, and talk about birding. So, this afternoon there were about 50 members of the club, sitting in the classroom on the Seminary's campus, eagerly waiting for my comments on birds.
Well, not all were really waiting, but about 20 engaged for the hour, which seemed quite good. I asked them what birds they had noticed around campus, and could identify most of the ones that were described. Various girls had actually noticed more than one might have thought, but did not know what the specific species were. My talk made them realize just how many species were around. For example, instead of simply a starling, they now knew there were lots of starling species. This point was undoubtedly assisted by our well-worn copy of Newman’s book on birds of Southern Africa, which was freely passed around.

The girls filled the hour with questions. Ma! Ma! they signalled. Some questions were interesting, but not so much to the point: Why don’t people mention bats when they talk about birds? Bats aren’t birds. Why not? Uh… What other things do you notice besides birds? Butterflies and dragonflies. Is it true that adult butterflies only live 4 days? Let me tell you about the monarch butterfly!

There were a few questions that I just could not hazard a guess: How long does a bird live? I’m certain that it varies with the species, but I don’t know. In general, the discussion centered on types of birds and questions I could handle: Are there any hummingbirds in southern Africa? What is the longest migration? There are Spotted Eagle Owls living on campus, which have caught the attention of the girls, and we talked about them a while.

And some questions had to do with my interest in birds: When did I start learning about birds? When I was growing up, my mom would point them out. Where I grew up, the winter means snow, and we fed the birds, so we could spot the different species at the bird feeder. But it wasn’t until we moved to Durban that we really got into birding. Who is we? Well, my husband, who fortunately also likes birding, for it would be very bad if one liked it and the other was bored. But, I’d have to say that he picked up the interest in birding from me - he did not grow up watching the birds like I did. What did I pick up from him? (pause) Watching cricket. (many laughs)

After the hour was over, Jenny invited the girls to stay if they wanted to talk more about birds with me. Maybe 10 stayed, likely all in matric, which is 12th grade, so preparing for their graduation examinations. After a few more questions about birds, we talked a bit about what Jan and I are doing here with the church-to-church program. How do we feel about SA? How does it compare to the States? I talked a bit about the availability of health care specifically, and wealth in general, in the States. But, the Gateway Mall, the massive shopping center only a few kilometers from their township location, would fit right in. One girl’s mother is working for 2 years in a hospital in Cleveland - is that near Boston? Is New York City near? One had an aunt working in a hospital in Manhattan. Is Boston near Panama? I’d like to visit America -- do Americans still think of us as living in huts in the bush? I said that Mrs. Madlala, of the Seminary board, came to visit us in 2003, and was pleased to find that people knew better now; she had told us that when she first visited in the 80’s, to see her sons who were studying at universities there, she had felt just that way. I did not ask, but wonder now if the girls were telling me some of the reactions of their relatives when visiting America?

(ii) The creche at Thembalihle.

This day is one that I will long remember. Jan and I visited the Eastwood township, an originally Coloured area in Pietermaritzburg, in the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. We were there to meet with Rev. Awie Booysen and Chrisandra Webster of the Eastwood United Church. This is one of the 'pilot' churches of the church-to-church program, so we have had a lot of contact with them over the last few years. But we first came to know Rev. Booysen through the local community outreach workshops which we helped coordinate for the UCCSA's regional Mission Council in 2001 and 2002; and we revisited them in 2004 initially because Florence Madlala wished to view their soup kitchen operations, to compare to what she was involved with in her home township of Lamontville near Durban.

The purpose of this particular visit was to help them by taking digital pictures for their use in an eventual funding proposal and brochure about the "Eastside AIDS Strategy Homebased Care, Orphans, Recreation and Feeding Scheme Project", which is what is growing out of those first soup kitchen efforts. Awie has a goal of inviting local business representatives to a meeting at the end of May, to interest them in funding the project. He has a great deal to do before that meeting, including the production of the brochure.
We arrived at the Eastwood United Church about 11 and Jan took several pictures of the women preparing the soup in the kitchen. They hammed it up for him and he showed them the pictures on the view screen - they laughed and laughed. He also took a few pictures of the folks waiting for the soup. This was similar to what we had seen in 2002 -- and those of you who have seen the 2005 version of the program video for the "I3L" church to church effort, will have seen and heard the ladies microchopping cabbage for the soup. But the need continues ... they are still feeding up to 400 people twice a week.

Then Awie took Chrisandra and us in his car, along with one of the homebased care volunteers, to see Thembalihle, an 'informal settlement' now accepted as permanent, but the poorest part of the townships on the Eastside. In particular, they wanted us to see a crèche (a child care center) within this township, which the church's soup kitchen supplies with food. Awie did not know the way by heart; the volunteer knew how to walk there but not how to drive. But we arrived, grateful that it was a dry, pleasant day when we saw the steep track down to the crèche, which clings to the hillside. Awie is shaking a bit on the way down. It is a struggle for him to maintain his balance and footing on this hill, with his bad back. But he does it.

Children's clothes were draped over a ramshackle fence to dry, by the path down the hill. If you stop on the way down, find a foothold to brace yourself, and look out across the valley to the next hill, there are what seem to be hundreds of shacks and houses, with here and there groups of the newer government-constructed cinder block houses that people aspire to. This area was grazing land not too long ago, before the flood of people from the countryside into the city began.

The creche is called Masakhane, and is run by a woman by the name of Grace. The center cares for 77 children, including 15 orphans. The 50 or so older, healthy children were in a room perhaps 12’x20’, along with a few toys. Each child had room to sit, and not much more. There are educational posters and handmade teaching aids hanging like banners from the ceiling. A few of the kids have colorful backpacks hanging on hooks by the entrance. They sang a song for us. Both Jan and I felt our hearts warm and break at the same time as we looked at the children.

There are 4 adults running this place; we passed one who was on her way to the church for soup for the children. It would be carried back in a large bucket, balanced on her head. Awie is trying to help this crèche; there are 2 other such child care centers on the Eastside, but this is the one that is in the worst shape. Grace has a big heart and courage, but this is is such a huge undertaking. The orphans stay with her around the clock; Jan was shown where the mattresses are stored for the day, piled in Grace's own small room in the back. These 15 include a few who have started school; she badgered the principal into letting them start. Some seem to be receiving the available government stipend, but most do not because they have inadequate identity papers. Grace is also trying to help pensioners who find themselves raising grandchildren. She charges those children whose parents are employed, but you get the sense that that is not the majority.

Jan looked into the room with the babies and took a few pictures, but I did not. I did not want to see.

We came back out of the dark of the main room, climbed back up the steep hill to the road, and felt the warmth of the sun. It is beginning to be cool, and will soon feel cold, here in the higher parts of the province.

Our greetings to you all, and may God bless Africa. -- Ruthann and Jan Tore Hall

5.  Letter from Umhlanga, No. 3 [Some ghosts of the past, and glimpses of the future] ... June 6, 2005

Greetings, friends and family --

Here's another general mailing from South Africa, about some ghosts of the past, and glimpses of the future ...

When we first came as Global Ministries volunteers to South Africa, in 2000, we were placed as 'organizational management consultants' (and given the titles "Special Projects Advisors" -- no one knew then, nor since, what either designation meant), with what was then the M.L. Sultan Technikon, originally the Indian technical higher education institution for this province, which has since merged with the formerly white Technikon Natal, to form the Durban Institute of Technology. We made some good friends that first year, with whom we've maintained contact. Recently, we had dinner at our rented cottage in Umhlanga, with Thiru Pillay and his wife Heidi ['hay-dee']. The South Africa - West Indies cricket match was running on background TV during part of the evening. Something in the course of the match drew his attention, and Thiru told of an event from his youth, during the Apartheid era, which had had some notoriety at the time and had been made into a famous short story, apparently. The story was about an Indian lad who had been in attendance at a 'Test' match involving the then all-white South African team, held at the Kingsmead cricket ground in Durban; the youth had been seated in the small portion of the grounds set aside for Indians. The youth had been beaten to death during the match by white spectators, because he was rooting for the other side, England or whomever it was; no one was identified, no one was prosecuted. Thiru told how his father, though a passionate lover of cricket, still can never bring himself to root for South Africa, even now that the team has become nonexclusive. His grandkids, Thiru's children, don’t have any such issues - Thiru is somewhere in the middle. We remembered, in prior vists, learning of Thiru's discomfort about visiting this province's wonderful game reserves, once only available to whites. He knows he’s not subject to the same restrictions anymore, nor would he necessarily be shunned or maltreated as he’d have anticipated in the near transitional past, but the sourness about such places, and about the cricket team, remains for him, and probably always will to some extent. But things may be different for many of the younger generation, he thinks.

One of the new 'matched' churches in the 'Ibandla lami linge lakho / My church is your church' initiative for local church to local church relationships between UCCSA churches in the KwaZulu-Natal Region and UCC churches in the Massachusetts Conference, is Umlazi, the central church of the Umlazi-Lamont Circuit, which encompasses a number of churches generally in the inner southern suburbs and townships of Durban. We were at that church a few weeks ago to meet with two of their leaders concerning the commencement of their relationship with the Boxborough church in Massachusetts. One of these deacons is Guardian Mfusi, and during a lull in the meeting, we had a nice conversation with him. It was a wide-ranging discussion, and in the course of telling about his work, he talked freely about his own reticence about relationships between whites and blacks in the country, including in the work context. But he marvelled at how readily younger people, especially those such as his children who are thrown together in multi-racial schools, intermixed. This was something that was much more difficult for people of his (early middle) age, even. Ruthann recalled the song from ‘South Pacific’ about ‘they’ve got to be taught to hate, before it’s too late’, and it does seem as if much of the difficulties of this country in regard to its race relations come from prior concerted efforts to teach these habits, and the distrust that goes with them. That is changing, but it is well understood that it takes time to undo such a harm. Actually, it seems to us that the sight of a rainbow of schoolmates, in particular, around the streets of this city, is quite a bit more common only five years on from our first visit here.

During the latter part of our original long-term volunteer commitment here, during 2001 and 2002, we worked closely with the UCCSA's KZN Region through its Mission Council, and thus with Florence Madlala, the Council's convenor. The activities that brought us back to Durban this year have us interacting with the Council quite a bit as well, and so we have plenty of excuses to maintain our relationship with Flo. We wanted to meet with her to discuss various matters including the progress of a major effort she's spearheading to establish a 'care centre' in the Lamontville township where she lives, and we agreed to meet mid-way, at the wonderful Botanic Garden close to the center of Durban. We had come to know and appreciate this well maintained and fascinating green spot, with its towering trees from all over the world and multitudes of birds, not to mention squealing schoolchildren on field trips, when we had been at M.L. Sultan Technikon, which is just a block or two away from the Garden. We treated Flo to afternoon 'tea' at the volunteers' cafe/kiosk at the Garden, she with coffee and a crumpet, we with ‘milkshakes’ (malts, that is) and Ruthann a scone. And we’re sitting there at the umbrella tables, talking away. It was getting towards closing time, though, and something - clearing the table, whether we needed to vacate so they could take the chairs inside, whatever it was - became a question and a conversation between Flo and one of the Zulu ladies who worked the tables (the counter is done by the white volunteer ladies, usually). And then Flo giggled a bit, and told us: “She asked ‘are those your bosses?’ and I told her, ‘No, they’re my friends!’” There’s so much in that little story, concerning the expectations in this place, but how warm it makes us feel, to have her put it that way, and to be able to laugh about it, and to be able to tell us. It’s a very good feeling. And the continuation of a beginning.

God's blessings on this land -- Nkosi sikilel' iAfrika. -- Ruthann and Jan Tore Hall