7 days of my Plettonian life: (1) Friday 7th

For the next seven days, let me just try and do it the real blog way: instead of just posting from time to time, I'm going to try and give you a glimpse of everyday life here, and what we've all been up to. Thomas (his idea originally) is going to do the same, though not exactly for the same 7 days, so you'll get the two perspectives and lots of details.

Quiet end of the week since I was supposed to be in Port Elizabeth for two days. But once again we experienced it is not always the best idea to count on officials from municipality here.
Explaining: the project I am currently involved in is a Working Group which is trying to Build a Field Band in Plett. The idea is that through the schools offering an after school activity, we would gather children from the townships around Plett in a marching band, teach them music and dance skills and have them perform at big sportive or other public events. Sounds maybe funny to try and attack some serious problems like crime or drugs or lack of discipline through these American-style marching bands and cheerleaders, but it has had great results elsewhere in South Africa (there are now 25 bands nationwide).

The bands indeed make a good captivated audience for teaching about HIV, life skills and even offers to really talented youngsters bursaries to study abroad (in Norway, the Netherlands and the US). Also, because the town would use the Field Band as their crown jewel to show off, it would boost self esteem for the youngsters and their family and gain them access to a number of events they would not ordinarily be able to attend.



Anyway, it sounded like an interesting project without turning into a full-time job so I got involved.
Other players present in the Working Group are
- Kristien (the coordinator for Thomas' organisation, dREAMCATCHER)
- the Bitou municipality
- Tony Lubner, who’s a wealthy business man from Plett who supports a lot of charity and projects, and whose father is the founder of the National Field Band Foundation.

Now, officials are always hard to get to play an active role in projects like these, and Plett is no exception, especially with the current troubles (see previous post). The head guy in our Working Group from the municipality just spent two weeks in jail cause there are pictures of him beating up people circulating in Kwano ;-). Some are motivated, but a lot depends on superiors and goodwill... So, last Thursday, we were supposed to go visit a functioning Field Band in Port Elizabeth (4 hours driving away), and municipality was going to pick us up. Turned out to be a no-show. Result: I had to do some last minute cancelling and many apologies, leaving me feeling bad cause they'd gone to the trouble of setting up meetings with a number of stakeholders and such, and thus firing off an angry email to show my disappointment. Tony, as the local heavy weight, phones the Mayor, and I suppose the buck is going to have to stop somewhere down the line (probably with the lowest, pity cause he's still the most motivated). But, meant that my interesting field visit (got the punch?) was cancelled....


In the evening, we had a fund raising dinner to which the same Tony had invited us, for the Sabrina Love Foundation. Theme of the night was "sparkle" and you needn't say that twice to a bunch of creative, open minded but especially half drunk volunteers. While the entire Plett jet set was present in classy and distinguished outfits with the occasional sparkling (diamond of course) earring, we showed up à la Priscilla, Queen of Plett, with glitter make up and sparkling accessories (applied in the local bar, Flashbacks of course). They showed a moving video about Sabrina, Tony and Suzy's daughter that past away four years ago of a handicap, which sparked them to get involved in a lot of projects, amongst which Die Sterreweg, where Thomas is volunteering. But after some nice food, drinks and dancing, we felt like leaving the Plett's Bold and Beautiful outshining each other to head over to Kwano to shine amongst the township partygoers. From up-town class to down-town fun.