Wyoming

I am writing this post after much separation from the hike, and maybe, the best description I have left of Wyoming is that Wyoming is the real American West.

There is no path of least resistance for water in the great Wyoming basin.  Here the little raindrops end where they fall, meeting heaven nor hell, to nourish the Sagebrush that screw out of the ground like lightning struck pines.  The spiky plants from New Mexico return to the landscape and jail the bunchgrass into little cells. Intruding mustang search for those cells, to guard them and steal them away from the native deer, antelope and elk that roam these plains like nomads in their own country.  Wind runs like the bison that were unfairly stolen too.

North of the basin, a horizon beckons with a promise of the most contrasting environment in the continental United States.  After crossing South Pass into the Wind River mountains, the high desert becomes alpine meadows with rivulets and lakes underneath granite peaks.  There is a mystery and respect demanded by these mountains like the history of their namesake, Jim Bridger.

from the Winds is through a passage created by the Green River.  The Green River drains high glaciers and carries snow-colored water down in to the lush Gros Ventre wilderness; and wolf tracks briefly appear on the trail leading into Yellowstone country.

Yellowstone National Park is the museum of Wyoming’s final exhibit.  Where mountains and life are as close to what they were 100 years ago as anywhere in the state.  Grizzlies track down their hunting lanes that we created as trails, and bison graze without fear of humans.  Arrowheads lie silently in obsidian fields and they will never be found.

I think Wyoming is too extreme for my writing abilities, English words were never created for its unspoiled beauty.  The impression Wyoming has made on me is that I do not belong there, and moving through there is all I should do.

Update from the trail

This is a PSA

Hello people who read this blog!

My phone (the item that serves as my flashlight, navigation, notepad and camera) broke halfway through Wyoming.  I cannot access any of the pictures I previously captured nor any of the notes I wrote to jog my memory for these posts.  So, posts about the next states will have to wait until I finish my hike and have access to my personal computer.  I will write them, but it may be a while.

Please enjoy the wait and go hiking.

-Riley

Colorado

Colorado never gets easier, you only get faster.

The South San Juan mountains give you just enough of  anything, yet everything at the same time.  There are just enough north facing slopes to hold steep, corniced passes into late summer.  Just enough live pines existing within the beetle-killed forests like stars in a dark sky.  Just enough air to sip at 12500ft, and just enough exposure to stop your breath. But the mountains have all of the water that New Mexico never had, all of the postcard views, and all of the trials that make hiking the continental divide trail the greatest adventure of a lifetime.

North of the San Juans, the Weminuche wilderness has hills that extend beyond the horizon.  The hills are alive with innumerable grassroots that nourish the elk and the bears.  Those thready roots lift America’s spine over 13000 feet, because nothing so small has never not made and impact.

At dawn, elk scatter off the trail and stand sentinel on ridges to watch me pass, and ptarmigan sound off and glide from peak to peak while the wind is quiet. As the sun lifts higher snow melts into trickles that fall down draws to meet trickles and create a new power that can change mountains of rock and clay. Nothing so small has never not made and impact.

In the San Isabel and Gunnison National Forests, live evergreens stick out like youthful hairs on a graying head. They shield the wind for their dead, beetle-killed family and keep them standing. They hold their arms up over the forest floor for shade and send down their roots to guard the soils.  Just as the brutal high country exists, the lower forests do too, and they are selfless places.

Back into the high country of Clear Creek County, the ridges spine and twist and rise above 13000 feet. They thin the air again but grow colorful wild flowers that busy the bees and excite the landscape.

The terrain suddenly changes flora and the evergreens grow thick with different species. Underneath the canopy, columbines and dandelions and paint brushes rejoice in the Mount Zirkel wilderness.  Rocks that were solid start crumbling and snow melt turns them into pea gravel. The evergreens thin out and short junipers return. Snow fields wait out the summer on even the southwest facing slopes as the high alpine changes to the high desert of Wyoming.

New Mexico

New Mexico is a place you love more the more time you spend in it.

Ocotillo cactus in the desert

In the New Mexican bootheel, ocotillo hands with blistered fingertips claw out of the big hatchet mountains.  Funneled wind howls stories of dead vaqueros and outlaws that died homesteading 100 acres per cow.  There was a brush fire blazing through the creosote and sagebrush of Mexico and a dust storm kicking from the north, while the sun would sit on top my neck and force me into coffin-shaped patches of shade.  I noticed the ants began working at sunset hinting when to inch through the desert, mile by mile to Canada.  When the moon came up in the cloudless sky, the desert cooled and the land became so quiet and still it would wake me up.  It was so quiet and still I traded places with the stars those nights.

Big Hatchets

Desert night

Way in the distance, there are old Spanish Adobe ruins

Up to Bullard Peak

Out of the bootheel towards Burro and Bullard Peak, the elevation climbs into the territory of thin, sunburned ponderosa stands.  The trees dry and redden the air, and sift the wind into Mogollon whispers in the Gila National Forest.  Among the pines north of Silver City, red towers of rock create the devils garden that form the last barricade to the west fork of the Gila River.

Devil’s Garden

Entrance to the Gila

Colored walls that are cut and etched like Italian frescoes line all 150 miles of the Gila River.  It’s water riffles from colorless flats into teal runs and cottonwoods and gigantic, ivory sycamores contrast and make their leaves neon against the scarlet cliffs.  Ancient Mogollon dwellings rest in the cliffs, giving the river a history of incredible civilization.  The entire Gila River gives you the shade and water New Mexico never had, as you love it more and more.

the Gila River

Gila Cliff Dwellings

Out of the Gila

North from the Gila River’s source at Snow Lake, the hills are made of dry grass that shines golden underneath checkerbark junipers that look black in the sun.  Dusty orange dirt and black lava rock lie below columns of intense sandstone cliffs in El Malpaís.  The water becomes scarce again without the Gila’s life and the sun keeps burning without protection from canyon walls.  On cloudless days I would see planes and think about all the water they carry so far attached from the earth, while the next water for me was 20 desert miles away.

Best water for 30 miles

The San Mateo Mountains lift the trail out of the desert, onto bone-dry and grassy plateaus.  Short piñons and junipers with berries as hard and dry as birdshot, overpower the ponderosas and clean the air.  North of the plateaus, great black buttes stand like sombreros over dead rivers and cactus fields.  Creeping towards them reveals grey columns of clay with purple flakes that hold up giant entrada sandstone boulders, like little Atlas’.

Into the high country

Into Ghost Ranch

Suddenly the Rio Puerco descends from the San Pedros where there are the highest meadows that are cut and terraced by New Mexican elk.  Fir and spruce trees enclose the meadows and hide snow drifts that feed rivulets and dandelions rooted in the brown earth that was sand 30 miles ago.  The Carson National Forest becomes the high country where elk gouge the aspen and make fallen limbs look like shed antlers.

Aspen grove

Quakies begin staring with all their knobby eyes, watching every movement, or safeguarding the alpine, or maybe they don’t see at all.  Thunderheads start to gather in the afternoons to spit and bluff as they chase you out from now or caution you away from what is next.  And finally, the South San Juans appear when the clouds clear and New Mexico becomes Colorado.

The South San Juans

First picture of Colorado

Gear List

Backpack:

gossamer gear kumo (customized with a pair of scissors)

Shelter:

oware 5x8ft silnylon tarp, borah gear UL bivy, a trekking pole and 6 tiny stakes

Sleeping System:

UGQ bandit quilt (20degree), zlite torso-length foam sleeping pad

Clothes:

patagonia baggies shorts, REI shirt, hoka one one shoes, sunglasses, running hat

frog toggs rain jacket, balega enduro socks, patagonia houdini windshirt, patagonia nanopuff jacket, beanie, and glasses

Electronics:

cell phone, kindle and a power bank

Tiny Things:

earplugs, tiny swiss-army knife, toothbrush+toothpaste, ibuprofen, needle, trash bag pack liner, cash/card and ID

Safety:

match book, sawyer squeeze water filter, water bottles

---

Some things will be added too during certain places; like bear spray, bear bagging line, an ice axe and micro spikes.

I’m guessing that everything will fit in the backpack and weigh about 7-9 pounds.  Food and water will weigh it down a bit more, but it’s a nice place to start.

-Riley

27/1/2018

I’ll continue to put up pictures on the picture page, but this might be my last post in South Africa.  The writer’s block I’ve had isn’t letting up and I don’t want to keep writing about the same things I usually write about.  No matter how apprehensive I feel about it, I know that leaving will be good for me on April 7, 2018.

Swimming with African penguins

I owe my life to South Africa for what it has taught me about the world.  I’ve learned what I am, and consequently let this country radicalize, sharpen and bake my thoughts into obsidian knives.  So much that I sweat over readjusting to Montana, the state I love and have dreamed about for the last two years (I still don’t think about living anywhere else in the US).

Returning to my perfect dystopia, saturated with people that look like me, speak like me, carry the same passport as me might crush the idealism I have that South Africa couldn’t.  Do they know the violence they passively inflict on the wretched of the earth?..  Is a question I don’t want answered or given too much thought.

So when I return to the US, I am hiking north on the continental divide trail from its southern terminus in the New Mexican bootheel, back to Montana.  To escape the violence in my life caused vastly by people with my prerogative and spend 5 months in mountains that don’t care that I’m a white, American, English speaking, heterosexual, able-bodied, thin, HIV- man.  I’m aware that my privileges are the reason this hike is possible, but it might be the most nonviolent way for me to process what South Africa taught me and come to a necessary, final appreciation.

I expect to finish this hike at the Canadian border in Glacier National Park in September 2018.  Afterwards, I hope to find a government or non-profit job to keep my public service loan forgiveness rolling until I can hopefully leave the USA again with Peace Corps in Mongolia.

After moving from Bellevue to Montana to South Africa, Mongolia feels like the next rung up the beautiful, uncertain trellis of my life for many reasons.  But, it’s only an overwhelming possibility right now.

I’d also like to keep this blog active through all these plans even if posts are few and awfully alike.  Writing on this is still fun, thank you for reading.

-Riley

17/11/2017

Most people in Jane Furse get pensions or stipends from the government at the end of the month, so by the middle of the month not a lot of people have money left to spend.  The streets settle down from their pay-day riots but still, anything is to be expected.

Yesterday I knocked off work late around 6:30pm and started to walk the same 1.5km back to my room as I do everyday.  I always cut the same corner by walking a foot path about 30m from the road.  Yesterday when I cut that corner a rusty, well-used bakkie stopped on the road and started honking.  In Jane Furse anything is a reason to honk; passing pedestrians, being angry/happy, trying to get attention, wanting to make noise or just to see if the horn works.  I sometimes think the cars run on the sound of their horns. It was the only car on the road and I was the only person walking near it, so I guessed that the driver was trying to get my attention.

I am constantly aware that people are aware of me, I try to maintain a low profile and calm exterior.  I heard a man’s voice yell at me telling me to come to the truck.  He was a young man with a .75l Black Label beer between his knees under the wheel.  One of his eyes was focused, looking right at me and the other was a bit lazy.  There was an elderly woman wearing heavy clothing left of him on the bench seat.  She had a forbidding look in her eye that didn’t make me feel unwelcome, but certainly not welcome.  The young man told me to get in the truck which I politely declined saying that lived close by I’d rather walk, so I continued walking down the road.  He sped up, stopped me again and nonchalantly insisted that I quit being racist and get in the car with a black man.  I then spoke to him in Sepedi assuring him that was not the reason and fronted him with real reasons; I don’t know you, you’re drinking right now, I live 5 minutes away, there is already an old woman in the only passenger seat, etc.  He didn’t believe me and accused me of not respecting him as a person.

I had two options.  To get in or not get in.

Getting in the car with a not-completely-sober driver would be an obviously poor decision.  It would also make an old, uncomfortable woman more uncomfortable.  Since there was no way of telling where he was going, I would probably even get to my room quicker if I walked.

Not getting in the car would confirm the driver’s prejudice that all whites fear blacks and generally don’t trust them.  I would be the one white person that justifies his belief that all white people are racist.

I got in the car, crammed in with the grandma whose anxiety by now was choking the air around us.  The man introduced himself as Gift, to which I replied, “Auwa o gona, Mpho, bolela Sepedi le ke tlo o kwa” (No you’re fine, Gift, I’ll hear you if you speak Sepedi).  He seemed confused and didn’t understand me.  I think people don’t hear what they don’t expect and since Mpho didn’t expect a white man to know his language he did not actually hear his language.  We sped off down the road and I realized this man was not from Jane Furse.  He asked me how I was finding Jane Furse and where I was leaving to, which betrayed that he’s never heard of the only lekgoa in town “brave enough” to walk around.  I explained that I have lived in Jane Furse for over a year and a half and have no problems with it.  He was listening to me but still didn’t hear me.  He had a thick, messy wall of bias that would always prevent him from hearing me.

When we got to the intersection by my room I said thanks for the ride and jumped out.  The man was very nice to give me a ride and he honestly wanted to show me he has no problem with white people.  I never doubted that, but he put me on trial for a swart gevaar mentality, and he doubted me the whole time.  The voice in my head was saying ‘shame on him’ as loud as it was saying ‘good for him.’

-Riley

25/10/2017

For some time now I thought I was tired of living in South Africa, but now I think I am just tired of asking why.  Why any of this?  I don’t know.. How have the last 22 months been for you?

The NPO I work with provides all three services… This letter is a bomb.

After reading that vicious letter all the rumors we’ve been occupied with settled into permanence like a blood stain.  The powers above the organization I work with have decided and now come March everyone I work with and the 300+ people they supervise will more than likely be unemployed.  They will add to the 31% unemployment rate already in our municipality.  Why? But why also interrogate that question further.

Because this is over 300 jobs, and in South Africa means far more dinner tables and son’s and daughter’s futures than I can count with a clean conscience.  Why do we have our unalienable human rights of dignity and freedom if we do not also have the right to a job that pays at least a poverty line salary?

Why does South Africa- this heart of a country, cause so much pain?

…

But I can’t answer that question, and I need to get something off my chest anyways…  This blog has been about me and I am not special or particularly worthwhile to read about.  It often makes me feel guilty because fail to write about a South African life.  Agree or disagree, my failure in this sense is a disservice to Americans who read this blog.  Americans should know South Africans, South Africans should know Americans.  We should know each other’s history, identity, and culture.  The potential we have to bang against and reveal each other is an international treasure that should not go undiscovered.

To the Americans who read this blog, please also read about South Africa.  Read anything you can find from Steve Biko, Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Ruth First and Ahmed Kathrada.  Read Trevor Noah’s new book, Born a Crime, if there is one book that will give you a real, easy look into South African life it is this book.

Please learn about South Africa.

-Riley

31/8/2017

I stated in a previous post that I think my mind has peaked.  I’m afraid that continuing to live in South Africa will not shatter my world anymore than it already has.

Some people live in pretty places

2016 leached my energy like the sun bakes the spirit out of a muddy riverbed, and it made me a wasteland of cracked memories longing for Montana.  As my life here normalized I started planning my life after South Africa.  My feet got hot and my body would wake up to South African time only for my soul to fall asleep to Montana time.  I shouldn’t have dabbled into the future, I should have stayed present to enjoy my incredible life and my job that gives me purpose and happiness.  But I went there, and even though my work only gets more rewarding, I stay there and am haunted by it.

I am tormented by what will happen to me when I leave South Africa.

In mid-August I was with my friend (another Peace Corps Volunteer) at her house in a sprawled out, dusty village of footpaths and cement houses deep in the heart of Limpopo.  She lives with a small family that has made her a part of them like an ocean takes a river.  Their youngest is a boy is named Pitsi and his resemblance to his father makes him look like a conscientious grown man at the age of 4.  But this resemblance cannot hide the precious way he loves my friend like all little boys love their favorite older cousins, and she loves him just as much.  

One night we sat outside under a village-dark tapestry of stars as hollow cowbells gave us the privilege of keeping our silence.  I knew we were both thinking about our South African lives and words we didn’t know how to share.  When we got back inside her house, she broke the silence with words sharp as a wind that rasps your skin and leaves it shivered,

I don’t know if Pitsi will remember me.

I am heartbroken by those words.

My friends in Jane Furse say to me, “thank you for everything, don’t leave, we don’t want you to, you can stay another year.”  People who have been in my youth projects tell me I have truly helped them and given them something great.  These people might never forget me for as long as they live, but I have a hideous feeling that I will forget them.  I am terrified that I will be their Pitsi and forget them without them ever knowing.

Early Childhood Development classes have started

I am terrified of forgetting what Jane Furse has done to me.  How it forced my identity upon me.  How it opened my eyes to what I am, and how it shattered and rebuilt me. If I lose what I have gained here then what is the cruel purpose of my future?  When I leave South Africa.

-Riley

5/8/2017

I feel good about my life right now.. Happy isn’t the right word but it’s the first word that comes to mind.

But I have not written in a while.. Maybe my mind has finally peaked or I have been too busy working.  Or, maybe I am daunted by the thought of transcribing my peaked, busy mind in words that sound pretty.  

This is going to be a long post and I apologize for its boring and dumb language.  But I’m writing this for me more than anything, to categorize my mind and set a point of reference for when I lose it.

May and June were intense months of preparation and hustle that created an exhausted push of a July towards now, August, which is licking its wounds and staring up a mountain of expectation.

If you remember my previous youth empowerment project that I started in May 2016 (I can’t remember if I wrote about it in detail), you might remember that it ended in December 2016.  My organization (MK Umbrella) and I wrote a proposal to the funding agency (IDT) more or less sponsoring the project last January and we heard back from them with an acceptance notice in May.  Now a brief explanation of IDT is that it tasks MK Umbrella to create 200 jobs and inject about R1,190 into the most impoverished hands we can find every month until January 2018.  IDT pays MK Umbrella exactly enough money to pay out to our contracted participants (think ‘employees’ if that helps) and MK Umbrella has to think of what those 200 people will actually do for their job.

IDT is a very complicated program and it took me months to figure out how to navigate it’s policies, terms and conditions.  It requires a mind-blowing amount of time and work dedication but, it is an incredible opportunity to do amazing things.  So, that notice for MK Umbrella and I was like receiving news that we would have all of our dreams fulfilled, but only after defeating a grizzly bear in an arm wrestling contest.  

In our proposal, Elvis (my main colleague) and I outlined 4 projects: the Cleaner Project, the ECD Project, the Career Mentor Project and the Clothing Project.  2 more additional projects have sprang out of those 4 by some sort of magical thinking and our relentless pursuit of more good.

Elvis and I, together with the rest of MK Umbrella are now staring at the mountain of expectation rising from the 4+2 projects.  We have indeed it created for ourselves, and we do intend to wrestle the hell out of that grizzly bear.

the Cleaner Project

.. Is the first project we had in mind and it is the most important to MK Umbrella.  This is the project that MK Umbrella needed me for and it will be the mountain’s summit.

The overarching goals for this project are to make money for MK Umbrella, increase the earnings of female headed households living in poverty, and stimulate the local economy.

To reach those admittedly lofty goals we are contracting people to clean for other people who will pay MK Umbrella for the service.  This is essentially straight cash for MK Umbrella minus the small overhead of stationery costs of contracting the cleaners.  We have three directions in the Cleaner Project:

1. Go to homeowners who currently employ their own cleaners and ask them to send their cleaner to MK Umbrella to get a contract with IDT.  This will almost always mean that the cleaner’s new contract will pay them more than the homeowner is currently paying them, but then we ask the homeowner to keep paying their cleaner R500/month.  This gives the cleaner around R1700/month which is usually a raise of R700/month (this is increasing the earnings of female headed households living in poverty).  Then, we have the homeowner pay MK Umbrella R500/month to keep their cleaner who is now making more money.  So altogether the homeowner is paying R1000/month and this is sometimes the same amount they already pay their cleaner, but sometimes it is less.  This way the homeowner saving money (this is stimulating the local economy) and the homeowner now unable to financially abuse the cleaner because of MK Umbrella’s mediation, and MK Umbrella has an income for itself (this is making money for MK Umbrella).
2. Go to homeowners who do not currently employ people to clean for them and ask if they would like to pay R500/month for a cleaner that works 14 days/month (This is the best/easiest direction by far).  If they would like a cleaner then we ask them to find somebody that they would trust to clean their house and provide MK Umbrella with their CV.  MK Umbrella contracts that person, places them in the homeowners house and has the homeowner pay MK Umbrella R500/month.  This is easy and is straight cash for MK Umbrella while again increasing the earnings of (usually) female headed households living in poverty.
3. Go to homeowners who do not currently employ people to clean for them and ask if they would like to pay R300/month for a cleaner that works 5 days/month.  Repeat the process for option 2, make money for MK Umbrella and get money into impoverished lives.

But, of course there are some very sensitive details that I left out of these directions.  As far as this project description (and the following descriptions for that matter) goes, the actual project implementations themselves are logistical nightmares.  For example, each homeowner must have a meeting with the managing director of MK Umbrella and their cleaner to sign a separate, multiple-party contract that determines working conditions, working procedures, where/how to report problems, payment details, etc…  Other details about the Cleaner Project I cannot remember right now, but trust me this thing is complicated and everything gets dealt with in a very careful manner.

the ECD Project

.. Or the Early Childhood Development Project is a sharpened, finely tuned continuation of my previous youth empowerment project to address its shortfalls.  The ECD Project seeks to make a lasting impact on the contracted participants by giving them an accredited education in ECD so that by the end of 18 months, the participants will be certified grade R (kindergarten) and grade 1 teachers.

Basically when the youth empowerment project ended all of the young people that I had volunteering  in daycare centers and primary schools stopped working because they were no longer paid. To fix that problem I just need to keep young people paid, so MK Umbrella is bringing an accredited ECD educator to Jane Furse to educate my young people and increase their long term job stability.  This educator will hold classes for my young people 5 days/month and they will need to volunteer at a daycare for the rest of the days they must work per month (around 14 days).  The catch is that the young people will need to pay for this education, and they will need to pay out of their own pockets.  But an IDT contract is double the school fee, so that they will have enough money to afford this education.

I worked with all of these young people last year as they we part of the youth empowerment project.  I personally know them, where/how they live, what their passions are, their work ethics, their family lives, etc..  So, I gave them an ultimatum- take this opportunity to further your education, give yourself a future in something your community needs, get a real job after IDT- or get out.  I cut the contract of anyone who doesn’t show up for classes.  

Currently I have 22 young people registered and volunteering at daycare centers, classes should start by the end of the August.

the Career Mentor Project

.. Is a passion project that I want to try before I leave Jane Furse.  As hinted in the ECD Project, this town struggles with a youth unemployment rate that hovers around 60%. My first bout with this statistic was with the youth empowerment project that attempted to motivate youth to live meaningful lives.  But, I couldn’t see the groundwork with that project so I’m not sure what impact it had on any youth besides the youth that were actually working.  With the Career Mentor Project I intend to change that ground-level impact.

So, I have created teams of 3-7 young people (who I hand-picked based on the CVs that they submitted to me) and had each team write a 10 page report of what careers are in demand in South Africa, where those careers are and how to get into those careers.  I also had them write an additional report on how to apply for college/university, how to obtain/find bursaries and choose their secondary school courses to align with their future career choice.  To get the answers to all my criteria they had to visit the local library to research as a team, and set up meetings with professionals in Jane Furse and interview them.

Once their reports were completed and I was satisfied by them, I placed each team in a secondary school in or around Jane Furse.  Right now this project is in 5 schools.  The teams work as the end of a referral system for current students looking for information on what to do after the finish grade 12 (matriculate).  Before this project started, students who had future career/education questions would either ask an overworked, overwhelmed teacher who often could not get an answer, or they would ask nobody and assume their is no answer for their future.  Now that this project has started I hope to fix that and give students a better option to learn about future career/education opportunities and have a clear direction after secondary school.

Perhaps more importantly though, I’m am pushing the young people in my teams to explore future career/education options for themselves.  I will have each person in each team write a plan of what they will do once their contract ends to make sure they have also found a clear direction.

the Clothing Project

.. Is the savior of everything and my least favorite project by far.  

With each project, if a participant resigns, Elvis and I have to fill their contract with somebody new.  This project is a small business that sells clothing on the side of a road.  It doesn’t require commitment (like the ECD Project) and it requires little orientation (like the Career Mentor Project) so it makes a perfect reservoir for managing contracts.

It operates on a pretty simple plan: there are teams of salespeople and teams of coordinators, 1 person controlling stock and 2 people controlling revenue.  The actual logistics of this project drive me insane because I am not a businessman and running a business is as complicated as I thought and I never want to do this again.  

But I guess am part-businessman because since the beginning of this project a month ago, it has made over R1500.

Are you still with me? This is when the 2 bonus projects come in.

Experiential Learnerships

Elvis and I understand that selling clothing on the side of the road is a terrible job, and that we have overqualified people working in the Career Mentor Project, so we are testing out Experiential Learnerships.

Our main idea is to take the best performing youth from MK Umbrella’s IDT programs and place them with local businesses to receive short-term, high-impact training. Elvis and I strive to increase the capacity of youth, and although the Clothing and Career Mentor Projects can in some ways, Experiential Learnerships will be able to teach youth technical knowledge, work skills, and how to enter the local workforce better than anything.

After the youth have completed their training (which we think will be 2 months) we will either absorb them back into the project they came from, or push the business to absorb them into their payroll and give them a permanent job.

Youth project revival

One of the businesses Elvis and I want to set up Experiential Learnerships with is a local hardware store, Jane Furse Builder Supply.  The manager of JFBS also happens to be passionate about redistributing the wealth of JFBS back to the community, and has heard about the youth empowerment project that I made last year.

The conversation went something like this..

JFBS wants to create a youth movement to do good things for the community

oh, that’s kind of like something I was doing last year

Really? one of my employee’s cousin was volunteering at a school on the Ga-Moretsele edge of town, helping the learners and the administration there.  We just need to find the young people that do things like that and bring them to JFBS to organize them.

oh yeah? I know her, she was working under my project.  Actually, I know most of the young people who would be organize-able like that…

So, the manager offered to take the idea of my old project, restructure it and recreate it under the management of JFBS.  This idea is still plastic and I haven’t even gotten to working out the logistical framework yet but I have a vision.  

It should go like this:  I find motivated young people and give them to JFBS to organize, JFBS then sends them to MK Umbrella for Elvis to contract and get them a stipend, JFBS sends them out to solve easy, quick problems (like fixing broken windows in schools).  JFBS organizers would then send monthly reports to Elvis so that he could incorporate them in his monthly IDT reports and make his life so much easier.  Youth win, JFBS wins, MK Umbrella wins, Jane Furse Wins- Great.

That messy thought-vomit leaves a lot of questions unanswered but again, I swear the answers are somewhere in my head.  If I can actually manage to link JFBS and MK Umbrella together and create this revamped, youth force for quick-wins then I would manage to leave a sustainable project that does great things in Jane Furse.

…

Thanks for reading all that… I am also frustrated by the incomplete thoughts, typos, confusing sentences and zero pictures.  But I have to go back to work now.

-Riley