Focal Point Aid

Wrap-up from South Africa

2009-10-14T15:30:00.001-04:00

Before we wrap-up our trip, we want to thank everyone for following along. Beyond your support, we have received many e-mails and phone calls of encouragement that have helped guide our project. We hope that we have kept you all in the loop through this blog and our regular updates. We have tried to keep them both informational and entertaining. However, if there is anything we have left out or anything that you wish to know more about that we have not answered, please let us know. You are encouraged to ask us anything about our trips or projects, we would love to hear from you. In the meantime, here are some thoughts on our latest progress and a little self-analysis.

Over the past year and a half, Focal Point has worked on our South African Campaign. We have met with community leaders, government officials, embassy employees, non-profit specialists, wealthy donors, and hard working volunteers. We have also spent more than a month within the Coffee Bay community itself. It was our first project location and has been the model for how we wish to run future projects. We have tried to run an aid program in a small, personal and effective way. Not by merely throwing money at an area or a project but by spending time with communities and learning the heart of their needs and problems. Then by personally ensuring that the aid we give is used for precisely what it is intended, we know that our supporters can trust that their donations are used properly.

As this current trip to South Africa is almost wrapped-up, we take a few seconds to ask ourselves some questions:

Have we done all we can to fulfill our promise to both the community and our supporters?

We certainly tried. Inasmuch as we stayed true to the ideas that founded Focal Point Aid, we have been very successful. We have been very open with our supporters and tried to communicate throughout this entire process. As far as the communities are concerned, we have done our best to bring them what we have promised, not always as quickly as we hoped, but we will continue to work until we have.

Does our model of running a small charity program work?

Yes, we thing it does. Small projects might not get the attention as the big guys, but they have been at the heart of international aid efforts for decades. A few people deciding it's time to do what they can to help is exactly the way every charity has begun, big or small. We hope that more people follow this model. Because of our size, Focal Point is able to spend attention to the little details that can really make a difference. The relationship we have with the communities we help grows more personal and direct each time we visit.

When dealing with vendors, government officials, and dozens of other people unknown to you, how do we know who to trust?

The real answer is that you can never be 100% sure. It will always take a little leap of faith, but we couldn't do our work without help from both our old friends and new ones. We hope that by spending a lot of time in the location of our project, we get a better sense of the local scene and know where and when to take those risks. Beyond those personal relationships, we never do anything without research. We seek out many recommendations from every source possible before setting our path. We have always and will continue to seek out advice from other non-profits as well when working in common areas and dealing with common problems. Some times it might take longer or had a few extra hurdles, but we think it's worth it.

Where is our next project?

Focal Point will always look for ways to help anywhere we can. It might be something at home in our backyard or it might be something abroad. Our work over the next few months will include looking for new grants and new areas of support. In the meantime, we still have much work to do on our current projects. While we will continue to find ways to assist Amun Shea in El Salvador, Coffee Bay remains our prime focus. On this trip we were able to supply desks, chalkboards and new paint two schools. It was a good trip, but it is not nearly enough. There is a mountain of more that we can and will do in Coffee Bay.

We hope that our diligence in our work and our proven track record for reliability will help us gain respect within the giving community. And we hope that our work thus far has lived up to the standards that we hold ourselves to and to the standards that you have all come to expect from us. Thank you all once again, the next time we talk it will be from New York.

The Story of the Desks

2009-10-13T01:59:00.001-04:00

Over the past year, Focal Point Aid has tried to find a way to help out a few schools in need. Some things we have found remarkably easy, like meeting new people in a community a half world away, learning how and when to trust strangers, and seeing how even small gestures of help can change desperate situations. On the other hand, some things we have found needlessly difficult, such as actually starting our charity, dealing with large government bureaucracies, and convincing people that even small gestures of help can change desperate situations. Through the entire process, from researching a region, meeting a community, pinpointing a viable project and raising money, we thought the simplest aspect of our program would be the moment that all that other stuff was completed and we could just go out and purchase what we had promised to deliver. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

This trip to South Africa was centered around us purchasing well-needed desks for the Madakeni and Bekisizwe schools. Along the way, we intended on buying other supplies and materials, but the desks were the centerpiece of our aid package. Sounds simple enough, right? Several weeks before leaving we started our search for school desks. We asked the principals of the schools to get price quotes for us, but little news came back our way. Then we solicited the help of 2 woman working in the South African Embassy in New York. They spoke Xhosa (K-osa) like most people in the Eastern Cape, and they offered to help us translate with vendors while we were still at home. The prices that we were getting however, were sometimes 300% higher than we knew they should have been. We suspected that the vendors heard that an American group was the buyer and they thought they could make more money from us (later we found out that they will raise the price for any reason at anytime, a very frustrating trend considering the amount of improvement that all the schools in the area need).

Meanwhile, we were getting a little nervous. We had promised the schools that desks were on their way, and we promised our supporters that their donations would be put towards these desks. So, with some discussion and a little bit of faith, we decided that the best way to negotiate was face-to-face. While waiting for new quotes, we headed to South Africa ourselves. Along the way, we met with the mother of one of our embassy friends who lived in East London, the South African Board of Education (twice), both schools, another NGO who had purchased desks in the past, and then rechecked our initial contacts. We were neck deep in price quotes from several different sources, sometimes 3 different prices from the same company. Some included tax, but charged delivery. Some offered free delivery but only if we ordered twice as many. Some vendors were near by but would have taken a very long time to fill the large order. Some were seen as very reliable but were 300km away. Who knew that it would be this confusing just to buy desks for a school? In the end, we chose reliability (free delivery didn't hurt either).

We are happy to announce that the desks have been purchased! Along with this order, we had enough money to also buy a school full of chalkboards and dry-erase boards for Bekisizswe. We will remain in South Africa for a few more days to tie-up some loose ends and then we will return to New York.

School Safety

2009-10-11T15:32:00.000-04:00

The picture above looks much worse than it really is, we promise. But it brings up a large issue that we have witnessed over the time we have spent here: School safety. Yesterday while we were overseeing the painting of the Madakeni Junior Secondary School we met a man introduced to us as the "Councilor". He has some kind of jurisdiction over the school properties in the area. He was very friendly and glad to speak with us. However, we were not the reason he was there. As many schools of the Eastern Cape wish to do, the Madakeni wants to organize a school garden to plant fresh vegetables to prepare better lunches for it's students. The Councilor had brought his tractor and was there to clear some ground for the garden. This seemed normal enough. But what we did not know was that this included burning the brush and debris away first, as is traditionally done on South African farms.

So what you see above is an actual fire started on school grounds, on purpose, during lunch break where all the students sit in the school yard. Many children didn't pay it a second thought, but many thought it was fun to surround the fire and see how close they could get or run up and smack the burning ground with sticks. Now, nobody was hurt today in the fire, but his is certainly not an exercise that many schools in the Unites States would either try or get away with. Which has lead us to ask some questions about school safety.

How much concern about safety can you have in a place where children must sit outside in cow fields to learn? How much concern is there about general hygiene where dogs, sheep and geese drink from the same water spigot as students leaving sheddings, waste and feces in all the wrong places? How safe are schools where the concrete stairs are crumbling into piles of sand; where broken windows leave jagged glass within arms reach of anyone older than 7 years; where children already have fallen into creek beds and ravines just trying to get to the bathroom; where just walking to school could mean crossing dangerous terrain?

We don't know. Each culture lives with its own risks and dangers and they judge for themselves what is acceptable or not. It seems that in South Africa, starting a brush fire is not a school safety issue. However, there are things that can be attended to. Fences, for example. All these schools need fences. Fences to keep the livestock away from school grounds, and fences keeping thieves away from valuable school property. Teachers also tell us that they need fences to keep the children from wondering into dangerous situations during school hours. Unfortunately, there have been too many cases of students being harassed, attacked, or even abducted within feet of school grounds. It is difficult to keep track of where students are if your school is vastly understaffed and your buildings cannot even house all your students indoors.

While new buildings and structural improvements could help some of those other schoolyard dangers, the schoolyard will become a much safer place around here with fences (and maybe they could find a less fiery way to clear the brush, too).

A New Coat Of Paint

2009-10-09T10:00:00.002-04:00

Our trip so far has included a lot of frustration over things well beyond our control. If you have been reading some of our past posts, you see we have come up against a beauracratic wall as far as improvements to both schools we are here to help. We are continually saddened by the conditions in which thousands of children must learn in everyday in what is technically the "wealthiest country in Africa". This could only lead us to a few very unfortunate conclusions. Either the South African government is not spending money on these schools, or the money has been diverted away from this region by people within the education system. It is a sobering reality that unfortunately will effect yet another generation of South African children.

Being outsiders here, it is not our place nor within our power to wage a political fight on behalf of these schools. For now all we can do is shine a spotlight on the situation and give as much aid to these school directly as we can. Today, we finally saw the benefits of our project in work. After several trips to Umtata and wading through a comically inefficient hardware warehouse experience, we were able to purchase about 300 liters of paint and supplies for the Madakeni school. Today, we painted. To be more precise, students, teachers and community member painted. Mrs. Madlalisa (the school's principle seen above) rounded-up a few dozen members of the extended Madakeni family and went to work. From 9am his morning to the last ring of the school bell, they repaired cracks, spackled over holes and repainted the exterior of their 5 room school building. Tomorrow they will tackle the interior and maybe take care of a few more cracks.

Painting an old building isn't as good as building a new one, one that is desperately needed, but it is at least a positive step for this school. For now they will have freshly painted walls to house the desks that we are on our way to delivering.

As we continue our work here, we want to thank everyone back home for their support, especially the students of Ms. McKay's 2nd grade class at PS 154Q in New York City.

Communication

2009-10-08T13:27:00.000-04:00

Day-4

As you can see from our past posts, we are very concerned about the Bekiziswe school. We are concerned about the deplorable conditions that the children must endure each day they are there. We are concerned about corruption in the way that education funds have been misused, how this school, one of the poorest we have ever seen continues to be overlooked for improvements and basic needs like a roof over their heads. We are also concerned that the Board Of Education or some others who have heard about Focal Point Aid bringing aid to the schools of the region may use us as an excuse for not helping these schools themselves. This last thought has weighed heavily on our work the past few days.

We were able to reschedule yesterday's postponed meeting with Mr. Madaza from the Board Of Education for today. The meeting was at the Bekisizwe with us, Mrs. Mangisa, Mr. Madaza and Mrs Madlalisa from the Madakeni school. Mr. Madaza brought us building blueprints and quotes for desk prices that he had promised from the other day. After thanking him for those, we wanted to be very clear about our concerns for the school and steered the discussion towards what exactly the BOE is planing for the school. Mrs. Mangisa had been hearing for the last 13 years to expect new school buildings and we had heard just 2 days ago the exact same thing. According to Mr. Madaza, installment of temporary structures were scheduled to begin yesterday, but shrugged it off to "the way things happen."

The meeting today was friendly but very direct. The answers about the timeline for improvements to the school were unacceptable at best. While we are here we will do what we can to help the Bekizise. We will buy the desks that we have promised as well as a dozen chalkboards and other supplies. But we will certainly not stop there. We will continue to raise money for the cause of the schools here. We will also try to shine a giant spotlight on the egregious neglect of schools like the Bekiziswe. While we were here, we received a call from the South African Embassy in New York. They are curious about our progress in the Eastern Cape. We had a brief discussion over the phone about what we have seen here. They have asked to meet with us when we get back to give them a full report about our trip. We don't know if it will help, but we hope that us being can push things along. If our stories and photographs can move those with the ability to help, actually do something positive for these schools, that will be a good day. We will ourselves keep plugging along.

As always, thanks for following our project. Please share this with your friends, families and colleagues.

A serious day at Bekiziswe

2009-10-07T12:15:00.000-04:00

Day-3

Today was all about meeting with the Beiziswe Junior Secondary school. On our first trip, we were shocked at not only how poor the conditions of the school were but wondered for how long the school could continue running without help. A year and a half later not much has changed. Children learning outside sitting on the muddy field surrounding the 4 room school structure, no electricity or running water, no bathroom facilities, no textbooks, no this, no that, etc. And unfortunately probably no change in sight. It is hard to explain exactly how much a school like this needs when they barely have a school at all. The community has come together recently to help build them a small new structure, but it will be no more than a small mud-hut that will allow only a few more students to sit inside in the dark, and only temporarily.

We met with Mrs Mangisa who has taught children here outside for more than 20 years. She was happy to see us but as we spoke she was noticeably tired of the situation and more than a bit angry at being told time and again that the Board of Education is going to help without ever seeing results. The day before, we were told at our meeting at the BOE in Umtatha that the Bekiziswe had been visited by the Portfolio Committee sent by the South African Parliament and that they were in line for new buildings. Mrs. Mangisa told us with a very stern look that they had been hearing the same thing for the last 13 years. It appears that what we have heard, what the school has been told and what is really happening are three different scenarios.

We are certainly not here to get involved in the politics of the South African Education system, nor are we here to tell anyone what is right and wrong, but some things are very obvious when you see them. The Bekiziswe school needs help, their children need help, and their teachers need help. To put things in perspective let us compare the meetings we have had over the last few days. One meeting took place with the BOE in a very nice office in a big building in Umtatha. The second was with The principle of the Madakeni school in a broken down classroom with holes in the ceilings and floors, no electricity and desks on their last legs. The third was today with Mrs. Mangisa which took place with us sitting outside where the children learn in the grass and mud. We talked as she ate her lunch (rice and cabbage) while a local starving dog sat next to her waiting to see if she would drop any of her food. This is a very proud woman who has spent her life trying her best to educate the children in her community. She runs a school of over 600 children and in order to do whatever she can to help her situation she is forced to take meetings sitting in a cow field literally fending off hungry animals.

We tell her that we are able to buy enough desks to fill the classrooms that she has as well as chalkboards and other small items, but obviously there is much more that is needed to be done. We are not an advocacy organization but we will do what we can to ensure that the Board Of Education does what it has promised. Unfortunately the meeting we had with them today was postponed.

Day-2

2009-10-07T12:13:00.003-04:00

Day-2

8:50 am- Met up with Sanele to thank him for all the help he gave up while we were back in New York. It was a fun reunion amongst friends.

9:15 am. Arrived at the Madakeni Junior Secondary School (with Sanele in tow) to meet with school officials.

9:30 am. Sat down with the Principle of the school, our very good friend Mrs. Madlalisa and her teachers to re-aquaint everyone to our project and update them on our fundraising. It was the schools first day back from classes after a week vacation so our timing could not have been better. The school, the teachers and the children all made us feel welcome. Our growing familiarity to this area is a great sense of comfort.

10:00 am. The meeting goes well and they are thankful that we have come back, since so many other charities that have promised to help, have failed to return. We mention that it would be helpful to have a school official come with us to Umtatha to visit the Board of Education and to negotiate with possible vendors for school materials.

10:03 am. Minutes after saying this we are in our car with Mrs. Madlalisa and Sanele heading towards Umtatha. Along our 100km ride, the four of us talk about Coffee Bay, The World Cup, Music and the possible whereabouts of Osama BIn Laden.

11:30 am. Arrive in Umtatha.

12:00 pm Find Parking. You think it's tough to find parking in NY, try downtown Umtatha at lunchtime!

12:10 pm. We meet with Thobile Jombile and Simphiwe Madaza at the South African Board of Education. They are head of the schools in the region (over 300 in all). We discuss our project and our goals. We talk about the two schools we are trying to help and tell them our frustrations about finding too many vendors who are overcharging for desks. They vow to help us find fair prices and help track down building contractors for the future. Mr. Madaza is coming to Coffee Bay tomorrow to discuss a plan. This is a good sign.

1:00 pm. Sanele departs and we go look for a place to eat lunch. We are in the Capitol of the Eastern Cape so we have many options. We pass over a few South African chain restaurants like "Steers" and "Debonair Pizza" and ignore the KFC (who knew?) and settle for a quick soup and sandwich place.

2:00 pm Lunch is over and we take Mrs. M to a hardware store where we purchase 140 liters of paint and paint supplies for her school. The store looked like a mini Home Depot with large aisles filled with paint, fencing, posts, and other building supplies. This will be a good store to know. We will organize a painting day later this week after we figure out the desk situation.

Overall today was a very good day. We bought some of the materials we need and made contacts that could help us in the long term. The price of desks and finding a reliable vendor continues to be a concern, but hopefully it will get worked out over the next few days. We hope that we won't have to make the long and arduous drive to and from Umtatha too often. It takes up a lot of the day, but we will do what we have to.

Tomorrow before we meet with Mr. Madaza, we will go visit Mrs. Mangisa at the Bekiziswe school.

Day 1

2009-10-06T05:50:00.002-04:00

Thank you all for being patient with our blogs. Internet access is almost impossible to find and when we do find it, it is slow. We will not at this time be able to post pictures from our trip yet, but they are on their way. This the rundown from our first day in CoffeeBay.

10:30 am.-We meet with Daphne in East London. Daphne is a teacher in South Africa and the mother of Nwabisa Nzeymana who works in NYC at the South African embassy. She and Thami Sono have been unbelievably helpful over the past few months. Daphne has offered us help in local affairs and nogotiating with vendors.

11:30 am.- We leave East London and head towards the Capitol of the Eastern Cape, Umtatha (along the N2 for anyone consulting a map) we will pass Umtatha on our way to Coffee Bay.

1:00 pm.- We come across a very bad accident on the highway involving severe injuries and several vehichles. The scene is chaotic and already involves too many onlookers. Having little or nothing to offer those involved, we decide to continue to drive on, but the images of the accident have stayed with us all day and we wonder if maybe we should have tried in some way to help.

1:20 pm.- Rescue vehichles pass us heading to aid the victims of the car wreck, they will arrive more than an hour after the accident. South Africa has one of the worst car fatality rates, and the roads continue to be a source of national concern. Alos of note was that the accident occured on the main highway between two of the largest cities in the Eastern Cape and real help didn't arrive for more than an hour. What is of more concern is that the response time was actually fast. It is just a sad fact here in SA that their aren't enough medical or emergency facilities in the places where they are most needed.

2:15 pm.- Our car was "attacked " by a dog. As we get closer to Coffee Bay, the roadway is riddled with Cattle, horses, goats, sheep, dogs and potholes. The livestock in these parts control the road, so the bigger the animal the slower it is to move. The potholes, of course don't move. Along one stretch of seemingly empty road, a very animated dog jumps out in front of our car as we skid to a halt. Like a traffic cop barking orders, the dog continues to hold the road until he sees fit to let us pass, at which point he runs along side the car until he loses interest in us.

2:30 pm.- We reach the coffee bay Ocean View Hotel and check in. The hotel is run by new owners, and we are finding that little by little, our contacts have started to dissappear. Being a half world away from our project has taken it's toll.

4:00 pm.- We find out that AT&T is trying to charge us about $400 an hour to use the 3G wireless internet card here in this part of the world.

4:00.01 pm.- We decide NOT to use the 3G wireless internet card.

7:00 pm.- we call our friend Sanele to set our itinerary for tomorrow. Sanele was our guide from our last trip here (please read our past posts) and coontinues to be a force behind any success we may have in South Africa.

Once again, thank you for following along, we will attempt to give you updats as often as possible.

No Internet

2009-10-04T21:28:00.009-04:00

Thank you for checking in on our progress. Team members of Focal Point Aid are currently in Coffee Bay and out of Internet range. They are writing a daily account of their travels and will post them here shortly.

We are all very excited to continue our progress in South Africa. Thank you for being a part of our adventure, please check back daily.

We are here!

2009-10-03T13:53:00.002-04:00

We are here, we are here, we are here! We will spare you all the fun of traveling halfway around the world this time but if you want some idea of what it is like you can read last year's post from our first South Africa trip here. We will tell you however that a brief unexplained energy shut down at the Oliver Thambo International Airport in Johannesburg was a little added bonus that spiced up our day.

This year, instead of traveling via Durbin, we flew further south down to the coastal town of East London deep in the heart of the Eastern Cape. Here in the southernmost part of Africa, winter is turning into spring and the weather is not typically what you would think of when you think of Africa. It is overcast, mid 60s and it is blowing wind consistently of over 35 kph. The weather should clear tomorrow and we are very happy about that. After getting a good nights sleep we will go about our business of procuring goods and materials for the schools of Coffee Bay.

The first order of business is meeting up with a contact of one of our new friends at the South African Embassy. We will tell you more about all of them tomorrow. As for now, thanks for all your help. Please spread the word and forward this blog to everyone you know.

Trip Announcement

2009-09-23T15:10:00.003-04:00

As many of you already know, we have been preparing for a return trip to South Africa. We had planned on leaving this week. Due to some unfortunate circumstances and a little bad luck, we have to push back our trip one week. We are know leaving on Thursday, October 1st.

Thank you all for your support over the past few weeks, especially Gary and our friends at the Blue Donkey for putting together a very successful sendoff fundraiser last weekend. With your help and generosity, we hope to fulfill some of our promise to the students and teachers of the Madakeni and Bekiziswe schools.

Keep in touch as we travel, we will be sending info via this blog as we go.

Buy a Desk for South Africa!

2009-09-12T22:16:00.003-04:00

On September 24th, we are headed back to Coffee Bay!Before we do, we are having a gathering and fundraiser for the children in the picture above.

Those are students from the Madakeni Junior Secondary School that we went to visit last year. As you can see (and read in past posts) they are great children and happy students, but they need a lot. On this trip Focal Point Aid will purchase some basic necessities for the school. You can help. It takes very little to make a big difference. Here is how:

For $20 you can purchase one of these students a new desk.

For $50 you can purchase a student a desk, a chair and a backpack.

We can guarantee that 100% of all donations that we get prior to our trip will get to the school in only 3 weeks. Your help can make a difference just that quick!

Come Join us at the Blue Donkey bar this Saturday, September 19th at 4pm to make your donation and help send us off.

WHEN: September 19th @ 4PM

WHERE: Blue Donkey, Amsterdam btw. w83rd and w84th st.

See you there. If you cannot make it, you can make your donation by visiting our website here.

A Focal Point Aid Benefit Concert

2009-05-28T13:52:00.002-04:00

Come out to see some great music and support Focal Point Aid while you're at it.

WHAT: Benefit Concert for Focal Point Aid

WHEN: June 2nd, 7pm

WHERE: Arlene's Grocery, 95 Stanton st. Lower Manhattan

WHO: Zach Hurd www.myspace.com/zhurd
Tina Mathieu www.myspace.com/tinamathieumusic
John Schmitt www.myspace.com/johnschmitt
The Library www.myspace.com/thelibrarymusic

Proceeds of this event will go directly towards our school project in Coffee Bay, South Africa.

For more details about Focal Point Aid go here. If you can't make the event and wish to donate, please go here.

Wrap-up

2009-05-21T16:18:00.003-04:00

After a week in El Salvador (and a little trip to Honduras) members of Focal Point Aid have returned. We were able to spend some valuable time with our friends at Amun Shea. We were proud to be able to buy new desks and textbooks for the students of the school and were invited to take pictures to document the progress the school has seen during its second year.

The school continues to be a great success story, but it is not a guaranteed success. It will have to work hard and struggle just to keep its doors open. The standard it has set for itself is high and they have hopes to continue the promise it has made to these children and the community. Seeing what can be accomplished in just a short amount of time has indeed been an inspiration.

Thank you to all the students, teachers and folks at the Perkin Lenca Hotel for the warm welcome. We hope bringing attention to this region and this school will bring some aid their way.

To assist Focal Point Aid, please make donations here.

To see some early returns on our photography from this latest trip, click here.

There is much more to come. This blog will continue to be live, so please check back often for updates and information.

Teachers and a sad farewell

2009-05-17T19:58:00.003-04:00

We have been telling you about the Amun Shea school now for about a year. We have told the story of its beginning, it's evolution and it's early success. We have documented our visits with photography and written stories. What we haven't said much about are the wonderful teachers at the school who have been doing a lot of heavy lifting to help get this project off the ground and keep it running. Teachers are and will always be a guiding force for any group of children, but here in Morazon, they can have a profound effect on how children grow.

Ana is the day-to-day director of the school and as one of the founding members, she has helped to shape the curriculum that has been a main ingredient to their success. Marlene and Marina teach the youngest of the students here, and have a thankless job of trying to instill the idea of education into children who's older siblings may not have been lucky enough to have this opportunity. Daisy, Doris, and Antonia teach 1st, 2nd and 4th grades. As you have seen from our pictures they keep the students smiling and learning. Meymis who is the Music and Arts teacher has created a chorus from scratch and within only one year this group has won awards for best choir in Morazon and could be the best young student choir in all of El Salvador.

Then there are the volunteers who come and go for periods of time, teaching classes like phys-ed or english. This is the case of Erica who came from Ireland to help out for a while. She is replacing Alex (seen above) who after 4 months is going back to D.C.(via a trip to Guatemala) to rejoin his life there. We were on hand for his last day Friday when we witnessed an emotional farewell scene that took us and all the teachers by surprise. As the students sang songs to Alex to say goodbye, one by one they broke down in tears. Some students were so overcome with grief that they ran outside the classroom to cover their faces. Teachers here represent hope and give the students something that is very precious. They become attached to these teachers and as we saw on Friday their departure sometimes is very hard to take.

Separation from loved ones is nothing new to these children. As you drive down the road or walk through the villages and hang out in the town square, you quickly notice that the majority of people you see are younger than 18 or older than 40. During the war, this might make sense, but the peace accords were signed 17 years ago, a whole generation removed from the violence. Where are the young adults? Once you reach the age that you would expect to start become an active member of the community, you have a responsibility to support the rest of your family. For most young people here that means leaving the country to look for work (mostly illegal oppressive labor) abroad. The largest source of income for most areas of El Salvador are these remmitances. It is a viscious cycle that has no clear end in sight. The best and the brightest leave the country and very few are left to become community leaders to build foundations for positive change. This process has crippled and handcuffed the Salvadoran economy and continues to tear apart families.

When a teacher leaves, even if he was only there for a few months, the students are reminded of the hard reality that hey are trying to overcome. Perhaps these students with enough help and guidance will help break this cycle. But for now they sing farewell songs wishing their families could stay together:

Donde voy, donde voy
(Where I go, where I go)
Esperanza es mi destinación
(Hope is my destination)
Solo estoy, solo estoy
(I'm alone, I'm alone)
Por el monte profugo me voy
(Through the desert, a fugitive, I go)
Dias semanas y meces
(Days, weeks and months)
Pasa muy lejos de ti
(Pass far away from you)
Muy pronto tu llega dinero
(Soon you'll receive some money)
Yo te quiero tener junto a mi
(I want to have you near me)
El trabajo me llena las horas
(Work fills my hours)
Tu risa no puedo olividar
(Your laughter I can't forget)
Vivir sin tu amor no es vida
(To live with out your love isn't living)
Vivir de prófugo es igual
(To live as a fugitive is the same)

We follow alex back to the U.S. As we do, we want to thank the teachers for their great work and for welcoming us once again into their world.

Honduras

2009-05-16T22:23:00.004-04:00

Today, we spent the day exploring villages and sites deep in the Honduran mountainside. Most notably we went to see the location of the Salvadoran refugee camps in Colomoncagua. We were privileged to be accompanied by our friend and host Ron Brenneman who spent time in these camps as an Aid worker during the war years. 26 years ago Ron relocated himself from the U.S. to the middle of a conflict zone to work with aid groups throughout El Salvador. One of his early accomplishments was creating a model for a house that was used throughout the camps for people displaced by the war (a design still known as Ron's House). He stayed on in El Salvador even after his organization had decided not to. Since then, he has become an integral part of this community and as great teller of its history. He has written a book about his experiences coming out soon. Before you read the rest of this blog, you should read some of his (perkin musings). We were lucky to have him as our guide today.

The first thing we noticed as we crossed the border between El Salvador and Honduras was that there was not much of a border at all. We didn't have to show documentation to pass the border patrol. As Ron said to us "Border's like this are only important during a war". The road was dirt, rock, clay and little bumpy. It wended its way throughout the beautiful mountainsides with small farms and tiny house clusters (mostly of Native Lencans) along the way. The town of Colomoncagua is small, quaint and dominated by the image of the old church. As we walked along the cobblestone streets, we noticed that we were being followed by interested but friendly stares. They surely don't see many tourists around here. Later in the day, after the tour of the camps, we returned to drink some Honduran beer in the back patio of a General store.

As we made our way through the muddy roads leading to the camps we stop and Ron tells us, "This is it." We get out and survey a mostly empty tract of land that looks pretty much like everything else in the landscape. Besides a few crumbling concrete foundations where mechanical shops once were and random piles of rusted tin, we can only imagine what this place was like during the the time between 1980-90 when as many as 6,000 refugees shared about 10 acres of rough terrain (the pictures above are of the camps during the war and yesterday). Ron starts pointing out places where things used to be and as he tells us he tries to paint a picture of what the camps were like; how the camps were separated, where the different workshops were located, how they had to live in tents before any structures were built. Starting a little before 1981, tens of thousands of Salvadorans were being displaced as the conflict was just starting to heat up. The refugees settled in these camps (the largest at Mesa Grande at about 12,000). They were run by the United Nations High Commissioner of Refuges and the Honduran military guarded the camps with prison-like conditions. Without the help of foreign aid workers the camps would be little more than concentration camps. We visited several sites in the former camp including the site where Ron lived while working there, a cemetary of those who died at the camps, and the remnants of the few permanent structured built there. We almost got lost in the jungle setting that has grown over the camp sites in the last 20 years. If it wasn't for a chance run in with a machete wielding farmer, we still might be looking for our way out.

The day was a heavy one due to the reality of the regions past. We are not the ones who can tell the story of the camps or the war for that matter, but as we learn more of the history of El Salvador, the work of this community to return to a bit of normalcy is incredible to witness. Just like our tour of an old refugee camp, much of he history of the war will soon be overgrown with new memories. But with people like Ron and many others of this community sharing their experiences and telling stories of the past, no amount of new growth can completely cover up the past.

After our visit to the camps and our relaxing beer in Colomoncagua we toured some of the towns on both sides of the border including a walk around Torola and a quick meal in San Fernando during a small rain storm. It's hard to classify this area as remote, but it is isolated. The towns are all quiet and the people very friendly. Today was a good day traveling about the border. The last few days of our trip are still undetermined, but todays trip certainly was a highlight. The more we visit this community, the more attached we become. This certainly is a special and unique part of the world.

Buggin' Out!

2009-05-16T18:48:00.004-04:00

This is just a small post to describe a little bit of travel pains we have had to deal with down here during the Central American rainy season. For anyone who thinks adventure traveling is glamorous, take a look at the picture above. This spider watches you while you sleep and greets you when you wake. She is not aggressive but she will jump clear across the room when she gets startled. And she is not the only little critter following our every move. There are beetles the size of quarters, lizards that like to crawls along the tops of our boots, and one very large creature that hovers and buzzes around like a helicopter that we have been calling the "Dinosaur Bee".

This all comes with the territory and has not stopped us from doing our work or having a good time, but there are two very unique bug related stories that we want to share with you. The first involves a volunteer named Alex who has been teaching at Amun Shea since the beginning of this year. After experiencing some serious pain in is big toe, we drove him to the local medical clinic where he was treated for a bug bite. Apparently while he slept one night, a nasty little creature called a "Chinene" crawled on his foot and excreted a toxin on his toes and it was slowing burning the skin away. Sound like fun?

The other story happened last night just before dusk. During the beginning of the rainy season, when the circumstances are just right, like a big rain storm that ends with a few hours of sunlight left, a phenomenon occurs a few times a year. Last night was one of those times. A swarm...when i say a swarm I mean a cloud...and when i say a cloud, I mean a plague of flying termites called "Palomillo" (little doves) descended on us and others throughout Morazon. They were relentless for the few hours these little pests looked for wood to burry themselves into. When the Polomllo arrive, there is nowhere to hide and all can do is calmly allow them to surround you until the sun goes down. We waited and then had dinner and some drinks while the dogs and extra large toads had a field day cleaning up the layer of dead termites.

I am not saying any of these bugs/creatures/swarms have detracted from our trip, I am just saying the next time you want to travel far away from home, ask yourself if dealing with toxic Chinene and flying Palomillo is something you could handle.

We will post again later with news from our day spend in Honduras.

This is what change looks like!

2009-05-15T21:16:00.004-04:00

As you probably already know from past posts, the main reason that we took this trip was because we were able to give the school at Amun Shea a gift this year. The desk seen above is one of 38 that Focal Point Aid purchased this year. We also were able to by textbook packages for the students as well. They use these books to study Math, Science, music etc.

In the scope of the larger needs of the school and the bigger issues facing the community these gifts were small ones. Over time we hope that we will be able to do much more for this school and this community. However, we take pride in the fact that even in a tough economic year, a year that has seen this generations largest drop in the stock market and the largest increase in the unemployment rate, that people were still willing to give donations to a new unproven charity like Focal Point Aid.

So all of you at home who helped us out, even just a little, take a look at what you helped to bring to these wonderful students here thousands of miles away. We hope you recognize the difference that each and every donation makes.

Thank you again. As we continue this trip and continue our efforts in other parts of the world, we are glad that you have come with us...even if it is just reading along to this blog. Pass along out greetings to your friends and send them to our website to find out how they can help.

Back to School

2009-05-14T20:23:00.002-04:00

In our first full day here back in El Salvador we went to visit Amun Shea. If you have not heard about the school, please go back a few pages and read about how we came to find this place and how our own efforts have brought us back. On our last trip the school housed 52 students K-3rd grade (12 plus per grade). They all learned in a single 4 room building on a mostly barren tract of rocky land with little more than elbow grease and imagination keeping the place together. Within their first year, Amun Shea had gained friends from around the globe and received recognition from within El Salvador for academic achievement and was looking to expand.

What difference does a year make? Well, we saw the answer this morning. The school has expanded. It is now pre-K through 4th grade (18 plus per year) and spread out through 3 separate school buildings, a nutritional center (more on that later), water systems, full bathroom facilities, an outdoor complex with a future garden project built by MIT volunteers and still room to expand.

We were welcomed back with warmth and a mini concert by the new award winning school choir. The music program has won national competitions despite the lack of musical instruments (hint-hint for anyone out there holding onto unused guitars and keyboards that have been gathering dust waiting to be donated to a good cause).

Many of the children recognized us while we were making our way around the complex with our cameras. The more outgoing students still hammed it up for the lens while the shy ones giggled while hiding there faces in their hands. We will bring you these photos over the next week.

We continue to be impressed by the evolution of the school here. If Amun Shea were to be transplanted in Westchester it would be an inspiration for its imagination, openness and positive learning environment. Here in Perquin, with the backdrop of post-war politics, an economy dependent on aid and sheer luck, and a notoriously poor national education system, what they have accomplished here at Amun Shea in a year and a half is no short of miracle.

Over the next few days, we will try in this blog to highlight its development and the hard working people who have sacrificed to make it happen.

Notes from our Travel Day

2009-05-13T22:13:00.005-04:00

We have been welcomed back to El Salvador! It has been a long day of travel for us and we are very tired. But as we sit in our now familiar table in the dining room of the Perkin Lenca Hotel catching up with our good friend Ron, we feel good.

A few notes from our trip so far: The airline TACA INternational did a wonderful job of flying us here with a few dozen others, but the flight was less than half full. It is hard to tell if this is due to the economy, the approaching rainy season in Central America or the threat of the swine-flu that has been hanging over the heads of the traveling public (dare we say partly due to overblown sensational coverage by mainstream media). The flu has indeed hit the region this far south and evidence of concern lies in the doctors masks worn by about half of the airline employees, but we don't fell all that worried. Consider that only 2 cases have been found in all of El Salvador thus far, compared to the 1,000 plus that has hit the U.S including 50 reported in our hometown of New York City.

The difference in heat and humidity is the first adjustment that we will have to make as it hit us like a wave once we stepped outside of the airport. Luckily, the climate in the mountains here in Morazon is much more temperate and cool breezes tend to dominate in the evenings. The ride here was pretty much the same as past trips, only with less wrong turns and the comfort of knowing our surroundings. Since it did not rain during our 4 hours car ride, we were able to enjoy some of the natural beauty that the country has offer (like the dominating view of Volcan De St. Vincente seen above).

Thats it for now, we are up early tomorrow to say hello to Amun Shea.

Oh, yes...for those keeping track, we are 2 hours behind you on the East Coast.

Southward Ho!

2009-05-13T04:53:00.003-04:00

In just a few hours, we will be on Taca Airlines on our way to Perquin via San Salvador, San Miguel and a few dozen other El Salvador way points. By now you all should have received our yearly update and the announcement of this trip, so there is no need to recap here.

The good news: We are able to make this trip and help out our friends at the Amun Shea school who continue to grow and prosper despite myriad obstacles in their way.

The Bad News: As expected during the start of this rainy season, the weather report is calling for 60-80% chance of serious rain storms each day we are there.

That's all for now. Wish us luck and see you all when we return. Check back here often to see what we are up to. We will be posting daily reports from our trip.

Return To Perquin

2009-05-10T15:37:00.003-04:00

Focal Point Aid heads back to EL SALVADOR.

On Wednesday May 13th, members of Focal Point Aid will head back to El Salvador to visit our friends at the Amun Shea school. As we mentioned in our most recent update, because of generous donations to Focal Point Aid, we were able to purchase desks and textbooks for the students at Amun Shea. Most of the goods have arrived and we have been invited by the school and the Perkin Educational Opportunities Foundation (PEOF) to visit and witness the progress of the program.

As you may remember, Amun Shea is a private school program in Perquin, El Salvador in the Morazon Province. It opened last year for 52 students Kindergarten through 3rd grade. It quickly showed great success and is a model for what education can do for a community that has gone through some tough times.

We are happy to be able to help, and are hopeful that our relationship with this school and its families will inspire others to reach out and assist in any way that they can.

Follow along with our trip by reading our Travel Blog, and if you wish to help out please make a donation here.

An overdue update

2009-05-07T17:36:00.004-04:00

This was our year end update that was sent out in January. We appologize for the tardiness of the post.

Hello friends and Happy New Year. Thank you all for your well wishes. We have received some e-mails and questions regarding our projects, so we want to send you this project update to keep you all up to speed.

The good news!
Our friends at the Amun Shea School in El Salvador have entered their second year and have expanded their program to include grades K-4. As an initial aid package, Focal Point Aid will purchase a full set of textbooks for all the students at Amun Shea including Math, Science, Social Studies, and Language. We will also fund the building of 36 new desks and chairs for the school. Our gifts to the school may also include other schools supplies as well as musical instruments. We will deliver these goods this spring.

Coffee Bay, South Africa

Our contact with the community in Coffee Bay, South Africa has been harder to maintain over these past few months. However, we are confident that we will be able to travel back sometime this summer to deliver an aid package to the Bekisizwe and Madekeni schools similar to the one we are donating to El Salvador. With it, we will continue the initial planning for new school buildings.

The economy and Focal Point Aid

As you all know it has been a hard year for charities and non-profits. Many organizations have suffered greatly and others have been forced to completely shut their doors. The tragedy of this situation is that as the stability of our economy waivers, the people of the world with the greatest needs suffer the most.

When we created Focal Point Aid a year ago, we knew that many charity groups are weighed down by the burden of administrative costs like salaries and office space. Thankfully, since these costs are not part of who we are, we have not been forced to abandon our work. However, the state of the economy will make it a little bit harder for us to complete our current projects in the timeframe we first had envisioned. Your help is needed more than ever. We except donations through our website or by mail.

Thank You

It has been quite a year for Focal Point Aid. We traveled half way round the world and back, endured tough economic times, suffered a few tropical diseases and here we are, still standing. We look forward to the successes and challenges of our second year.
Keep in touch. We have several events on the horizon.

Thanks again for your support,

Joe, John, Pete and Heather

Your Turn To Help!

2008-08-11T16:53:00.003-04:00

OK, Friends...now it's your turn.

You have been hearing us for months talk about our project, our trips to South Africa and El Salvador. You have seen the pictures, read the blog, maybe attended a fundraiser or two. Now, we need a few minutes of your time.

Since you are already sitting in front of a computer, this should be a relatively easy way to help, but could turn into a huge boost for our campaign to build new school buildings in Coffee Bay.

We have applied for funding from a charity program sponsored by American Express. So has a hundred other groups. Over the next few weeks, there is an online nomination process. If we are nominated into the top 25, we will then be able to make a presentation to become one of the 5 projects to get funding.

Here is what we need from you:

Nominate us yourself by following these quick steps:

1- Go to www.membersproject.com/project/view/N34DIQ
2-click on "nominate this project" located under the school photo
3-a box will appear click on "sign up as guest member" in blue at bottom of pop up box
4-fill out Name, email address, create password and fill in security code then click on "sign in"
5- You are signed in and ready to vote go to www.membersproject.com/project/view/N34DIQ
6-click on "Nominate this project" YOUR VOTE IS CAST
Project Name is "Schools for an education system in crisis"
www.focalpointaid.org

You do not have to be a member to nominate us, but you will have to sign-in as a guest. The process will only take a few minutes but will help us us in a large way.

Thank you very much!

The People You Meet

2008-06-22T10:38:00.003-04:00

You often meet many people on the road while traveling off the beaten path. Perquin is certainly off the beaten path. It is a wonderful crossroads of people and culture. After visiting other places that see very few foreigners and have no NGO presence, we were very surprised to see the high number of aid workers from all over the world here to help out this region.

The Peace Corps for example has had a very long history in this area and still has over 100 volunteers throughout El Salvador. In the short week that we were here, we ran into 5 different Peace Corps workers stationed in the surrounding villages. Lindsey (or leela as she is called by the children who can't pronounce her name yet) is working right here in Perquin. She has been here for about a month of her 2 year commitment and already seems well situated in the community. She helped us immensely while we were here and could not have taught the classes without her.

We met Marie, a newly graduated political scientist from Sweden here to study the role of woman in El Salvadoran politics. Sara (seen above), a teacher from New Mexico has volunteered throughout Central America. Our Paths crossed while she was making her way from Nicaragua to Guatemala. She sat in to observe classes at Amun Shea and helped us teach the photography workshop.

There were 2 grad students here from Harvard and Columbia conducting research for microfinance programs, a woman from San Francisco here to implement arts programs, and a man from England who is the only man on earth who has seen and evidenced the white breasted hawk, which he spotted in the mountains of Morazan (this last one is not a charity worker, but it is a fascinating story).

El Salvador is in a very precarious place right now. Their classification as a "developing nation in need" is changing very soon, and their largest source of foreign aid, the Millenium Project, is about to cut off their funding for El Salvador. There will soon be little money for things like infrastructure, education and medical care. With so many people out of work, the only source of income for some families is sent from a father or sister sending back their salary from abroad. These remitants make up a staggering 20% of the GNP. If foreign aid is suddenly cut off, it will become even more difficult for people to survive.

Help from charities like FocalPointAid or programs like many we have seen this week from outside organizations may be that little extra push that people here need.
The people of Perquin are strong, proud and hard-working. If we can do something as simple as help build them a school building for their children, we are happy to help.

As for all the wonderful people we have met: Keep up all the good work, we will see you soon.

Last Day of School

2008-06-21T21:40:00.004-04:00

After a week of teaching dance and photography it is time to say goodbye. Heather's students were very disappointed to hear she had to go back to Nuevo York. Children from all classes lined up to hug her goodbye with many trying to convince their new teacher to stay.

We ended the week, on Saturday, with a performance to honor the family. In El Salvador, unlike the USA, Mothers and Fathers are honored on the same day, Familia Dias. The children of Amun Shea performed many traditional songs and dances for their families. One song in particular had a great deal of importance to the children. It was explained to us that the lyrics sang by the children were asking "when their father will come home". Refrain after refrain asked where is our father, when will he come home. This was incredible moving and relevant with the current influx of immigrants to America.

Hearing the songs and meeting with the parents or guardians of these children make the mission of Amun Shea even ore important. This school was built with the hope that children of this region reach for a life beyond their current means. The unfortunately trend for youth here is the to become laborers that have to travel outside of El Salvador to find work. It has broken up families and crippled an economy. The wish at Amun Shea is to create leaders and inspirational figures of their community.

During today's family day, Amun Shea incorporated two of Heather's dances into the celebration. The children performed these new dances with exuberance and even added a great deal of their own personal touches. Families applauded throughout the numbers and greatly appreciated what had been introduced to their children.

Children are Gifted

2008-06-20T22:45:00.006-04:00

As we mentioned here yesterday, many of the students that were invited to our Photography workshop were remarkably gifted at an art form they have had little to no experience at. They each had a very unique sense of beauty in their surroundings and showed a level of creativity well beyond their education. We were extremely impressed with the level of excitement and the quality of work that these students brought to their projects.

The picture above is just one example of their photos. It was shot by Jeovana, a second grader.

Lending a Helping Hand

2008-06-20T10:20:00.002-04:00

We are very proud of our relationship with the Amun Shea school here in Perquin. Although new and experimental in many ways, it is already operating at a high level and holds true to all the ideals of learning and child development that make education paramount in building a strong community. When members of FocalPointAid first visited El Salvador and Amun Shea in February, we knew that we wanted to help this school in any way that we could. That is why on this trip, meant for research and observation, we wanted to roll up our sleeves and lend a hand.

Each day this week, we have visited Amun Shea,spoken with the teachers, seen the students, photographed the school in progress and even taught some classes. That's right...we taught some classes. We have helped the school run classes in photography and dance. At first, these might seem like "non-essential" subjects to teach in such a place as Perquin, but on the contrary, teaching students anything that can excite imagination and create a culture of new ideas is exactly what can help young people grow into positive community leaders.

Joe created a program to teach the students in 2nd and 3rd grade how to take photographs. We brought with us a handful of digital cameras, a photo printer (all to be donated to the school upon our departure) and a laptop computer. On the first day, the students were shown about a dozen prints of our photos, some taken at Amun Shea during the last visit. They learned basic photography skills like lighting, focus, composition and subject matter. At the end of each day, a few students were given the cameras and a homework assignment to take pictures of whatever they found interesting. The next day, Joe uploaded their artwork to the computer and picked a dozen pictures to compliment and critique. We expected this excersize to be fun, but did not expect the results to be as interesting as they came out. Each student showed individuality and personality in their experiments that you may not find even in a college photography course. I guess when you give children who grow up in this kind of environment a chance to express themselves, they do just that. It was amazing to see. We hope to be able to expand on this trial run on our next visit.

At the same time, Heather has run a very ambitious dance program, teaching 4 classes a day to children from K-3rd grades. As with most art-forms these children learn, this was a whole new experience for them. They were shown video of ballet and exposed to dance music of many genres. Over the last few days, the children went from reticent and giggly to talented, budding dancers able to recite and demonstrate the 5 positions of ballet and together perform a dance piece fully equipped with tutus and ribbons. Every time Heather demonstrated a new kick or turn or split, all their eyes lit up with wonder and a few seconds later were anxiously trying to duplicate what they saw. Whether or not this great group of students will produce the next Nuriev is unclear and inconsequential. What they have learned is that their is a whole world outside of what they have seen that is full of excitement and wonder. Isn't that what education is supposed to strive for?

Both the dance and photography classes were just a taste of what education can offer these students. We are happy to be invited to be a part of a school willing to allow teachers to visit and interrupt their day-to-day curriculum. We are proud to support such a place. We hope that this year, we will be able to help the students and educators at Amun Shea in a more tangible way by helping to fund new classrooms for their growing success. As great as the school here is, it only teaches through the 3rd grade. Without help, students graduating will have to return to the El Salvador education system which is among the poorest in Central America.

El Mazote

2008-06-19T20:37:00.004-04:00

As we have already written here, Morazan is know for its beauty, quiet way of life and its significance during the war. Over the past few days, we have seen the beauty of the landscape and seen the lives of people in this community. Today, we went out to see the effects of the recent armed activity that has shaped the way many have lived over the last quarter century.

The beginning of the conflict in El Salvador began well before all-out warfare spread in the early eighties. In the 70s, a very unstable government switched hands several times making for a very dangerous situation. This instability and extreme poverty helped pave the way for a guerilla movement that in turn forced a strong military response. After a series of "civil wars" erupted into Cold War disasters in Cuba and Nicaragua, the world superpowers were getting nervous about any conflict in central american. Many international forces were quietly or overtly taking sides in El Salvador with the guerillas, the military or both. The war raged on in brutal fashion until a peace accord was reached in 1992. The details and significance of this war is something that we encourage everyone to learn more about, but there is not enough time or space to tell the entire story here.

If there was a defining moment from this war it is the massacre at El Mazote. Over 800 civilians (estimates vary) were murdered on December 11th, 1981 by a U.S. trained military unit called the Infantry Batalion Atacatl BIRI (rapid reaction unit). Today we visited the town and memorial sites to take note of a disaster that too many people around the world have forgotten. Driving to El Mazote we learn a little about the region from our guide and host, Ron. We drive through the quiet town of Arambala while passing buildings with Guerilla grafitti still visiable. Time has definately passed this area by, or maybe it is just opportunity that they have missed, but there is nothing like it anywhere I have seen to compare it to. The streets are cobblestone, the adobe brick buildings are quaint but perfectly adapted to the weather, and men walk around everywhere carrying machetes in their hand. We have not gotten a real reason why machetes are still carried around. It may be for protection, it may be for its use as a tool, but it is just something that we will have to get used to.

The center of El Mazote has an eerie quiet and the town seems to have more dogs than people. The massacre of the village left only 3 known survivors. The few people who have since repopulated the village are very much aware of the brutal history of this place and many will answer any question you have. With over 300,000 people displaced by the war, there is no end to the personal stories that exist for those who might listen. There is a memorial built in the center of town with all the names of the victims that have been recovered. We may never know the full list. Next to the memorial is the church of El Mazote, rebuilt after it was burned down during the massacre. It is a simple structure but stunning in its significance. The "walls of peace" as the murals painted on the churches facade are called, tell a sad and great story. On one side the disaster is given its due. You can stand in the "Jardin De Reflextion" that is built on the site of the old rectory of the church and look at a beautifully realized mural and mosaic while praying or relecting on the memories of the victims. Along the base of the wall is a list of all those who died with their ages. 146 of these names are under 12, and some of them are as young as 3 days old.

On the opposite side of the church is a painted mural representing hope through time and education. There are many different opinions on how to go about life after the war, but one slogan struck the public then and still is spoken today: "NUNCA MAS" (never again).

After a very sobering and emotional trip to El Mazote, we came back to Perquin to visit the Museo De La Revolucion Salvadorena. Perquin was the headquarters of the FMLN and some of the museum guides fought in the war as guerillas. They were surprisingly matter of fact in their descriptons of the war and gave very non-biased viewpoints on the details represented in their showrooms. We saw pictures, mortars, weapons, and many artifacts that helped us imagine what soldiers from either side may have gone through. Walking through the rooms line with recovered guns was very eerie. So was the fact that most of the weapons used in the war were supplied either directly or indirectly by the U.S.

The two most amazing parts of our tour were the large crater left untouched that was created by a 500 lb bomb, and the remains of a downed helicopter. The crater represents many that still scar the countryside. The helicopter is from a story that will certainly stick with us for a while. The man behind the massacre at El Mazote was Lieutenant Coronel Domingo Monterossa Barrios. He was known as a brutal war machine, and many attempts on his life had failed throughout most of the war. His desire to collect war "trophies" was well known and the FMLN set a trap for him that ended with him carrying a sabatoged war prize on his helicopter that exploded seconds after takeoff. The story of his death and the memory of his brutal legacy live on in the minds of the those effected by this war and in the remnants of his helicopter at the museum here in Perquin.

We have certainly had a memorable day. It is easy, too easy to forget what some communities have had to go through just to survive. As sad as the history is in El Salvador, it is their history and important to learn about and understand as they move foward. NUNCA MAS

The Little School That Could

2008-06-18T22:03:00.003-04:00

The picture above was taken today after a visit to a local school. He holds a picture of himself that was taken on our first trip here in February. As he saw the picture and recognized himself, he giggled with a happy nervousness that made everyone who saw it smile. But when he learned that the picture was a gift and he should go home to show his mom and dad, he glowed with an exuberant pride and skipped away to show off his prize.

Amun Shea (land of seads) is a small school in Perquin, built and run by a international aid worker from the U.S., and staffed by a handful of dedicated teachers. It is a ray of hope in a region of the world that needs just that.

We visited the school today to say hello, see how the school has progressed and maybe help teach a class or two (more about that later this week). The school teaches 52 students from pre-K to third grade. Unlike the public schools in El Salvador, Amun Shea teaches a full-day curriculum. The school was created by our new friend Ron Brennenman. He was in the country to help build shelters for those displaced by the war and he never left. Now with a family and strong roots in this community he built a school to fill the need a solid education for his children and those of the surrounding villages.

The first semester started just this winter and has already received recognition for academic achievement. After only one semester it is amazing how well the school runs, how successful the program is and how happy and eager all the children are. The school itself is a humble but well built structure at the end of a dirt road. It has all the facilities that a school requires but not much more. As with many of the schools that we have seen and heard about, they need more materials, more rooms and more teachers.

As we have mentioned, the school only reaches the 3rd grade. As their current students get older, they will need help building more buildings to expand.

Stay tuned for more details of the school, but for now check out this video of Amun Shea. http://www.youtube.com/watch\?v=ahYRUDt0y68

Traveling Far

2008-06-18T21:37:00.003-04:00

Another season, another country and another long travel day by Focal Point Aid. After 10 hours of travel (half the time it took us to complete our first plane ride to South Africa) we are sitting comfortably in the Perkin Lenca Hotel De Montana tucked away in the mountains of Perquin somewhere near the El Salvador-Honduras Border. The first sign that El Salvador is not exactly a hot spot for vacation travel was while we were riding on the airplane...it was less than half filled and we were the only native english speakers on the flight. We found amusement watching the airline staff dilligently call out each row for boarding even though though their were only a dozen people waiting to get on. It certainly made for a pleasant flight. The flight went smoothly, Immigration went smoothly, Customs went smoothly, then we tried to pick up our rental car. Start with a language barrier plus the standard rigamorole of rental companies, then add 100 degrees in the shade and our good mood was put to the test. But we were finally here and we left San Salvador with our air conditioned car, malaria pills and a large stock of bottled water.

The impressions of El Salvador change with each town and village we pass on The Pan Americana highway. It has been 16 years since the 1992 peace accords officially marked the end of the war here, but you can't avoid the remnants of the damage that the war has left behind. There is a permanent feel of temporary in most of the areas we pass. In the last 15 years, El Salvador has had many setbacks in their post war developement. Mudslides, hurricanes and earthquakes have left much of the region moving from temporary home to temporary home. El Salvador has more seismic activity than any country in the region (because of this fact, the area around San Salvador has been called the "Valle de la hamaca" , the Valley of the Hammock). Some are just tremors, but some are large and dibilitating disasters like the ones in 1986 or 2001. Now former aid camps and refugee villages have been turned into towns of run-down huts or alluminum sheets propped up to make shelters and endless piles of wood that used to be somebody's home.

Along the way, we passed a few urban centers with storefronts and market places. The road between was packed with roadside stands selling papayas or plantains. One unfortunate trend we witnessed was the trash. The infrastructure of El Salvador still hasn't figured out how to dispose of garbage. It has ended up in piles on front lawns or lining the roadside. Development has made its mark however and there is a strong workforce, something of a transportation system and the endless advertisements painted every few feet along the highway.

As we expected, the feel of El Salvador changes drastically as you get into the mountains. The province of Morazan is in the northeast corner of the country and is known for its beauty, agriculture and its place as a guerilla stronghold during the war. Many people have first hand stories about their recent history and we look forward this week to learning as much as we can about the cultures that have repopulated the region.

One final note about our trip here before we begin. It is the rainy season here and as we drive into the hotel and meet up with our hosts, it is pouring down buckets of rain. We expect rain every day while we are here, but usually only at night. Thanks to Ron Brenneman, his family and his staff at the hotel and his school for their welcoming us into their world. We expect a productive week here and hope you all back home enjoy our dispatches.

El Salvador

2008-06-16T20:33:00.002-04:00

We leave tomorrow for El Salvador. We will be blogging daily about our trip, so please stay tuned.

Our project in El Salvador will once again focus on children and education. In the small municipality of Perquin, near the border of Honduras there is a small school called Amun Shea (Land of Seeds). In a region where you can hardly avoid the markings of a brutal civil war, the school and surrounding community is a reminder that big change can happen in small ways. It is a school opened to rebuild a proud community, that is after just a few years, helping to build a bright future for over 50 students.

The community is made up of former refugees displaced by war. It is twenty-five years later and many have never returned to their former homes. As the country has undergone a slow rebuilding process, some areas such as Perquin have been forgotten. Amun Shea was built by a few caring individuals who wanted a safe place to educate their own children. Now, it is the pride of the region and teaches classes up to the third grade.

We hope to keep an ongoing relationship with Amun Shea and the Peqiun community. With your help, we can assist them in building new classrooms to hold future classes as they grow.

Pictures

2008-04-26T19:28:00.003-04:00

Hello, we are back in New York. We look forward to spending the next week discussing our trip with everyone so we can announce the details of our project. We are starting to sift through our notes and photographs. We will share them with you on our website as soon as we can. In the meantime, you can see a sampling of what we saw here:

Joe's Pictures here

John's Pictures here

We're Coming Home!

2008-04-21T13:41:00.004-04:00

After 2 life changing weeks here in Coffee Bay, we are headed home. We have seen more than we had planned, and met more people than we had hoped and now are ready to come home and make this project work.

We will miss the dozens of new friends we have met, the warm welcome of the community and the endless breathtaking landscapes and coastal views (like the world famous Hole-In-The-Wall seen above).

We will be without Internet for the next few days, so we will not be able to update this blog, but check back later in the week as we announce the details of our complete project. Thank you all for your support and the attention you all have given to our trip and this charity. We will see you all soon...not too soon however, as we still have a 20 hour plane ride ahead of us.

Red Tape, No Problem

2008-04-21T12:53:00.005-04:00

Anyone who has ever had to build a building knows that the list of things you have to do that don't involve actually building is long and very frustrating. Blue prints, zoning boards, approval plans, contractor agreements, etc. And when the paperwork includes a government office or two, most projects don't get off the ground easily. But today, we had a rare experience with breezing through a bit of red tape.

We woke early and once again employed our guide Sanele, a great new friend to us, and headed down the road, the only paved road for an hour. We travelled 100 kilometers to the city of Mthatha (pronounced oom-tah-tah). The government office that houses the Department of Education was there and that was our destination. We needed to procure the blue prints for DOE approved school buildings that we wish to build in order to get an estimated cost for our project.

If we were in NYC showing up without an appointment, we would never get past the security desk (now imagine what would happen if two strangers from another country tried to get blueprints for a public building). But in the poorest region of South Africa, we walked in without an appointment, without ID and were speaking to the man in charge of school inspections for the entire Eastern Cape in a matter of minutes. He was very excited to talk with us. After a quick rundown of how we have spent our time in Coffee Bay, we shared with him the list of schools that we wished to help. We were happy to find that our choice was also at the top of his list of schools that need aid. Within 10 minutes, he brought us upstairs to his boss (again, no appointment or proof of who we were).

Now in a larger office and in front of more people, we made our case again and were promised the blueprints we needed. They didn't make plans to mail it to us, send it to us, or have it ready in a few weeks, but actually walked with us across the street to the Department of Public Works and waited while our copies were being made. We couldn't believe how kind everyone was to us.

After spending months going through unbelievable amounts of red-tape just to get our non-profit off the ground, it took us less that an hour to go through two separate Government buildings to get the plans. This is just one more in the long line of examples of how kind and welcoming people have been to us here. It has been a pleasure working with people of this community in creating a joint effort to help the region.

Building a Plan

2008-04-19T14:23:00.002-04:00

Today we started learning what it actually takes to build something here on the "Wild Coast". We have seen old buildings, new buildings, renovated buildings and some that shouldn't even be called buildings. When we started this project and thought about the possibility of building something, we had no concept of the process. However, we thought that if we kept moving forward we would come up with the proper plan. Well, that part of this trip is now upon us. There are a number of details that we have to pin down, even before we figure out the actual price. Here are just a few:

Find a licensed builder (not an easy task where the most common building material is mud-brick).
Get permission to build from School Board and acquire "approved plans" from the Department of Education (again, not easy for 2 New Yorkers 8,000 miles from home).
Find someone who lives here and someone we can trust that will act as our project manager to take care of the plans while we are back home fundraising.
Decide what materials to use (as any contractor will tell you, the list of materials and design decisions can cause quite a mess).
Make sure that only local labor is used (the unemployment rate in South Africa is close to 40%, here in Coffee Bay its closer to 90%).
Plan out site security (materials can disappear very quickly).
Make sure builders and workers know that we will be back to supervise project. We must ensure that all money we raise goes towards that project (in most cases this idea has been very well received, as too many charity projects just give money that doesn't benefit what is was supposed to).
Get an honest price estimate (difficult anywhere, but in a place where there is a language barrier...).
Decide which school we want to build for (by far the toughest part of this project).

Tommorrow is Sunday, by Monday we intend to Travel to Umtata to get building plans, take care of all the needed details while we are here, and then head home by week's end. We will see you all very soon.

Children and Families

2008-04-18T12:17:00.003-04:00

The first thing you notice about the Xhosa people is that they have a very solid family structure. Everything is connected to your family and the family is connected to the community. Within Coffee Bay, there are several pockets of smaller villages, usually separated by a valley, a stream or a large hill. If you live in one part of this community you are welcomed by everyone else. You call every woman Mother and a each boy and girl is your Brother and Sister. The families live together in bundles of Rondewels, several generations together. If one person has a job, and sometimes only one person in the family does have a job, they use that to feed all their relatives. It is safe to say that without the strong bond of families, things would be much worse here.

That said, in some areas things are very bad. Even with one breathtaking landscape after the next, you can't get away from the poverty. There are children running around everywhere, no shoes, torn clothes, and the look of someone who hasn't had a full meal in a while. On the way to each school we saw this week, we passed hundreds of children idly sitting in the fields or helping their mothers carry buckets of water from the nearest river. They weren't in school, even though it is required by law that they attend. Some children don't go to school because the 4 or 5 kilometer walk is too far, some don't go because they can't afford appropriate clothing, and some children don't go to school because they serve a more immediate and valuable role for the family...they stand in the streets and beg for change from the passing cars. Tourists are coming through here more often to see the beautiful coastline and some are wiling to throw a penny or 2 to the hungry child reaching out her hand. It is highly discouraged to give in to the strong desire to help those children, as it is seen here by many to be teaching the children a bad lesson for a small amount of money rather than the lessons they would get by going to school instead.

There is a new Youth Project in town that supports youth sports leagues and offers local children a place to gather and keep them out of trouble. We were also invited to the home of a local family that houses an all-boys dance team (a very impressive group that dances in a style similar to step or stomp teams in the U.S.). The team members were aged 12-16 and most of them lost either one or both of their parents.

Children as always are the foundation of any future that a community wants to build. From what we have seen, most children here are vibrant and hopeful but with little, or really almost no chance to improve their situations. We are starting to realize that the schools here may be where we spend most of our time.

The outdoors is no place for school!

2008-04-16T15:30:00.001-04:00

Another day, another school, another story hard to believe. The longer we stay here the more see. Today we were welcomed at the Bekizizwe School. Before we even met with anyone here at Coffee Bay, we were shown pictures of the students at Bekizizwe carrying bricks one at a time to help build their school building. They were pictures that represented hope. Before that building was built a few years ago, they had no building at all. Children were being taught outside protected only by the shade of a tree.

By looking at those pictures, we thought all that had changed. When we drove up to the school today, children were still sitting outside attending class. Those buildings we saw being built could only hold three classes. That's 3 out of the 9 that Bekizizwe teaches. So, after the school had benefitted from the best improvement it has ever had, there were still six grades being taught outside in the fields...the same fields being grazed by cows, goats, and horses.

This is by far the worst school conditions we have seen here in a place that judges the quality of school by how many children have to learn by sitting on the floor, with or without a roof. Mrs. Mangisa is the principle of this school and she has been teaching outdoors for 19 years. It was obvious that she told the students that we were coming and they were on their best behavior. They waved to our cameras and sang songs for us as we walked along the school grounds. Even with the show however, it is hard to hide the truth of the situation: this school needs help!

To add to the list of outragous conditions, the only food the children recieve is bread for lunch. They eat this too, while standing outside. The nearest bathroom is an outhouse a hundren feet from the school building (this is for faculty use only), and the only water source is a half dried-up riverbed at the bottom of a ravine about a quarter mile away. There is nothing about this school that is safe or not in need of vast improvement. I can't imagine being a teacher in this school, but all 11 of them are heroes. We have been constantly amazed at how the children still go to school, learn, smile and play. It is becasue they don't know anything different that they accept this standard of education...we think we owe it to them to show them a little more, don't you?

The Cat in the Kitchen

2008-04-16T13:03:00.005-04:00

It is hard to describe farming as a vital part of the economy around here, because there really is no economy. However, to be a Xhosa is to be a farmer, and around here, farming is not a job as much as it is a way of life. Cattle graze freely and are not marked (for farmers can recognize their own cows and do not need to protect against theft), goats and sheep are not fenced in and nearly everyone relies on community gardens for produce.

Over the past few days we have visited some of these garden projects. When we tell you that we have traveled "beyond the beaten path", that is not merely a figure of speech...we have really traveled beyond the beaten path. We were taken by our guide and translator, Sanele, to a remote valley somewhere inside the lush hills of Coffee Bay. A kilometer from anything resembling a road, we had to remove our shoes and roll up our pants to cross a stream or two. This everyday trek through the water that seemed so effortless to the farmers caused enough trouble for us that we attracted a small crowd of local children who were giggling and watching to see if we would fall in (we did not).

The farms looked like any farm you would see in any poor farming village. They have tried to set up a simple irrigation system, but the pump has been broken for some time and the streams around here don't always stay wet. They rely on the woman who work on the gardens (Often 50 years or older) to carry buckets of water balanced on their heads up and down hills that would make a 20 year old huff and puff. Each garden has about a dozen workers, mostly woman, and they cannot manage more than an acre at a time. Most of the food goes to the families living in the small section of the village where they work, but they try to sell their food to the local hotels, backpackers, and to passers-by on the roads.

They grow cabbage, spinach, peppers, carrots and corn. Although we have only seen a few, it seems that they all grow the same produce forcing prices to bottom out well below any market value price. We asked several people why they don't grow fruit and nobody had a concrete answer. Many fruits can grow easily in the area such as peaches, citrus and grapes, and are a great source of vitamins that are generally lacking around here. Since there are little if any fruit farmers here, it could help balance out the variety of crops and could easily sell. People here grow what they have always grown. Things like "Market Value" and "Crop Diversity" are not concepts that subsistence farmers have ever had to deal with.

The Farmers here are in need of some very basic things. They need more tools, water pumps, a central market to sell their produce, and some transportation to get them there. Walking a few kilometers through muddy trails, fields, and streams to sell a bucket of peppers for pennies is not enough to get this community out of poverty.

The name of one of the farms we saw was Susi Kati Eziko which translates into remove the cat from the kitchen, it is a local saying around here that symbolizes a community trying to fight against poverty.

Ubuntu

2008-04-15T16:38:00.003-04:00

Ubuntu is an age old idea in Southern Africa that describes a credo that all humanity is connected through a bond of sharing. It is a Zulu word but is shared by all South African tribes like the Xhosa here in Coffee Bay. There is a folk saying that defines Ubuntu.

Motho Ke Motho Ke Batho Ba Bang (a person is a person because of other people)

We have been all over this small village and talked with all types of people. There are some very specific needs that people have that could be fixed quickly and there are giant problems that will take decades to overcome. We have been overwhelmed by much on this trip, but the feeling that we cannot help everyone is a heavy weight on our emotions. It would be an easy trap for us to fall into by trying to help everyone in everyway, but that will only end in us helping nobody.

In the spirit of Ubuntu, we have kept a list of the needs of every project we have seen. When we return with our own project underway, we want to be able to pass along the needs of the others to other organizations that may be more equipped to help. We want to call Doctors Without Borders to show them a clinic with no doctor, put the Woman's Project in front of micro-finaciers, try and get a sports organization to donate soccer uniforms for the Youth Project, collect simple but much needed farm equippment for the many small farmers, set-up a children-helping-children clothing drive to name a very few of the ideas that have come from this trip.

There is much we can do in Coffee Bay, for everything else we hope we can point a global spotlight.

A Very Hard Day

2008-04-15T15:27:00.006-04:00

The 12 foot by 4 foot aluminum building had no door, broken windows, no floor and mounds of dirt piles in the corners. This was the school “cafeteria” at the Medekeni Junior Secondary School. You wouldn’t know this because it looked more like a tool shed than a cafeteria but for the moment it held a long table with small stacks of buttered hard bread. This was the children’s lunch.

After seeing the conditions of the Coffee Bay J.S.S yesterday, we thought we would be prepared for anything, but walking up to the building this morning there were about 40 students sitting outside on broken furniture and muddy hills attending the 3rd grade. This is an unacceptable level of education for anyplace, but for now, this is normal for Coffee Bay. There are 3 entire grades that have to be taught outside because there is nowhere else for them to go. And yet the children still smile, the teachers don’t, they know better.

We were escorted around the school by N. Madlalisa who asked us to call her Kwanda. She is a very strong a beautifully spirited woman. She has done everything in her power to keep her school together and the children safe. She tracked us down when she heard that we were here and invited us to visit her school. During the tour of the school, she showed us room after room filled with students sitting on concrete floors (as you can unfortunately see from the picture above). She continually tried to show us that she was doing everything in her power to use all of her available resources, as if we had to be convince that the needs of her school were legitimate.

Without any loss of pride, she told us of having to constantly beg the authorities for more resources. As she explained how she had to stretch her budget, we suddenly realized exactly how bad the situation was. We did some quick math in our heads and came to the awful reality that the school was receiving less than $90 per student per semester. That $90 was to be spent on everything from teacher salaries and textbooks to school repair and the stacks of buttered bread that the children get served for lunch.

$90 per student…think about how little that is for the wealthiest nation in Africa.

Some Early Thoughts

2008-04-15T14:50:00.003-04:00

While meeting with the chief, he talked about a serious concern he had about promises made from groups like ours. It is the same concern we have heard from many of the people we have talked with. They have been promised a lot over the past 15 years, but most have not lead to anything but false hope. But the region still desperately needs help, and the community can’t let the disappointments of the past cause them to miss opportunities. So they talk to strangers from New York City with cautious optimism and patience that does not come easy.

It is because of this that we feel even more confident about our work here. The best feedback we have heard the last few days is that people feel different about our project because we promise to come back to help implement the program ourselves. A lot of Charities raise money for something and just assume it will go towards what they want. Unfortunately, this is rarely the case. There has been a problem with money being raised for Coffee Bay that “somehow” never gets here. Government grants have being diverted to other regions, earmarked money has been given to what people hear refer to as “ghosts”, names of people who have died but are still on the list of aid recipients. Corruption is everywhere, but when it happens in a place like this, it is hard to take.

This idea of do-it-ourselves has been the driving force behind FocalPointAid from the start. It is that idea that has given us hope for Coffee Bay, and in turn has allowed the people of Coffee Bay to welcome us so warmly.

School Crisis

2008-04-15T12:50:00.001-04:00

Think back to your school days. Try and remember what your school looked like. How many rooms did it have? How many desks were there in each classroom? Picture all the maps it had on the wall, the crayons and books you had in your desk. That is not what schools are like here.

Today we went to visit the Coffee Bay Junior Secondary School. When we met with Mrs. Mngquibisa at our large meeting on Saturday, she outlined a pretty grim scenario. She told us they had 800 students and only 20 teachers, little materials and not enough desks. Unfortunately this is a very standard educational experience in these parts. Nothing however, can prepare you for seeing these conditions in person.

We got to the school after our meting with the Chief and immediately were struck by the stark contrast of the conditions of the school with the unbelievably breathtaking surroundings. If you look out over the dilapidated school buildings you see ocean view cliffs with white surf crashing on the shore, endless vistas of rolling green hills behind children with no shoes sitting on dirty schoolroom floors.

Here is what the school looked like: Two crumbling buildings with no doors and broken windows, caved-in ceilings and cracked concrete floors that children sit on due to lack of places to properly sit (the school has not benefited from new desks or chairs in over 20 years). Today was the first day of classes for the new term so many students didn’t attend class and yet class size was already reaching 50 per room, although in a week the largest class in expected to be as high as 108.

There is a third concrete building half built standing off to the side completely unusable. This was built by the Department of education, but once their vastly unsubstantial budget ran out, they picked up and left, leaving nothing but another crumbling building that acts as a reminder to these students that they have been forgotten. The students by the way, despite all this mess are incredibly upbeat, energetic and happy to be somewhere, anywhere that they can learn. Unfortunately, without help schools like these will get even worse and cease to exist at all.

Meeting With The Chief

2008-04-14T11:08:00.004-04:00

We met with the chief today. Unfortunately we did not get any photographs of that meeting, so the picture above if from the school we visited later in the afternoon.

We were supposed to meet with Chief Nguenyathi on Saturday before our meeting with the rest of the community, but he was ill and did not make it. The fact that we went ahead with the other meetings and ahead with our project without meeting with him first was something we were afraid would be a sign of disrespect. We apologized for this right from the start and he seemed to be pleased that we made note of that and all was well.

The Chief, the son of the living Chief handles all the affairs of this land and its people. It is a traditional hereditary position and even now is much more than ceremonial. He was accompanied by three of the local Head-men and together they are a part of what they call the Traditional Council.

It is very intimidating to meet with a man of such high esteem in a place where he rules everything. However, he was genial and very receptive. As with most of our meetings, they start with a bit of an awkward "getting to know you" phase due to language and cultural differences. We felt it went extremely well and recieved the blessing from them for our work.

Sustainability

2008-04-13T16:06:00.005-04:00

Driving through Coffee Bay, you will notice how beautiful the landscape is, you will notice how nice the people are and you will see how much effort it takes for families to do what we take for granted, like provide water and food for meals. What you might not notice at first or at all (until you go looking for some cough medicine to combat the sinus infection you got while sitting next to a sick child on the 16 hour plane ride) is that there are no stores in Coffee Bay. Nowhere to buy a cold drink, a pack of cigarettes, a newspaper or diapers for the baby. There is nowhere to go on the weekend to shop for some new clothes, the latest top-40 CD or a book to read. For a town that gets most of its money from the few visitors that travel looking for an "authentic African experience" there is no central market for anyone to sell their goods.

Tonight we met an amazing woman named Albertina Nomonde Madlalisa, but you can call her Betty. Betty runs the Masizame Woman's Project located in the Ngogo section of Coffee Bay. The Woman's Project is a group of about 10 woman, and a few men that make traditional African crafts, teach dance and promote the rich culture of the land. On the surface, walking in to the project building, it looked like a crafts shop. There were beautifully made grass woven baskets, intricate bead work, colorful dresses and shirts and a floor full of sculptures carved masterfully out of drift wood washed up on the beach.

After looking around, Betty sat us down and gave us the 10 year history of the project and where she wanted it to go. She talked proudly about the evolution of the project and proudly about being invited to places like Canada and New Orleans to show off her art work and the honor of being named community builder of the year. Then she told us that even with her success, the group will never be able to grow much further as it is. The cost of getting to the arts fairs to sell her goods is too steep, she has filled orders to ship her products to places like Germany, the US and England, but there is no transportation to get them to a mail center, so all the money made on the sale is eaten up by overhead. The woman's project is not a store and people don't just pop in to browse around. You have to know that they are there...and in a town with no shops, no market and no structure for such things, the project's future is hazy.

Betty's goal is to train 200 woman on the traditional art work of her people over a 3 years span. She wants to promote her culture and continue the traditions of her ancestors. She believes in the power of her artwork to be able to help her community sustain itself. People throw around buzzwords like "Economic Sustainability" all the time. They should look at Betty's studio as an perfect example. If Coffee Bay has a future, places like the Woman's Project have to be supported. It is business, a cultural center, a school and a gathering place all in one.

Rondewels

2008-04-13T15:25:00.003-04:00

We have mentioned several times already that the basic home unit of people in this region is the Rondewel (pronounced ron-de-vel). As you can see by the picture above, they are circular huts with thatched roofs. They are generally about 20 feet in diameter, although this can vary, and can be made out of mud and wattle, mud-brick or stone. The name Rodewel simply means "round hut".

These homes dot the landscape and seem somewhat fitting of the terrain. They are the cornerstone of a society that is proud of its culture. As one person we met told us "We need many things here, but we don't need to be 'built up.' If we suddenly started putting large buildings and high rises where the Rondewels are now, our ancestors would turn their backs to us"

The interior of the Rodewels are very spacious and usually can house 2-5 people (sometimes more depending on the family). They are slept in, cooked in, played in. Families often have 2 or three Rondewels together and they sometimes function the same way as rooms do in a western style house. The ceilings are high and the floors are either packed dirt or covered with a thin layer of cloth.

Health Crisis

2008-04-13T14:37:00.003-04:00

Everyone already knows that health and the access to basic health care is one of Africa’s largest problems. South Africa is no different. The HIV/AIDS rates in SA are the highest in the world and is the single largest health crisis in a region already suffering from too many problems.

This morning, we visited the Ngzwanguba Health Center Clinic and the Masibonisani Community Project. It is Sunday here so the clinic is closed but was opened for us to take a look at their facilities. We were accompanied by Zingisa, a young Woman who works at the clinic and of course our fearless guide, Sanele (the picture above is Joe talking to Sanele and Zingisa in the garden outside the clinic). The clinic includes a main center with 2 buildings, and six satellite clinics in the nearby community, each consisting of 2 or three Rondewels usually one being the home of a clinic worker. Patients get treated at the center if there is space and medicine available, but that is not always the case.

What the clinic does not have is a doctor.

There are 13 workers running the clinic and dozens of volunteers working on the few community gardens that are set up on land donated by local farmers. The food from these gardens feed the patients. If there is any food left it goes to the surrounding community, but there is rarely extra food. The clinic has applied to the chief for more land to grow more food.

Most patients are treated for HIV/AIDS and TB. Other ailments are treated as needed and usually consist of the many effects of malnourishment, which is hard to treat at a place with no running water. You read that correctly, this is a health center with no source of clean water. And like I said earlier they have no doctor. They had one last year but his contract ran out in December and was sent back to his hospital 20 kilometers away. That is the nearest hospital that the people of Coffee Bay have to go to. I asked Senele what happens if someone in town breaks a leg. He said “They suffer”.

The clinic needs what all clinics need: Space, medicine, doctors and clean equipment. Here in Coffee Bay, those are all things that are hard to come by. It is only by the hard work of people like Zingisa that anyone gets treated at all.

Traditional Dance

2008-04-13T02:48:00.003-04:00

Last night we were brought into part of the village and saw for the first time how the Xhosa people live. We drove in on the very rocky local roads, off the road, onto a grass pathway and stopped when we there was nothing left resembling a road. Then we walked down and around a few hills until we reached a set of Rodewels, mud and brick huts covered by thached roofs. We were indeed far away from home.

Upon our arrival we were invited into the larger Rondewel and treated to a traditional dance by 8 woman dressed in traditional attire. They are a local dance group, that dance and sing Xhosa folk songs to very fast paced drum beats. Between songs, our translator told us what each song meant and what the movements of the dance signified. Inside the Rondewel it was dark and lit only by candellight and the occasional camera flash.

After the show, we were invited into a second Rodewel that was the home of our host. As we spoke through our translator to two of the dancers there were food preparations being made, a few dogs coming and going and a child sneaking food from a clay pot on the floor. The ladies, M.Takayi and another, nicknamed Elsa spoke about their desire to bring dance to a larger audience and how hard it was to make a living in the village. There has been land designated by the Chief to build a center to showcase such local cultural customs as these dancers, but there is no money to do so.

We enjoyed our stay immesely and after sharing their talents with us, we all shared a cup of their homemade beer.

A Grand Summit

2008-04-12T15:11:00.003-04:00

Before we left for our trip we contacted as many people as we could in Coffee Bay. Our host here at the Coffee Bat hotel was gracious enough to set up some introductions for us upon our arrival. She had told some of the schools about our plans and notified the community leaders that we were on our way. Great, we thought, we could hit the ground running. Today when we heard that there were people here to see us, we thought we would be meeting a handful of people then head off to visit a school or two. Instead, we walked into a conference room filled with about 35 people. It seems that the news of our mission had spread and many local leaders were anxious to see if we were indeed there to help.

We were quickly introduced to Sanele who would act as our guide and interpreter. The three of us walked into the packed room not exactly sure how we were going to handle this meeting. There were the expected school teachers and principles from local education centers, someone from the Youth Project, Medical clinic, Woman's Project, a few tour guides, a businessman and a about 15 local community farmers dressed in traditional clothing and painted faces, some carrying freshly grown produce each as uncertain as we were of how a room full of people such as this could agree on a common interest.

To make the situation more difficulty, less than half the room spoke English and half of them spoke it only slightly. The rest of the room spoke the beautiful language of the Xhosas (pronounced K-osa). The room was hot and the meeting started with a lot of nervous confusion by ourselves and our young and very exuberant guide still unsure of how to facilitate such an affair.

After about ten minutes of getting our bearings, we started to move ahead. We outlined our purpose of creating a project with the community involving as many local hands as possible. We would speak, Sinali would translate, someone would respond, Sinali would translate...etc. The meeting really took off in a positive direction when we asked each project represented in the room to describe to us how they worked, what was successful and what was not successful. This was the kind of feedback that we thought would take weeks to set up and now we were getting it in one giant overwhelming dose.

The meeting lasted about 3 hours and ended with us thanking them for their patience and interest in our ideas. What was the outcome of the meeting? We set up a full itinerary for the next week where we will be taken to the location of each project represented in the room as get to spend many hours with each watching what they do and listening to their stories.

Both of us walked away with some very stark impressions. The most prominent is that in a room with 30 people, there are 30 amazing projects deserving of our help. It will be one of the hardest decisions that we will ever make choosing where to spend our time. We have vowed not to judge which one sounds better until we meet with everyone individually.

The tour of the village starts tonight as we visit a traditional community dance troupe. More on that later

We are here!!!

2008-04-12T08:42:00.006-04:00

First, let us apologize for the delay in posting. As you can imagine, it is difficult to find a reliable and accessible Internet connection. There may be a few days at a time without a post, then 3 in a day. Be assured that we are writing every night and you will be kept as up to date as fast as we can post.

We finally made it to Coffee Bay. After spending the night in Durban, we woke a bit jet lagged and confused, because with travel and time-zones, we had completely missed Thursday. We experienced our first example of Ubuntu last night. A man we met on the plane was flying back from Mozambique. He is helping to organize a pan-African arts program and happened to be sitting next to us on the flight (check out his program here http://www.cca.ukzn.ac.za/). After sharing stories about our respective projects, Peter and his wife Monica recommended an inexpensive place to stay for the night at the historic Durban Club (a fine place, but our shower didn't work) and offered us a ride to the hotel. Thank you both for your warmth, generosity and supportive words.

The ride from Durban was a ride through the diversity of South Africa itself. The further you travel outside the major cities, the more you see what makes South Africa unique. Beautiful landscaped dotted with mud huts (called Rodewels), clay shacks covered by corrugated metal roofs and other assorted dwellings. Every few dozen kilometers, we came across a semi-urban center busy with road side vendors and food stands highlighting a maze of people jumping in and out of traffic trying to sell their wares.

One fact about this region that is hard to ignore is the lack of transportation. Along every road, especially major highways are Africans walking to and from the market or work (wherever that happens to be that day). Despite what has been called the best economy in Africa, the unemployment rate can at any given time reach as high as 40%. This sad trend is most visible in the Eastern Cape as you pass by a middle-aged woman carrying a hundred pounds or more of lumber precariously balanced on her head, or a group of men holding up a finger to passing vehicles (a gesture that means "one man, one job, one day"). They are day laborers looking for work to feed their family, often large and covering three generations.

Once we pass Mthatha (Umtata), we soon reach the "Wild Coast", a stunningly beautiful region known for its rich cultural history,a region giving birth to many leaders of the country (Nelson Mandela and Oliver Tambo to name a few) and unfortunately its unacceptable level of poverty. Things that might at first seem quaint, like cattle crossing the road or children playing barefoot in a dried-up riverbed are just prevalent signs of neglect that this area has suffered through. Houses are left to erode without repair, school building stand empty and far away from those that could fill it with books and desks, and hours are spent everyday merely getting potable water from place to place.

We are left with a mix of overwhelming emotions that are hard to define.

We reach our destination of Coffee Bay about 36 hours after leaving NYC with tired bodies but an energized resolve to make this project successful. Our work begins tomorrow as we travel around Coffee Bay and get to know the people a little better.

Trains, Planes, and Automobiles!

2008-04-12T07:06:00.003-04:00

The worst part of traveling abroad is, well actually traveling. We are writing this from a bar at the Oliver Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg. Not that we would ever promote drinking, but there is a special kind of of pleasure in enjoying a beer after sitting on the same airplane for over 16 hours. Westchester to Manhattan to Brooklyn to Queens, back to Brooklyn (for those of you keeping score: yes, we are expecting to navigate around the South African Veld
but yet can't manage to get to JFK without taking the wrong A-train), on to Queens, to Senegal, to Johannesburg...and we're not done yet. After this layover, we will have to take a shuttle bus to our connecting flight, a plane to Durban, then a car to the hotel for the night before waking and driving to Coffee Bay. Phew!

After sitting through a cross-hemispheric flight filled with babies crying, ribs soar from the sharp elbows of near-by passengers that don't understand the concept of personal space, and one too many leg cramps, we have just one thing to say:

Nkosi Sikilel iAfrika, (God Bless Africa)

Since we want to make these travel diaries not just a story about us, but a story about South Africa, here's a little bit about the phrase above. Nkosi Sikilel iAfrika is a song written in 1897 by Enoch Sontaga, a school teacher. It has over the years been a song of African freedom and pride. 100 years after it was written, the new constitution of the post-apartheid South Africa was adopted. During the same time, in a beautiful compromise symbolizing a united nation, Nkosi Sikilel iAfrika was joined with the long time anthem of the previous government to create a new National Anthem.

Off We Go!

2008-04-07T18:19:00.006-04:00

After months of preparation, planning, and discussion, we are ready to begin our new project in South Africa. On Wednesday, we fly to Johannesburg, Durban and then drive to Coffee Bay. We are certainly not looking forward to the brutally long flight, but we are anxious and eager to get to work.

Thank all of you for your e-mails, phone calls and responses to our project announcement. If you wish to know more about where we are, visit this blog often. We will be posting daily dispatches from the road, with some photos and a travel diary outlining our progress. If you did not get our announcement, please send us an e-mail and we will put you on the list.

So long, friends. See you when we get back.

Welcome to Focal Point Aid

2008-03-27T18:32:00.000-04:00

The world needs help, in many places, in many ways. But how can one person make a difference? Are the problems too large to overcome? Does giving money actually help anyone?

We all have at one time or another felt that our donations are lost in the shuffle, not efficiently utilized, or put towards a problem that seems insurmountable. Many people have been left frustrated, feeling that their charity has lead to little accomplishment, other than claiming a personal tax deduction.

The objective of Focal Point is to set up projects focused on one tangible situation somewhere in the world that could use a little help. A school in Asia that needs a bus, a hospital in Central America that needs supplies or a village in Africa that needs a pump for drinking water, to name just a few. We pinpoint one project at a time and put our resources together to fix that singular problem, then move on to the next.

The versatility of the project will allow us to undertake a project ourselves or help raise money for a program already underway. The ease of this model will also allow us to change the focus and location of our work with each project. People who wish to donate will know exactly where their help is going. As long as there are places that need assistance and people that want to help, there will be work for us to do.

Keep in touch, get involved!

http://www.focalpointaid.org/