March 11 - 12: East London & Nelson Mandela Institute for Rural Schooling

I was so excited to be on the road, driving away from the Bulungula. Although I was glad to have seen a new side of South Africa. The drive to  East London showed me how beautiful South Africa is. We were driving on the edge of a mountain and I was looking over rivers, forests and the sun hiding behind hills and valleys ...

East London was like a fantasy. Not because it is more beautiful than Cape Town or more famous than Jo'burg, but because it is a place that I had only heard about in stories.

On our free day I visited family in Mdantsane, a very classy and modern township in East London. We had dinner over the seashore and I got to have a nice, hot bath at the B&B.

The Nelson Mandela Institute for Rural Schooling and Development

The Nelson Mandela Institute for Rural Schooling and Development organizes a peer leadership education program where high school kids talk about HIV / AIDS.  I was invited to speak about my story and and the importance of being a leader in a community.The students were from Ebenezer Majomboli High School  and Kulani High School from Mdantsane.

The woman who organized this, Fezeka, was so inspiring to me. She got the kids singing, dancing, thinking and reading poems. We sang Ndino Sanalwam, a song about childhood. Fezeka was trying to make us see that we are the future leaders of South Africa and we must educate ourselves, "Realize that the less you know about HIV, the more in trouble you will find yourselves in."

I felt honored when Fezeka said that I was following the way of Mandela --  planting seeds of knowledge in people's heads, striving to make an impact and leave a mark.  "We must be pencils," she said, "and leave marks. An eraser may erase a mark but a pencil will mark again because that is its nature. If a sharpener comes to cut away at me, I must see it as a challenge. A challenge may threaten to destroy me, but after it has passed, it will have made me sharper and made my mark stronger." - I really like that.

As a South African I know the way these teenagers think. We share a common language and I try my best to present in a way that will motivate them to ask questions. I have gotten good at picking a small topic that will get their attention to talk about a bigger topic. Many had boyfriends and girlfriends. So I knew and from their laughter that my relationship with Melikhaya would be a way to talk about stigma, denial and getting tested. I know that to them, I represent a situation that they could be in.

Melikhaya stole the show again. I was asked if "my boyfriend" still loved me.  I pointed to him in the first row and told the girl to ask him herself. She did, and Melikhaya answered, "bendingasoze ndibekanti ndilapha ukuba bendingamthandi," which means in Xhosa; "I wouldn't be here if I didn't love her."

After the event the kids wanted to take pictures and girls were giggling behind Melikhaya. This presentation made me see that I would not be able to do these events in the same way without him. I would not have the same strength.  If he would have chosen to leave me,  I would have continued with my life but the fact that he is with me just proves that being true to oneself is a way of life. If you love yourself then you can give love and receive love.