It was back in 2002 that I first visited Coffee Bay. My second visit to South Africa and my first experience of the 'real Africa'.
This is where I experienced the rural life that I had only heard about, the life that I knew nothing about and the venture that touched my life forever. This was stepping back in time… a life that had seemingly been untouched for years yet modern life was slowly encroaching in the good but so often bad ways. White man's diseases had infiltrated and the curse of the 'black man' was also becoming more and more prevalent… AIDS, typhoid HIV, hepatitis and much more were affecting this community more and more.
Each visit that I made to this community I was learning more and more about the disastrous effects these things were having on these close knit, family orientated, and community minded people that were the Xhosa people of Coffee Bay.
On the surface, the people were happy family minded souls, but deep within lay a hidden fear, a deep secret that I was only to learn later on during one of my visits.
Bringing 20 or so people to this area, twice or three times yearly gave me the opportunity to bring a few gifts to brighten the day of the kids and mums of the community. A passenger on one of my tours even suggested that we should perhaps bring soccer balls, as the kids were playing with plastic balls tied with string. This proved to be a great success as with each tour, I would give each passenger a ball to hand out to one of the schools in the area so all kids could enjoy it. It somehow never felt that it was enough.
Then I was to receive a huge request....a staff member of our hotel 'the Ocean View' asked for my advice. She was just one of the many members of the staff that I had grown to love and look forward to visiting each time my tour bus pulled into the hotel. Angel was her name and she has turned out to be an 'Angel' in nature.
She told me a story that I found disbelieving yet I knew in my heart to be true. There were many children living in the area of Coffee Bay that were without family, food to eat or a warm place to sleep at night. They perhaps did not have a mother or father or both. They had lost one or both of the parents to pneumonia, typhoid or HIV (although this was rarely stated on the death certificates). Many elderly grandparents were in the position of attempting to look after children although they could barely look after themselves. Angel wanted to help these children and give them a roof over their heads and food to eat, but was uncertain how to go about this task. Although she has a family of small children of her own, she was (and is) determined to find a way to help these kids.
Her determination and passion has now meant that she has been granted an area of land by the chief on which to build her orphanage/sanctuary. Her dream is that she is able to build some houses (rondavels) that the kids will be able to sleep in and be warm, without open doors and windows. She will be able to feed them and send them off to school with warm food in their bellies and clothes on their backs. When they return from school, they will be able to help in the vegetable gardens and tend to the goats that will help sustain the orphanage and they in turn will thrive healthy and happy to lead good lives in the community and beyond.
It is a big ask for Angel...what Angel is dreaming and what it will take for her to achieve her dream sounds so much. But in OUR terms and reality, it will actually take so little. To be able to change the lives of these little ones, these babies who have nothing, to be able give them a chance of a life will take so little for us. For someone like Angel who is trying to bring up her own five children, still maintain a basic job in a hotel ....and have this dream of making the lives better for the less fortunate, it is something for us to aspire to.
So far, with our encouragement, she has been granted the land. With our help, she has been able to build the fences to secure the property, and to buy a goat. She has been able to secure a water supply to the property and hopes to plant a self-sustaining vegetable garden soon. She now desperately needs the funds to build the houses to provide the shelter for the children.
Even though Angel is happy to take on dozens of children who need her assistance and there is definitely the need, she cannot do more than is physically possible especially with her limited funds. She is barely able to provide for her own family let alone others, but she asks for nothing but guidance.
I hope and I pray that we can be able to assist in whatever small way (or big way if the case shall be) so that Angel can be the person she is destined to be...an angel for the children of Coffee Bay.
Let's hope that we can make this happen for Angel.