Life in South Africa

The overwhelming question that I get when I talk to people from home is "Do you think you could move to Africa?". I am definitely not at the place to answer that question. In fact, I think my time here has brought up more questions than it has answers. As I wrote last time, my constant prayer has been that the things I see and experience here would have lasting impressions on me--even if I don't fully know how to process them right now.

We are staying in an upper-class neighborhood called Pretoria North. During the Apartheid time period native black Africans were forced into townships surrounding the large cities. There are six townships surrounding Pretoria. We have been working in a township, about twenty-five minutes away from our guest house, called Soshanguve (or Sosh). Today, it is similar to the slum that we visited in Kenya. Again, the contrast is overwhelming because it is driving distance from our guest house.

Our experience in South Africa has been a night and day difference from our experience in Kenya. The work that we have been doing with the bakery gives us a lot more tangible goals to work toward. There is a good side to that and a hard side. On one hand, the work is more tangible here. We can observe needs and experiment with solutions--and work really hard while we are here. On the other hand, it is hard to see some of the challenges to cross-cultural business and especially how that it integrates with a missions organization.

The companies that Enterprise International starts approach business as a tool to fund ministry. Ideologically, therefore, the goal of EI businesses is to make a profit. This seems self-explanatory but if you look at many business as mission companies they are mostly coffee shops that don't make a profit but focus on ministry that can occur there. The bakery that we have been working with is not making a profit and anyone that has a small amount of experience in business would look at it and shut it down immediately. To be completely honest it has been a frustrating, overwhelming week of questions.

As a group, we've been assigned to individual projects throughout the week to work toward establishing systems for internal controls on inventory, petty cash, employee hours, increasing production and sales. We have laughed so many times at the challenge of doing business here. For example, one of my jobs was to come up with a way to measure the efficiency of the bakery's oven, how many loaves were being made each day, and how long it was taking the employees to bake them. I left a sheet of notebook paper there with a basic form to fill out. The next day, when Colin went to pick it up it was no where to be found. After asking each employee individually and getting no answer he went to the manager and said "I need you to find that sheet for me!" The manager concluded that it was eaten by a rat. Colin called their bluff and said "Go find the rat." We bought a rat trap at the store that afternoon.

If I had to break it down, I would say the work we do here is 25% Business 25% Patience and 50% Creativity. Needless to say, I am learning a lot! The Anthropologist in me wants to set up camp for the next six months because I think it would take that long to build up the trust that it would take to put all of the systems in place that the bakery needs to become self-sustaining and profitable.

There is about eighty percent unemployment in Soshanguve and more than 30% of women are HIV positive. The cultural norm is for women to have children very young, most are not married and families hardly ever have men present. The repercussion of apartheid have left an extremely fragmented society. People here identify themselves as a part of the township they live in, or according to their British or Afrikan (mostly Dutch) heritage.

In a unique way the bakery addresses all of those issues. Soshanguve has one shopping plaza in the entire township. There are estimations that more than a million people live there. During apartheid the government kept commerce in the major cities to keep native Africans dependant upon their society. By starting the bakery in Sosh there is a complete lack of business understanding but if we could pass on even a small bit of knowledge to empower them to bring self-sustaining businesses to their township it could be worth it. If this bakery could work, it could be modeled in many townships or slums all over Africa. Possibly even more influential, is the integration of cultures. The separation of ethnicities breeds a culture of fear here. When we tell Afrikan people what we are doing here their mouths drop. People that live in the neighborhood we are staying in never go to the townships, and live about twenty minutes from them. I have seen two other white people in the townships during our entire time there. It will take a long time to change the way people view the townships but I think it is more than worth it to help start that.

We were challenged yesterday to think through a lense that sees more than one bottom line. That there could be a relational bottom line, a cultural bottom line, a ministry bottom line in addition to the daunting financial bottom line that we are overwhelmed with currently. As I said before, I am not sure what the answer to any of these questions are but am so grateful to be challenged and learning while I am here. Colin pointed out "If it was easy, everyone would be doing it".

We have the weekend off and then a couple of full days. I fly back to LAX on Thursday and am looking foward to some summer weather. Hope you all are doing well, and can't wait to catch up soon!