Sunday Service, Host Mom, and my first trip to Guguletu

Sunday we were scheduled to have a free day to kind of relax and get prepared for our week in the township but we had the opportunity to go to JL Zwane community center (where we will be doing almost all of our things in Guguletu) and attend a spiritual service and we all jumped all over this opportunity! I was really excited and really had no idea what to expect! All we really knew was that the community is very close, the service is in Xhosa, and we would be meeting our host family! As leadership minor students at the U of M we have all heard many things about the JL Zwane community center and all the work that Kevin Winge and many other people from Minneapolis have done for it. I was really excited/nervous to get this portion of our experience going! The first thing I noticed was how close Guguletu was to our place in Mowbray near UCT campus. It was like a 20 min van ride away and within that time I feel like we had moved from a 1st world country to a 3rd world country in a blink of an eye. Once we got to JL Zwane I was very impressed by the building and everything that made up the community center. We were welcomed with open arms and with nothing but love. As we stood around waiting to meet our families a man came up to me and said, "You must be TJ, I know you're TJ." I was extremely taken back! Who was this man and how did he know who I was!? I soon found out this was Edwin. Edwin plays a large role in the community center and has had a lot to do with the logistics and everything to do with our trip and connection to JL Zwane. We then all got into a big circle and slowly found out our host families. All of our host moms/dads are members of the congregation and were all extremely welcoming to all of us! Here is my host mom Thembie with Jesse and I!

We soon found out that her sister Bomvu would also be acting as our second mom when Thembie was staying out of town. They are both teachers and Thembie teaches outside of Guguletu on some days. They were both great women and I am really excited to get to know them better. After we met our host mom's we went in for the church service. For this we were told that we would be staying with our host families and of course Thembie sits in the second row of the church! However, Nate and Aaron's host mom Nelly was one of the lead singers for the church so they had to sit on stage in front of the whole congregation! I thought the service was an amazing experience and it really was a good transition from our first week in Cape Town to now our more in your face experiences in Guguletu. I had a blast trying to sing in Xhosa, key word trying. All in all it was a great first experience in the township and I would really like to go again next Sunday!

For the rest of the day a few people went to the beach, a few to the mall, a few to a movie, but I decided to stay back at the houses for the afternoon to get some much needed alone time from the group and get a few things done around the house. I really truly do love every single person on this trip but I think we are all getting to the point where we just need some breaks because for the most part we have been spending every waking hour with each other! All in all I am really excited to get in and serve the people in Guguletu and the community within JL Zwane.

Cheers