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FAITH IN ACTION

South African helps neighbors with local and global support

In her PhD dissertation, Nompumelelo Zondi asked a simple question: "Why do women sing?" But being an academic, she added the subtitle, "Gender and power in contemporary women's songs."

For her research, Ms. Zondi spent time with women in a Zulu village who lived in an oral culture and expressed themselves through song. Later, as a professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, she stayed in touch and asked another question of the women: "Why not use your singing talent to improve your lives?"

She organized them into a group that performs in traditional outfits at public and private events - "so," she told The Evangelist, "instead of saying all the time, 'Oh, we don't have money; we can't do anything,' they can do something."

After they sang at her graduation party, invitations began coming. The next step is to obtain donations for a small bus or minivan to transport the 12 members to gigs. 

The sequence of inquiry, action and reaching out has become a pattern in Ms. 

Zondi's life. Known to all as Mpume, she speaks in an energetic rush with a teacher's eagerness, gesturing with both hands symmetrically as if to keep her balance. 

Ms. Zondi was in the Albany Diocese for a summertime visit recently and to attend a conference and speak to several groups about her work. 

She first came here in 2002 to teach and study Africana studies at The University at Albany. Housing fell through and Emmaus House, the Albany Catholic Worker community, took in her and her son, Nhloso, who is now 16. She returned home the next year. 

But having been welcomed in and helped by strangers, including donations from Catholic Worker supporters and the Newman Association at SUNY, Ms. Zondi wondered how she should pass on the love and support she had received. 

First, in her home village of Kwandebeqheke, about 75 miles from Durban, she used some donations to pay for 25 needy families to connect to the community water lines so they could have a tap in the backyard. 

The work continues, and her mother sorts through and manages the requests. Donations made through Emmaus House also pay for school tuition for eight children in the village. 

Charity had begun at home when Ms. Zondi was a child. Her mother had been a religious education teacher who had always helped other families, even when money was tight at home. 

As a child, said Ms. Zondi, "I didn't know why were worrying about other people when we often didn't have enough ourselves. It didn't make sense until much later."

Though she is often home for visits, she lives in Durban and also works with groups there. Some of the children they have supported have moved to Durban and attend schools there. The Vivani Bafazi Traditional Dance Groups is based in a nearby village in the region, which is predominantly Zulu.

Apartheid and the official system of racial discrimination ended after 1990. But other forms of economic and geographic segregation remain. For instance, Ms. Zondi said, "In order to receive a good education you have to be at the right place."

South Africa has suffered from an epidemic of HIV/AIDS. People with the disease, she said, "are still stigmatized." So in her pattern, Ms. Zondi has begun reaching out to activists and those in need through community meetings to begin building a common ground. 

"We want to increase the support system for people with AIDS, and bring together like-minded people who do other work," she said. 

She sat back and was silent for moment, seeming to imagine her plans unfolding.

(07/23/09) [[In-content Ad]]

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