Date: February 6, 2008 10:54:48 PM HST

Friday, February 1, 2008 – Port St. Johns

The “Lonely Planet” guide describes Port St. Johns, located along the coast in the Eastern Cape, as follows: “The deliciously laid-back Port St. Johns is a magnet for hippy types both young and old. This idyllic little town on the coast at the mouth of the Umzimvubu River has tropical vegetation, dramatic cliffs, great beaches, no traffic jams and absolutely no stress. Many travelers, lulled by the clinking of wind chimes and the sound of the waves, succumb to the famous ‘Pondo Fever’ and stay for months.”

A four-hour drive from Port Shepstone, Port St. Johns is also one of Yunus’ favorite places: he first started coming here with his family as a boy, and he returns as often as he can to unwind. He knows a remarkable number and variety of people of various races in town: Wayne, the burned-out haole hippy who owns I Kaya (“My Home”), usually referred to as “Wayne’s Place;” the un-burned-out haole hippy couple who runs the quirky Wood’n Spoon outdoor restaurant next door; various Indian shopkeepers and store owners; and black locals who run the spectrum from wood carver to lodge owner to fisherman to kids around town, just to cite a few examples. He likes to come here to unwind, and brings his Teachers Without Borders groups here after the workshops end in order to do the same. We checked into Wayne’s Place on Wednesday night (though Thursday’s appointment would be in Mthatha, an hour’s drive), and we’ll stay until Sunday.

The scenic beauty here is as the guide says: the coastline, with beaches punctuated by rocky outcroppings which jut out into the ocean to take the full force of the crashing waves, is even more spectacular than Oahu’s east coast from just past Hanauma Bay to Makapu’u Beach. Also along the coast, foliage-covered cliffs go on as far as the eye can see. Looking inland, one sees equally dramatic cliffs, one of which is aptly called “Eagle’s Nest.”

(Tomorrow Ricky, a hiking guide with an encyclopedic knowledge of the flora and fauna, will lead me on a five-mile hike to the Eagle’s Nest and beyond – to his “office,” two flat rocks where we’ll sit and dangle our feet over a cliff which drops a thousand feet to the forest below.) Where the cliffs are not quite so dramatically vertical, dwellings cling, some precariously. Again, the view is scenic, especially if one can ignore the fact that most of the dwellings are shanties.

And that’s the point: how could the person who wrote that paragraph in the guidebook have ignored the shanties and all the other obvious signs of poverty, or even the less obvious signs of corruption: children (some of whom can cry on cue) begging for rands (money) or sweets, mosquito-breeding puddles (created by leaky waterpipes) alongside the mostly rutted dirt roads, unoccupied market stalls downtown, littler-strewn streets – and that’s just the initial picture. Look a little more carefully and one can see a city park at the edge of the river, consisting of a few decaying concrete benches and grills. (The park, along with a dock, which no longer exists, is a recent sixteen million rand (two million dollar plus) project. The city official responsible for its construction drives around in a pimped-out 4X4.) Today was my first full day here, and I’ve already discovered that the single paragraph offered by “Lonely Planet” is woefully inadequate to accurately describe Port St. Johns. “Idyllic?” “No stress?” Read on…

We started our day at Lily’s Lodge, with coffee on the deck which looks out over Second Beach. Lily, a dynamic black women married to a haole doctor, greeted Yunus warmly (as does everyone). Then, after a bit of polite chitchat, she described her husband’s recent abduction and robbery.

As Don prepared to leave his office, three men approached, one claiming to be ill. After he let them into his office/clinic, one of the men pulled out a gun and demanded cash. The robbers were not satisfied with the eighty rand Don had in the office, so they ordered him into his car and drove it out of town, where they released him and continued on with the car. Don was able to get home, and the car was found (the thieves couldn’t go far because Don, wise to the local situation, keeps his gas tank no more than a quarter full). Yunus thinks that had Don been a merchant instead of a doctor, he might have been killed.

OK, so maybe some twenty-something coming into town to write a part of a chapter in a guidebook might not be made aware of a story like this, although Don was hardly the first such victim (the quarter-filled gas tank is a big hint). But had he walked along the coast past The Gap, an incredibly scenic spot with views along the coast and down into the crashing surf below, along a dirt road, he would have come to Port St. Johns Senior Primary School. Though the school has a million-dollar view, one look at the “physical plant” would show that the word “idyllic” represents a cruel irony to the students and teachers who spend their days here. The two buildings are as rudimentary as rudimentary gets.

Yunus approached one of the adults, who turned out to be the principal, and began asking questions about the school. Two hundred ninety-five students enrolled in kindergarten through six and their six teachers occupy six classrooms. Inside one of the classrooms, jammed with desks, bulging cardboard boxes (there’s no room for shelves), and decorated with a few posters, the principal pointed out where the wind had taken away part of the ceiling. She also pointed out small footprints on the wall below the hole in the ceiling indicating where children had broken in to steal the food that had been stored in the room.

While we sat inside, the students were gathered outside to wait for delivery of their meal: two slices of bread each, with either butter or jam, depending on the day. The food is supposed to arrive between eight and ten a.m.; it was noon. Additionally, the caterer is obligated to supply each student with one container of juice per day, but the number of containers never suffices for a week, explained the principal. Someone is short-changing the kids and pocketing the money.

And those are only the minor problems – at least the bread arrives eventually. The school has had no running water since it opened three weeks ago, and the level in the storage tank is running low, the principal said. Electricity? Though the school is wired for electricity, it hasn’t had any since 2002.

2002! The principal has written letters, but going through the proper bureaucratic channels doesn’t seem to work in much of what I’ve seen of South Africa. She’s been principal for eighteen years, and has three more years to go until she can retire. She looks tired.

Maybe I’ve chosen the guidebook writer as a convenient whipping-boy – I know it’s not fair to expect him to see what Yunus and others have shown me so far here in South Africa. I guess I’m using him to make a point: this is an amazingly complex place, difficult to describe, necessary to experience.

So what of the Port St. Johns Senior Primary School? Yunus and I drove to the local headquarters of Eskcom, the national electric company. There he talked to someone in Customer Services (I’ll refrain from commenting on that term), who not only appeared to be sympathetic, but offered no excuses. “That should not be,” she said, then promised to contact the appropriate company official in Mthatha on Monday. She gave Yunus her private cell phone number so he can keep in touch.

Yunus next drove to the hardware store in town, where he talked to the owner – a friend – about the situation and requested that he use his influence to contact the appropriate Eskcom officials on behalf of the school. The owner, who had – free of charge – previously supplied and installed a fence at the school, pledged to help.

One final note: I have heard from several of you who have said that you admire what I’m doing here. Those comments, while kind, are embarrassing to me, because I have done nothing. I have had the privilege of getting an education the likes of which I never anticipated, but please, please don’t think that I have earned a shred of your praise. My test will come in the future.

Yunus, on the other hand…What I have mentioned in my entries so far constitutes a fraction of all that he has done and is trying to do. He’s been a dynamo of good works – large and small. I’ll write more about him in future entries, but suffice to say for now that I’m ready to nominate him for sainthood.