July 21, 2016 - Einstein's community

July 21, 2016  -- Yesterday, our group returned to the Love Life Center and one of the ground breakers, nick named Einstein, rode with us in our van giving us a tour of his township.  We visited several community outreach programs that included: – a woman’s counseling center that helps women and children in the community who are victims of domestic violence, a men’s counseling center, and a center set up to assist blind community members.  This particular center helps their blind community members by providing them with white cans canes and fosters independence by teaching them how to cook, clean shop, as well as other necessary life skills.  These outreach centers were housed in an abandoned hostile that housed men during apartheid.   We visited a bakery and several of us sampled their delicious “fat cakes”, a type of sweetened yeast bread.  Afterwards, Einstein took us to his home and we met his family.  His mother and father were working outside in their garden.  Einstein showed us the inside of the house, which consisted of three rooms – a kitchen/living room area, and two small bedrooms.  Einstein lives separate from the family in a small building in the corner of the yard that was constructed by him and his father.  It is the tradition that young men live separate from their family once the boys have gone through the initiation of the manhood ceremony.  Today, we will return to the Love Life center and are to visit a nearby high school.