Wednesday, June 12 - Parliament

Today was quite a day. We contacted Clive Reddy to see if he would try and find out if the Youth Center or Arena Park in Chatsworth were available for our use on August 10th for the concert.

We then picked up Sipho (Durban PA Director) and headed to Peitermaritzburg (about 40 minute drive), for a meeting of the Parliament. We were official guests of Dr. Sibongiseni Dhlomo of the MEC for health for Kwa Zulu Natal province. He invited three members of the church to come and listen to his budget speach for the department of health. We had to go through security to get in and of course my knee caused the machine to beep. A large black security guard kept telling me to go back through the machine and didn't want to talk about it, so I went through again and again and it dinged each time. Finally, I told him about my knee and he seemed very confused. It was obvious that he had never had that happen before. Then he said okay and had us sign in. He asked me to put my ID number on there and I told him that I didn't have an ID number. He would not accept that, so I told him we were from the US and had visas. He said to put that number down. By now, quite a crowd had formed, so I just put our names and made up a passport number. Ha. I figured he isn't going to look it up anyway. This shows you how much I have changed since I first got here...never would have done that then.

The program started with an opening prayer in Zulu.

We were in the upper deck watching down below as the parliament members gave opposing views depending upon their party affiliation. The African National Congress was on one side of the room and all the other political parties were one the other side. Members of parliament were given a certain amount of time to voice their view on the problems of the country and what was or was not being done about them. It was very entertaining. Much of it was in Zulu, though even when in English it was hard to understand because of accents. The funny part was how they got after each other when their views opposed. There was shouting and laughing and a frustrated speaker of the house (who was mainly there to be the referee). One black woman was quite animated on the opposing side and the ANC people kept shooting her down. It got pretty heated a couple of times. It was for certain that they were not being respectful.

Parliament Floor

Finally, the budget speech was given. It lasted at least 30 minutes, telling all the things that had been done for the province by the Department of Health. There were snickers and hand gestures during his speech with both sides participating. He did make mention of the church in his speech and how they have helped with their medical problems. He talked about aids and how the church is putting on the Strength of Youth programs in the schools, teaching abstinence and he mentioned the neonatal machines the church has been supplying in Africa that has saved many newborns.  After his speech, each side allowed so many speakers to speak for a certain amount of time. A digital timer was viewable up above the room and counted down while they were talking. When done it would ding and the person had to sit down.

Most of the time was spent bickering about whether the Health department was doing a good job or not. ANC (of which Dr. Dhlomo is a member) thought everything was improving from previous years and a lot of progress had been made on aids, life expectancy, less infant deaths and less pregnancies by teenagers. There was information given about hospital renovations and additions of personnel and x-ray machines. Then the other side talked about how awful it was at hospitals in their area and how many people are not being treated....etc. Then everyone argued about it. Sipho kept translating for us and laughing a lot at what was said. They really got the Zulu going when they were arguing. There were a few Afrikaners and Indians there, but they were definitely out-numbered. They mentioned Mandela in the talks given by the ANC and blessings and prayers for his health.

All guests in the balcony were invited by Dr. Dlomo for dinner at the building across the street from the Parliament house, so we all filed down the stairs and across the street. It was nicely done...a room with tall round tables with stemmed glassed on them for people to stand around and pour soft drinks into the glasses and get finger foods on a small plate in the buffet line. Then the doctor came around and shook hands with everyone. Sipho made sure we got over there to shake his hand and when he saw our name tags he got the biggest smile on his face and was very warm towards us. He said he would predict that our church and he would have a very long friendship. He is definitely a politician. We later found out from Sipho that he was one of the leaders with Mandela in prison on the island for many years. Since we have both read Mandela's book recently, that was very interesting to us.

I don't think we ever could have dreamed of a day like this in Africa. Ha.

We then took Sipho home and headed back to our flat. It was dark and windy roads, not our favorite way to travel. Elder Kyle and I were a little stressed, but we made it and had some hot chocolate and then got on the internet to see if Clive made any progress with the venues. He had talked to both possibilities and said they were available. We are meeting at 10 am tomorrow to see both places and possibly seal the deal. Wouldn't that be nice? No time for fooling around on this mission!