Ubuntu in Sonoma
by Mary Moore, Sonoma County Free Press

Mary Moore and Dimpho Siphoro (Photo courtesy Stephanie Hiller)

When I traveled to South Africa in August of 1998, I had no idea I would be meeting a brother and sister from Soweto who would change my life and give me a whole new perspective on post-apartheid life in that country. As someone who had worked against apartheid from my safe perch in Northern California, I accepted as many Americans do that the struggle was over. It isn't!

My current fight was with the increasing corporate takeover of this country and the world and since 1980 we had been using Bohemian Grove (five miles from my home) as the perfect foil to make our points. (See our pages about Bohemian Grove.)

The reason I had even been invited to this global conference of black women activists being held in Johannesburg, South Africa, was to show our slideshow about the "Bohos" and how their annual Lakeside Talks at the Grove were actually public policy talks without public scrutiny. Well, I did do that but the most important thing that happened to me on that 1998 trip was meeting two young people from Soweto named Dimpho and Teboho Siphoro.

Dimpho told me later that she had to beg her grandmother to give her the few rand it took to take a "cumby" to this conference and all she knew was that a bunch of black women from around the world were meeting in their community. Dimpho knew that the few rand she got from her grandmother that day would mean a sacrifice to the whole family – Grandma, mother, aunt, nieces, nephews, her brother, and herself who all lived together (9 people in an extremely small house) on her Grandmother's stipend of 300 Rand ($50) a month.

So against all odds, this (at the time) 63-year-old white woman activist met up, half way across the world, with two young activists off the streets of Soweto who were at the time 20 and 21. I first met Teboho while we were at the Nelson Mandela museum in Soweto. He was arguing with a black man twice his age about whether Mandela had kept his promise to the poorest of the poor in post-apartheid South Africa. Tobo was holding his own and I was impressed. Later I met his sister Dimpho and realized that these two were a force to be reckoned with. Our friendship began.

Since then they have visited here three times (this last time only Dimpho was able to come) and I have returned there once. On her last trip here for six months in 2004, Dimpho spent three months as an intern at the Solar Living Center in Northern California, where we were told she raised the bar for all new interns. You can read the articles by Stephanie Hiller to learn more about their projects back home. They have established a network of people over here who are helping to support their work (you know who you are!).

If you would like to get on this list for updates or would like to lend financial or any other kind of help, please send me an e-mail, or you can email Dimpho directly. And if you are planning a trip to South Africa, be sure to include a meeting with these two young people and check out what they are doing.

Mary Moore
February 2005

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