Kadampa Buddhism in Africas rural areas
Zululand’s yawning slopes and tumbling horizons are a stunning jewel in Kwazulu Natal’s cultural crown, but what you probably won’t see in the glossy panorama’s are the harsh realities of the remote rural hinterlands, lying unnoticed behind the tourist map. Elamoya (just East of Eshowe) is one of dozens of communities dotting the rugged viridescence who suffer enormously at the hands of abject sickness (AIDS), poverty and violence. Now the local inhabitants have found solace in an unlikely place. 
Gen Kelsang Sangdak has forged an enduring friendship with the embattled communities with the Buddhist teachings of peace and fellowship, uplifting their grave predicament with a message of hope.
Gen Sangdak first visited the rural areas on the request of Patti Joshua, manager of the Senzokuhle Community Based Network, which attends to their urgent material needs through community development schemes and relief initiatives . A relationship of over five years has grown with the people through his once monthly visits, witnessing heartening change in the personal lives of many households in this time. Conducting inform
al classes in huts, classrooms, churches or even under the generous shade of a tree, Patti translates into Zulu Gen Sangdak’s kind council on pacifying and controlling their minds, aggrieved and fraught with the miseries of desperately scarce resources. The people tell stories of unspeakable sufferings of AIDS, hate, jealousy, rape and murder related within the bare, desolate walls of their open assemblies.
Although Buddhism may seem incongruous beside the preponderance of African Traditional Christianity, the teachings have been received with nothing but fulsome gratitude. Transcending any cultural divide, Buddhism’s undiscriminating language of the heart has take
n root in the beaten soil of their lives, evoking distant memories of their elder’s words from ages past. On a typical outing, Patti and Gen Sangdak – their truck heaped with bundles of clothing, maize, rice and beans (donations from the better-off Durban communities) - pick up eagerly awaiting passengers from outlying areas all along their shambling passage. The smiling anticipation betrays the true value of the Buddha-Dharma in their lives.