Perspective

I suppose everything boils down to a matter of perspective. I sat through a four hour long SGB meeting (think PTA)- the subject being the revision of the Code of Conduct. Throughout the whole thing I spoke twice for an accumulated time period of two minutes. After I thought to myself: "what a waste." Later my principal pulled me aside and thanked me for all the help I provided- Go Figure.

Anger

A week ago I lost in with my Grade 7 teachers. I was attemtping to complete student of the month and teacher of the month forms so we could hand out awards on the Friday that ended term. I was going to be out of school on Thursday so I need to finish that afternoon. The teachers had, had their forms since Monday and were told they were due Wednesday morning. By that afternoon I still had not received half of them. When I confronted them I of course received a million excuses which I ignored, took the hard ass approach, and told them they couldn't leave until they turned them in. This was mostly effective, all but the Grade 7 teachers complied. They, on the other hand, snuck off like adolescents ditching school. I, as a result, recited my diatribe to the principal which went something like this- performed of course in my most self righteous voice:

"I came to this country to help you improve your school and you asked me to be here. I left my home, my family, and my friends. I stay after school to help with things and even the teachers aren't willing to do that. This is their job. They get paid to do this. No one pays me. I do this to help them, the school, and the children, and they're too lazy to stay 5 extra minutes to finish work they had two and a half days to finish already. I am very mad at them."

Though this attempt on my part towards martyrdom may have made a wrong turn on the way to resentment for certain teachers, I certainly feel better.

Boredom

Once upon a time I looked forward to school breaks with great anticipation. They meant uninterrupted days of sleeping in, lounging, hanging out with friends; all without the impediment of school work stealing me away from what I considered much more interesting and worthwhile activities.

Funny how situations are reversed: I now feel anxiety ridden about all the dead time there is to fill. I have officially had four days of "winter break," and I feel as if I'm going insane. I find myself waking up in the morning and questioning how I'm going to kill the next 14 hours. I attempt to break it into chunks: "Okay, I'm going to read, then go running, then bathe, then clean my room, and have lunch- luckily the morning seems to go by fairly quickly but there is only so much knitting, reading and writing I can do in the afternoon. I find myself counting the days until I leave for vacation- less that a week but at this pace it might as well be a month.

I know I should appreciate the free time. It is probably the only time in my life that I'll get so much down time, but it only makes me lonely. I have no one to talk to and so I spend the day living in my head imagining all the productive things I could be accomplishing with my life in America. In addition, it makes me embarrassingly resentful towards the villagers. I keep looking at them and wondering why someone can't go out of their way to be nice to me instead of asking for my things: "I want some of the food you cooked. " "I want you to knit me a scarf." "I want you too borrow me your game." As a result I try to hide- in my room or down by the dam, so I won't snap at them, but I know being such a hermit can't be healthy for me. Sigh...only a few days until I can leave for Grahamstown and be with my friends again...Sigh.

New Address

I’m officially changing my address so that I can get a hold of my mail more easily and frequently. Thus, if you want to write to me, my new address is:

P.O. Box 1237
Ga-Kgapane
0838
South Africa

Library update

I just found out that I got a steel trunk full of books written in Sepedi for Letseku Primary School from an organization called Biblionef. There is a tea ceremony on July 20th in which they will be giving us the books. I am super happy and excited :)

Ice Cream Cones

Sometimes I have moments that remind me of exactly how fortunate I am:

Someone from the department came to Letseku to give them money to use for a learner who was particularly poor in order to buy her new school uniforms. I hopped into the front of a pickup truck with the principal and a teacher while the learner sat wrapped in a blanket in the bed of the truck. It was obvious that her family didn’t have a lot of money: she didn’t have a full school uniform and the clothes she was wearing had holes in them, but often I don’t think past this stage. There are many children in the school who are in the same situation. It didn’t occur to me to analyze the circumstances much further. I like to live in my bubble, otherwise it becomes too depressing to be here.

So we ended up in Tzaneen and the learner was visibly excited. The principal asked her if she had ever been to Tzaneen before. She shook her head. This admission left me incredulous. Tzaneen was less than an hour away, and where I went to do all my grocery and other shopping. I usually go to Tzaneen on an average of once a week and here was a child who was in 6th grade, 12 years old, had lived in the village her whole life, and had never been to town. Suddenly, the whole trip took on new meaning for me too because it finally occurred to me that she would remember this trip forever. This was a highlight activity for her. In my childhood I will always remember going to Disneyland or going to the beach, but for her, going to town would be a memory she would always have.

I wanted to do something for her to make the experience really special. I asked her if she had ever had ice cream. She said no so I brought her to the ice cream store and bought her the largest cone they sold. She happily accepted the treat and the whole time I thought: I want to keep her here all day and take her to lunch and buy her new clothes and jewelry and chocolate. I may have done it but then I have to think about the fact that she’s one of hundreds of children in the village, and I can’t do this for all of them. Suddenly I felt helpless, I so desperately want all these children to be able to have beyond their basic necessities. I want them to be happy and to have experiences and big goals in the world. I want to be able to give them even a quarter of all the opportunities and experiences I was given as a child and it kills me to think that this will never be a reality for them; that at least at this point in time I would have to settle for a sixth grader getting new uniforms and ice cream for the first time in her life, and hope that for now this was enough.

Double Meaning

Obviously, wherever you travel to, words have different connotations. I had the following conversation with my key school principal today:

She turns to me “Don’t you have a rubber?”

(Though I know that this refers to an eraser, I wasn’t paying attention, and caught off guard and started laughing.)

“Why are you laughing?”

“Where I’m from rubber is slang for a condom.”

Now it is her turn to break into giggles. In a bout of mirth she says “Why would an old lady like me need a condom?” She then ran off to repeat the story to Modjadji who was just as amused by the whole thing. After, she came back and asked “Can I borrow an eraser?”

Shops

I have begun to collect names of shops that entertain me:

-So good, so nice bar

-Hair Saloon

-Bin Laden Tuck Shop (complete with a painting of an AK-47 - so that’s where he’s been hiding)

-On a sign: Tombstone World- Erection Included

-Lekgowa’s Ice Cream (Lekgowa means white person- it was located in an all black township- does this mean they serve parts of white people)

-Miama Vice Bar

-Alaska Auto Repair

-CUM Bookstore (A Christian book shop)

Sello

I stayed up late last night talking with Sello (my older host brother) about various issues effecting the community. I love talking to Sello about things because, besides being well-versed, he also thinks things through and is very upfront. Some of the highlights:

-We discussed how me not dating a black South African was not so much a race issue as a cultural one (I pointed out that I wasn’t dating a white one either). We discussed how I did not conform to the men’s expectation here (I feel they are perfectly capable of washing their own clothes and cooking their own food without their girlfriend having to do it for them). I think Sello firmly agreed that I should not date a man here after I told him men were capable of changing diapers too; something he firmly disagrees with.

-I learned that my house here used to be a bar and Sello spent his teenage years serving alcohol in it.

-We talked about how some of the teachers in the village made us mad by sending their own children to urban schools and then doing a lousy job teaching the village kids.

-We discussed the issue of teenage pregnancy and the two twelve years olds that live near that recently go pregnant.

-We debated the importance of wearing a seat belt- I could not convince Sello that even if though it was uncool it was still important to wear one.

Life Skills

I showed up to school on Monday to a somewhat chaotic scene. The teachers were meeting, discussing what to do with the 124 grade 7 students. Apparently, their teachers were away for a workshop and, not surprisingly, no one had planned ahead for their students. Thus the teachers were attempting to come up with a plan for them.

I decided, at this point, to serve my own self interests and volunteered to teach them life skills on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday if someone could translate for me. Thus, I set up an itinerary in which to do activities involving decision making, goal setting, role models, early pregnancy, drug and alcohol use, delaying sex, and self-esteem. I did not set my expectations high and was pleasantly pleased with the results. After some initial hesitancy, I ended up with almost 100% participation throughout the various activities. Most responses were well thought out and the children got very into discussing the goals they wanted to achieve and what routes they planned to take in which to accomplish them. I was also happy with how forward and honest they were with me. For example, we were talking about avoiding situations that may force you into doing things which you might not want to. The exchange went something like this:

“If a boy wants you to go into his bedroom alone with him, or walk alone by the dam, then he wants to have sex with you.”
The girls incredulously shook their heads at this while the boys laughed and confirmed it- very telling.

In addition to everything else, I was able to pinpoint two students, a girl and a boy, who are very gifted. As soon as I realized their talents my immediate goal was to find out if they were going to good high schools next year (aka not in the village). Fortunately, the girl was- she is going to be attending a school in Polokwane and staying at a hostel there. I have a meeting with the principal of Mandela Barloworld High School to see if I can get a placement for the boy

Migrant Workers

I have just finished reading a series of articles sent to me by my mother on the subject of migrant workers sending money home from the richer countries in which they have found work to their poverty stricken relatives in third world countries. Clipped from the LA Times, the articles describe the billions of dollars from workers abroad that now make up a significant part of the economy in these struggling countries.

I can not help but compare it to the situation here in South Africa. Only here, uniquely, workers migrate to the “first-world” cities and send money back to the “third-world” villages. Time and time again, when I make the trek to the post office in Kgapane, I watch older women waiting in long lines with their money orders which relatives in Pretoria and Johannesburg send home. All too often these “grannies” are carrying infants and toddlers on their backs, the children of their children who work hours away in order to provide their families with a means of sustenance as well as a hope for a better future.

It is very easy, in village life, to spot those people with family members working in more lucrative jobs away from home. They are the families with brick houses, tiled roofs, running water, cars, American clothes, and technological appliances such as televisions, DVD players, and stereos. They are the ones of enviable lives whose children often go to better schools and are afforded more opportunities.

Yet, somewhere along the line, there is a trade off for this lifestyle: lost children. All too often, the older women of the village are over burdened with raising their multiple grandchildren while their children live far away. Many things happen as a result: often the grandmother doesn’t have enough education to assist children in school work and is too intimidated by the schools themselves thus they play an absent role in the education of their children’s children. In addition, due to the culture in which they were raised, things such as sex are not discussed in the household. Thus, all too often girls and boys end up victims of teen pregnancy or HIV, perpetuating the cycle of absentee parents. In the end, more and more houses are run by older women, alone, while the parents work away or die from the diseases they’ve contracted.

Yet, there is no hope of advancement in the village itself. The only successful shops tend to be those with liquor. So parents have to make a decision: move to the cities in hope of work to send money home and hope their children are raised adequately by grandmothers or stay in the village with no hopes of providing advancement for their children due to lack of resources.

In America, due to more availability of care and jobs, children are often raised in cities by single parents who rely on daycare and other means rarely available in South Africa. I never expected to be asked the question “How many children do you have?” I always expected the answer to be obvious: I have none with me so how could I have any children? But here the assumption is the opposite. If you are my age you have children regardless of where they stay. I am a freak of nature in these regards.

Many people do not understand the story of Africa because they do not understand the depths of the situation and history of all that we perceive as problems of the continent. There is no easy solution and we need to stop assuming that if we give countries money or food or new schools that Africa will rise. It is vital to realize that complicated problems rely on complicated solutions.

Library Update

I have now received my first books: a box from Darien Book Aid and a box from Steph (who is currently my favorite person). My statistics on books are as follows:

56 books total: 24 fiction, 2 non-fiction, 4 reference, 2 science/technology, 4 reading guides, 2 teacher’s manuals, 9 children’s books, 1 autobiography, 3 history books (1 greek, 1 american colonial history, 1 maritime), 1 music, 2 fitness health, 1 sociology, 1 young adult

So…good start, long way to go. I am always interested in obtaining more books, specifically children and young adult. If you have old books collecting dust around your house throw them into an m-bag at the post office (which is relatively inexpensive for you to ship) and send them my way to my kids who have never had the privilege of being able to read their own book J

Frustrations

Part of my job, as a Peace Corp Volunteer, is to be non-judgmental, non-confrontational. Currently, I’m finding it very difficult to do so. The situation: Matshwi is a school that’s classified as one that receives money from the government, but has to submit multiple quotations in a certain time period in order to obtain specific items. Not all schools are like this, Letseku receives a lump sum for their school to use on certain supplies. This allows them to easily budget for many of their stationary and cleaning costs. Leakhale, on the other hand, is like Matshwi in how the government distributes money to them. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t sort out their money correctly and are deeply in debt.

Luckily, Mr. Moraba, the principal of Matshwi, is a very organized individual. One of his goals for this year was to get a fence built around the school to prevent theft and vandalism of school property, a big problem in the village. He got the required quotes for the construction of the fence and turned them in during the required time period. Unfortunately, the district lost said quotes and didn’t turn them into the provincial level on time. Hence, no fence. Mr.Moraba is now at the circuit office almost daily in an attempt to fight this, I have my doubts about whether or not he will succeed.

It is instances like this that leave me so desperately frustrated with the education system. Case in point, children are supposed to pay school fees- 60 rand a year or the equivalent of 10 dollars. This comprises the school budget- Matshwi has 865 students thus their budget for the year is an estimated 51,900 rand or less than 10,000 dollars- less than 10,000 dollars a year for 865 students. It gets worse- about 40% of learners don’t pay fees- for a variety of reasons: some simply can’t afford the 60 rand- many more have parents that think they shouldn’t have to pay- that their children’s schooling should be free under the new democracy. To them, school fees are reminiscent of the apartheid days when their children could not attend school if they did not pay.

So the school attempts to work with what is left in this budget- plus a few fundraising days that raise approximately 100 hundred dollars each. Thus, it’s not hard to understand why a few of the following instances occur:

-Two weeks ago the school ran out of firewood and couldn’t cook the food for the children’s lunch. The district provides the food but the school is required to provide a way to cook it. Thus, though there were the ingredients for the meal sitting unused in the office, the students went hungry- for many their main meal of the day- because the school couldn’t afford to pay the few rand to buy fuel.

-The school can’t afford to pay this month’s electricity bill- as a result I hope we have a number of bright, cloud free days so the children can see to do their work.

Now perhaps all of this would not anger me as much as it does if the majority of public schools functioned on an equal playing field, but like anywhere that there is a vast difference in division of wealth, this is not the case. Schools in town, which not coincidentally tend to be primarily white- a clear sign of the long legacy of apartheid, charge much higher school fees- often hundreds a term- and have the means to fundraise more drastically- from local businesses and richer family members, thus their schools have auditoriums, computers, sports equipment, art equipment, libraries, administration offices, etc. They basically mimic American schools, while, less than a fifteen minute drive away you encounter schools like mine- schools where there are classes with no desks, where classwork tends to be a lengthy process because students have to share pencils, where we can’t count on electricity or food for the children, where students race to their classrooms so they can actually sit in a chair instead of on concrete, where playgrounds are a myth except for a spattering of boulders and old tires. None of this is a great secret- you have to drive by villages to get nearly anywhere- how ignorant and blind do people choose to be to all this? How much do they pretend that this is not a reality of their country? How do people in their big houses in town not feel guilty that they spend more on their dogs and cats than on the children of their country? Where did humanity lose its ability to be human?

I don’t claim to be perfect- or any type of martyr- I still go on vacation, I still eat at restaurants in town, my family sends me nice things in the mail that I can’t afford to buy. I’m not lacking for any of my needs. Sometimes in the midst of all this I feel guilty- that I should give away my things, that I should be spending my time helping villagers instead of going away for a weekend. Yet, I’m still at a point in my selfishness that I’m not ready to give it all up.

Currently, I’m reading Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder, which I recommend as you own test of dedication and acknowledgement towards humanity, as it chronicles the life of Paul Farmer, a doctor, who really has changed the world in his fight to bring medicine to the impoverished peoples of the world. It makes me realize that I’m not making any real sacrifice, not the way in which I really could, but perhaps if we all tried to learn a lesson from the man who has dedicated his life to bringing equality to everyone, then maybe we could make the division in our world a little less severe, at least we could give a few children a chance. The following are some examples of his complete dedication:

“He’s still going to make these hikes, he’d insist, because if you say that seven hours is too long to walk for two families of patients, you’re saying that their lives matter less than some others, and the idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that’s wrong in the world.”

“How does one person with great talents come to exert a force on the world? I think in Farmer’s case the answer lies somewhere in the apparent craziness, the sheer impracticality, of half of everything he does, including the hike to Casse.”

Simply think about that the next time you drink your four dollar Starbucks latte, or in my case Dulce, and try to put that much effort into helping another person, who like you worries; worries when their child is sick, or how they will pay this month’s expense, or feels the same heat and cold you do, except- perhaps, a bit more acutely.