Open House

Today was Open House at Mandela Barloworld High School. I think the reason I have so much love for this particular school is because it gives me so much general hope for rural schools. After all, here is a school that raises funds and materials from outside organizations and succeeds in doing so. In addition, it has an overwhelmingly dedicated staff who really are invested in its progress and development, and what a difference it makes- you can see how bright and interested the students are in learning. The school’s vibe is simply comforting and inviting, and even though it still lacks much, it does what it can with what it has. For example, it may lack water but the school doesn’t allow that to prevent growing a garden- it simply grows a smaller one.

Perhaps what turns me on to the school is the open and welcoming conversations I find myself having with Ms. Modika- the principal- a woman I pegged as much younger than her reality due to the vibrant electricity she radiates. She becomes alive when talking about subjects that animate her. Unlike so many people I meet in the rural areas, she really seems to have inexhaustible energy that make even me, the now ultimate cynic, believe that her mission and dedication to the school will, in fact, revive the entire community.

So many of the subjects I often feel I have to tread carefully around with the majority of South Africans I encounter- I feel open and at ease to bring up with Ms. Modika. She openly discusses the problem of AIDS, and people’s unwillingness to accept the reality of the disease- that seemingly every third person is infected and how, even at funerals, there is no admittance to the cause of death. She cited an example- a former teacher whose daughter lead what she referred to as a "very fast life" and as a result contracted HIV, yet the father was unwilling to accept this. She talked about how he visited a multiplicity of witch doctors who siphoned away his money, and when he finally brought his daughter to the clinic, and she was officially diagnosed with HIV; he still would not accept it.

She is also much more prone towards empathy than everyone else I encounter, one of the first things she brought up during the day was how well I was coping- referring to her own 6 week stint in the U.S. as a part of training in her past- saying at one point she broke down into tears in her room because she was so homesick and desperately missed the sight of familiarity of things. It may have been the first time someone openly acknowledged that it was in fact okay for me to be unhappy at times and not love and accept everything around me in the village.
I also found myself in an intense discussion with her about teenage pregnancy in the village- due to no alternative activities, and young girls wishing desperately for a boyfriend to take care of them and buy them things. One of her dreams for the school was to transform it into a community center that would alleviate part of this problem.

We also discussed images that Africans have of Americans and vice versa. I complained how everyone thought I was rich and spent my free time partying with Michael Jackson. She said she had been shocked by reactions she had received when in America- elementary school children had asked her if she slept in trees and how she avoided lion attacks.

Though visiting the school was refreshing, my conversations with Ms. Modika were what I found as the most valuable part of my day from an educational view point. Of course, from a tourist standpoint I enjoyed our lunch with took place at the largest Baobab tree on the planet- 46.8meters in circumference and 6000 years old. Apparently, it has been featured on both "Ripley’s Believe it or not" and the cover of the "Wallstreet Journal." Also at the young age of 1000 years the inside begins to hollow naturally and in the inside a bar had been established- very quaint and amusing overall.