ndisafunda.za

dear mzanzi...

2010-08-04T20:01:00.000-07:00

dear mzanzi...

thank you.

thank you for mountains, for ocean, for endless sunshine, sand, and beach.

thank you for the eastern cape, the garden route, and of course, the mother city.

thank you for kirstenbosch, for franschhoek, for stellenbosch and kalk bay.

thank you for four seasons in one day.

thank you for cheesefest, for bastille day and world cup.

thank you for hues of green, for skies of blue, yellow, orange, pink, purple, red, for cloud masterpieces that never fail to amaze.

thank you for 31 bowden, for tenzing, for sunday recovery in the courtyard and the best housemates anyone could ever ask for.

thank you for sundowners, sunrises, and every part of day and night in between.

thank you for sea point promenade, waves crashing on the shore, and walks to clear the head.

thank you for mind-blowing meals, world-class wine, palate-pleasing beer, mouth-watering fruit, and desserts that even a salt tooth could love.

thank you for the market, bloody marys, and lazy saturdays in the sun.

thank you for being a photographers dream.

thank you for prince william, who has brought so much delight to all our lives.

thank you for the mildest winters I have ever known.

thank you for oysters.. for oysters…for oysters..

thank you for late night dance parties and kick ass homegrown music.

thank you for my friends, my wonderful brilliant diverse hilarious witty gorgeous supportive deliciously fun friends.

thank you for my students, for their strength, their beauty, their voices, their laughter, their endless talent and inspiration.

thank you for affording me two and a half years of eye-opening and horizon-broadening experiences like no other, for humbling me, for teaching me about myself, for showing me how much more I have to learn.

and most of all, thank you – thank you so very very much – for reminding me of my blessed privilege, every single day.

until we meet again kaapstad…ndisafunda.

- august 4, 2010

in the end..

2010-08-03T09:37:00.001-07:00

It is almost three years since my first meeting with the Advisory Board of Education Without Borders. At that time my knowledge of the organization and ideas on the Fezeka Project was limited to a brief conversation with Bonny Norton, and information gathered on EwB’s Website. Filled with an overflowing zeal at the thought of what this opportunity might offer, I was determined to fly to BC to meet the rest of the team.

I clearly remember that beautiful sunny day which was my first time in Vancouver in over 25 years. I recall being awestruck by the impressive presence the mountains cast over the sparkling city. Little did I know I would soon be living in the shadow of another extraordinary mountain, in a completely different world-class city.

Meeting with the Board I was asked about my expectations for the experience. My answer came easily: I ‘expected’ nothing. I only hoped for an experience that would allow me to grow as an individual, and put my diverse skill set and enthusiasm to use.

Well.

Suffice to say that this experience has been all that, and then some.

From my arrival at Fezeka – meeting the staff and learners, finding my way around the school, travelling to and from Gugulethu with my colleagues, them blaring Xhosa gospel music on the car stereo – to becoming acquainted with the city that I would love immediately and soon grow to call my second home, it has been a non-stop rollercoaster ride. And like all great rollercoaster rides, I don’t want to get off.

But, as they say, all good things must come to an end. Or, as I have been saying, we must finish one exciting chapter before moving on to the next. And while once we have lived a chapter we cannot live it again for the first time, we can go on to the next chapter, and the next chapter, and the next.

My experience at Fezeka has been life changing in many ways. Not least of which is the way I have struggled to learn to accept that there may be things I cannot change.

It was difficult, coming to this reconciliation. Having been raised by a woman who instilled in me a belief and conviction that I could accomplish whatever I set my mind to, the seemingly insurmountable challenges at Fezeka were of a completely different sort.

Surprisingly, (or perhaps unsurprisingly), some of the biggest challenges I faced came not from the students, but from my colleagues. I could write (and have written) volumes about the non-existent work ethic of some of my fellow educators. Infuriatingly, there seems to be little that I as an individual could have done to change this. Leading by example was the best I could manage, and even this seemed to at times garner me more detractors than friends. Undeterred, I continued doing what I knew best, eventually investing all my time in the learners, my true reward and joy.

The endless hours I have spent in my classroom with my students will remain some of the happiest and most inspiring moments of my entire life. These young people, to whom life has dealt the harshest and most difficult of hands, have an unimaginable hunger for learning and seemingly never-ending patience with educators that continue to neglect them. Having never been taught their own worth, or made cognizant of their right to an education, they remain silent – made voiceless by a system that passively condones this negligence by standing idly by while it continues, or makes accountability for such behavior all but impossible to enforce.

Along with the poor quality of education the learners receive at the primary level right up on through to secondary school, this institutionalized discrimination is in my opinion, the greatest tragedy this country currently faces. A whole generation – if not two or three – of young people are growing up with an inadequate education, ill-prepared for the competitive workforce that comes part and parcel with living in a country with an emerging economy.

Even typing those words – thereby acknowledging them – is difficult for me. But I have learned to accept that the way in which this will play out was written long before I came along. One cannot expect to change in a year or two or three or even ten, what is the result of more than a half-century of oppression.

But we must not give up hope. The light that burns inside so many of these young people will not allow us to. We must continue in whatever way, by whatever means, to try and enable these young people to grow, learn, feel free to ask, stand up for themselves, have their voices heard, and thrive. Simply surviving is nowhere near enough.

To employ the age-old adage: Rome was not built in a day. This clichéd but timeless lesson can surely be applied in reference to EwB’s involvement at Fezeka. I share the organization’s determination that things can and will change at Fezeka for the kids, one volunteer at a time, student by student. Change on a large scale can be very challenging to bring about. By working with students on a micro level we can hope to plant a seed that will grow into something great, somewhere down the line.

We must not allow ourselves to be discouraged by the setbacks, and focus solely on the achievements. We are in unchartered territory, governed only by our wits and initiative. In my opinion, we must focus on the students – on working with them, sharing of ourselves with them, in whatever way we can. Teach them, encourage them, offer guidance and above all, listen to them. For many, we as educators are the only ones in their lives who do.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone at Education without Borders who played a part in helping me live the experience that I have lived at Fezeka. I am forever changed, forever grateful, forever learning.

an exercise in patience

2010-07-29T16:23:00.000-07:00

IF you are a person of colour, from a foreign country, if you struggle with English, or happen to lose your temper at the unbelievable incompetence of the people working in the South African Department of Home Affairs and their way of doing their jobs, good luck to you.

You will be sent away, to the back of the queue, told that the person serving ‘cannot understand you, you must return with someone who speaks English’, or your application will somehow – mysteriously – get ‘lost’.

For a country that touts itself as an international hub, that welcomes visitors from around the world and has as recently as 2 weeks ago hosted the biggest sports tournament on the planet, the services at the offices of South African Home Affairs are disgraceful.

Not once – Not. Once. – in any of my countless visits to their fluorescent-lit offices, have I had a good customer service experience.

I have spent 7 hours waiting, repeatedly told that my file was being located, only to be later informed that it cannot be found, or, that the offices are closing and I must come back tomorrow.

I have seen people sent away in tears after being told that their files cannot be found and they must start the application process from scratch. When a flood destroyed thousands of documents at the central Cape Town Home Affairs office last year, an equally high number of people were told that they must resubmit all their documents. Just like that. Never mind that for many, some of those documents were originals, sent from their home countries, at a cost to them that they couldn’t afford, and were impossible to replace. Or that these new unforeseen costs meant that many would have to leave the country. You have to start over. End of conversation.

I have listened to those who tried to stand up for themselves, or others (like myself) who try to stand up for those who struggle to do it for themselves, being told to SIT DOWN, I TOLD YOU THAT I WOULD BE WITH YOU WHEN I WAS READY.

I have watched staff sit around their desks drinking coffee and joking with their colleagues, while a packed room, overflowing with people breathing in stifling air that is thick with the smell of sweat, despair and stale man, waits for their attention.

I have witnessed otherwise calm and respectable members of the public come close to blows with others who sit with them, when they think that they have cut in line or won’t give up the chair they are sitting in, despite none of the chairs being marked as designated for anyone in particular, the frustration of waiting for hours having taken its toll on them.

I have encountered staff who are rude, self-righteous, selectively deaf, lazy and offensive, the plywood table that separates them from the public somehow giving them a godlike complex which they exercise freely and at will.

I have waited in a queue – a queue that I have been directed to wait in by the person sitting at a table labeled ‘information’ – for hours, only to be told when I reached the front that I have been waiting in the wrong queue and must start at the back of another, equally long one.

I have friends – successful entrepreneurs, both South African and foreign – who have been put through the hellish ringer, to the point where were it not for the beauty of the country and people, might have been forced to abandon any hope of even attempting to live here. Oh and if you are South African and you lose a loved one, don’t think the pain of that loss is all you will suffer. Home Affairs must sign off on the death certificate, and until they do, all pensions, life insurance payments and other reparations for the bereaved are withheld. As if the loss of your spouse/parent/child isn’t enough, we are going to leave you penniless until someone who ‘has nothing to do, gets around to sorting through the pile of miscellaneous admin’. End quote. From a Home Affairs employee.

I am not a black single mother domestic worker or a manual labourer from another country who barely speaks English for whom missing a day of work means my children won’t eat. I am an assertive, privileged, white-skinned, first-language English speaker who has the luxury of taking time off work when needed, and I struggle to get my needs met at Home Affairs. Add to that my difficulty in remaining calm and composed in situations where incompetence and injustice abounds, and it is a sure bet that every time I leave their offices my blood pressure is elevated, my palms marked with deep indentations from my nails being dug into them, and my teeth worn down jut a bit from grinding.

Today I visited Home Affairs in their new digs in the Foreshore. Unsurprisingly, the same frustrations have persisted. New address. Same bullshit.

Come on Home Affairs. Get it together.

before the fall..

2010-07-26T23:15:00.000-07:00

Monday, 6pm.

I sit at my favourite beach facing café in Mouille Point. The sun is setting and warms my back through the glass of the window behind me. To my left the sky casts a beautiful pink shadow on the big red lighthouse across the road. Directly in front of me, not far away, lies Green Point stadium, looking significantly less menacing then when grey skies were overhead a few days ago. Cars pass, coffee cups clink on china. I look around the café and see people reading newspapers, enjoying conversations with friends; others like me work on their computers.

In 10 days I will make the move to London. Leave behind the life I have built here, the friends, the home, and most of all, my kids, my learners.

Since I finished teaching a month and a bit ago, I have been to school a number of times – to meet with students, take care of various admin; tomorrow I will go again to finish cleaning out my classroom. Not unsurprisingly, returning to school these last few times has become increasingly more difficult and sad. When I am there, I spend my time in my classroom and don’t announce my presence at school. When I stopped into one of my classes last week to drop off some exam scripts, the whole classroom of students erupted in cheers and applause. It was so lovely, but I could barely look at them. As I hurried out, a few of them asked me hopefully – ‘Miss are you back?!’ A sad smile and shake of my head was all I could muster.

Mentally, I have already begun detaching myself from my life here. A coping mechanism, what have you, it is a necessary for me to wrap my head around the goodbyes that are coming at me fast and hard.

Recently I had a conversation with a friend of mine here who reminded me that I have done this before – I have lived other places and left. And she is right. In my early twenties I lived in both Australia and England for a year. Much has changed since then though. One year when one is aged 24 is much different from almost 3 years when one is 31. Everything means so much more now. Time. Energy. Effort. Love.

At school yesterday to clear out the last of my classroom, at their request, I ended up doing a short story lesson with my grade 12s who were struggling with the material and said they missed the way I taught. Despite the sadness I felt at the departure date that is sprinting closer with every hour, when I was with them, I was unbelievably happy. They are such a wonderful group of young people, to whom I feel so incredibly attached and connected. And as I have said before, like most teachers who love teaching, there is little happiness greater than being in my element, with students.

But it’s more than just the time I have spent here and where I am at in my life. It’s the experience I have had with the students I have been privileged to work with at Fezeka. The endless encounters I have had with people here – both South African and from abroad. The conversations I have had. The walks I have taken. The music I have heard. The beauty I have been exposed to. The food I have tasted. The wine I have drunk. The scents I have smelled. The infinite greens and blues I have seen in the trees, mountains, skies, oceans. The warmth I have felt – from the sun, and from the people.

Two and a half years years ago I sat down and wrote my first blog on the flight here from Toronto. I had no idea what to expect, no clue about what awaited me. I read my early blogs and can’t help but smile at my candor. While being open and honest – particularly in my writing – is part of who I am, in the beginning my entries were almost child-like in their observations, not unlike someone discovering the world for the first time. And of course I was, discovering the world of Cape Town…learning about South Africa and its history..meeting new people, ideas, beliefs…being forced to wrap my head around how different things are in this country from other countries that I have lived in and travelled to. Over the years my writing evolved, along with my understanding and perception of this country and city – my exposure to the various facets of Capetonian life more broad.

In many ways, I believe my experience of living and working Cape Town has been quite different than that of many people who come here from overseas. For that matter, different from that of many people who come from here.

As it so happens, many of the people I have become good friends with here in Cape Town enjoy a particularly affluent lifestyle. By contrast, during the week, young people who are hungry and colleagues who struggle to put food on the table for their children surround me. It took me quite some time to mentally reconcile myself with this dichotomy. Eventually I did, although my reconciliation was and is more about a resignation to a harsh reality. My friends still comment on how much money I give away to people on the street. Reconciling myself does not mean I cannot justify giving away money that I know I will not notice and I know will mean someone can eat today. Enjoying the extremely privileged lifestyle that I do here only further cements this belief.

And as the sun sets and another day comes to a close, the moments…minutes…hours…continue to escape me…

The Bittersweet Game

2010-07-21T23:13:00.000-07:00

I am quite cross with myself for never getting around to writing a proper blog about the World Cup before it began. This was not for lack of want or material to write about, more about procrastination and a grasp of time that seems to slip away with an ever increasing speed as the weeks whiz by.

In any case…

The weeks leading up to the 2010 FIFA World Cup (Feel it! It is here!), were a crazy time in South Africa. The anticipation in the air was palpable, as was the growing number of foreign tourists slowly filtering into the major cities. 2 weeks before kickoff, from what I heard, Johannesburg was the place to be. The energy in the air was impossible to ignore, and people in general were incredibly excited.

Here in Cape Town, things were significantly more subdued. Out on the Saturday night before kickoff the following Friday, our usual haunts were no more busy than usual. And all of us wondered what this meant for the month to come.

Had I written this a month and a half ago, I would have expressed concern about what lay ahead. About whether South Africa was prepared for what was coming – both the good and the bad. About how the tourists expecting a sunny vacation would cope with torrential winter downpours in the Western Cape. Not for the first time, I would have wondered if giving South Africa the tournament had been a good idea.

And then…suddenly…finally!...after years and years of waiting and preparation, it began.

From the time the first ball dropped (no pun intended), everything changed. When Shakira and Xolani walked on stage at Soccer City during the opening ceremonies and told Africa that this time was for them, the subdued city of Cape Town turned into a sparkling hub of energy. When Siphiwe Tshabalala scored the first World Cup goal ever for Bafana Bafana, South Africa and the whole African continent exploded. This explosion would grow in intensity and contagious enthusiasm with every match. When overseas visitors began to filter into the Mother City as we approached the second week of the tournament, the din of vuvuzelas became a constant chorus - with intensities varying from mild in some of the Southern Suburbs, to deafening in the downtown core and ear-splitting in the stadiums at the matches.

On the flipside of this growing excitement, one question was becoming glaringly obvious – Where were all the people?

Halfway through the tournament, the number of tourists in Cape Town and around the country was far lower than had been expected. Those who were being hit hardest were at both ends of the income bracket. Some luxury hotels sat at quarter occupancy, with business even worse than usual for the winter months, as the regular visitors had stayed away because of the World Cup. Cabs sat empty, their drivers desolate and sullen, the money they had borrowed for licenses and cars for this very purpose showing no signs of being made back, let alone making a profit. When Bafana Bafana was eliminated in a nail-biting game in the first round and each of the soccer titans fell one by one in early games, the countless street vendors who had invested small fortunes in flags and team paraphernalia saw their potential goldmines go down the drain. Empty seats were seen at many games, despite the public being told the matches were sold out. According to Fifa this was because of overseas and corporate ticket holders not showing up for games. Either way, it was a bitter pill to swallow for those who would have given anything to go to a game. For many who generally live below the radar, spirits were low.

Not that most people caught up in world cup excitement would have noticed. On the whole, the vibe in Cape Town was intoxicating. While I remember remarking on how the popular restaurants and nightspots that my friends and I frequent weren’t any busier than normal, I am only aware of the empty hotels and unhappy cab drivers because a friend told me. No, I, like so many others, was at this point fully caught up in world cup fever.

Fortunate to be able to attend some games, I had the incredible opportunity to experience matches in several different parts of the country. Each stadium stunning in construction, each city alive with its own particular brand of Ayobaness.

In Cape Town, the fan walk - a 2 km long stretch of road and cobblestone between the city centre and Green point stadium flanked with vendors, musicians, and packed to the gills with happy revelers wearing all the colours of the rainbow – was an adventure in of itself.

In Port Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela stadium struck an impressive profile against the sky and the heavens held back until the game we were at just ended before drenching its 34000 occupants in warm winter rain.

In Durban, I felt the most spirit. Aside from the impressive beauty of the Moses Mahbhida stadium, with its pointed steeple and almost string instrument-like roof, Durban was something else. 26 degrees even in winter, Durban’s beach-lined promenade that led from the stadium right up to the fan park was full of smiling people speaking countless languages was magic. People weaving their way through the crowds to the huge screen that had been erected on the beach, metres from where the warm Indian Ocean caressed the white sand of the coastline.

A stop in Johannesburg during the last week of matches afforded a look at Soccer City and its beautiful tiled mosaic exterior. Afternoon lunch in Melrose Arch coincided with a meet and greet with the Ghanaian squad – arguably the true heroes of the tournament.

Back in Cape Town for the thrilling Semi-final between The Netherlands and Uruguay, the days following that match and before the final were palpably less chaotic. The approaching feeling of anti-climax waited in the wings, impossible to ignore.

Sunday July 11^th was the date of the 2010 World Cup final. Years of planning, preparation and hope, a month of goals and red cards and vuvuzelas and tears, it all came down to this. Spain took on The Netherlands in an aggressively played match where players from both teams seemed to forget the spirit of good sportsmanship. In the end, Spain emerged victorious. And while an unbeaten tournament record and second place finish is nothing to scoff at, this is after all sport, where second place is first loser, and the crestfallen Flying Dutchmen went home empty-handed.

After watching the game at a local restaurant that was filled to capacity with patrons wearing orange and red and yellow, we surfaced onto Long Street, where celebrations were well underway. Surrounded by people from around the world who had all been infected by the fever, we kissed the morning and said goodbye to the 2010 World Cup. It was on this evening that one of my most lasting and heart-warming memory of the tournament was made.

Just after midnight in the packed bar, I found myself dancing on stage, facing the crowd. Then the DJ dropped two songs that will forever be remembered as the anthems of the 2010 tournament. One, the official song of the cup – ‘Waka Waka’, the other, the song of one of the main sponsors – ‘Wavin’ Flag’.

It is difficult to describe the feeling that came over me as I scream-sang the lyrics to each of the songs along with every other person in the bar, hundreds of hands waving and feet jumping…even now just typing about this memory gives me goose bumps. For in that moment, it wasn’t about any particular team, or player, or about who had won the tournament, or where everyone was from. In that moment, it was about celebration. Ayobaness. Ubuntu. And the one event that unites people from across the world, World Cup soccer. It was a moment I won’t soon – and hopefully not ever – forget. And I am confident the same can be said for everyone else with whom I shared that moment, and everyone who shared similar moments with people all over the world, throughout the tournament.

The day after the final was an appropriately gloomy and grey day in Cape Town. Pathetic fallacy at its best. About 60% of South Africa called in sick that day, no doubt global statistics were comparable. It was like the whole world was hung over.

Two days later, it was still quiet. The tourists had gone, the vuvuzelas had stopped blaring, and the whole city seemed less colourful.

Newspapers around the world heralded South Africa for a job well done. From my side, despite not being a national, I could not be more proud of my adopted second home. The entire event was superb – from the gorgeous stadiums, to the seamless ticket collection at the airports, to the weather – which in Cape Town was completely uncharacteristically gorgeous and sunny, to most importantly, the beautiful people of South Africa, who warmly welcomed the world with smiles and friendliness and very little of the crime that the international media had the world believing awaited them in big bad Mzanzi.

It is now 10 days since the closing ceremonies, and business as usual is..business as usual. Were it not for the stadium and the banners welcoming the world that still flutter on the lampposts along the N2 highwayS and the occasional wail on a vuvuzela, one might never know that anything out of the ordinary – anything extraordinary – had happened. And even still, it’s all a little different. A little sadder.

Driving along the road that flanks the stadium this afternoon, I could not believe this was the same place that just weeks ago was drowned in a sea of people and colours and lights and sounds. Today the whole area was deserted and a feeling of emptiness overcame me. The banners seem almost mocking, a grim reminder that it is all over. The sound of the vuvuzela that occasionally punctuates the air somehow sounds changed – no longer jubilant, now mournful.

And the average South African – the mama selling her wares in Green Market square, the car guard who hoped the World Cup would afford him enough tips to go back to see his family in the the DRC, my students who wrote me essays and essays about how the tournament would change the country in a positive way – is anything different for them?

The short answer is no, says the cynic in me. The optimist in me wants to think that the World Cup was just the beginning for South Africa and the continent, that tourists will come back in droves now that they have seen its beauty and that it is actually not as dangerous as everyone says. The realist in me knows this is likely untrue. The idealist in me pipes in that hosting the tournament was better than not hosting it. The pragmatist in me knows that the debts that have been incurred as the host country will take decades to pay off.

And so? Where does this leave things?

I don’t pretend to have any answers or to offer any profound insight; these are only my thoughts, a random assortment at that.

In summation, the World Cup, for me and so many others coming from a position of privilege, was amazing. A once in a lifetime experience that I enjoyed from start to finish.

Unfortunately, my enjoyment and reflections will do little to comfort the manual laborers employed to build stadiums, or the temporary workers who worked in them who all now find themselves without a job. Or the people living in townships who STILL don’t have toilets and sit shivering in their electricity-less shacks as the cold front moves in, and the winter weather that stayed away for the tourists shows up for the locals. Or the street side merchandise vendor who tonight will wish – wish more than anything – that his unsold box of Azzuri scarves was food, so that he could be able to feed his hungry children.

the beginning of the..

2010-04-12T21:37:00.000-07:00

Monday April 12, 2010

It’s hot. I sit at my desk feeling the thick heat all around me, though under my skin I feel cold. The familiar chorus of students voices echoes around my classroom. Today is the first day of the last term I will teach at Fezeka.

This realization hit me the moment I woke up this morning, my sheets drenched and anxiety causing my heart to beat far too quickly. The sinking feeling was further deepened during morning assembly today, when the returning deputy principal reminded students that this is the shortest term they will have ever attended, with exams starting in only 3 weeks. The entire school calendar has been shifted because of the upcoming World Cup, and school breaks earlier than usual at the end of this term. I will not be back when it reopens.

It is a bittersweet reality, as my departure from Cape Town means I will soon be starting the next chapter of my life with my partner in London – something we have both been looking forward to for some time – at the same time it is almost impossible to ignore the feeling of deep sadness I feel at the thought of leaving. I told my barely half-full classrooms (attendance of the first few days of term is generally low) this morning about this being my last term at school. While I had told them this at the beginning of this year, they all visibly recoiled at the news and my grade 12s in particular asked me why I couldn’t stay to see out their final year.

One of my students came into my classroom this afternoon and gave me poem he had written me. I got as far as the second stanza before my eyes blurred with tears and I had to put it down. And I am still here for another 4 months. How will I be the day of my departure?

'I am a living dead person.'

2010-03-24T23:13:00.000-07:00

Friday, 3:20pm

Alone in my classroom I sit, bewildered. Outside my door and in the adjoining classroom voices of students can be heard, members of the debating society who stay late most days to practice, Friday after all the other kids have gone home being no exception.

I have just had an almost 2 hour conversation with one of my students, T. Of all the stories about all the lives of all the students I have been privy to since I began at Fezeka, none have shook me more than the one I just heard.

In class today I noticed that this usually vivacious and social young man was uncharacteristically silent. His face betrayed the truth when after class I asked him if he was okay. He told me he was fine but was not even able to smile. I asked him to come see me after school.

When he sat down I told him that he didn’t seem to be himself today and if there was anything he wanted to talk about. He sighed.

The conversation starts with him telling me that he is unable to concentrate at home or study because his mother always has people in the house (a 2 room shack), people drinking alcohol and smoking weed.

He goes on to tell me that sleep at 2-3AM each night as this is when the last of her friends usually leave. After only a few hours sleep he wakes up, goes to a nearby field to train, then walks an hour to school

When I ask if he has spoken to his mother about her behavior and how it affects her, he tells me that he has told her many times – many, many times – and each time she tells him that she was drinking and smoking before he was born so why should she just because he came into her life?

After this disclosure, his story comes fast and hard. The two-room shack that he and his mother share consists of a kitchenette and a bedroom – his mother’s bedroom that he shares with her and sleeps on a mat on the floor of. The shack is in yard of a house owner who rents out 4 of the 5 shacks he has built almost on top of each other the yard for R150 a month. At one point all 5 shacks were rented but those tenants moved out, as they could no longer take the unsanitary and horrific living conditions they provided. I notice he does not mention a bathroom in the house so I ask. He tells me that all those living in the shacks share the toilet but house owner locks it and keeps the key. They must ask permission to go to the toilet and the owner questions their reasons for using bathroom. T says this is ridiculous: ‘Why should we have to justify why we need to go to the toilet?’ he asks. I agree, making no effort to hide my immediate hatred for this slumlord. I ask about showers and he tells me there is no shower, they bathe using boiled water and a baby bath. ‘We cannot wash our face with the same water we have washed our bodies with, it gets dirty,’ he tells me. ‘But when we heat more water to use to wash our faces the house owner tells us we are using too much electricity.’

His mother is a full-fledged alcoholic who is unemployed and smokes weed chronically. She is a lesbian who has many lovers that come in and out of the house til all hours of the night. His mother spends most of her time drunk. When she gets drunk she goes on tirades and gets into fights – both verbal and physical. T often has to go and get her out of the situations she has gotten herself into and they have had to relocate all over the Western Cape upwards of 6 times because she has burned bridges in so many places.

Often, she will get drunk and go up on top of a roof, yelling at people, airing all kinds of dirty laundry. If she has a grievance with someone, T tells me, the whole yard will know.

T’s mother has thrown him out of the house many times and he has slept outside lots. He tells of a time, year before last, when he had to sleep outside during the winter. He would be so cold that he would wake up and his teeth were so cold that they became loose. His toes were completely numb that he could not feel them for days. He tells me that he often thinks of giving up, and for a time considered dropping out of school and joining the community of street kids living in Sea Point who ask tourists and wealthy residents for money. This seemed a more viable option to him because at least he was more likely to not go hungry.

If his mother doesn’t work, I ask, where do they get money to eat? He tells me that he has gotten used to not eating. He may eat one meal a day, sometimes not for a couple days at a time. ‘I don’t let it bother me,’ he says, ‘I have gotten used to it. Any money my mother gets she spends on alcohol and dagga (weed). I tell her I need food to eat; I cannot concentrate in school on an empty stomach. She tells me to find a way to get money if I want to eat.’

He won R1000 once, in a debating competition. He gave all the money to his mother. She spent the vast majority of it on alcohol for her and her friends, and on fixing up the rotting wooden walls of the shack.

I ask him if his mother ever hits him. ‘Not anymore,’ he tells me. ‘About a year and a half ago I told her she must not hit me anymore because I would hit her back. She has not hit me since. But boy did she used to beat me. She would throw me into walls, kick me, punch me.’

T goes for long walks when his mother is drunk, sometimes at 8pm at night. He will walk for hours. I ask him if it isn’t dangerous for him to do this, to walk alone in the township at night. He says that most of the gangsters know him, know he is a leader and focused on school so they leave him alone for the most part. The same applies at school. He says that he thinks he is well known among the students and aside from making fun of him for his prowess in English and dedication to his studies, generally they leave him alone.

Making use of his usually cheerful disposition, T often has to put out the fiery outbursts of anger that his mother has set in the community, though he tells me that he has heard that people question his authenticity as they think his kindness is only because he wants to suck up to them so they wont think he is like his mother

While she is currently unemployed, he tells me, his mother has worked various jobs at some stage or another, but was fired from all because she would show up to work drunk or get into fight with colleagues or bosses

It’s very difficult. Very, very difficult, he tells me.

His father is not around and T has only met him twice. ‘He called me ‘boy’,’ he says.

His mother wanted him to meet his father though it is not clear how old he was when this happened. When he did, she told him to ask his father for money. When his father didn’t give him any money his mother unleashed the fury, calling him names, making a scene and embarrassing L. Had his father given him money though, she would have been happy with him, he thinks.

The hardest part about not having a father, he tells me, is that there is no one to take him to for esuthwini (the circumcision ritual that represents the right of passage of a boy making the transition to adulthood). I have heard this from other young men before. Boys who do not have an older male relative to take them to the circumcision ritual usually rely on a man from their clan (most black South Africans belong to a tribal clan, based on their name and/or where they were born). Having no blood relative to accompany you on this most important of rites of passage makes these young men feel very ashamed and alone.

At one point T mentions a brother. I ask about the brother. He tells me that his brother died when they were younger.

Life in the Eastern Cape.

T tells me that his life as a child in the Eastern Cape was not easy. I cannot comprehend how much more difficult things could be but I am about to understand

When most kids his age were starting school, T and his brother were sent on the road every day to beg for money and food. They would leave in the morning were told by their mother not to return home until they had something to show for the day. They would walk for up to 20 kms a day. If night fell and they had not ‘earned’ anything, they would sleep on the road, in the bushes, covering themselves with plastic or pieces of paper and resume the search the next morning. He was 6 years old.

He would usually do better [at getting food and money] than other boys, he says, because he liked to talk to people and was a good storyteller. If his child self was anything like the young man who sits in front of me, this is not difficult to imagine.

This went on for some years – they would leave in the morning and walk all day, in search of money and food. He tells me they would have respect for white people because they would usually give them some food or money. ‘They would take pity on us,’ he says.

Others would not be so kind. They would turn them away – he 6, his brother 8, telling them not to come to their door. Others would give them R2, others R5, and tell them never to come back. But, he says, they knew they would see them again.

He talks of one time where he went to a house and asked for food. The man took a loaf of bread – moldy bread – out of the bin and gave it to them. He then asked them if they were thirsty and they said yes. The man filled a glass with water from a pail that he had in his garden. The pail had salt water in it. Apparently there is a belief that if you keep salt water in your garden it will keep you safe from crime and intruders. The man gave these children moldy bread and salt water to drink. ‘We ate the bread and drank the water,’ T tells me, ‘and it tasted awful and was so salty. We still ate it though as we were staving. After walking all day on empty stomachs we didn’t have a choice. We called him names to each other as we ate though,’ he laughs.

‘You know,’ he says, ‘apartheid was officially over at that time (roughly 1999), but it really wasn’t. Some white men would chase us off their property with a gun and tell us that if we came back they would kill us. We knew they weren’t joking.’

A popular way to get money, he tells me, was to sell metals of any kind to a scrap yard. The scrap yard owners would give them money for the metal, which they would use to buy food. Because it was practically impossible to find metal to sell, some of the boys took to stealing from the scrap yard and then selling it back to them. It wasn’t long before the owners caught on and hired armed guards to patrol the yards. T’s brother was shot trying to break into the scrap yard. He died. He was 10 years old. T says he has lots of friends who died that same way, shot by the guards at scrap yards. The yard owners gave them orders to shoot to kill, he tells me. The bodies of the boys would be dumped over the fence or far, far away from the scrap yard and never found. ‘So many boys died like how my brother died,’ he says. ‘They died looking for food.’

T speaks of older boys, 18, 19-year old boys who would get the younger boys - 5, 6, 7 and 8 year old boys – to do their bidding, forcing them to break into homes and steal things for them. Those who refused would be beaten or raped by the older boys.

T says he was never raped and that the older boys liked him because he could tell stories. He has always been a good storyteller and today is an incredible poet. The older boys liked hearing his stories and would tell him to listen to the 9pm story (it is unclear if this is a radio or television show), and then repeat it to them. He was able to do it almost verbatim, which they loved. ‘And they didn’t beat me,’ he says, ‘because they knew that when they beat me I wouldn’t talk for the whole day, no matter how hard they beat me.’

He tells me that it was so very hard, the long days, walking barefoot under the hot sun or the cold rain of winter. He never cried though, he tells me, and used to tell himself that men don’t cry. He and his friends, children just like him, used to sing struggle songs to keep their spirits up and from crying from the pain – physical and other. He tells of the thorns, glass and rocks that would cut their feet and bodies as they walked. I ask if his feet are still to this day scarred. He laughs a strange laugh.

He tells me he has many scars and begins to show them to me. A huge welt on his right ankle, scarred in two places. Various other cuts and gouges have healed all over his arms. He tells me he has scars on his thighs and of a time when an older boy came at him with a red-hot poker that had just been heated over an open flame. The boy attacked him in the back with the poker and T managed to move and the poker caught him in the nape of his arm. He bends his arm and demonstrates how the poker was trapped in between his forearm and bicep against his skin. When the poker was pulled away, he says, he could see pieces of his skin attached to it. He does not show me that scar and I do not ask to see it.

Then he tells me that he was hit by a mini taxi when he was 8. An older boy had wanted him to go rob a house and L had refused. The older boy then pushed him into oncoming traffic. He was 8 years old. T managed to dodge the first car but when he turned to catch his balance, a mini taxi hit him. He says he doesn’t remember much about the accident just that he tried to run after he was hit but his leg wouldn’t move. Then he passed out and woke up in the hospital. He spent 9 months in hospital recovering from the accident. I am confused as to how he could have spent so long in the hospital and not have any visible neurological or physical damage from the accident. He then asks me if I notice anything different about his shoes. I never have before but when I pay attention I see that the toe box of one of them is bent up, almost as if he is missing toes on his left foot. He begins to unlace his shoe and stops. ‘I don’t know if you are ready for this,’ he tells me. ‘Do you think you are?’

‘If you want to show me,’ I tell him.

He unlaces his shoe and takes off his sock. My breath catches in my throat and I am unable to speak. His foot is completely deformed, a huge angry scar cutting across the bridge on the diagonal. The toes have not developed properly, and his damaged left foot is somewhere between 1.5 and 2 sizes smaller than his right.

He tells me that the taxi ended up running over his foot and seriously damaged his leg and knee. It was a hit and run. Thankfully, he tells me, one of his friends, a slightly older girl was nearby. She was a good student and spoke English well. She was brave, he says, braver than the rest of us. She wrote down all the information about the taxi and took note of the driver’s face. It was a white man driving, he tells me, and a white man owned the taxi. Somehow this young girl managed to convince the taxi driver to get him to the hospital. He says that this girl disappeared soon after. Word on the street is that she is living someplace else in a nice house because the driver gave her lots of money to not report him to the police. I shudder at this story and have to force my mind to not think about what likely really happened.

He does not remember much of his time in hospital, though he remembers telling his friends not to tell his mother that he was in the hospital, because he feared she would be upset with him. Eventually though, she found out and she came to see him.

When he got out of the hospital he was a year behind in school. Not one ounce of self-pity is evident in his demeanor though, as he tells me that before he came to Fezeka he was a top athlete and won medals in all kinds of competitions at his last school. ‘There is nothing that someone with two perfect feet can do that I can’t,’ he tells me. I believe him.

He moves his foot for me and shows me that he has mobility and feeling in his toes, though for a long time he didn’t, he says. He doesn’t walk around barefoot though, as the sole of his left foot is not used to being on flat ground.

Looking at his foot I struggle to hold back tears. I have never seen anything like it.

I ask him if he has ever seen a specialist about his foot. He smiles and says that no, but he dreams of when he is older and making money and being able to do that. His mom tries to get him to play up his injury, to hobble around and walk with a cane to gain sympathy from strangers, similar to what the older boys used to do with him when he came out of the hospital. He grimaces and says he won’t do that.

‘My main problem is with my shoes,’ he says, ‘because my feet are different sizes so my left shoe usually wears out before the other one.’

Looking at his mismatched feet, it would seem the best solution would be to buy two different pairs of shoes of different sizes and have him wear one of each. Obviously this has not been an option for a young man who can scarcely afford to eat.

I ask him if he has any pain. He tells me that no, he doesn’t. When he used to walk barefoot he says that his left knee used to give him pain but if he doesn’t do that it is okay. He said that when he was younger people used to tell him that as he grew he would heal, that his bones would fix themselves. One look at his underdeveloped and mangled foot tells me this has clearly not happened.

I make a silent pledge to myself to get him to see a podiatrist as soon as I can.

He puts his shoe and sock back on and we sit in silence for a few moments. I ask him how he feels about telling me this. He says it is strange telling me, as he has never told anyone the things he has told me. He does not tell anyone his own age, he says, because he does not trust anyone. Those close to him have betrayed him so many times, and the friends he has confided in have time after time spoken his business to others. So he keeps his mouth shut.

I ask him if there are ever times that his mother is kind to him, times where she acts like a mother. He tells me that yes, sometimes, when she is not drunk. When she is not drunk and he tells her that he has done well at school or in one of the countless (debating, environmental club, drama, poetry, student council, peer educator) extra curricular activities he is involved in, she will tell him that is good. But this does not happen often.

‘I am always cheerful and friendly,’ he says, ‘even when I don’t feel it, even when I feel empty and numb inside, because people expect me to be that way and sometimes it is easier to pretend. I know I must work hard because I have to be able to support myself to get anywhere. This is my only option. So I work hard. I study hard. There is a small storage area in our yard. I spend lots of my time there, reading my books. There is no roof so when it rains I get very wet.’ He tells of a time last winter when he fell asleep in the shed and it began to rain. He woke up to find all his books soaked.

‘There is a streetlight right above the storage area that is on all night, so there is always light for me to read.’

I ask him about his classmates and how they receive him. I am conscious of the general feeling among students towards those who are exceptional. The crabs in the bucket/tall poppy analogy holds very true here, and students often mock and try to knock down those who rise above the rest. This is not altogether unsurprising, as I have been told there is a similar mentality in many of the communities that if you succeed, you are a sell-out.

He says his classmates vary on how they feel about him. They have voted him class rep for the student council, and sometimes acknowledge his strengths as a leader, asking him to lead the class in a lesson when the teacher hasn’t shown up. Other times they make fun of him when he answers questions, calling him a ‘model C boy’ who thinks he is better than the rest of them. On a recent geography test of bodies or water in Africa he scored the highest mark in the class, and rhymed off at least 12 different rivers and lakes on the continent while he sat in front of me. He says his classmates couldn’t figure out how he knew all the answers. ‘They have the same books as I do,’ he says. ‘Only I read mine.’

He tells me that he used to have a map of Africa pasted to the ceiling of his mother’s room that he used to look at every night from his mat on the floor.

‘What happened to it?’ I ask.

‘She took it down,’ T answers. ‘I don’t know what she did with it.’

I ask him what he needs most.

He pauses.

‘Well I have a school uniform,’ he says, ‘so that is the one thing I really need. One of my teachers was able to get me it from a student who had left the school.’ Though the collar of his sweater is badly torn, it is not the first time I have noticed that his shirt is always crisply ironed.

I ask him about toiletries, soap, toothbrush, deodorant. He tells me that he uses his mother’s deodorant and soap but that he has his own washcloth. He doesn’t mention a toothbrush.

He has a cell phone that an older Nigerian friend of his who refurbishes phones gave him. Since he gave it to him, the friend often calls T to watch his container whenever he goes to town. Usually T is not doing anything when the guy asks so he doesn’t mind. He sits inside the container and reads his books. Plus, he continues, he doesn’t really have a choice because the guy would probably ask for the phone back if he didn’t do it.

And casual clothes?

Not really, he says. ‘I have one pair of shorts and 2 t-shirts. I had a pair of jeans but they got so ripped that I can’t wear them anymore. One time this guy gave me a new outfit. I was so happy to have new clothes and couldn’t wait to wear them. When I was walking in the street wearing my new gear these gangsters robbed me. They took everything, even my underwear, and left me naked. I was so sad that day. Not about being naked but about losing my new clothes. I had never had new clothes. And I didn’t even have them for one whole day.’

People often ask him why he is so serious, he says. It is not that he is serious, he continues, it is just that he doesn’t have much to smile about. He tries to focus on his books as much as he can because that is all that he has. He doesn’t have any friends (that he trusts) who he can talk to, his mother is drunk the majority of the time, and with hardly any street clothes, going out of the house anywhere but school is not easy.

I give him R100 and tell him that I want him to use it to buy groceries. He mustn’t give it to his mother. He doesn’t take it at first and I can see he is holding back tears. Fighting them back. But he wont let himself cry, especially not in front of me. Eventually he takes it from my hand and his voice cracks as he thanks me. I have to look away as I am on the verge of losing it.

He makes a hasty exit telling me that he should get to the debating club meeting that has been going on during our whole conversation. He thanks me for listening, tells me that it has been really good for him to talk about it. I tell him that it was my pleasure and thank him for sharing, that anytime he wants to talk I am here.

He can see on my face how sad his story has made me and in his typical fashion, smiles and breaks out into a laugh.

‘Don’t let my story kill you,’ T says as he walks out the door. ‘It has already killed me. I am a living dead person.’

Food for thought.

2010-03-16T16:27:00.000-07:00

Although I would love to dedicate a good chunk of time to looking at advertising and the power of the media with my students, as I think the importance of young people being critical consumers is unparalleled, unfortunately timing does not allow for it. That said, I am able to spend a couple lessons on the subject, especially as students are sometimes asked to analyze and answer questions about a print ad in exams.

I began by talking to them about the power of the media in its various forms and why it is important for them – impressionable young people living in a world that is increasingly image-driven – to be aware that much of what they see on TV, in magazines, movies, music videos and in the world of celebrities, is not real. From there we moved on to a discussion on advertising, and techniques advertisers use to draw potential consumers in and to attracted them to their product. We talked about how through the use of images, colour, hyperbolic superlatives (!!), slogans, music, celebrity endorsement, branding and fonts tailored to the target audience, advertisers try to evoke an emotional response in consumers, hoping to convince them that their lives, or they as a person, will be better with this product in their lives.

Students were asked to bring in print adverts torn out of magazines, which we examined and deconstructed as a class, while discussing the methods and techniques used in each ad campaign.

As always, it is interesting to see how socialization and social location affect one’s interpretation and understanding of something and how it relates to their own lives. When asked to name some popular slogans – the first three given were ‘Keep walking’ (Johnny Walker), ‘Yebo Gogo’ (Vodacom), and ‘The Bus for Us’ (Golden Arrow, a public transport bus service provider). My most memorable takeaway from our discussion however, was when a timid young man raised his hand.

‘Miss, I can think of an example of how advertiser trick us,’ he said.

Encouraged by and excited about what he was going to say I urged him to continue.

‘Well Miss, like on TV, when they are advertising fridges, they always show the fridge full of food. But when you go to buy the fridge Miss, there’s never any food in the fridge, it’s just an empty fridge. That’s a trick, right?’

How do you spell bullshit again?

2010-03-11T23:08:00.000-08:00

On Sunday Catherine and I were on our way to a friend’s birthday braai. Stopping on Wale Street (on one of the main roads that runs through town), to get flowers, we noticed a group of people gathered on the other side of the street. The bulk of the group were wearing fluorescent green X-vests, the kind worn by the municipal government-employed foot patrol guards of the Central City Improvement District (CCID).

At first we were distracted by the flower purchasing, but then suddenly a young man burst forth from the crowd and began running around the street screaming. Blood covered his face and was streaming from his head. He ran around screaming, then yanked off his tshirt and threw it on the ground. Neither Catherine nor I could understand what he was saying, though it was clear he was in pain and very unhappy.

I asked a young man who the injured man had just spoken to what was going on. He told me that the guards had hit his friend on the head with a radio. What? A man pushing a baby in a stroller mentioned that he recognized the man as someone who had worked as a car guard in the area for around 5 or 6 years. Two other men in uniforms who appeared to be heading home from work confirmed this. The flower vendor added that he was known in the area for being rough – that if people whose cars he was watching didn’t give him any tip that he would throw rocks at their cars and scream obscenities at them.

We crossed the street and approached the crowd, which by this point had grown larger. There were now roughly 10 fluo-vested guards and a patrol car had just pulled up. The man with the bleeding head was still running around the street screaming. I asked one of the guards what had happened. He told me that the young man had tried to steal the purse of a woman who was walking with her child and a friend (who were as he spoke being piled into the back of a bakkie that soon pulled away). Alerted to the situation, the security guards began to pursue the alleged perp on foot. As he was running away, the guard told me, the young man slipped and hit his head on the curb.

The next few minutes were quite chaotic. The young man eventually returned from running down the street, shirtless and his face absolutely covered in blood. I asked him what happened. He was yelling that he was going to open a case against the card, who he claimed had stabbed him in the head with a hidden knife.

3 people, 3 different stories.

Using my teacher voice I announced to the guards that this man was seriously injured and needed to be taken to the hospital. I asked who would be responsible for taking him to get medical attention. The man closest to me said that the police were on their way and that they would be taking care of the matter. The police? I asked. This man is bleeding from his skull and you are waiting for the police? He said that yes, the [now absent] women wanted to press charges against him for attempted robbery. The police would be the ones to handle this, and then, he assumed, they would take him for medical attention.

While him and I were speaking, one of the guards had found a bottle of water (that looked like it had been around for a while), and began to pour it over the bleeding cut on the top of the man’s head while the man’s friend cleaned the blood off his face with a dirty towel.

This was especially troubling for 3 reasons:

1. How exactly does one fall and cut the top of one’s head?

2. The cleanliness of the water was likely non-existent.

3. Not one of the guards was wearing plastic gloves.

The fact that the man had a cut on the top of his head lends some truth to what the man and his friend were saying – that it had indeed been the guard or more than one guard who had inflicted the injury on him. As they were cleaning the wound, I caught sight of it. It was an open gash, right on the top of his head. To cut himself like that by falling on the ground, as the guard had said he did, the man would have had to fall directly onto some sort of sharp object, directly on the top of his head, which implies that he would have almost been upside down from at least the waist up at the time of his injury. Though I will concede that nothing is impossible, this scenario is very unlikely.

While not much can be said about reason 1, aside from the fact that mobile response units should carry with them some sort of sterile solution for cleaning injuries such as these, the lack of latex gloves worn by the guard does open itself up for discussion.

South Africa is a country with an HIV rate of 18-20%, or approximately 1 in 5 South Africans. Bearing this in mind, it is potentially fatal for people who work with the public – particularly in the capacity that these community security guards do – to not don latex gloves while cleaning this man’s head. Although it is possible that these guards did indeed have access to the gloves but chose not to wear them, I am inclined to believe differently.

Soon two police bakkies pulled up. I poked my head in the first car and asked the officers who would be taking this man to the hospital as his bleeding had slowed but had not stopped. They told me that they would take care of it.

By the time we left, more people had arrived on the scene. We walked back to our car feeling very uneasy about everything that had just gone down and rode in silence for the first little while. I do not know what happened to this man – if he was taken to the hospital, if he had been trying to rob the women, how he sustained the injury on his head, where he was from, how he ended up on the street in the first place – and I couldn’t begin to imagine how he felt during that incident. If he had indeed been a victim of some kind of brutality in behalf of the guards, which I think is quite likely, the frustration he probably experienced must have been overwhelming. In all likelihood, he is a foreigner, in the country illegally, which means he hasn’t hardly a foot to stand on when it comes to his rights being violated.

Catherine, who works for the Department of Health, was especially concerned about this extreme safety hazard posed to the guards (as well as the treatment of the young man), and wrote an email to the Cape Town Central City Improvement District, the municipal government division responsible for the CCID. Their email exchange follows:

From: Catherine White [mailto:Cawhite@pgwc.gov.za]  Sent: 08 March 2010 02:32 PM 

On Sunday afternoon (march 7) at 17:00 on Whale Street (by harley's liquor) an altercation ensued between an informal car guard and multiple "safety officers".

The car guard was not cooperating (one story is he stole a purse, another is he was belligerent towards a person parking their car on the street) but some how he started bleeding from the head.

I was watching the altercation from across the street at the flower sellers and didn't see the physical incident but the worrying thing is when I went to ask what happened I got varying responses. The injured man was crying and screaming and running through the streets. He said he had been hit on the head by one of the security officers radio. Another person said he was stabbed by a hidden knife. From where I was standing it looked like he hit his head on the spiked fence (and the blood spatter looks like it was possible). Another security guard said he tripped and fell and hit his head on the pavement (this is the least likely explanation as there wasn't a blunt force injury or marking on the pavement). It is a bit worrying when all people were standing around when the incident occurred in front of them but no one could say what actually happened. I was extremely concerned with how the security guards treated this individual. I stayed around to watch their behavior to ensure the car guard was treated humanely.  I was also extremely concerned that NONE of the security guards had latex gloves. In a country/city with a high rate of HIV no one who works at the coal face with people who regularly get injured/bleed/have open sores should be working WITHOUT barrier protection. This is the first principle of first aid.

In this particular incident the security guards poured water from a coke bottle over the guys wound (unsanitary) and cleaned the blood up (risk of transmission of many diseases especially HIV).

I was told he would be taken to New Somerset Hospital for care however I doubt this actually happened.  Moreover, I don't blame the car guard for not wanting to go. He was accosted by the security guards, was not helped, people just stood around and man handled him (again he wasn't cooperative but to be honest I wouldn't have been either if I was treated the way they treated him) and then he was supposed to trust these same people to put him in a car and take him to the hospital? I wouldn't have gone. I wouldn't have trusted the security guards.

Anyway, my two incents being reported are: 

1. The treatment of this man 

2. The lack of safety equipment for the security guards.

Regards, 

catherine

Catherine White  

M&E Coordinator: HIV Treatment Programme 

Western Cape Department of Health

…

Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2010 9:10 AM To: 'Catherine White'

Good day Catherine,

Thanks for your email. I am copying in our security manager to look into the matter.

Kindest Regards,

…

On 09/03/2010 at 09:37:

Hi Catherine

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. The CCID does not condone violence in any form and will treat this concern in a serious light.

The report is being investigated and the outcome of which will be reported to you.

Regards,

…

On 11/03/2010 at 14:18

Hi Catherine

I tried to call but you were unavailable

The incident was actually an attempted robbery where the suspect attempted to rob 3 ladies

The CCID was alerted to the incident and attempted to arrest the suspect. He tried to flee and in the attempt to capture him, he fell to the ground and sustained injuries to his head.

The suspect refused medical help and was formally arrested by SAPS as all 3 ladies wanted to press charges against him.

The second part of the complaint pertaining to the rendering of medical services without gloves was also addressed with the team concerned. They were informed of the dangers to personal health and also the breach in the companies standing instructions. All officers received verbal warnings on this account.

Should you have any further queries do not hesitate to contact me

Regards,

…

Right.

So how do you spell bullshit again?

Oooo baby baby its a wild word...

2010-02-26T17:54:00.000-08:00

On small bits of paper I wrote an assortment of random words for a poetry assignment. Students picked one word out of a hat, which formed the title of their poem, to be interpreted as they liked. Once completed, I read the poems to the class anonymously. They absolutely loved it. Below are some examples of the fruits of their labour. Bon appetit!

Taste

It is better to have seen and tasted

then to never have tasted or seen

So come come and taste

the sorrow and everlasting pain of

my heart and soul

Now is the time

To be licking your fingers in joy

This opportunity comes only one a lifetime

So taste the emotions and feelings

of those around you

Taste the joy and peace

You have taken from nature

Taste!

Limitation

like birds singing to

the ocean’s children, flowing in

and out

of their sea home

smell of nagging ghosts’ puke

wakens me from my nightmare

while few focus favoring my fantasy

and my screams bark more and more towards

my awareness

I limit my desire to rejoice

my fearless dreams to which

I turn as a lonely person who

believes the only limit is the sky

Purpose

I am here with a purpose

A purpose with reason

You will never pause the peace that I live with

I am who I am

I can’t change

I will live deadly on earth

I know me but I never

see myself

I can hear a calling but

I’m death and now

I can walk without feet

I am on earth with a reason

Question

How can you live without food?

Is there any hope of living?

Is there any end of this road?

Sometimes I ask myself these questions

What am I want to be?

I wanted to become something

I knew nothing about

If you are living

You have to come up with

What you are ready to be

Try not to think about your life

And what holds you down

Try to say in fact:

Is there any crime in doing that?

What you want

You can get

Draw

Draw a picture inside me

Drawing the loneliness and pain I feel

Drawing me as a picture

Drawing with my imagination

Drawing my weakness and my strength

But not knowing I’m

being judged

Drawing my life inside me

Drawing my teenagehood but

Not knowing I’m still a child

inside

Drawing my family

but not knowing they kept secrets from me

Draw my sadness

but not knowing I’m drawing my happiness

Draw my bad memories

but not knowing I’m creating new good ones

That is my drawing!

Five

The clock was ticking

til it stops at five

o’clock in the morning

the alarm was singing

til it wakes me up

to wash getting ready for

school

I ran liked a chased cheetah

to the bus stop to catch

my five thirty bus

but I smelled the

smell of tar that told me that

the bus had left

I was the bus stop’s best customer

but that time

I was five minutes late

Hear

My Last voices

accorded.

My message of

victory spinning

the wind.

My Last songs

burning pure glory

of smoke.

My Last words

written by the

gift of the magic.

Listen to them

to represent a

new story.

For your ways

to drizzle compassion

as the snow

flowing along the mountains

Don’t miss this

chance and contain

the new light.

Shelter

A shelter is a nice place to be

You hide from the world

and your debts.

The poverty is built and watched by

people who invade other people’s

privacy and problems.

Shelter is like an umbrella protecting from

all your enemies

creatures of the outside world.

It is the cover of all problems,

the protector from all seasons,

a shoulder to cry on. It is the key and

the place where people unite.

It flicks all the problems inside to the

outside.

It is a nice place to be.

Shoes

Shoes are our feet

Shoes are our walk

How

Can we go places with

bare feet?

Shoes cover

our feet and make

our feets warm

Sometimes shoes help

to cover our ugly toes

That’s what I like about

shoes

They even help during winter season

to keep our feet from getting

wet

Yellow

Bright yellow

The colour of peace

and happiness in SA

Like a sunflower under

The rise of a

big

bold

beautiful

sun

The big yellow sun

hugging and giving

light and warmth

to the amazing people

of this motherland

Let yellow spread
Let peace spread
throughout SA
and flick the
light of peace

to everyone
even the
blind

Quiet

Shhh..Quiet

Don’t make a sound
be brave yet
don’t be too proud

Quiet because the power
of no sound gives life
and education which is
sharper than a knife

The voiceless sound of
abused children
sounding pain
as my veins
pumped hatred

I was Quiet

They who have power
have sound
but they who are poor
make no sound but are proud

Quiet like a cheetah
ready to prey upon

the weaker
yet no sound is made
be Quiet

Be Quiet just for a moment…
and when your voice sounds
the nation must listen
Quiet!

Tomorrow

You never know
what tomorrow brings
for you and me

You wake up
We wake up
Asking yourself
What tomorrow brings
for me and my
great grand children

What tomorrow brings
for the world of
my great grand children

What the leaders
of this nation can
bring tomorrow

What will tomorrow
bring for me and
my nations

Yesterday I was free from Apartheid
But tomorrow I will be free
from Poverty

What will tomorrow bring
for me and you

Right

Once I found out
that I have the right
not just any right
the human right

The right to get a good education
The right to a safe and comfortable home
The right to be protected from harm
The right to be proud of my customs

Now my life is bright

It’s not like the darkness at night

It has the colour of peace, white

Yes, that’s right

Because I know my right

I feel like I could shine like the sunlight
now that I know my right
not just any right
the human right

Cry

Why should I cry

Why are my tears so heavy?

When my enemies see me
they will just cry

Sleeping with a painful heart

Simple means my girlfriend hurts me

I’m supposed to cry

Because my feelings won’t let my thoughts go
back to sleep

Sweet

Home Sweet Home

Every time i wonder

Every time i cry

For those who don’t
have homes

Home is where the
heart of the nation is molded
and where children reap the
sweetness of wisdom
granted to them as freedom

Home Sweet Home

Home is sweet

Every one has a
right to have home
Home Sweet Home

(Written by a student who has recently been left homeless when a fire destroyed the her family’s shack)

Ask

Ask me to love you

Ask me to make love to you

Ask to touch your body

Ask me anything about love

Ask me, why don’t you ask me?

Ask me to get your attention

Ask me to save you

Ask me to save our love
the silent love

Ask me anything

Ask me, why don’t you ask me?

Stone

The stone
when thrown into the river
creates waves.

I speak poetry
when I speak poetry I create waves
I do make a difference
cause when I speak poetry
I create waves

The stone
when thrown into the river
creates waves.

Hope

Sometimes all it takes
to improve your life
is deciding which beliefs do not save you
and certainly
changing your mind about them.

Choose beliefs
that serve the grand dream
of who you want to be
and still hope to be
in the darkness

Never give up
for that is just the

place and time

that the tide will turn
and light will shine down on
you

Just hope

Forget

Will shall forgive those who harm us

You will hear voices screaming WE WANT

PEACE!

But the white man has no sorry for black

we may forget about apartheid
forget what happened yesterday
focus on today

forget how we were treated
forget about Mandela in prison

forget about Hector Pieterson

Will shall forgive but we shall never
forget

Gift
I have this Gift
I got from my grandparents

The Gift that can
make my life and
dreams come true

I walk to the street
People tell me about
this Gift this is my
Life my dream

This Gift that
can make the world
a better home for
all

This is my Gift

is my dream
my Gift is

my future

Colour

The black skin
my parents gave

me made me

The beauty that
makes the nation
mine

The green of Nature
and the blueness of
the sky

Yellow for the mellow
colour is made by the
rainbow to give meaning
to the star

Yet bold to give rise
and shine

Colour tells a story
it shares movements
it feels pain

I am black
this colour says
a lot!

Read

Reading is the light of my life

Read in order to lead
Don’t speed

If you do it
Can’t be good indeed

Don’t smoke weed
or you shall be
lazy to read

The seed mother
gave me was
to read

As education lightens my life
I shall read
until my eyes bleed

Grow

Grow to become old
Grow for the world
is ready for the young child

To grow is to understand to be found
To have knowledge
To grow is to make mistakes
and to learn from them
To grow is to move from confusion
to light

Grow to known that life
is sharper than a knife
as we kiss our dream
to dance the change
in our hands

Child

A child is the light
of the nation
a confused person
smaller in age
brave by heart

Child who lives
in the wild
is blind by influence
of his time

I m a change
the power rests in my hands
I am the dreams in my head
I am the child who loves education

A child is nothing
but a child
full questions and love

A brave child could never
go to the grave soon
but shall live the years
of the promised land

So

So what if I was blind?
So would I feel or smell
the colour of a person
or their clothes? So?

So what if I was deaf?
So would I hear or
recognize what the person
was saying? So?

So what if I was a man?
So would I be the person I am now?
So would my actions be different
to the ones I do now?
So would my mind think
the way it does today? So?

Outside

Outside there is a space
where the living dwells
from the fowl of the sky
to the serpent of the land.

Outside not inside
a sphere over which one
does not have control

Joy can be found where
things interact. Destiny
is found outside where
Pride is everyone’s ride

Death is encountered outside
Outside is dark and bright
Cold and not

Outside is where I marry
the dreams of my interest
and where I am cooked
done

Opportunities and tragedies
are ready for you and me outside
Out there mines are mined

Sweat and work
Seriousness and laziness

Jealousy and love

Outside is where we shall meet

days like these

2010-02-16T14:03:00.001-08:00

there are days

where she feels inspired.

days where her students respond

engage

ask

answer

question

days where their circumstances

their struggles

their pain

their hunger

is a little less obvious

but then there are other days.

days where her students withdraw

become unresponsive

sleep

young eyes cloud over

old beyond their years

days where the drive to work is more jarring

the stench of streets lined with litter more pungent

the taste of hopelessness in the air more acrid

the sight of bodies with broken spirits more depressing

the sound of silent defeat more deafening

days where she cant help but wonder:

what the fuck is she doing?

what is the point?

is there one?

why is the world like this?

what. the. fuck. is. she. doing.

and on these days

the despair is almost catching

the frustration almost overwhelming

the light at the end of the tunnel almost extinguished

this great tragedy impossible to ignore

the family man

2010-02-11T01:20:00.001-08:00

Part of my English students’ mark for Term 1 is a reading mark for which they must demonstrate their ability to read out loud. How the mark is obtained is left to the discretion of the teacher. As one of the local newspapers routinely delivers packages of week-old newspapers to the school for students to use and read (though since they are placed in a room which students are forbidden to enter very few in fact do so), I thought these would be appropriate for this task.

Students were each given a newspaper with a variety of dates over the past month and we spent a period reading. I instructed them to find an article (of at least 100 words for Grade 11, 150 for those in Grade 12) that they would read then briefly summarize in a few sentences to the class. This would allow for the evaluation of their comprehension and public speaking skills.

One student chose an article that discussed the recent revelation of South African President Jacob Zuma’s extra-marital affair and the birth of a ‘lovechild’, bringing his total number of children to 20.

As some may not know, Jacob Zuma is a Zulu, a culture in which polygamy is commonly practiced. To date, Mr. Zuma has had 5 wives: one who committed suicide (allegedly due to strained relations with Zuma), one whom he divorced, and three to whom he is currently married. His most recent child was born to another woman – his mistress – the daughter of a well-known South African soccer executive.

While news of high-ranking politicians with mistresses is nothing new, this issue is particularly of note here in South Africa, a country with one of the highest incidences of HIV in the world. In an effort to quell the spread of the virus, the youth arm of Zuma’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) Party – The ANC Youth League – has taken a firm stance on the importance of monogamy in sexual relationships, and launched their ‘one boyfriend, one girlfriend’ HIV/AIDS awareness campaign on Youth Day last year. Organizations like LoveLife work tirelessly to get the youth of this country to regularly use condoms to protect themselves from HIV and other STIs, no small feat in a society where many of its poor live in patriarchic cultures where women’s wants, needs and desires are often secondary to those of their male counterparts.

Yet Mr. Zuma, clearly not satisfied with having not one but three wives, has again broken his marriage(s) vows, and had unprotected sex. Not that the President’s history isn’t already marred with scandal. Keeping in mind that this is a man who faced rape charges before he was elected (Zuma was found not guilty of said charges). Zuma admitted that he had had unprotected sex with his accuser (the daughter of a deceased friend of his) but that it had been consensual. When it came to light that his accuser was HIV positive, and that the President had been aware of his accuser's status before having sex with her, Zuma told the media that he didn’t have to worry about getting infected because he had taken a shower after they had had sex.

Again, South Africa is fighting an HIV epidemic. The ramifications of this man’s actions are not slight. Not in a country where getting many men to use condoms in the first place is a struggle, never mind its leader publically flaunting the fact that he does not and filling peoples’ minds with falsities about how one can protect oneself from infection. I find this man's disregard for the wide-reaching consequences of his actions appalling.

When news of Zuma’s child and affair made headlines last week, Julius Malema, President of the ANC Youth League was quick to come to Zuma’s defense. When asked about the ‘one boyfriend, one girlfriend’ campaign in relation to Zuma’s extra-marital dalliance, Malema refused to comment on the matter because: “Zuma is our elder, so we are not qualified to talk about that." End quote.

When my student had finished her presentation on the article, as I had previously done when a student read an article about a female Iraqi suicide bomber who claimed the lives of 54 people, I asked the class about their opinions on the issue. 10 hands immediately shot up.

The discussion that followed was a delight to watch. Perhaps unsurprisingly, views on the matter were for the most part divided by gender, with boys supporting Zuma’s activities because ‘it is part of his culture’ (as a matter of interest, while Zulu culture does practice polygamy, having children out of wedlock is not something that is condoned. More on this here). Some boys even went so far as to say that the President was ‘a leader’ and 'a chief' for how prolific he has been in expanding his brood and number of women in his life.

The girls were not of this view. One pointed out the contradiction between what the ANC Youth League preaches and the behavior of the President, calling him a hypocrite (single tear!). Another picked up on how Mr. Zuma is not acting like a leader, by disregarding his responsibility as a role model and acknowledging the power that his behavior can have over the South African people.

Another young boy said that he thought Zuma was going about being promiscuous in ‘the right way’. When I asked him what he meant by this, he clarified that because Zuma married the women he wanted, this meant that when he travelled overseas he would not be indulging with all the women he wanted (“like, if he went to China, if he didn’t have one of his wives with him, he would probably have sex with many women, with anyone he wanted, for example, strippers”). I stifled a smile when I asked him if he thought that because the President was married and took his wife or wives with him on his travels that this meant that he wasn’t ever unfaithful? "No miss," he answered, all innocent and wide-eyed. I asked him about the child the President has just fathered, one who was fathered out of wedlock, proving that not only has he been unfaithful but that he has had unprotected sex. It was interesting to see the looks on many of their faces as this logic registered.

I asked the students whether they thought the fact that this country is fighting an uphill battle against HIV was relevant to the discussion. I reminded them that this was not an issue about Zuma’s multiple wives or culture, it was more about his actions going against the message he and his party are trying to send to the youth in this country, the most group most at-risk of infection, and his responsibility as a leader to lead by example. Again, most of the girls and the boys were on different sides of the fence.

One of the female students told the class that Zuma is in the practice of dating women and impregnating them first, and then marrying them, not the other way around. She wondered if perhaps the President would soon be marrying his most recent baby mama. We spoke about how this practice is in complete opposition to what condoms are supposed to do, which dovetailed into a conversation about how unprotected sex is a risk behavior that they themselves must be vigilant about and always use condoms. They all agreed. All except one young man, the joker of the class.

“But Miss how are we supposed to have children if we are always using condoms?” He asked.

Touché. I smiled and said that I didn’t think that any of them were in that position right now, but that when that day came sure, if they are in a monogamous relationship with someone they love and they are both in a position to financially and emotionally support a child, maybe then they can think about having unprotected sex. But what must you do first? I asked.

“GET TESTED!” Came their reply in unison.

And until then?

“BE FAITHFUL!!”

And what else?

“USE A CONDOM!!”

Great advice. Mr. President, are you listening?

All quiet on the Western front

2010-01-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

And so, another year begins. I returned to school on the 4^th day of Term 1. Shortly after the Monday morning assembly, students hastened to their classes. Within 10 minutes, everything was quiet and the staffroom was empty.

What’s this?

Teachers in class – teaching? Be still my heart. Today is the last day of the second week and so far things seem to be continuing in the same vein. Apparently in the opening meeting the principal issued a stern warning that teachers must fulfill their contractual teaching obligations under no uncertain circumstances. Apparently, they took his words to heart. This is very encouraging and I shall be optimistic that it will continue.

When I received my timetable I was pleased to find that I am teaching my grade 11 class from last year who are now in their grade 12 (Matric) year. I taught most of this group of students when they were in grade 10, which means that this is the third year I will be spending with them. Very exciting.

I was not however as excited when I got to class to find that there were only 23 students. 23. Last year’s class had 48. This means that over half the class failed Grade 11. While I was not surprised about some of those who did not pass, there were 3 in particular who I fully expected to see in Grade 12 and it was disappointing to find that they had not made it through. I was most concerned about one of these students in particular, a young man who I know for a fact is involved in gangsterism and has spent time in jail more than once during the time I have known him. Over the last couple of years he had become very keen on English, and my class was one of the few that he regularly attended. His marks improved and last year his final mark was in the high 60s, quite an accomplishment for someone who had failed English twice before grade 10. I was worried what the failure might mean for him and his commitment to school. I felt that perhaps it could be the straw that made school lose its last appeal to him, made him say fuck it, made him drop out and become involved in crime full time, like so many other former students have done.

The grade 11 class I was given was not the one I had anticipated; the one I had taught in grade 10 last year and had discussed teaching this year with my colleagues. When I spoke to my Head of Department about this mix up, he apologized and assured me the change would be made ASAP. The next day when I spoke with the person in charge of timetabling who said he had made the change, but from his understanding it was causing trouble within the department as the teacher who had originally been given my class was complaining. When I investigated, I was far from surprised when I found out who it was.

Regular readers of this blog will recall a certain teacher I have written about on more than one occasion, the one who refused to attend class or mark students’ written work. The one who repeatedly neglected her responsibilities as a teacher with nary a concern for her students, who took a term-long stress leave only to return and refuse to teach the classes she had been allocated, who felt no onus of responsibility when many of her students failed. This was the teacher who had been given my class.

Her complaint when the change was made was that she had not been consulted about the change. Granted, had this been a class she was familiar with, or perhaps a mid-semester event, I could understand her grievance. But this was the 5^th day of school, the third day of classes. She had seen the class twice. She has never taught any of the students before.

Initially I thought perhaps her refusal to change classes was out of spite, as she knew this was my class that I had wished to teach, and we were not exactly the best of friends after the events that unfolded as a result of her behavior last year. I soon found out what was likely the impetus for her desire to stay with the class: it has 35 students. The class that I had been allocated? 56.

In any case, in the interest of avoiding a confrontation or further tension within the department, I agreed to take on the larger class. As it turns out, this class is comprised of a variety of students I have taught over the past couple of years who had failed, including a number of those from last year’s grade 11 class of 48. So alls well that ends well, I suppose. Well, aside from having a 56-strong classroom. But I digress.

Later that day I was working in Phumi’s office when one of the grade 12 students from last year knocked on the door. An incredibly sweet young man, he had done well on his matric and is currently attending the Cape Peninsula Institute of Technology in their Engineering department. He asked me how I was doing and how the chess club was coming along, if we were still meeting (he had been an avid member last year). We spoke briefly and then he got down to work writing something he had been working on. I did not ask him what he was writing.

Later after he had gone, I asked Phumi about him and what he had been doing at Fezeka. Phumi told me that while this young man had been accepted to pursue his post-secondary studies, none of the bursaries or scholarships he had applied for had come through. He is now faced with the very real possibility that despite being accepted, he may soon have to withdraw because of a lack of financial resources. One of his professors had told him that day that if he did not show up to class with the required reading materials by the following week, he would be taken off the class list. In Phumi’s office the young man was writing a letter to a local businessman who offers 2 scholarships to qualifying applicants from across the Gugulethu township. While this is admirable, I couldn’t help but be saddened as I considered the likelihood of this young man getting one of only 2 scholarships, from a pool of hopefuls that most probably runs into the hundreds.

What is further frustrating is how many of the bursary and scholarship applications are so limiting in that many require a student to be accepted at their desired place of study before they offer them the financial assistance they need. This is somewhat farcical, as generally students require financial assistance in order to apply. For the majority of families, paying the application fees (sometimes as high as R2000) is all but impossible. And so, students are often in the difficult position of often having the marks, the desire and the dedication to apply and continue with their studies, but for reasons mentioned above (and others), are unable to do so.

and they said it wouldn't last...

2009-12-13T11:43:00.000-08:00

Ubuntu: an ethical concept of African origin emphasizing community, sharing and generosity

‘One of the sayings in our country is Ubuntu - the essence of being human. Ubuntu speaks particularly about the fact that you can't exist as a human being in isolation. It speaks about our interconnectedness. You can't be human all by yourself, and when you have this quality - Ubuntu - you are known for your generosity.

We think of ourselves far too frequently as just individuals, separated from one another, whereas you are connected and what you do affects the whole world. When you do well, it spreads out; it is for the whole of humanity.’

- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

...

January 9th, 2010 will mark my 2 year anniversary in Cape Town. No one is more surprised at how quickly the time has gone by that me. It seems so recently that I was writing my first letter to my wonderfully supportive social network, informing them of the journey I was soon to be embarking on, to a city, country and continent I had never before visited, to do work that even then, I knew I would love.

Initially, I had committed to a year in Cape Town at Fezeka High, but as that year quickly came to a close, it became clear that I would stay on for another. And now, as my second year has officially wrapped up, the pull to return for a third is equally strong.

The past two years have not been without event. Not without personal and professional growth and experiences that have touched my heart, mind, being and allowed me a heightened understanding of the world I have been immersed in.

My students are the reason that I have been so addicted to this work. It is because of them that I am one of the few people I know who can say that they truly love their job. Their daily challenges…their struggles…the injustices they face everywhere they look, coupled with their desire and dedication to learning, are humbling in the deepest sense of the word. Bit by bit, they have allowed me into their worlds. They have trusted me, shared with me, cried with me, belly-aching laughed with me, taught me. In return, I have given them my time, my ears, my shoulders, my brain, my heart. In so doing, I have formed a relationship with many of them, with some of the members of their communities, with their families – a relationship that is novel to so many of them (my students in particular) in the sense that I am the only white-skinned person with whom they have contact.

Through the birth of the poetry club, the chess club, the photography program and the drama club that I have been so fortunate to have been asked to share in, some students now enjoy the opportunity to express and engage themselves in arts-based initiatives previously foreign to them. Having had the privilege of teaching two of my classes for both the years I have been here, I have witnessed the English-language skills of several students improve remarkably during that time, through in-class activities, their spoken vocabulary and exam results.

As any teacher can tell you, it is these moments, these acknowledgements and understanding that make our profession so rewarding. And for me, in this context, these moments are many.

The words of encouragement and support I have received from my students, their families, my colleagues never fails to floor me as I constantly feel that it is me who is so fortunate to be afforded the opportunity to work with these kids, to share in their energy, to encourage their growth, to push them to dream big.

I have committed to returning to Fezeka for just over half of the next school year, to continue the work I have started since arriving. Because of the overwhelmingly generous support of those who have provided me with moral support, as well as financial and emotional, I am in a position to be able to do this for that duration. It is difficult to put into words the gratitude I feel towards those who have helped me to be able to continue working with these incredible kids. I am ever-grateful to those who have helped to thus far for enriching my life in some way, for helping me to understand the true meaning of ubuntu through first-hand experience.

To anyone who themselves have a journey they feel drawn to, an adventure they want to embark upon, I pass on the words of one of my grade 10 students, a brilliant young man who I have no doubt will do great things:

‘If you want your dreams to come true, don’t spend too much time sleeping. Open your eyes and realize.’

With warmth and thanks,

alex

Anti-climax

2009-11-03T16:23:00.000-08:00

It’s a funny thing, this feeling. I vividly remember the first time I experienced some form of it. I was nine years old. My birthday party, that my mom and I had been excitedly planning for some time, had just wrapped up. The guests had gone home, the mess put away, and I was sitting with my mom in our living room.

‘Mama, I feel…sad? I feel like, we just looked forward to it so much and now it’s over?’

She smiled at me. ‘Anti-climax girlie. That’s the feeling you’re experiencing. When you are looking forward to something a lot, preparing and getting excited for it for some time, there are certain expectations that go along with how it will turn out. Then the day comes and goes, and even if it’s a wonderful day, where everything goes as planned, there is often a feeling of sadness or being let down that follows because it all over. Feeling this way is normal.’ And then she gave me a big hug.

Throughout my life there have been a number of occasions upon which I have had the confusing sadness associated with this feeling, they were usually after a big event that I have put a lot of time and energy into planning.

Which is why I initially felt confused about why I feel this way today.

I sat and thought about it for a bit in my classroom just now. And then it came to me.

I will be away from school for the next three days, and exams officially start on Monday, meaning this is my last day of classes with my students for the year. In addition, the Grade 12s, whom I taught in Grade 11 and many of whom spent a lot of time in my classroom this year despite my not being their teacher, are leaving. When they finish their exams in a couple weeks, there is a good chance I will never see any of them again. This makes me sad.

My two classes of grade 11s, whom I taught last year and again this year, and with whom I have connected and established what I believe is a good educator-learner relationship will likely be taught by another teacher next year. As I am not officially employed by the state’s Department of Education the management of Fezeka is wary of giving me a grade 12 class for administrative and accountability purposes.

The Grade 10s, whom I have struggled with since the beginning of the year, who are routinely very challenging when it comes to eking out any sort of class participation, the majority of whom are completely apathetic about their learning, despite my best efforts to the contrary, are likely the only students I will continue with next year. Not that this is in any way a negative thing, just the way things are.

And then there are the feelings of self-doubt in regards to my teaching and how well the students will do on their exams. Are they prepared enough? Have I done enough? I want to think that I have, but the pudding with the proof will ultimately be the test.

But the anti-climax…

Saying goodbye is never easy. Its one of the things I do worst. And saying goodbye to these kids, kids I’ve spent so much time with over the past two years, who have come to me when they need advice, who have shared their life stories with me, who smile when I pass them by, who feel so flattered when I remember their name or to ask them about something that I know is going on in their lives, just the thought of these goodbyes brings tears to my eyes.

And yes, this is part and parcel of the teaching profession, to which those who are teachers can attest. But with these kids…I don’t know. I feel different? Perhaps it’s the freedom with which they speak with me, how much about themselves, their lives, their communities, that they are willing, wanting to share.

Perhaps it’s because I have become so connected with them not just in a teaching capacity but in the extra-curricular activities I have involved myself in, both in and out of school. Perhaps my open-door policy has something to do with it. Or perhaps it is because I know that for many of these kids – far too many of them have no one to listen to them – I am one of, if not the, only adult figure in their lives with whom they can open up, ask any question, without the fear of rejection or abuse. Who knows? These are of course, all assumptions and hypotheses and can also be way off on all of it.

I don’t know.

The only thing I can speak to with absolute certainty is how I’m feeling right now. And about how much I will miss these kids when they leave.

sound.

2009-10-25T05:54:00.000-07:00

Friday, 11:58 am.

Alone in my cool classroom, I sit and read. On my right, a soprano from the choir sings strains of an unfamiliar aria in the schoolyard, her beautiful voice wafting through my door. Through the open windows to my left, birds chirp happily, eagerly announcing the impending arrival of summer. A hundred metres down the way the entire grade 12 class has assembled for their final assembly as today is their last official day of lessons. Intermittently, their raucous laughter and thunderous applause crackles through the air, raising the hair on my arms. And above all, the ever-present cacophony of students' voices - chattering, laughing, screaming, whispering - fills the warm late-october air...

outside the fishbowl looking in..

2009-10-08T06:13:00.000-07:00

During the spring break of last week, four students from Fezeka participated in a conference called Shikaya with students from a variety of schools across Cape Town. The three-day forum included discussions, debates, guest speakers and the exchange of ideas on various issues facing the youth of this country and South Africa as a whole, focusing particularly on the use of statistics and a rating system developed by the Mo Ibrahim foundation (www.moibrahimfoundation.org).

On Monday following a particularly heated meeting with the English department (more on that to follow), our Principal asked me if I could drive these four students to a school in Rondebosch where they would participate in the closing ceremony of the conference, including with an audience with the board of the foundation, a London-based NGO that rates the countries in Africa based on a range of criteria, offering a $5M incentive to the leader of the country that manages to top the list each year. More information can be found on their website.

The event was held at Rondebosch Boys High School. Despite being touted as a government school by the event organizer, it was difficult to imagine how this could be. From the time we drove onto the campus, it was like we were in an alternate universe. Beautiful wide tree-lined roads wove their way in and around the property. Lush green fields and plants were everywhere you looked. Stunning, well-maintained and massive structures housed the administration, school and various other buildings. A cricket field and soccer pitch, complete with their respective clubhouses rounded out one edge of the campus. As the students and I walked along one of the roads towards the location of the event, their awe was impossible to ignore. Their silence as they took it all in was interrupted only by the occasional ooh and ahh. I later found out that this “government school” has annual school fees of R40K. Right.

When we reached our destination we sat on the grass outside for a bit while the rest of the students arrived. The organizer had asked the students to think of some questions they may like to ask the board about what they had learnt during the conference, or that they may have about their rating system. They asked me for help with their questions so we sat and discussed. Despite the rating focussing predominately on economic development, the kids said that they had also talked about education and crime in South Africa. Sensing an opportunity, I asked them what they thought about the education system in this country, if they thought it was fair. They did not. I agreed and asked them to give me an example of how this is true.

“Look around you miss. Look at these trees. This grass. These buildings. You don’t see kids bunking. You don’t see rubbish everywhere. Why do these kids get to have this kind of education, these kinds of things [facilities]? How come we don’t?”

This had been exactly what I had been fishing for. The stark contrast between the school and environment we had left 20 minutes earlier and the one at which we currently found ourselves had not been lost on them. Sad as the reality of the situation was, I was happy to hear that they were at least aware of this sort of inequality.

I asked them how it made them feel when they looked around the campus surrounding us.

“I feel….small.” said one.
“Wow.” said another, under his breath.

We spoke about how they mustn’t feel small, that they mustn’t ever allow anyone – or anything – else to make them feel small. That the advantages enjoyed by the students at this school were no reflection on them as individuals, merely of the opportunities they had been lucky to benefit from, because of where and the privilege into which, they were born. By that same token, my students had been born into a disadvantaged reality. Neither them nor the students at Rondebosch boys high school had asked or done anything to be born into either world. It’s just the way it is.

We continued talking. The issue of crime and violence in South Africa was raised. What causes crime? I asked.

“Poverty.” answered one.
“Can you expand on that?” I asked.
“When you are hungry you are not thinking with your head, you are thinking with your stomach. When your tummy is rumbling you can’t think of anything else.” she continued.

As we were heading into the clubhouse for the discussion, a student from another township school approached me.

“Miss, do you teach at Fezeka?”
“I do sweetie, yes.”
“Wow. I never expected that. I thought maybe you would teach at a school like this – but a township school? Shuuu.”

The discussion was an interesting one, as the students – diverse as South Africa comes – asked a number of interesting and well thought-out questions. I was impressed at the degrees of critical thinking expressed by many of them. At the same time, there was clearly a difference between the competency levels of the students, particularly when it came to the knowledge and grasp of the English language. This saddened me. The students that had been selected from Fezeka were among the top students in their grade but yet they were miles apart from their colleagues from wealthier schools. Not that this came as any surprise but as my exposure to students from these schools is very limited, it was a jarring reminder.

I couldn’t help but smile as my students asked some of the questions we had discussed, with their own twists. One of my favourite answers from the panel came from the only South African member (it is an international collaboration, with members from all over the world). When one of my students asked her what she thought about the fact that there were so few green spaces and recreational activities available to youth and how libraries are all but non-existent, in disadvantaged communities, she wholeheartedly agreed with him on the greatness of this injustice.

“This issue is not one of a lack of funds,” she continued, “every year the Minister of recreation returns with a surplus in his budget. The money to build parks is there. The fact that this isn’t happening is because of poor organization and mis-management at the implementation level. I am glad to hear you are aware of this however, and support you in your mission to change things. You need to make yourselves heard though. Take advantage of 2010. The world’s eyes will be on South Africa. The powers that be don’t want the world to know that your schools don’t have libraries or that poor kids don’t have places to play. They don’t want people to be aware of how much worse off township schools are then richer schools, especially when they’ve sunk billions of ZAR into that “fish bowl” [referring to the Green Point stadium that is being constructed for the world cup, to be used for only 8 games]. The world cup is your window to have your voices heard. Take it.”

blood boiling

2009-10-06T22:19:00.000-07:00

As discussed in earlier entries, at the end of the second term we experienced a loss of two English teachers. On the last day of classes before the Winter break, we were informed that one of these teachers had gotten a job teaching at another school. The other would be on “stress leave” for the duration of the third term. This last minute news left the English department and school administration in a very difficult situation. The late notice of these absences meant it would be all but impossible to find replacement teachers before school re-opened 3 weeks later. Their unexpected departure was especially problematic as both teachers taught Grade 12

It was not until the end of the second week of the third term that a replacement teacher was found for one teacher and mid-way through the third week that another was procured. To their credit, both of the replacement teachers did a stellar job picking up the slack left by the departing teachers, doing their best to get to know students and trying to catch them up on the work that had been missed in the earlier part of the term.

In the interest of preventing the Grade 12 from falling too far behind in those weeks that there were no replacement teachers, the English Head of Department shuffled around and switched the Grade 12 classes of the departing teachers with some of the Grade 11 and Grade 10 classes of the existing staff. This way, the Grade 12s were taught all the way through (especially important as they were preparing for exams), and the new teachers taught those other Grade 11 and 10 classes when they joined our staff.

Despite the fact that taking on Grade 12 classes midway through the year, as they are preparing to write exams (and the corresponding marking of said exams – in English this means 3 exams for each student, one for Language, one for Literature, and one for Writing), the teachers who were given these new classes took them on without complaint, recognizing that this sort of thing was part of the job and that their priorities were the students, not their own interests.

All went well until we reopened this week.

The teacher who had been on “stress leave” returned. As some of her classes had been redistributed, she was given the timetable that the teacher that had filled in for her had been using.

She was not happy about this.

As is the practice, we had a departmental meeting on the first day back from break in preparation for the upcoming term, to touch base and make sure we are on the same page with our classes. During the meeting the teacher who had been absent raised the question of why she was not given her original classes back. She indicated her upset at not having being informed of this timetabling change and stated that she wanted to return to teaching her Grade 12s and be able to take them to moderation. Sidebar – the final term of the year for Grade 12 is the least teaching-intensive. About half the term is spent doing review for the final exams, the other half of the term students spend writing exams that are marked externally. Those teachers then take 9 examples of their students’ work – 3 exceptional students, 3 average students and 3 poor students – to their subject advisor from the Western Cape Department of Education for review. All this technically means that very little work and almost no marking must go into the 4th term for Grade 12 teachers. This is an added bonus for English teachers as in our subject area marking abounds during the rest of the year.

To put it more plainly, this teacher, who had been absent for the entire third term, thereby missing all the teaching and marking that goes along with the exams written during this time, and who, incidentally, is the absolute WORST offender of negligence and absenteeism when she is here (I have referred to her in more than one blog entry), was now upset because she had not returned to a cushy final term of the year. Her expectation that she would be given her classes again meant that if fulfilled, those teachers who picked up her slack would once again be given a great deal of marking at the end of the year for those Grade 10 and 11 classes that had been switched for the Grade 12s (the end of year Grade 10 and 11 exams are marked internally, and these grades do not write exams in the third term). Her gall was unbelievable.

During the meeting, which became quite heated and (if I’m being honest), would likely not have taken place in any of the schools I have previously been in, rules of professional conduct and the like), this teacher actually said she refused to teach the classes she had been given. Refused. She said she had expected to teach her Grade 12s and that she did not want to teach Grade 11. What she was really saying was that she did not want the workload associated with teaching Grade 11 and had no problem shirking her responsibility and giving the work to her colleagues who had been her back when she was gone.

I felt very sorry for my (normally very calm) head of department. I had never seen him so angry and emotional. On more than one occasion I had to step in and mediate, although this was extremely difficult for me out of fear I would say something I would regret, and came very close to doing so more than once.

After a great deal of back and forth, during which her insolence and nerve became more and more unpalatable, we closed the meeting with her refusal to do her job, fulfil her contractual obligation and responsibility towards the students, noted in the meeting minutes.

The blood boiling experience of this meeting was worsened by my knowledge that because of the intricacies of the red tape associated with firing someone who is a union member, the disciplinary action related to this teacher’s blatant unprofessionalism will struggle to accomplish anything of substance before the year is out, if at all.

safety first?

2009-09-04T14:11:00.000-07:00

Students are not shocked by violence; it is not something out of the ordinary for them. A gun being found in the boy’s washroom last week was news for a day, then forgotten. A couple of days later I was speaking with a group of kids and I asked them their thoughts on the gun left lying around in the school. if it worried them, made them feel unsafe. They laughed.

‘Miss, where we come from, guns are everywhere. Everyone knows the gangsters carry them. This is just the first time one was found at school. You see how many kids turned up at school the next day? Same as always. The gun being found didn’t keep anyone away. Why should it?’

But what about the security guards? I naively asked. Again, they laughed.

‘Miss, the security guards? What security guards? You mean the people who are hired to watch the gate and patrol the school? They are a joke. They don’t do anything to help keep us safe. They don’t even control the gate properly. You see, many of the gangsters live in the same communities as the guards (known in Xhosa as ‘bambanani’s). The gangsters know where to find them. They know that they go to a certain shabeen on the weekends to get drunk, they know where they live. If the bambananis try to mess with them at school they can easily go after them or their families. The bambananis know this to. The gangsters smoke right in front of the bambananis. They blow smoke in their faces. They know they are basically untouchable because the bambananis aren’t going to risk their safety or the safety of their families for their jobs. You can’t have bambananis that live in the same area as the school working at the school. I don’t know why the principal and teachers don’t understand that.’

vive la resistance!

2009-08-24T21:52:00.000-07:00

Due to car trouble I arrived late at school last week Thursday. Pulling into the parking lot I immediately sensed that something was going on. Entering the main schoolyard my intuitions were confirmed even though it was class time, students were standing around everywhere, chanting, singing and waving signs. This was strange.

The staffroom was abuzz with activity when I walked in. Teachers talking amongst themselves, others trying to create order. I asked a colleague what was going on.

‘The students are on strike,’ she replied.

On strike? I was surprised and amused at the same time. ‘Why?’ I asked her.

‘They are demanding their reports, they are demanding teachers, they are demanding to be taught.’

I went out into the schoolyard to speak to some students. I was the only teacher out there as the rest were seeking refuge in the staffroom or their offices. Here I saw messages that had been scrawled on pieces of paper, cardboard, wood – anything they could find. Messages such as ‘Fezeka has failed us’, ‘We demand physics teachers!’ and ‘We we want to apply for Varsity! Where are our reports?!’ were taped to doorways of classrooms and held high in the air while students chanted and sung songs of struggle and resistance in their mother tongues. (Needless to say I needed an interpreter to learn that these were what they were.)

Although my heart has swelled with pride for various reasons in the past, but the way in which it did so upon learning this information was different. I couldn’t believe it. They were putting their feet down and demanding the education they deserve. I was excited.

As discussed in previous blogs, the issue of teacher absenteeism and neglect is rife at our school, and I have been an active proponent of encouraging students to speak out against these injustices. For the most part my appeals have been just that, but it appeared that today was different. And the students were acting on their own volition! The issue of reports was because the students had not yet received any reports for the school year – not from March when they are supposed to be issued their first reports, not from June when they are to be issued their second reports. While no students have received their reports, the June reports are of particular importance to the Grade 12s as it is post-secondary institutions require students to submit them with their applications. It is now mid August.

There are a couple reasons why students had not yet received their reports. First and foremost is that there are some teachers who have not yet submitted their marks – for neither the first or second term. Secondly, there is the issue of teachers who do not come to school or leave midway or halfway through the term and do not return, feeling no sense of obligation to finish marking their exams or submitting marks

In an effort to appease the unrest, hurriedly-printed and inaccurate reports were distributed to students. I am still unclear on who made the decision to do this, and how they could have possibly thought the students would accept them. Of course they did not, and the strike continued for 2 more days.

On Friday after school the School Governing Board met with the entire staff, members of the Learner Representative Council and community members to reach a decision on how to move forward. It was decided at this meeting that teachers would not leave that evening until reports were properly assembled and marks recorded so that students could be issued their reports the following Monday. A group of us stayed at school until close to 6pm, trying to make order of the piles of incomplete mark lists, lacking marks because the teachers who were responsible for recording them had not done so or were no longer a part of the Fezeka family.

By Tuesday reports had been reissued and things had calmed down somewhat. Caught up with my own students and various after school activities I neglected to follow up with students to see if they were satisfied with their updated reports. As I did not hear anything to the contrary I assumed the matter was resolved. I was wrong.

It is now the second week of September and many students still have yet to receive accurate reports. As I sit in the office typing this there is a stack of reports next to me that list students having passed all their courses but because of a computer error (?) the result at the bottom of the page still lists them as not promoted. I am at a loss.

The student strike was indeed the first step in the right direction towards students taking their education into their own hands and sending a message that they refuse to put up with sub-standard education. Unfortunately, as is oft the case with expressions of discontent, this first step must be followed by many more in order to actually get someplace. I sincerely hope they have the courage to continue to demand their rights.

essay essais

2009-08-12T00:37:00.000-07:00

What follows are a few outstanding examples of essays that my Grade 11 students wrote as part of their June exam. The question or topic they are responding to is written above the respective essays.

[Media Awareness] Today more than ever in history, young people are exposed to endless forms of the media [television, radio, movies, magazines, music, Internet] and advertising.

Write an essay describing what effect you think the media has on young people. Is it a positive or a negative thing? Be sure to support your point of view with evidence and examples from your life and experience.

Media have changed peoples life especially us as young people.
TV has drag us to make wrong desicions because we want to follow the fame and don’t want to listen to our biological parents. Since the media have been allowed to show everything we are falling apart.

People now don’t want to attend school because of media. Some of them they see easy ways of getting money, those ways are not good, killing people, robbing innocent people because they have been exposed to easy ways by media.

Children are carrying guns in streets, smoking in streets because they see States boys doing those things on TV and that’s not that they thinks it is, because states boys are just acting or casting movies when they do that.

Some parent are killing their children like media parents play big role on getting behind media are a big support. How can you let your child watch TV all night but you are in the house? You call yourself a lovely parent you are killing your child future.

Children are bunking schools today even here in my school they say we are coming from rich families like USA countries that’s what media encourage? I’d better not be involved in media in my life.

Children are making stress their mothers because of what have seen on TV like clothes, shoes they put their mothers unders a lot of pressure wanting those things.

In all media has demolished our lives we must try to make a plan before this thing of media goes further.
…

[Community change] Many young people turn to crime, violence or engage in unprotected sex (putting them at risk for STIs, HIV/AIDS and pregnancy) our of boredom. What do you think can be done to help lessen this problem? What are some suggestions that you may have for what communities, schools, youth groups and families can do to help prevent the boredom that leads youth to taking part in these activities?

Write an essay discussing three ideas you have to help keep young people away from crime, violence and sex at an early age, and how you think these ideas can help change the future.

In my essay i will be talking about commit change and what i think can be done to help solve this problem and violence and drugs.

Many young people turn to doing crime in many ways because of the drugs they are doing drugs are so bad especially on young people cause they engage themselves on bad thing and end up hurting people who are close to each other like hurting a community members you end up hurting the whole family. And drugs are not good at all because when you are using drugs you are killing yourself and orthers around you and you will end up going to prison cause you will be caught with a drug and you will be not in a good place there it will not be the life you use to live when you were outside stop using drug young people drugs are not good at all.

Young people end up engaging themselves in violence and unprotected sex and they get infected with disease like stis and HIV and Aids and remember you are still young to get involved in sex and stuff. You end up being dead cause you will be infected with Aids and it kills there is no cure for it so as a young person dont engage yourself in those things. and also teenage pregnancy is also one of thsoe problems experienced by young people.

In order for young people to stop engaging themselves in those bad things they do they must focus on the important thing happening in their lives like doing their home chores, spending time with their family and spend much more time on their school work because education is the key to success and by focussing on their educati they will experience big things beautiful things are get a decent job and have a big family and being parent so young people stop engaging yourselves in bad things.

...

I am going to talk about the changing of youth thoughts which lead to a bad life and then regret it.

Most of youth involve to all this stuffs under certain circumstances. Some is becuase of poverty and some is choosing bad friends and not listerning to their parents and their fall in huge mistakes which their can't afford to handle and they finishing killing themselves.

I think as South Afircans especially parents must stand against these problems to save their childrens because most of parents have fell a deep pain about their childrens choosing a wrong path. Because everywhere in the world people are facing these challanges in order fix this matter we must stand up and fight it.
Communities, schools, youth groups and families as i have mentioned above we must come witha new system to the youth lifes for instance in schools there must be mroe say and teach the youth about the way to success before ruining their lives

I think all this kind of drugs can be ended maybe some of the youth will stop what their started doing.

My essay i think can make a huge difference in on life before choosing a wrong path.

…

[Hope for the future] Apartheid officially ended in South Africa in 1994 yet today, 14 years later, there is still a big difference in how many people in this country live. What are your thoughts on this? How does this make you feel? Do you think South Africa will ever be a country where all of its people live equally?

Write an essay describing your thoughts on this, examples from your life to support your view and what you think it will take or can be done to create a truly equal and free Rainbow Nation.

In this essay i am going to write about the Hope of this country and it's future as well, and how do i see this state we are livig in as an African.

In South Africa our country the are many different types of races and they treat others different to others.

Discrimination in our countryt is a living thing. Many people feel ofended by others almost every day in this democratic country of us. we as africans are discriminated by other groups like other whites still have racism i know it from me last mont i went to a party in Good Wood we were waiting for our transport to pick us up about 2am and as we are waiting police white police came to us and searched us and they got nothing and they opened the spray guns and the choking guns to us. And told us that this is not our fucken Guguleth and sad to me you are now in the boors place there's no (kak) they don't take (kak) so i still see this country as a racis and a country that has no good future amongst the races we live with everyday.

Equality is a thing that a black person will find once in a while. i see this as a useless relatiship and ended up being understanded by the others who come from the overseas countries not those we live with in everyday life.

So people must not just do anything to others because God knows the prosperity of a person.

The black alws feel offended so as this is happening this discrimination i say so i dont think our country can have a good future because in our every day life the must be a big stone un front of us. Why Africans? Why our people?

If you as a new person in this country can just go to our places and just look you'll have/see a big difference with the whites are living in.

The black singer called (Mzwakhe Mbuli) has a song saying (Nobakunini Kuzokulungo), no matter when everything will be fine so a black person alwys say it will be better. People use to say blacks used to be a race that suffers but i dont think it is over or that i am mistaken about the way life is to our people.

In this essay i have written about the thing that our people expirience in their daily life but no offence!

...

[Personal Growth and Development] “It was at that moment that I knew my life would change forever.”

Write an essay in which this sentence appears. Be sure to describe the event that caused you to feel this way and how your life changed as a result, for better or for worse.

The time I knew it all, all the drama I have been through I never though I’ll make it that it would change from who I was to who I am I thought I had it all from my friend’s rapist, alcoholic mother and an abusive boyfriend that turned my life around.

It was drama only. We were scare, hurt and shocked at the sametime. My friend was rape in the room next to mind I just couldn’t believe I felt I have betrayed her but no. She couldn’t sream for help and I dint to couse we woud have been dead can you image a gang rape? Those scard, angry eyes of those men it was if I was dreaming a nightmare but no then trashed naked on the stadium OH it was painful.

At home I couldn’t focuse, I was so distracted my mind was seeng hearing my friends pain at the samtime percuted by my alcoholic mother who drank every night sleeping with not even knowing their names, so I have to search for her every inch of corner tarven to tarven I was stressed, alone and bored I life. I needed love.

I mean love of support so I turned to this guy. As I was confused and stress I told him everything all about my life he ment the world I was just hideng those stress by being with him and it go worse. He started being abusi emotional verbal and physical as I dint see it at first I thought he loved me it got worse lost my 1 ear hearing and sight now I knew it was enough.

I wrapped but my things under-go council at my community and realise the way more to life than that I found love, love that I feel by my self.

…

IT WAS AT THAT MOMENT THAT I KNEW MY LIFE WOULD CHANGE

The soft summer breeze came in softly to the ghastly sun shining over the horizon. Making my way home from school, it was on the same day on which I learnt a very cruel lesson. I still knew that this would happen but not like it did, well it was at that moment that i knew my life would change.

My home is situated on the crescent valley of Leloaleng near the historical cave of Mesotho, Masitise. I was in love with Dibuseng, the chiefs daughter and had been told many times to back off, but it was as if instead of blood I had iron fillings flowing through my vein and someone was holding a large piece of magnet over her and nothing could separate Dibuseng and I.

We were strolling near the tarred road that zig-zagged like a huge snake. At one point we sank seemingly in merriment as we carresed each other. We were so mesmerised that we were oblivious of an intruder. It was at that point that the most unspeakable tragedy unfolded before my eyes.

As we walked a black BMW 320i model pulled up a few metres away from us. The big man walked flamboyantly to us. He did not greet but kissed and hugged Dibuseng and told her to go to the car and instantaneously pulled a gun from his waist and told me to seat. My mind was numb as this horrendous drama happened. He said in this hoarse voice "stay away from my wife because next time i will kill you," and fired eight bullets on my knees. It was at that moment when my life changed.

I do not recall what happened afterwards but woke up in hospital and told that my life will be spent in a wheelchair. Since then I have never loved a woman and all my dreams have been torn apart my life has veritably changed. That horrendous drama changed my life forever. Since then I have not been very coherent, I have changed.

...

more gold.

2009-07-31T20:15:00.000-07:00

The Inner Pain

The pain which I feel
I feel it
I can even sense his hatred
How he grabbed me
How he enjoyed raping me
While I was crying
How I wish I could just
die
I can’t bear the pain
It is too hard
The pain I can’t express
The pain which was given
to me
Inner Pain

...

Tears of the World

Tears of the world
I mean look at the world
What they have done
to you
My wonderful land

Tears of the world
Look what they have done to you my wonderful land
I ask? myself is this
the start of tomorrow
or is this the end of
tomorrow?

My thoughts make me
wonder – Where is the love
hope respect trust?
My thoughts make me
wonder – Where is the
future of tomorrow?

OH! you black poor person
OH! you black poor person
You just make me wonder
where is the future of
tomorrow?

Tears of the world
Where is the hope of
the world?

Tears of the world
Where is the hope for
the world?

...

Hold me Close

Hold me close
Make me feel at home
The love that you gave me
Made me the happiest person
In the world

Even in the dark days
Sleeping on the streets
I still felt your love
And comfort
You never stopped believing
In me

You made me
Feel at home
Hold me close

...

You

Your hand is a shining crystal
As pure as gold
Your heart is full of pity
You are a star lighting up the dark
You make the world a place of peace
and paradise
You are everybody to somebody
Only you

...

Whats there to live for?

When my heart is piling with
Questions
Empty stomach cries of
hunger
My heart beats with
hatred and Anger

Having to live with
An alcoholic mother
An abusive father
A prostitute siser

“NO!” I cry out loud

Where is the leader?
Where are the providers?
I mean the givers?

I seek love
I seek help

...

Education

Thou shall come
Embrace and face
The provision and lights
Thou shall be
Reality and responsibility
With smile in miles
With strength in struggle
With patience in vision
Thou shall come
Thou shall be
I salute you, Education.

...

I know I can
Change the world
Change the world
My mind, body, spirit
and soul tells me so

Pledge my hand and
give my time
to change the world for good
for each stride I take

My history
I am a child of revolution
I know I can change the world
Change the world

I feel like crying…

2009-07-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, realizing that August is almost upon us, it occurred to me that Grade 12 students who are planning on attending Varsity or continuing on with their students next year should have had their bursary applications in by now. A quick search on the internet that evening told me that for many scholarship and bursary applications, the deadline to apply is July 31st – this Friday. I asked a few of my students from last year who I know would qualify for bursaries based on their marks and in- and out-of-school activities if their bursary applications had been submitted. They all told me that they are planning on applying but that they had not yet done so. When I told them that the deadline was this Friday, all were shocked. I told them I would see what I could do and would contact as many schools, companies and organizations that offer money for post-secondary education to see if there was not any way around this deadline and if an extension could be offered.

Today I spoke with two people – the first was with an employee at the National Student Financial Aid Scheme who told me that students must contact institutions of higher education directly as they give money to the schools for them to distribute.

The other person with whom I spoke with was with a company called Careerwise. This is basically a brokerage firm that acts on behalf companies and organizations that allocate some of their budget for bursaries, connecting them with the most deserving students who apply.

It was my conversation with this second person that was most disheartening. After hearing my plea to allow for an extension on the deadline so as to permit my students to apply, he empathetically told me that because of the global recession the number of bursaries they had available to give out has been drastically reduced this year. Normally they are given somewhere around 400 bursaries to distribute. This year, they received less than half that number. He said he did not want to allow my students to apply for bursaries that he knew they would not get. I asked him if this meant that he was telling me that all the bursaries they had had already been allocated. He told me yes.

I thanked him and hung up the phone feeling incredibly sad. Sad for the fact that the companies with whom Careerwise is connected are likely not unique in cutting their bursary and scholarship budgets. Chances are this is an industry-wide phenomenon, symptomatic of businesses looking for the fastest, easiest and least painful ways to stem the haemorrhaging of money that the global financial crisis has caused. Understandably cutbacks are required in tough times like these, but I could not help but feel angry and the choices these companies and organizations had made. Cutting salaries and executive perks is troublesome, but cutting back financial support for students – the actual tangible difference between these kids having a future and not having a future – is more palatable?

Further, the fact that many application deadlines had passed poses an additional frustration. Of course, deadlines exist for a reason. As a teacher I understand their importance more than most. But why had students not been informed of these opportunities far before their submission closing dates? It took a colleague and I actively seeking out these prospects on our own time (Internet has not been working at school for months), to find them. No in-school bursary information session was held, no on-campus resources exist for students to access or explore on their own. This dearth of information is crippling in an almost literal sense.

Over the next stretch I will do what I can with the help of friends to investigate alternate bursary opportunities whose application deadlines have yet to pass. Impossible to ignore however is the reality of how stiff the competition will be if there are indeed any to be found and applied for, given the limited availability that will exist for reasons already mentioned.

Yesterday President Zuma promised to ensure that learners who are eligible for varsity but can’t afford tuition will be supported by the government although a timeframe for this initiative was not given. Whether or not this promise is lip service or an actual commitment that will materialize remains to be seen. Either way, the majority of the most financially disadvantaged grade 12 learners from 2009 are facing a bleak outlook for next year and beyond.

injustice.

2009-07-16T18:45:00.000-07:00

One of my housemates Suzanne’s classmates is a 24-year old Zimbabwean boy who is here on a partial scholarship and whose family scraped together the rest of the money so that he could attend the University of Cape Town. He is the first one in his family to attend university.

2 months ago his uncle died, a month ago his father died. They both died of malaria.

Malaria.

Something that in this day and age no one should be dying from.

Suzanne told me today that because her classmate is the eldest boy in the family he must now leave school and return home to care for the family. In his father’s absence his uncle would normally take on this responsibility, only his uncle is also dead.

Reconciling myself...

2009-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

After the safety question, the second question I am usually asked when I tell people what I do is:

“Oh you teach in a township? Is it hard? It must be really hard…”

My answer, as previously mentioned, generally does not change and falls along the lines of recognizing and understanding how difficult the lives of my students and their social locations are, is hard. Teaching in a township is no harder than any other teaching job I have had in the past. The challenges that exist because of my students’ poor literacy skills are tied into the poverty into which they have been forced, that has equipped them with a sub-par primary education, giving them building blocks so weak that everything that comes next is shaky at best.

A close second to my beef with irresponsible teachers is my frustration at my inability to connect with more students, and recognizing those students whom I am unable to help. Students who are so far gone down the path of illiteracy, having been ushered through the school system despite being unable to read or spell. These students need intense, one-on-one tutoring if they are to even have a fighting chance at a decent job down the line. Unfortunately, nothing like that exists for them and as such, for all intents and purposes, they are lost.

It is only very recently that I have started to come to terms with the fact that I can’t help every student. I give all of me to the students I work with, whether they are in classes I teach or not. I love them and I will do anything for them. I only work with about 200 students out of 1100 enrolled. A year and a half and I have only just begun to accept that that is enough. It’s not ideal. But that’s okay.

enabling the apathy.

2009-06-11T22:39:00.003-07:00

President Zuma, in his recent state of the nation said the following:

“We reiterate our nonnegotiables. Teachers should be in school, in class, on time, teaching, with no neglect of duty and no abuse of pupils. The children should be in class, on time, learning, be respectful of their teachers and do their homework.”

Well.

If only it were that easy.

While it is encouraging to see the current administration taking an interest in the education system and the issue of teacher motivation and absenteeism, something tells me we are a long way from seeing a tangible difference in any of these areas. And I’m not talking about the students. They are the least of my worries.

A Western foreigner who has spent the last year and a half volunteer teaching at a school in the Cape Flats, my frustration with those of my colleagues who do not attend and/or teach their classes has perhaps been my one greatest challenge. Oftentimes I have observed teachers who shirk responsibility and seemingly feel no obligation towards their students. Little else infuriates me more. A further issue is how the other teachers – those who do honour their contractual obligations and actually attend and teach their lessons – too play a role in this blatant disregard for students’ best interests. While I have had discussions with many teachers on the subject of the negligent teachers and these teachers have been in agreement with my grievances, I have never once seen any of them criticize or come down on those who are guilty of these behaviours. In no way does it seem to interfere with their relationships with the delinquent teachers and more often than not when teachers are bunking class, there are at least one or two other teachers (who are legitimately free) joking around and passing time in the staffroom with them, in so doing passively condoning this despicable behaviour.

In France, those convicted of ‘Non-assistance a personne en danger’ are punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a 1000 euro fine. In North America, Good Samaritan laws similarly though to a less severe extent obligate people to assist those in need when they see or are aware of a crime being committed. Granted we are not talking of crimes of neglect, abuse and murder in the literal sense, but how about in the figurative? Neglect of their duty towards their students? Abuse of their power as adults in positions of authority over these kids and as such the kids are reluctant to challenge them or speak up about their teachers’ absenteeism? Murder of students’ intellectual potential? Sabotage of their futures? Are these not crimes?

Having never been one who is afraid to speak my mind, it has been – shall we say – challenging for me to keep quiet on how I feel about those teachers who are guilty of these offences. Always aware that I am an outsider who has managed to unintentionally rock the boat before, I am wary of speaking out against these teachers when none of my colleagues seem to feel this same need.

When I encourage those students who aren’t being taught to speak up for themselves – to tell their teacher that they want to be taught, to tell the principal that they demand to be taught, to start and circulate a petition – my urging is met with blank looks and nods. But nothing ever comes of it. The idea that they have rights in the educational machine escapes the majority of students, through no fault of their own. As if the challenges they face are not substantial enough in their own right.

Going into the exams that students began writing today, I feel confident that my students are as prepared for their English and Life Orientation exams as they individually can be for what will be required of them. I have done my best to ensure that this is the case. I cannot speak with the same confidence about the students of my colleagues. As of day before yesterday one such colleague had not taught one of the poems that will be on the exam, and when the opportunity to have the poem taught by someone else (visiting American University students who have no teaching experience) arose, my colleague jumped on it without a second thought. This is the same poem that I wrote about in a recent blog, upon which I spent several lessons and extension activities to permit a wider understanding and appreciation of the poem. Granted, my education and experience has equipped me with perhaps a weightier arsenal of teaching techniques. In acknowledgement of this I routinely share all resources, ideas and lesson plans that I seek out and create, with my colleagues, in so taking the burden of preparation off their shoulders. But it seldom makes a difference.

Earlier today I spoke with an Education without Borders colleague about these issues and why by contrast I seem to care about my students more than certain colleagues. I told him that I don’t think that it is fair to compare me to them, as our social location, education and experience differs so significantly. I am here volunteering because I want to and I have the resources to do so. I come from a loving family that has always supported me. I am fortunate to have had the freedom to travel. And I know at the end of the day, I am driving off the school property, out of Gugs, into Cape Town and my other life. Unlike so many of them, there is light all around me, not just darkness. I don’t spend my weekends at funerals or go home to children and unpaid bills.

The fact that not all my colleagues are keen to stay at school as late or be as available to students as I am doesn’t surprise or bother me. The fact that when some of them are at school, if they even attend school, that the level of investment is still so clearly imbalanced? That bothers me.

Schools are designed to do more than indoctrinate students with academic knowledge; many important social mores and acceptable behaviours are learned as well. What lessons does this negligence send to youth – the future of this country – about the importance of professionalism?

In the education system, as with many departments within the public service, bureaucratic disciplinary procedures overwhelmingly favour the employee. Overworked and under-resourced principals should not have to be glorified babysitters. Rather, teachers should have the professional maturity and work ethic to do the job which they are paid to do by South African taxpayers. And until the repercussions for their systemic apathy become severe enough to elicit a change or the entire educational community – top to bottom – refuses to condone this behaviour, students, helpless victims of this systemic negligence and neglect, will continue to fail.

Shelter from the storm.

2009-06-06T11:54:00.001-07:00

“You live in South Africa? Wow. Do you feel safe? Isn’t it really dangerous?”

The majority of entries on this blog have to do with my students, school and – to a lesser extent – observations on life in Cape Town. A very small percentage are on the topic of violence and issues of safety, ironic as this is usually the first topic of discussion people broach with me when I tell them I live in South Africa and work in a township.

Granted, I have (touch wood), been very fortunate when it comes to my personal safety and experiences of violence since moving here almost a year and a half ago. I do have friends though – very close friends – who have themselves been victims of violence in Cape Town, ranging from being pickpocketed to having their homes and cars broken into to being held up at gunpoint to getting hijacked while they were behind the wheel. These people just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. They weren’t making themselves targets, they weren’t being overly risky. It just happened. It is the threat of random violence and crime that is perhaps most real for the average person living in Cape Town.

One cannot however ignore the fact that violence and crime happen all the time, everywhere, constantly. Not just in Cape Town, not just in South Africa, not just in poor countries. People of all walks of life are victim to violence, perpetrators are often similarly diverse. So why then, do people always think of crime and violence when they hear the words South Africa and township? Surely there are other things about this country and communities that are more deserving of recognition?

Well I suppose the statistics don’t help. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_South_Africa) Johannesburg is often called the murder capital of the Southern Hemisphere, and those who are familiar with townships often evoke images of shacks, squalor and desperation when thinking of these centres of population. Not that any of this is necessarily incorrect. Johannesburg is consistently rated as one of the most dangerous cities in the world based on rates of murder and violent crimes, and in townships you will indeed find shacks, squalor and desperation.

But how does this affect the everyday person living in Cape Town? How has it affected my life as a temporary resident? Well for starters, Cape Town isn’t Joburg. Statistically speaking, there is far less reported crime in the Mother City than in the country’s economic capital. But then, there are also many more people living there than here.

A good married couple friend of mine recently had their house broken into in Cape Town. We had all been out for dinner when the husband got a phone call from the security guard informing him that he had caught an intruder literally red handed – laptops, jewellery and passports in hand. The husband left dinner to attend to the matter and soon after we took the wife home to see what was going on. When we arrived, the intruder was being forced to kneel, hands behind his head, facing the wall. Who knows how long he had been that way. One of the security guards was standing directly behind him, a knee in the guy’s back. If the guy moved an inch, the security guard yelled at him and pushed him forward with his knee. 2 laptops, an xbox, 2 external hard drives, a myriad of jewellery and an assortment of colognes and perfumes were among the loot that was found on the guy when they apprehended him. Based on where my friend had her jewellery hidden and how much of the house he had covered, they estimated that he had been in the house for close to half an hour when they found him.

The police arrived about 45 minutes later. First came two black police officers who took an inventory of the goods that had almost been stolen and talked to the homeowners. A white officer arrived about half an hour later. Gruff, hostile and abrupt, he spoke to the other officers as though they were underlings. I did not like this man. After about an hour all of the officers prepared to leave. They cuffed the intruder who was still kneeling outside facing the wall (and had by now been doing so for the better part of two hours). Once they had cuffed him they ordered him to stand up. As he slowly eased back since undoubtedly his knees and legs were numb, the white officer lost his temper and yanked the guy into a standing position by his handcuffed hands behind his back, dislocating the screaming man’s shoulders in the process. Human arms are not designed to move this way. I felt ill. One can only imagine what happened to this man once he was in police custody.

I am not empathizing with criminals of course, and this is surely due to a Western (humanitarian?) upbringing which generally forces me to first consider circumstance before passing judgement. Regardless, I had great difficulty seeing the guy being treated this way.

I couldn’t help thinking that my friends were surprisingly calm about the whole break-in episode. Had it been my home that had been broken into and ransacked, the feeling of violation and I suppose fear that I imagine I would have felt would not have been palatable. But they were calm. When I spoke to the wife she told me that in the big picture, this wasn’t a big deal. Even if the things had been taken, they were just that – things. She then told me a story of a friend of hers who lives in Johannesburg. Her friend’s husband she said, concerned about the safety of his family and pregnant wife, had installed some security measures that my friend thought completely over the top. They included a metal wall that could lock off the top half of the house from the bottom half, and a bullet-proof saferoom. These seemingly overly cautious precautions ended up saving their lives when armed men broke into their home in the middle of the day and shot at the husband as he dove into the safe room where his pregnant wife was already waiting. When the baby was born (premature), because of the shock and excess of adrenaline that had been released into the mothers system during this experience, it was riddled with birth defects and died a few days later.

Based on knowledge of this experience then, it is not surprising that my friends’ reaction to their break-in was so subdued.

In recent weeks following the break-in at my friends home, my housemates and I too, have had a couple of scares though admittedly far tamer than any of the aforementioned. About a week ago I was at home alone and getting ready to go out. As Catherine’s room is the only room with a proper full length mirror, I went from my room at the back of the house to hers at the front. As I switched on the light in her room I heard a loud rustling sound and a quick movement behind the curtains. I froze. After what seemed like an eternity I crept into her room towards the curtain. When I pulled it aside there was nothing there but her window was open. I found this strange as Catherine is generally quite diligent about locking her window, but assumed she must have forgotten and wrote off the experience to a cheeky cat. After greeting me when she came home a few hours later, the first thing Catherine asked me was if I knew why her window was open. Apparently she distinctly remembered closing it as rain was forecasted. A survey of her room found her bicycle helmet which she religiously keeps on her bike’s handlebars, sitting on her windowsill. This meant that it had been a person responsible for the noise and movement I had heard, and that this person had unlocked Catherine’s window and been unable to pull the helmet through the bars on the window. Despite knowing that the person could not have gotten into the house because of the bars, this was still disturbing given that I had been in the house at the time.

Three nights ago my other housemate Suzanne was at home alone sitting on her bed reading. Her window was open when she was startled by a sound on the front porch. She moved aside her curtain only to be greeted with a man, no older than 20, staring her right in the face from the other side of the window. She screamed in surprise and he did not move. After staring her down for a few moments he then casually made his way down our front steps and climbed over the wall separating our house from the sidewalk (we have a front gate).

Although nothing actually ‘happened’ in either of these incidents, it has made us more wary and aware of our wellbeing. Noises on the roof that I have always thought to be (and almost certainly are), cats, now make me jump. I triple check that doors and windows and that my car is locked whereas before I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. These minor lifestyle adjustments pale however in comparison to the fear that so many of my students live with every day. These kids are robbed, assaulted, stabbed, raped…on a daily basis. Even the walk home can be treacherous. Driving one of my students home the other day, he kept thanking me for doing so as to walk home at that time of day he said, was dangerous. Gangsters would rob you if they knew you had even R5. It was 4:30pm and the sun was just beginning to take its first steps in its decent across the sky.

So what does all this mean? Who knows. Do I feel safe? For the most part I do. Do I take unnecessary risks? Not if I can help it. Do I live in fear or am I overly cautious? Definitely not. Violence can and will happen at random and to anyone. It may happen here more than the average town, but most of the time I don’t feel any less safe than I have on the streets of my hometown, which in part due to its low crime rate, has been voted one of the best places in the world to live. (http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/08/23/bc-vancouver.html)

On beauty.

2009-06-03T01:49:00.000-07:00

As part of the grade 11 English Literature curriculum, students study Shakespeare’s ‘Sonnet 104’.

Sonnet 104

To me, fair friend, you can never be old,
For as you were when first your eye I eyed,
Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold
Have from the forests shook three summers’ pride,
Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn’d
In the process of the seasons have I seen,
Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn’d,
Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green.
Ah, yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand,
Steal from his figure and no pace perceived;
So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand,
Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived:
For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred;
Ere you were born, was beauty’s summer dead.

As an introduction to the poem, I wrote the following assignment on the board:

‘You have just met the most beautiful person you have ever seen. Write a poem to this person describing their beauty and the effect it has had on you.’

While sometimes written assignments are met with groans and protest by this group, this day they wasted little time getting down to business. After a sufficient amount of time I collected their books and put the pile on my desk. Whenever I ask students to read their written work out to the class, it is rare to get any volunteers. To avoid this, I decided to take the pressure off of them. One by one, at random, I read out their poems to the class. I kept each book hidden so that they wouldn’t know whose I was reading, and not once did I tell them author of the poem that was being read.

As I have mentioned in earlier blogs, while on the whole I thoroughly enjoy my job and working with teenagers, there are particular lessons that stand out in my mind as extra special. This day was one such lesson. The students’ reactions to the poems were entertaining beyond belief. Cheering when someone used an effective metaphor…crying out as if in church when beautiful images of beauty and love were expressed, it was a truly lively and interactive experience for all in the classroom.

Then the lunch bell rang. And not one moved. They stayed 15 minutes past the end of the period to hear all of the poems. I cannot recall even one lesson at any grade level that I have taught, in any school, in any country, where students willingly stayed that long after the lunch bell had rang, without any encouragement from the teacher. It was amazing.

Some of my favourite poems follow.
Note: Have made some minor editorial and grammatical changes to facilitate the reading of the poems.

…

Just look at how beautiful you are.
You are glittering like a star at night
Your smile attracts, even in my dreams.
You are like a birch tree with smooth black
beauty skin.
You smell like a rose at spring,
Your lips taste like an apple orchard.
Just look at how beautiful you are.

…

Gorgeous Girl

Hey you gorgeous!

Your beauty is in my heart
Your eyes are sexy like nothing on earth

Your voice is making me happy. When you talk,
to me its like nothing my ears have ever heard.

Your smile makes me happy. When you smile
at me you rub my heart.

I like the way you are beautiful.
It makes my heart feel like I’m dreaming…

Hey you gorgeous! You make me feel happy.

…

Your beauty…brightens
up the room, it gives life
to the corpses.

Your beauty is very dangerous:
It made me blind.

Your beauty is like water in the
desert.

When its stormy and
you walk out of
the room the sky
changes like the
clap of a hand or
a beat of the heart.

Your beauty is like
when the sun is setting
and the sky is all relaxed

Your beauty is like an infant
so innocent and pure.

…

My beautiful black berry
Your small eyes and cool lips
You smile like a shining star
When I see you my eyes start
To be happy my mind tends to
Wander. My life without you
Wouldn’t mean a thing.
What a surprise in my life!
Your soft black body makes me smile every day.
I wonder what life would be without you.

…

A red rose!

She is a red, red rose
That is newly sprung in June.

Her eyes glisten with love
With her hair so beautiful
upon her cheeks and falling
along her neck like jewels,
so vivacious and shiny.

There is a fragrance about her!
Yes, and can only be recalled by
The sound of her name.
Her teeth as white as a
Newly born goat.

She is a
red, red
rose.

…

I have met an angel

I have met an angel that
touched my heart.
I have met an angel that
blinded my eyes
because her beauty is like
a star shining in the night.
I have met an angel that
made me forget about everything.
I have met an angel
that no mortals can
describe because she
looks like she was picked
From heaven.
Her beauty shocked
Me like I was seeing
A ghost that wanted
To take my soul and
Tear my heart apart
Like my heart was a building
That was exploded by a
Nuclear bomb. I wish
I could see an angel
As beautiful as that again
Because
Deep inside my heart
She has a special room
That is covered
With white and red roses.
When we meet again I will
Collapse.

…

As a follow up assignment after we had spent some time deconstructing the poem, I had the students rewrite the poem in their own words. Again, the results were astonishing.

Sonnet 104

Your beautiful face will never change in front of my eyes since the day I saw you. You are like the wind of winter that stripped my heart to be at a warm place and I wish your beautiful face could turn to be yellow. Your beautiful face has burned my heart into ashes. Since the day I saw you you were like a newborn baby that charmed the eyes of the world. Nobody could describe your beauty and instead just wish to praise you. You are sweet as a peach. Your beauty fooled me like it was a dream and I proclaim to the next generation that no one can compare to your beauty, even if you don’t remain.
…

Beautiful friend

Your beauty seems to be always
shining when you wake up or didn’t
go to bath you stay as brand new,
like you are fresh shining every day
and night like you are swimming in a
new bath full of Reach Fresh and
the best of all times. The first time
I saw you you were so whiteness like a
basket full of peaches and creams.
Teeth eyes hair everything about you day and night
summer winter spring autumn,
you stay shining as you are a sun in the midday heat
or a star in the midnight sky.
You were born to be the greatest example of beauty
I have ever seen.

…

Sonnet 104

Your age will never change your beauty
Beautiful friend.
For it seems the same as it was when
I first saw you.

Three years have passed
Since I first saw you
But you are still fresh and green.

Oh! No but beauty
Like a tortoise on a journey
Fades from the one it is glued to
That no one can recognize it.
In the same way your lovely beauty
That seems to be unchanging
Is really changing and my eyes and view
May be tricked.

But if it is,
I proclaim to future generations:
The most beautiful one in the world
died before your birth.

…

Sonnet 104

Your beauty does not change
It’s just the same as the first
time I saw you. Since then the
violent, windy cold winters
have turned to be three hot
summers. Then the trees
And leaves turned yellow
But when it became older
It was ruined, dry, dying.
Ever since I say you you were very
beautiful and even now you are
still hot and beautiful and young
and your beauty moves, changes
very slowly and no one can see it
when it changes. In the same way
as your beauty changes your beauty seems
unchanging and my eye is being
fooled by your beauty and
there is no one that I can compare
your beauty with and I’m making
this proclamation about the great
beauty of my friend.

…

Unforgettable fire.

2009-06-01T06:04:00.000-07:00

The day I will never forget

The day I will never forget in my life is the day that my parents shows how much they hate me. It was on the 1st day of January in 2009. the day that was windy and very rainfull. I was drunk because of having strested and I told my self that I am eating New year. My mother called my father and she told him I am drunk so he must quickly beat me.

My mother was here on Cape Town and me and my father were in Transkaaie. I was living on my mother’s home and someone was a rumour and he?she told my mother that I am drunk. My mother didn’t even ask questions and she called my father that he must quickly go out and fetch me to my fathers home. My father came and he didn’t even as too he just said “Hey you damn come here!” I didn’t even go slowly I said with an afraid voice “I am coming.” On the road to his home he stops the car and park it he beat me like he is playing boxing. I cryed no one give a damn about me. He stop beating me and we go when we arrived to his home he beat me again with a cane, I cryed no one feel sorry for me. That was the day that I realise that they both hate me. My mother didn’t react like a woman she didn’t even said to me if you get drunk again I will call your father as she makes me become scared, no she just do it.

On that day I end up telling my self that I am going to be what I want to be in future no matter what. There is a saying when is going to be white it first become black and it end up white thats what I told my self on that day. That day is the day I will never forget in my life, I even wrote the date of it in my dairy so that I can’t forget it. My parents hate me and there are more things that they keep on doing to me, like I came with a mistake on Earth.

...

The day I will not forget

The day I will not forget when I start to go to Fezeka Senior Secondary School. I was so nervous and scared becouse in that year was my firs day in high school. And when I get in I saw all the learners wearing their uniform but me I didn’t wear the uniform becouse of money.

The day school opened I was having little happy, because am starting the new school But I was shaking, scared and nervous. Becouse I never saw people like that in my life. Other people they think that I am a boring person becouse most of the time like to keep quit for a moment and set down and think about my personal things. After that my sister go to principal’s room and tell him that in don’t have a uniform. He said: “don’t strees it’s not the big deal as long as she will came to school becouse other parent they don’t have money to buy the uniform although she will wear the black and what.”

And then I go to class and I saw my friend at premiry and we chatted about that morning and other thing. The first teacher got to the class and start introduce her name to use and also we do so. But the third teacher she came with attitude. The name of that teacher is ***. She said “Why are you wearing the black and white do you think this is a funeral or we go to funeral. who died? Please tell your mother to bought you the uniform you make our school derty please girl.” I was so the “ouch” the teacher can talk like that, I can’t believe that. I go to home with a broeken hart. On that year day I started to hate her becouse she embarrassed me in front of the class and learners they lough becauswe she want the learners to knowe her that what kind of the person she is?

What I say the teacher will not judge or have a right to do things like that becouse you don’t know are you going to be. And you don’t know about your next day that are you going and is the people that you cretized is going to help you one day.

you can be my father figure...

2009-05-17T04:26:00.000-07:00

The poetry group continues to gather steam. When we met on Friday we were a smaller group than Tuesday, but as there were exams in the afternoon for only certain students, many of those who were not writing had been dismissed, left early or had not attended school at all that day.

Students assembled in my classroom during lunchtime as usual. Seated in a circle, those who had not yet shared their poems on growing up did so, and others read an original one of their choice. A young man had written a poem about the political situation in this country which prompted many students to share their opinions on the new president. It was inspiring to see so many of them with such strong opinions. One of the young women in the group then read a poem she had written to her absent father who left before she was born, and whom she had never known. Her powerful piece of writing was called ‘Where are the fathers?’, and resonated with many of those in the group.

The conversation that sprouted from the topic of her poem momentarily put the poetry reading on hold. While single mother-headed homes and families are no rarity anywhere in the world, they are especially common among my students and in township contexts. As such, almost everyone in the group had something to contribute to the conversation, myself included. The boys in the group felt strongly that for them, growing up without a father was more difficult than for their female colleagues. Reminding them that it was not a competition and that it is difficult for anyone to qualify or quantify an experience for someone else, I listened to them talk.

The conversation that followed was nothing short of intense. Feelings of loneliness, responsibility, so many questions never answered… were all among the thoughts expressed by the students who grew up without a father in their life. One boy explained to me how it was especially difficult for a man in his culture (he is Xhosa, but the same could be said for Sethos and Tswanas) as when a boy decides to become a man (the circumcision ritual - http://www.southafricalogue.com/features/the-xhosa-circumcision-ritual.html) he must declare the clan with which he is affiliated and the father figure in his life usually vouches for him. This, the boys said, is when fatherless young men miss their fathers the most. They feel lost without this guidance and support and a sense of not belonging during their cultural coming-of-age ceremony. A culture very steeped in tradition and a strong belief in the supernatural, the spirits of your ancestors are said to haunt you if you do not align yourself with the clan of your forefathers. Not knowing your father then, makes this difficult, and apparently is a burden that many young men struggle with during this time.

Sooner or later, as conversations about my students’ family lives often do, the issue of abuse and domestic violence was raised. I never fail to be amazed at how a topic that is so incredibly sensitive and generally hush-hush in Western contexts is frequently discussed so freely amongst my students. Perhaps rates of incidence make the topic of violence and abuse not as taboo as in other milieus, or at least those in which I have previously been immersed. Or perhaps not. Either way, I am always surprised at the ease with which they discuss the tragedies that befall them so regularly.

They spoke about living with violence and the ways in which it has shaped their views of the world. I introduced them to the concept of a ‘cycle of violence’, and we discussed the ways in which they – both male and female – can break this pattern of behaviour. Two of the more vocal young men both spoke of times they had seen their mothers abused by their partners and what effect it had on them as witnesses. Both said that they have sworn they would never become the kind of man who would do that to their woman.

The saddest part of the discussion came for me when one of the young men – who to look at does not give the impression of coming from an abusive home (whatever that means), a strong, handsome, bright kid, outgoing and friendly, one of the top students in his year – said that he believes that once you have lived with violence, you can never live without it, or at least the threat of it. Growing up always knowing that there was a clap or a kick or a punch close by he said, had taught him to expect abuse and for some time had made him almost unable to function without it. He is learning to live a life without violence, he told us, although he still expects it sometimes. He too said that he would never be one to abuse his wife or children, that seeing the effect it had on his mother and himself has taught him that much. He would however make one exception, he continued. Looking out the window away from the rest of the group as he spoke, he told us of his mother’s screams that he would never forget and that no matter what else happens in his life, he is just waiting for the right day to exact revenge on the man responsible for her cries.

inspiration.

2009-05-12T06:31:00.000-07:00

Many of the entries on this blog speak to the difficult issues that are faced by my students, to the injustices that are part of this country’s landscape, to the challenges that are part of the everyday for people living below the poverty line in South Africa.

But it is not all bad.

Frequently I have interactions, experiences, moments of revelation where I see the joy…beauty…inspiration that exists all around. It creeps out of the cracks, it grows from concrete and is resilient against even the most harsh of circumstance.
Thursday of last week a student came into my classroom during lunchtime. He had been one of the students who had taken part in the poetry competition earlier this year, although he had not been selected to go on to the final. He told me that he and some other students had been talking about starting a poetry club and that they wanted to know if I would take part and offer guidance and support as they felt things would run more smoothly if I was involved. Of course I accepted.

I told him that I would make an announcement the following day to call all those students who were interested in poetry to come to a meeting in my classroom at lunchtime. There we could brainstorm about what we (they) wanted to do with the poetry club and make a plan for when we would meet.

The next day about 15 students from all grades and social groups turned up for the lunchtime meeting. I had them move the desks into a circle so that we were all facing each other.

I introduced myself to the group for those I did not know, acknowledged the student whose idea it had been, then as I had been asked to do, briefly introduced what the poetry club was all about. In short, it is to be a forum for poets to read their work, get feedback from other poets and discuss poetry. I then suggested we go around the circle and one by one introduce ourselves, tell the group when we started writing poetry, why we enjoy poetry, if there is anything in particular we enjoy writing about, when we write, if there are any poets we admire, and so on.

At first some were shy, but as we went around the circle the students became more engaged and animated. It was beautiful. I then suggested that we decide on the house rules for the meetings of the poetry club, which we did. The rules, (which the students themselves chose), are below.

In order to offer a bit more structure to the club and its meetings, I suggested that we meet twice a week – Tuesdays and Fridays – at lunchtime. At the end of the Friday meetings, I would give students a topic on which they would be expected to write a poem for Tuesday’s meeting. Students would be free to interpret the topic in any way they saw fit. For Friday meetings, students could present any poem they liked – original or that of a poet they admire. My only caveat was that the poems that I assigned must be written in English. Friday’s poems could be written in any language the students liked.

For those who have not ever worked with young people or teenagers, particularly those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, it is difficult to describe the flood of emotions one experiences when you are involved in something that causes the faces of those kids to light up. There was no denying the excitement that each of them felt at the prospect of having a poetry club, having an opportunity to create and share with others in the creative process.

Among the countless forms of discrimination that these kids face, perhaps most saddening is their creative and artistic suffocation. There are not many opportunities for youth to express their creativity and those programs that do exist do not have the resources to accommodate the number of kids wishing to take part.

Today was our first meeting and it went extremely well. Unsurprisingly the poems were incredible…possessing of great depth and power. Students presented their poems – some shyly, some more confident, and then gave each other feedback. All said that they couldn’t wait until the next meeting. I distributed notebooks that had been brought by a friend on a visit to Cape Town to each of the poets for them to keep their poetry in. Though she brought 12 I am on my way to Walton’s this evening to buy more. It was clear very soon into the meeting that one meeting a week wouldnt be enough for each of the students to read their poems, so we decided we would do the assigned poems for both meetings one week and poetry of their choice on alternate weeks.

Yesterday the young man whose idea the group had been approached me to tell me that he had a small drum at home and if I thought it would be a good idea for him to bring the drum for the meeting. I just smiled and nodded.

...

HOUSE RULES

1. All poems assigned by Miss Alex must be written in English.
2. Please be on time for all meetings.
3. Show professionalism and respect your fellow poets.
4. Encourage each other.
5. Be constructive with all criticism.
6. Be non-judgemental
7. What is said in the house, stays in the house.

...

your move...

2009-05-10T03:06:00.000-07:00

About two months ago we began running an after school chess class. This was made possible through an EwB collaboration with Chess for Hope (http://www.ikamva.org/chess-4-hope/index.html), an initiative of Ikamva Labantu, an NGO that runs various programs for youth in the townships. As part of the Chess for Hope program, a teacher would come twice a week to work with the students and teach them how to play chess, while using this platform as a “vehicle for social and personal change”. The program has thus far only been operating in Primary Schools, as this is where they feel they can have the greatest impact (and the proof is in the pudding as their success in the schools in which they have been working over the past few years is astounding), they made an exception for Fezeka.

I was in charge of recruiting students for the chess club, which didn’t prove very difficult, although unfortunately we have yet to have a female member. There are a few girls that drop in from time to time, but generally the core group is all male. In total there are about 12-15 boys who come to my classroom to practice.

Unfortunately, their teacher was recently let go from his position, so the kids have been without a teacher for the past month. I have been assured from my contact at Ikamva Labantu that they are searching for another teacher. Regardless, the students continue to come and play at every opportunity.

For the first few weeks since the Easter Break, we were without Internet at school. Because of this, when we were back up and running late last week the emails to the school came flooding in. Among these was an email to all schools about a Chess Tournament taking place in Kraaifontein. I received the email on a Friday. The tournament was the next day, the deadline to register had been the week before. Undeterred, I tracked down the event organizer and was thankfully able to convince him to let us register anywayand pay a much-reduced registration fee.

The next morning at 7:45 am, my friend Carnita and I were at school to take the 9 students who had been able to go, to the tournament. Waking up at 6:30 on a Saturday morning doesn’t exactly rate highly on my list of favorite things to do but for my kids there’s little that I won’t agree to. We were on our way and the sun was shining brightly. A warm 24 degree autumn day. Gorgeous.

We reached Aristea Primary School around 8:30am. The difference between the school we had just left and the one we were walking into was impossible to ignore, as were the facilities. A green regulation football-sized field and a huge assembly hall greeted us up arrival. Though the students said nothing, I am sure I was not the only one who noticed the stark contrast.

In the hall rows upon rows of tables had been set up, with chess boards sitting atop the length of them. Kids as young as 5 were focused on their games and the din was barely above a murmur. I had told the students to come in full uniform as we were representing the school. As soon as we walked in it was clear we were the only ones who had felt the need to do so. Although I know none of them were pleased about wearing school uniform on a Saturday, none said anything to me. Personally I think they looked the sharpest of the bunch.

I spoke with the woman who appeared to be in charge and paid the registration fee. She informed me that the list of opponents would be posted outside shortly. When the time for this came it ended up there had been an error and all but one of our boys were without a match. They ended up playing each other for the first round. It was a fantastic experience watching all these kids play chess and definitely a first for our kids. It was obvious that many of these children had been playing chess for years and quite a few of them seemed to know each other. In regards to the racial demographic it was indeed mixed, although truth be told, the majority of the black kids were with us or had come as part of the Chess for Hope and Chess for Change (another NGO).

After the second round two of our kids had beaten their opponents, which we celebrated. It was the first time any of them had played against anyone but each other or friends and family members so their wins were especially sweet. As it was an all-day tourney, the time in between the games was quite lengthy. 2 hours was allocated for each game, with a half hour break in between. When it came time for lunch, Carnita and I surprised them by treating them to KFC. They were especially happy about this.

During the breaks the students would play chess with each other and many of the various other kids who were attending the tournament. A large group of children from Chess for Hope were there, many of them very young. These 7-year old girls were challenging our 19-year old boys group with a simple point of the index finger and “you’re next”. And they beat them badly. These kids have been playing for two years and aside from their chess skills, the confidence that playing (and winning) the game has given them is astounding.

The later rounds were not as successful for our boys. Regardless, it was a good day. The students left keener on chess than ever, as there is little that can force a 19-year old man to recognize the need to up his game than getting checkmated by a 7-year old girl in 4 moves.

The most interesting parts of the day came for me in conversations with the group. As I often do in discussions with my students, I gently prodded for information about their lives in an as non-intrusive way as possible. How did they all turn out so good? I asked them. All good students, without any records of truancy, no obvious involvement in crime or drugs, they clearly take their education seriously. Their reply to my question was simple:

Because they have support at home.

It didn’t matter if they came from single parent, grandparent or extended-family headed families, they all have support of some kind at home. This was both poignant and saddening as although this is hardly a surprise, hearing it from the mouths of these kids was for some reason more real, if that makes sense. None of them live in shacks either, I later found out on our car ride home. Carnita’s car rides were no less informative and entertaining. As she is equally interested in the students' lives, they had several great discussions in her car. Our favorite snippet of the conversation follows. Carnita asked each young man who is currently in grade 12 what they wanted to be doing next year and what they thought they were going to be doing next year. The most chatty and confident of the group wasted no time in replying:

“I want to be a civil engineer, but I think I’m going to be a sound engineer.”

…Check.

Eye on the prize.

2009-05-04T05:53:00.000-07:00

Almost daily I am humbled in one way or another living in Cape Town and working in Gugulethu. These reminders of my privilege are generally administered by one of my students.

This morning one of my grade 11 students approached me to discuss his first term mark, with which he was unhappy. Not so much that he was unhappy with me, but rather that he was disappointed with himself and wanted to know what he could do to improve. He is genuinely dedicated to succeeding, despite the laundry list of challenges that lie before him.

He is a new student to the school this year, so I asked him where he had been before Fezeka. He told me that he and his mother had moved to the Cape Town area this year from the Free State province, located in the North West of the country and known as the Transvaal during the Apartheid era. To this day, Free State remains the most racist part of the country where the discriminatory beliefs of the old regime are still clung to by many of the Boers living there and it is where, as recently as last year, the 18 year old son of a white farmer opened fire in a black township and killed 6 – the youngest of which was 6 months old.

I asked my student what it was like growing up in Free State. “It was hard Miss,” was all he replied, though it was clear that he was understating the realities of just how bad. I asked him what he found hardest about the move to the Western Cape and Cape Town. He said that he was really struggling with the English, as the English he had been taught in Primary School was far more basic. For all intents and purposes the Bantu education system seemed to be alive and well in Free State, as this young man’s proficiency in the language is quite poor, despite the fact that he is clearly a student who is trying his best.

Then he told me where he lives.

Tokkai is located in the Southern Suburbs, about 30-odd kilometres from Fezeka. Every weekday morning, this young man leaves the house at 5:30 am and takes a bus, a train and two taxis to get to school for 8:00 am. I asked him why he then chose to attend Fezeka and not a school that was closer to home and he told me that he had heard Fezeka was the best so he knew it was the place for him.

He went on to tell me that he and one of his friends (another student of mine) have started an after school study group (of 2), so that they can help each other out in the subject areas with which they are struggling. Sometimes, he told me, they stay at school until 6:00pm or later. Stunned, I asked him what time this meant he got home.

Smiling, he looked at me and replied: “Miss, it’s okay if I’m at school late. I really want to succeed. I’m dedicated to succeeding. If I get home at 10pm its okay because I am coming from school. I’m not running the streets getting into trouble. I am at school, studying, trying to make a difference for my future. Because if I don’t, no one else will.”

Ray of Light

2009-04-28T22:29:00.000-07:00

In preparation for a city-wide poetry, reading, speech-writing and art competition last month, we held an in-school tryout to determine which students would be representing Fezeka. I was asked to adjudicate. Initially reluctant (“How can I judge their poetry?!”), by the end I was so grateful to have been selected for the job. To say I was blown away by the quality of their works seems inadequate. Stirring, emotional, eloquently-worded original poetry flowed out of their young mouths like it had been doing so for years. Some had found out about the competition the day prior and written their pieces the night before. I could not tell which were which. Their poems left the audience in tears…wild applause and cheers. Absolutely fantastic.

The subject matters of the poems were of note as well. Of 17 poets, 2 wrote about experiences of rape, 2 about HIV and AIDS, 2 were about war, 3 were about identity and sense of self. The remainder touched on dreams for the future, fighting discrimination and the search for equality, among others.

After an extremely difficult selection process I was able to decide on the two winners. We entered one student from Grade 10 and one from Grade 11. Just before the Easter break respective school winners were invited to an event at the Cape Town Central Library, where students from different schools got a chance to see and hear the works of their peers. Of about 90 students, only 5 were asked to read theirs out loud. The poem below is our Grade 10 student’s entry, which was one of the 5 selected to be read. The poem that follows that is our Grade 11 students’ entry. No one winner was chosen from the group and all students were given R100 certificates to CNA, which is a book and stationary store. Our 8 students (2 from each of the poetry, reading, speech-writing and art categories), were all ecstatic about their prizes and when we took them to the store to use their certificates they literally were like kids in candy stores. Only this candy was books and school supplies. Which one could easily argue is much better for your teeth.

...

Will we ever reach the Promised Land?

Remember the days,
When Apartheid reigned?

People suffered and cried,
Till they couldn’t cry no more.
Parents were taken away,
And children left without hope.

Blood was shed, sacrifices were made,
Some were failed and some were prisoners.
In the name of “inkululeko”, freedom.

Fists were lifted high, people screaming:
“Amandla, amandla nga wethu!”
The power is ours for they wanted to reach
the Promised Land,
Land of freedom.

Finally the day that all awaited arrived.
Freedom arrived, people jumped up and down saying:
“We are the Rainbow Nation”.

But what lies behind the rainbow?

We see crime and HIV seriously want to take control,
Rape and abuse are becoming a tradition,
Political intolerance is becoming fashion.

And now we cry everyday asking:
“Will we ever reach the Promised Land?”
Remember ‘Aluta continua’:
The Battle is still on.

...

African Girl

I am an African Girl.

I am proud to be an African Girl.

I live in Africa.
I dress like an African.
I speak an African language.
I eat African food because
I am an African Girl.

I am as black as black can be.
Dark as sunshine and lily flowers.

When it comes to reading I
usually go to the library to brush
dust from ancient texts.
Because I am and African and
I want to know my background.
From scrolls I will read about my past.

To new generations who are trying to
run away from their cultures,
I wish that they would follow and enjoy my culture.

I am a natural resource.

When it comes to hair, I am as natural as they come.
I don’t wear artificials because I can’t change my nature
or
because I want to look like
somebody that I am not
because
I am a natural girl.

When it comes to cosmetics,
I use Sunlight blue soap.

Because I am an African Girl.

Voting Day

2009-04-22T09:15:00.000-07:00

Today is voting day. For the last few weeks there has been much fuss made about what its outcome will be, although it is of little doubt given that Dr. Mandela has now so publically lent his support to the ruling African National Congress party (ANC). This is troubling. Not so much for the party as for the man who will run the country should they win. Unfortunately, many people will vote for the ANC not because of what it and Jacob Zuma stand for, but rather based on the fact that they see the ANC as the party that brought Democracy to South Africa. Such politics do not bode well for the history of this country. As my housemate so concisely put it – the ANC of 1994 would never have wanted the ANC of 2009.

Similarly to other countries where issues around race are forever part of the landscape, people here tend to continue to vote along racial lines. In a conversation with one of my friends who is coloured, she told me that she has spoken with friends of hers who despite being educated and for the most part politically aware, refuse to vote for the Democratic Alliance (internet poll-elected ‘Mayor of the World’ Helen Zille – the current mayor of Cape Town who after today will either be Premier of the Western Cape or a member of the Provincial Legislature), is a DA party member and this part of the Western Cape is the only part of the country where the Democratic Alliance has any significant presence). My friend went on to say that she would indeed cast her ballot for the DA as her vote was based on service delivery rather than the historical race issues surrounding the various parties. As with those who will vote for the ANC for what significance it holds for them in history, for many the DA still to this day represents the white man.

Regardless of the outcome, today and every voting day since 1994 is a huge day in this country, having been declared a public holiday in order to give everyone ample chance to vote. People have come out in droves to exercise their democratic right today, with some polling stations taking hours to enter due to overwhelming voter turnout and lines of people rounding city blocks.

In spite of this significance, one cannot help but feel concerned (frightened?) at the very real likelihood that tomorrow this nation will wake up to find that their new leader is an accused (although later acquitted amidst great controversy) rapist who has hundreds of corruption and fraud charges brought against him* and whose very public and widely publicized HIV prevention method involves showering after unprotected sex.

...

* http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3086&art_id=vn20090422051146846C870668

we are the world.

2009-04-19T11:10:00.000-07:00

On Friday I got a phone call from a guy who works with the drama club from time to time. He told me that he had a group of American students with him and wanted to bring them to meet our Drama kids.

After school the 20-odd strong American contingent arrived, 18 students and about 5 adults from a small private drama school located close to Monterey Bay in California. All Juniors and Seniors, I would guess ranged in age from about 15-17 and were accompanied by two teachers, a photographer, a videographer, their South African contact, a Nigerian teacher with whom they were working, and my contact.

A very well-behaved group of teenagers, my first observation was on how smartly they were all dressed. Boys dressed in trousers, shirts and ties, girls in blouses and skirts. The group was overwhelmingly female and predominately Caucasian.

When school had let out our kids joined the group in my classroom. I suggested we move into a circle to better facilitate conversation. The American teacher then put them into groups that were mixed with students from both schools. Students spent some time chatting, learning about each other and finding common interests. When we returned to the circle the teacher asked them to volunteer some information about what they had learned. Tastes in music were quite similar, types of school that the two groups of students attended were not. The American school is apparently quite small, with only a couple of a hundred students, and is located in the middle of lush Californian forest. In contrast Fezeka has over 1100 learners is located in the middle of a township with no forests and very little greenery for miles.

The conversation was candid and warm, all students clearly happy to learn about a new culture. A drum was brought in and our students, with no hesitation began singing and dancing for the visitors. Initially our students were standing on one side of the class and the Americans on the other, but soon they were again in a circle. One by one our students went into the middle of the circle while the drum beat played and danced, then pulled various American students into the circle to dance with them. It was lovely.

The American students, having been in South Africa for the better part of 3 weeks, had been trying to learn the South African national anthem. They had succeeded in learning the first verse, which is no small feat. They asked our kids to sing with them, and our kids obliged. Afterwards, I told them that it was only fair that they now sing their national anthem for the Fezeka students. They decided against this because of its high pitch and instead opted to sing a song from Rent.

Afterwards the Fezeka students performed a couple of short drama pieces that they had written for the visitors. Again, I urged the Americans to reciprocate. As it turns out, a huge part of their school drama program is a 3 hour Indian play which they have been putting on for 30 years. When students arrive at the school in kindergarten they play a certain role in the production, and this role changes according to their age and grade. As it was such a long play, they decided to do a short piece from it that involved singing and dancing. Afterwards a very talented young man in the American group did some incredible break dancing, which blew everyone in the room away.

At the end of the shared time students sat in a circle and had the opportunity to say anything they wanted, many offered words of thanks and appreciation for having had the opportunity to share with each other, if only for a couple hours.

It was what one of the American students said that struck me the most and is the impetus for this blog entry. Reflecting on the time they had spent together, she told the Fezeka students how this had been her favorite experience of the whole trip. Before visiting Fezeka, the teacher had told me, the students had been to Kruger national part and seen the big 5; spent time visiting various tourist destinations and that very morning had had a private audience with Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Yet, this experience had been her favorite. She then went on to say how inspired she had been by our kids and how confident and warm they had been when asked to perform. When the American students had sung and performed, many were giggling, looking at each other and blushing in shyness. Very few were confident enough to sing in their loudest voice.
By contrast, she continued, the South African students were unabashed in their singing, dancing, acting and friendliness. Almost all sang in their loudest voices, clapping and cheering others on while they did the same. They were not shy, reserved or apprehensive about getting up and dancing in front of strangers.

Her observation was quite astute and got me to thinking about the reasons for this. Obviously singing and dancing plays a prominent role in South African culture, but is that all? In the Western world, most children of privilege are raised to believe that they can do anything! The world is your oyster! You are capable! You have potential! From my experience, this is rarely the case with the students I teach and one would most certainly assume others from the townships. Yet it was the drama students from the private school in the woods who had a harder time performing in front of strangers than the economically deprived drama kids from the township.

It should be said that in no way am I trying to pass any sort of judgment here – all the students were incredible and talented and wonderful – merely that their differing levels of willingness to perform was an interesting notion to consider while speculating on the basis for these differences.

touch.

2009-03-04T09:04:00.000-08:00

In Western teaching contexts teachers are discouraged and often fearful from having any direct physical contact with students. A hand on the shoulder could be misinterpreted as a come on, paying too much attention to a particular student could be seen as inappropriate. While granted there are incidences where such over-caution is warranted, the majority of it is characteristic of the Western World’s oft sterile and individualistic cultures. Take away touch and you take away the warmth of human contact. Stay away from me you have germs.

Such phobias are unheard of here. Touch is an integral part of the cultures and communities within which I work. Students are extremely affectionate with each other, constantly holding hands, arms draped over and around each other, regardless of gender. Teachers are the same with one another, and constantly speak to each other using such affectionate terms such as ‘sweetie’, ‘baby’, ‘darling’ and ‘my angel’. The issue of personal space is a foreign concept. Behaviour that may be considered improper on a different latitude is part of the everyday. Being a very tactile person by nature, I thrive in such a context, particularly with my students who smile when I call them sweetheart or greet me with hugs after an extended break from school.

South Africans often kiss on the lips when they greet. There is nothing sexual about this. Family members do it. Friends do it. Sometimes people who are meeting for the first time do it. Having first being exposed to this practice when I lived in Australia among many Zimbabweans and South Africans I was not surprised the first time a man I had just met (a friend of a friend) kissed me on the lips when we parted ways. I can’t help but laugh however at the thought of how such a custom would be interpreted back home...

Systemic Discrimination.

2009-02-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

The other day after class, one of my Grade 10 students shyly approached me to tell me that she couldn’t read. I asked her if it was the order of words she had trouble with, for if she was mixing up the words it would likely be dyslexia rather than illiteracy. She said no, that it was the words themselves. The smaller ones she was okay with but the bigger words she simply could not understand.

Spending time dwelling on how this young woman has made it as far as Grade 10 without being able to read is futile. This harsh reality serves as only another reminder of how sub-par the education that black children receive in this country. She is unable to read in High School because in Primary School she wasn’t properly taught the fundamentals.

This student is not unique in being a victim of this injustice. She is just the only one who has been brave enough to speak up.

"What a strange thing a dead bodies."

2009-02-24T09:03:00.000-08:00

After a lesson discussing the use of imagery and painting a picture for readers in creative writing, students were asked to write something beginning with the following sentence:

“I turned the corner and couldn’t believe what I saw…”

...

I turned the corner and I could’nt believe what i saw. Last weekend i saw two people were drunk, they were drinking alcohol one of them drink too much than other one. So Sipho beat Xolani. I ran to tell my parents they were in the dark place, my heart was beating fast beacose Sipho was having gun, and Xolani was having knife. I was afraid as if they will shot me then my parents go to that tavel so they were stopping them but Sipho did’nt listen to them. He shot Xolani and he died immediately. At that night I did’nt sleep beacose it was like Xolani is in side the house I was sweating and I did’nt even breath beacoze I was scard.

…

I turned the corner and could’nt believe what I saw…

A young lady was beaten by her boy-friend, her mouth was red like a tomato. People were watching that scary thing. Her boyfriend was like a lion seeking for a meat, everybody was scared at the beach. The boy took the young lsay and they went to the sea to wash the young lady’s face because, here face was stll full of blood. I was very very angry that day I felt like that boy is beating me. What is worse is that the young lady was wearing swimming clothes and it was a hot day.

...

I turned the corner and couldn’t believe what I saw, The guy that I dreamed about yesterday at night and I was very shocked because it was my first time seeing him, I saw him once on my dream and I couldn’t believe it. I never talked with him, I never walked with him but I dreamed about him, why? The answer is... I’m in love with him. It was like i’m seeing the president or someone special, I had that feeling when the world is smilling and you and you’re smiling back. It was a sunny day, and I was walking alone same as he. When I looked at him i blushed and he smiled back at me, I thought he loved me be he didn’t because I found out that he has a gal of his own, I was very disapointed and sad Because I never felt that way in my life. The moment he pass through me I was like i’m in heaven where there’s only happiness not sadness but all I had was a dream.

...

I turned the corner and couldn’t believe what I saw The beuatiful child and who was the girl. She cried so sad and with a sad face. And she was so hungry. If think she is about 7-8 monts her mother left her in the dump. Becouse the boyfriend left the mother of the child. He said this child is not my.

...

I turned the corner and couldn’t believe what I saw a beatiful moon and stars in the blue sky and I felt like I was dreaming. Because I never saw the darkenss of the night. What a romantic night to day. Just me chiling on the beach. But most people were enjoying the part in the beach near to me. But on my mind therse something is telling me that something is going to happened. But I didn’t mind for that. People were swimming other enjoying their drinks. And this thing in my mind keeps going and now I felt so afraid and cold. Then I feel the wind after that I started shaking. One of the girls asked me What is going on you seemd like you afraid of something? then I said yes, I feel like therse some thing is gion to happened. And the wing was too strong. Therse nothing I can all I have is to worn those people to hide now because now I have I huge feeling that it is not wind only. I sai hide, hide. One of them said what. Then I speak loudly every on hide, hide. But they were not strong enough to high. The what a dark huge rain and block of ice were falling down. Then I hide for my self with the others that they have power to stand up. But when the wind, ice and rain was gone in the morning. What a strange thing a dead bodies. Some of them they fell under the bottles of alcohol and glasses. What a strong blood of people. Then after that my hope was gone I felt therse no one left.

...

heat.

2009-02-08T13:52:00.000-08:00

February is often the hottest month in Cape Town. With the mercury hitting 38 degrees over the past few days, 2009 looks to be no exception.

At school, in a loose blouse and skirt, I am sweating. Yet my students – in some combination of polyester tracksuit, poly blend skirt (with nylons) or trousers, button down shirt, wool sweater, tie and blazer – rarely make any adjustment to their uniforms. When I tell them they can take off their jackets and sweaters or loosen their ties, none of them do, even when they are constantly fanning themselves and perspiration is visibly forming on their faces.

At home sitting in our kitchen, my feet on the cool tiled floors, every available door and window open and a fan in my face, the heat is not unpleasant. Take away these luxuries, replace windows and doors and cool tiles and fans with corrugated metal walls and a tin roof and this scene does a complete 180.

In seeking relief from the scorching temperatures, many Capetonians head to the beach and the more affluent lounge by their pools. For most of my students, this is simply not an option. Despite being less than a half hour drive for most, beaches are generally out of reach due to lack of transport. Camps Bay is not a popular route for the mini taxis that go to and from the townships…

in the staffroom during lunch just now,

2009-01-27T13:07:00.000-08:00

some colleagues sitting around me were deeply involved in a conversation of a serious matter. As they were speaking in Xhosa it was their body languages and hushed tones that conveyed the topic of their discussion to me rather than their words.

When they stopped, I asked the one closest to me what they had been talking about.

"Death," came her reply. "Death and breavement."

Death is an inescapable part of township life. It is everywhere - from the dead dogs that are so common on the roads into and around Gugulethu, to the shack fires that regularly destroy homes (the most recent a mighty blaze that erased 200 shacks and left over 1000 homeless), to the teacher absences several times a month for bereavement, to the metaphorical death of potential so visible in the countless young adults - high school dropouts or grads - I see wandering around the townships during the day, desolate and unemployed.

I asked my colleague what she would guess the leading cause of death to be in those that are dying before their time.

"HIV, especially young women," she replied without a moment's hesitation.

I asked her if she knew many people who were positive.

"Yes. And who have died. We all do."

She spoke of how women are the more easily infected and how the power balance in sexual relationships is so extremely far from equal.

"It is not even a surprise," she said, "to hear of a married woman who has been infected by her husband."

This increasingly common occurrence is of course due to the husbands in these relationships being unfaithful, not using protection in these extra-marital affairs, and refusing to use condoms with their wives.

My colleague continued. “Men - especially married men - do not like to wear condoms. They say that they do not enjoy sex with them, and find it an insult to even be asked."

Confirmation of this behavior by adult men comes as little surprise. I have often seen evidence of these learned attitudes and beliefs exhibited by my male students who spout a similar rhetoric when justifying their unsafe sex practices.

happy new year!

2009-01-23T17:58:00.000-08:00

At Fezeka we spent the first few days of this week preparing for a new school year. Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to planning, timetabling and analysis of last year’s (rather discouraging as failure rates were quite high) student reports.

In these meetings I learned that I would not be teaching my 2008 Grade 11 English students, despite what I had been previously advised and what I had subsequently told my students. The reason for this decision was explained as follows. Grade 12 is the Matriculation (exams students must pass in order to graduate high school) year for students and as such is a very important milestone in their education. Those who teach Grade 12 are subject to rigorous and continuous evaluation and monitoring by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED). When Fazeka’s Senior Management Team (SMT) met after the close of school last year, they decided that my students should be taught by a teacher who is actually registered with the WCED (versus myself, who since I am not, am not technically qualified to teach in a Western Cape school), to avoid any issues with departmental officials.

While I was disappointed to not be spending another year with this group of students, I understood the reasoning behind their decision. On the plus side, I am still teaching 2 of the classes I had from last year – those from my grade 10 English classes who were promoted to grade 11 (sadly, only about 60% of them), and those from my grade 10 Life Orientation class in the same situation (a slightly better average with about a 68% pass rate). I am also teaching a new grade 10 class – a mixture of new students from our [feeder school that teaches grade 8 and 9] Songeze campus and repeater students from Fezeka who did not pass grade 10 last year. Further, fortunately the teacher who will be teaching my Grade 11s from last year is my closest colleague and we have since discussed ways that we can share the teaching of this group of students.

Although I know teachers are not supposed to have favorites, I must admit that I was particularly saddened to find one of my brightest pupils from grade 10 last year had not made the grade to pass on to grade 11. On the first day of classes one of the class teachers (Fezeka’s equivalent of a homeroom teacher) was absent. As I am not a class teacher, I was asked to mind the class for the day. I won’t get into the chaos that reigned supreme on day one of the 2009 school year, but suffice to say that things could have been far better organized. When the dust settled, the group I had herded into my classroom was composed of about 48 students who had chosen this classroom based on a sign I had held up during morning assembly that listed the subjects students who chose this classroom would be taking. (At least most of them did. Once inside my classroom I informed them that I wouldn’t actually be teaching them and that I was just filling in for their actual class teacher who was absent, 4 students asked to be excused and never came back). Other teachers also held up signs with course lists on them, and students grouped accordingly. In this class I spotted about 10 students who had been in my English class last year. I was surprised to find this particular student among them as I had assumed based on his performance in my class last year that he would have breezed into the next year.

I could tell as soon as I saw him that he was embarrassed to be there. He didn’t speak once during class, even when his colleagues were chatting away noisily while I distributed their school-issued stationary and books for the year. When it was his turn to collect his allocation, I quietly asked him what had happened.

“Maths, Miss,” he immediately replied without looking up, as if he had known I would ask and was too shy to make eye contact. “Math is not my thing,” he continued.

I asked him what else he had failed, for as far as I knew if students failed one subject but attained at least a level 4 (40% and above) in all other subjects, they were promoted to the next grade. He said only Maths. This both confused and surprised me, and as he shuffled back to his seat I made a mental note to explore this further.

After school I went to speak to relevant department Head (incidentally, the same person who is responsible for students’ social welfare is also the year head for grade 10), to ask her what had gone on. We looked up his report card from last year and found that not only had he failed Maths, but History and IT as well. I also noticed that the mark he had received in my class was the highest of the lot, and that he had only passed [Home Language] Xhosa by the skin of his teeth (Home Language is often one of the highest marks students receive). Hm.

The next day I found him in the schoolyard during lunch and asked him to come to my classroom. When we were inside I asked him why he had told me that he had only failed Maths. Though his skin is quite dark, I could still notice a reddening in his cheeks.

“Because Miss, I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you. I wanted you to find out for yourself.”

We then spoke about the year ahead and what he could do differently to ensure that the same mistake doesn’t happen. He said he was going to be more focused this year and try harder. I asked him about his Xhosa mark. He said that before Fezeka he had been at an English school (which explains his strength in English), and that when he was put into Xhosa class here at Fezeka it had been difficult for him because it had been some time since he had studied the language.

Before we parted I told him that I would be keeping an eye on him this year and checking in with him every once in a while to see how he was doing on his studies. He thanked me for this and said he would not let me down. I reminded him that it was himself more than anyone that he should be worrying about letting down but whatever works as the motivating factor works for me, so long as he tries his best.

And so, we start the New Year. At the beginning of the second week of school, things are beginning to calm down somewhat, as students are moved around to best accommodate their desired areas of study as well as class sizes, and timetabling kinks are ironed out.

Over the next stretch some of the initiatives that Education without Borders, www.educationwithoutborders.ca has been the catalyst for in a variety of ways will begin to take flight. After school photography workshops with a fantastic local photographer www.vanessacowling.com and a chess cum life skills program (Chess 4 Hope, a community project being offered by Ikamva Labantu www.ikamva.org/index.html) are due to get going in mid-Feb. The procurement and distribution of English dictionaries to all students at Fezeka (something I am extremely excited about and have been advocating for some time), will hopefully come to fruition in the next few weeks. We are continuing with the very successful dance workshops that began last year with ikapa Dance Theatre www.ikapadancetheatre.co.za, and once school has settled into a more stable routine, I will resume my after school computer classes, meet with the students who had expressed an interest in starting a school magazine, and check in with the Drama Club to see how things are going.

Despite the fact that this year has only just begun and I have said that my time at Fezeka will likely come to an end at the conclusion of this school year, people (students, staff, family and friends both here and at home), have already asked me about where next year (2010) will find me. Although it is indeed far too early to tell, the warmth that I felt from staff and students who welcomed me back and eagerly shared their summer holiday stories with me while asking about mine, coupled with the familiar high I experienced during a terrific class last week give me the impression that I may not be going anywhere fast…

We didn't start the fire...

2009-01-18T09:27:00.000-08:00

…It was always burning
Since the world’s been turning
We didn’t start the fire
No we didn’t light it
But we tried to fight it..

Adderley Street is one of the main avenues in Cape Town, running through the centre of the downtown core. Every year about two months before Christmas, a celebration is held to herald the turning on of the holiday lights that bridge the street.

In an attempt to get into the Christmas spirit (no small feat for Canadians who are accustomed to cold weather accompanying the season celebrating Christ’s birth, and for whom 30+ degree weather is generally more closely tied into our nation’s birthday), my housemate and two other Canadian friends headed downtown to scoop it out late last year.

One of the first things I noticed as we approached Adderley was how many coloured people there were. Everywhere we looked, everyone was coloured. It was an interesting experience. As mentioned in previous blogs, despite the ‘end’ of apartheid 14 years ago, people often still remain separated (metaphorically as well as demographically) with certain neighbourhoods being clearly dominated by one race or another. Working in Gugulethu, the primary ethnic group that I associate with is black, whereas living in Cape Town there is a much larger percentage of whites and coloureds. I have been to nightclubs in Athlone – a suburb largely populated by coloureds – where the majority of people there were coloured, and of course on a daily basis interact with coloureds in various capacities. This was the first time that I had been in an environment where there were so many coloureds and little else.

To put it into context, according to the newspapers that were out the following day, close to 50 000 people attended the switching-on event. I would wager that about 99% of those in attendance were coloured. During our close to 2 hour time there, I saw about 15 black people and about 5 other white people. I kid you not.

In a later conversation with one of my coloured friends, she explained to me that for many coloureds who live in the Northern suburbs, particularly those who come from working class and poor homes, this night is an event that is looked forward to for much of the year. It’s a chance to engage in a quasi-cultural event with the whole family. As many do not come into the city that often, it is indeed a special occasion.

While I did not at any time feel unsafe during this excursion, for some reason it got me to thinking about my safety.

By far, the most common question people (white Capetonians, many of whom who have never been into a township, equally as much foreigners) ask me when I tell them I am working in a township has to do with whether: a) it is safe and b) I feel safe.

My answer to both questions is always the same: Yes. That said, I do not drive into the heart of Gugulethu, I do not walk around beyond the school gates, and I do not drive to the townships at night alone. My school is enclosed by an electronic barbed wire-rimmed fence, and those at my school – students and staff alike – always look out for me. Before I had a car and would take public transport, they would never let me walk to the bus station by myself, despite it being a 4 minute walk in a strait line on a wide open road in broad daylight. You can literally see the bus station from the school gates. Regardless, I have been reminded countless times how easy it is to get robbed or worse, and have heard stories of students getting mugged steps from school property and how my white skin makes me an easily visible target.

As with any urban metropolis, it is important to have your wits about you when navigating the streets of Cape Town. I don’t take chances, nor do I believe in being overly-cautious. Crime happens everywhere, all the time. I know of friends here who have been robbed, hijacked, had their cars and homes broken into and held up at knife and gunpoint in every corner of the world. While the frequency of such crimes may not be the same in a city like Toronto, New York, Shanghai or London, the reality is that they still do happen.

The fact that where I work happens to be a black township I believe plays a significant role in people’s questions relating to my safety. There is a common belief, particularly among those Capetonians and South Africans who have never been into a township, that black townships are extraordinarily dangerous. This belief is to a large extent perpetuated by the media and the headlines that are regularly posted on signposts around the city having to do with murders, hijackings and theft in the townships. In no way am I disputing that these are dangerous places, but perhaps more pointing to the importance of contextualizing such incidences. Poverty and decades of oppression, understandably, leads to anger, resentment and desperation. Such emotions and sentiments lend themselves easily to crime and substance abuse as a (albeit extremely misguided) means of attempting to level the playing field and/or escape. Ostracizing a people, forcing them to live in areas away from the city centres, with education, health care facilities and everyday conveniences that are far substandard to those enjoyed by their white and (although to a lesser extent), coloured countrymen, only serves to further stoke the flames lit by this injustice.

All this said however, when I am in and around Cape Town, there are a few times that I have felt my safety may be at risk. Despite holding what I consider to be an extremely liberal ethos in all aspects, I would be lying if I said that I haven’t noticed a trend in the race of those around whom I have at times felt uneasy.

On those few occasions where I have thought I may be in danger, or felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle, it has almost always been coloured – not black as many would and do believe – young men and women that have the source of this uneasiness.

This said, I feel it important to clarify that in no way do I feel uncomfortable around all coloureds, only that in these few instances I couldn’t help but notice the common thread. My liberal guilt forces me to question why this may be, and why I don’t feel the same threat around young white or black youth. Working with black youth accounts for the overwhelming majority of my interactions with young people, so perhaps this has made me more comfortable with young blacks than most living in Cape Town may be. I do not interact with white youth very often, aside from in shops, at concerts and out and about around the city. Coloured youth perhaps more so, although not a great deal.

So why the apprehension?

As mentioned in various blogs over the past year, race relations and their according power dynamic are inextricably linked to the history of this country. The apartheid regime indoctrinated a nation with an innate sense of self-worth – ranging from positive to extremely negative – depending on where one is located on the skin colour hierarchy.

To this day, South African blacks, for all intents and purposes, are and continue to be on the lower level of this hierarchy. They have been seen and treated as the lowest class, and kept in oppression through a range of means (an article on the current state of the education system and its continued devastating effect on black youth can be read here: http://www.news24.com/City_Press/News/0,,186-187_2448315,00.html). Most understand themselves in relation to this powerlessness, and many have accepted it as such. The immediate and undue respect I was accorded by my colleagues, as a white Westerner whom many assumed knew better than them, is perhaps one example of this acceptance. At the top rung are the whites, which will come as no surprise. The coloureds fall somewhere in the middle.

Perhaps similarly to the middle-child syndrome, I believe that the poorer coloureds of this country are the most affected by feelings of inadequacy, as while they are not as disadvantaged as the blacks, they are a far cry from the privileges enjoyed by the whites. For many on the lower end of the socio-economic scale, I believe this has created a deep-seeded resentfulness and sense of unfulfilled entitlement, particularly towards whites.

In no way do I claim to be a sociologist or equipped to make any kind of psychological analysis based on any of what I have written, these are only my thoughts. When a coloured girl swears at me in Afrikaans or a group of young coloured men walk a little too closely to me my heart beats a bit more quickly than usual. And not in a good way.

Am I foolish to think that [my believed theory of poor coloureds’] resentfulness means that I am any more likely to be harmed or have a crime committed against me by a coloured person than by someone who is white or black? Probably. Unsubstantiated fear is indeed a difficult thing to justify and understand.

…We didn’t start the fire
But when we are gone
Will it still burn on, and on, and on and on…

- Billy Joel

Welcome home!

2009-01-16T14:07:00.000-08:00

I returned to Cape Town on Monday of this week, after being home in Canada for a month over the summer holidays. During that time my life here in South Africa might as well have been on the moon, so distant was it in my mind. Despite being sad to leave my loved ones in Toronto behind, I wasn’t dreading a return to a South African summer and going back to school. I am one of the fortunate ones who actually enjoys their job, I suppose.

As my visa to be in South Africa was to expire on January 27th, 2009 (as stated on the visa that has been in my passport since late 2007) and applications for visa extensions must be lodged at least a month before the old one is to expire, I began the initial steps of my application before I left for Canada at the beginning of December. I was unable to complete the application before my departure as it required a Police Clearance certificate from my home country that was valid within the last 6 months (the futility of requiring such a thing when I have been living here for the last year seemed to be apparent only to me), and I would need to be in Canada to acquire said documentation. I was given an extension on my visa application, with the police clearance and the R11,500 repatriation fee (as I am without a valid return ticket), to be rendered upon my return and the completion of my application.

Our plane touched down in Cape Town around 6:45 am on January 11th, 2009. Bleary-eyed from the close to 12-hour sleepless flight, I made my way to customs, pleased with the place at the front of the customs line that my speedy exit from the plane had provided me with. I greeted the customs agent with a sleepy smile, and handed over my passport. On numerous occasions upon my re-entry to R.S.A. I have had customs agents who are from Gugulethu and some who even studied at Fezeka. They are always pleased that I am working there, and usually send me on my way with a big smile. Not this customs agent. As she checked my visa, her brows furrowed. She then asked for my return ticket. When I told her did not have one, and that my visa extension application was with Home Affairs in town, she looked even more confused. Oh boy.

She then called over who I can only assume was her superior, who curtly informed me that my visa was no longer valid. Say what?

Ignoring the preamble and the parts of the visa that give my name, passport and visa number, what is printed on my visa follows:

...

“Authority to proceed to the Republic to report to an Immigration officer at a port or port of entry has been granted by the Department of Home Affairs.

Number of Entries: Multiple Entry on or before 27/01/2009
Issued at: S.A. Consulate General Toronto on 28/12/2007

Conditions:
To be admitted for a period of twelve (12) months.

Volunteer at Fezeka S. School in Gugulethu Cape Town.

RETURN TICKET WAIVED. ”

...

Despite my pointing out to this ever-so-charming individual that it is clearly printed on the visa that it is valid until the 27th of the month, she refuted what I said, claiming that they pay attention to the ‘admitted for a period of 12 months’ part, and that since my first entry into the Republic had been on January 9th, 2008, my visa had expired on January 9th, 2009;

the day before yesterday.

I told her that I had spent time at Home Affairs in town prior to my departure, that they had scrutinized my passport, looked at my visa, and said that I had until the 27th of December to lodge my visa extension application (a month before my existing one expired). The agent was unmoved and advised me that Home Affairs and Customs were two separate things. Exhausted and uncharacteristically too drained to fight, I asked her what my options were.

“You can either go back to London (where my flight had just come from), or buy a one-way ticket home to Canada,” I was told.

I asked to speak with her supervisor, who, although friendlier, basically reiterated what she had said, with the added option of paying a R12,000 repatriation fee on the spot. When I told him I had this money at home to submit with my visa extension application, he asked me if there was anyone at home who could bring it to the airport for me. It was now 7:45 a.m. Feeling my anger rise, I told him that there was not, and that I lived alone. Could I put the fee on my credit card? Yes, he said, although it would be a mission to get back. What? He said that it takes time, it has to go to Johannesburg and that sometimes they take a fee. WHAT? This man was telling me that I could pay a deposit of which I might not get back the entire amount?

Fine, I acquiesced; I would buy a one-way fully refundable ticket, which I would refund as soon as my visa extension was approved. He then told me that he didn’t know if I could get a refundable ticket. It was at this point that I demanded to speak to a British Airways employee who could sell me the refundable ticket and get me out of the holding room they reserve for interrogating people they suspect of misdoings and illegally entering the country.
The BA employees were lovely women, who walked me passed the baggage reclaim, out the gates, through the airport and into the departure terminal, and helped me get my [indeed, fully refundable] ticket. When they found out that I was volunteering, they shook their heads in disgust at the fact that I had been denied entry. They told me they had heard all kinds of stories; of families being turned back because of a spelling error on one of the children’s visas; of people being sent back on the next flight because they didn’t know they had to have a return ticket and didn’t have the money to pay for one on the spot, or people being denied entry because they didn’t have any spare pages in their passport upon which to stick the 1.5 x 2.5 inch visa sticker.

I was then escorted back where I showed the customs agent my ticket and was given a 3 month visitors visa. After I collected my bags and was about to exit into the arrivals terminal, I was stopped by two men who check bags and asked about the contents of my luggage. Any alcohol, food, cigarettes or gifts?

“No,” I replied, “I prefer to support the local economy.”
“Oh do you live here?” One of them asked.
“Yes.”
“Okay then. Welcome home!”

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

On Wednesday I spent almost the entire (sweltering hot) day at Home Affairs in town waiting to submit the remainder of my visa extension application. I was a bit concerned that the fact that I now had a 3 month visitor’s visa might affect the fact that I was applying for an extension on a different visa that was apparently no longer valid, but wasn’t about to point that out to any of the officials with whom I spoke. My experience at Home Affairs and what I witnessed other applicants going through could fill another blog in of itself, but suffice to say that one would be hard pressed to believe that the Republic of South Africa welcomes visitors and those wanting to extend their stays, so rude and dismissive were many of the people behind the counter, particularly towards those whose grasp of the English language was not very good.

At precisely 12pm, 6 of the 8 staff who had been working behind the counter went on lunch, leaving 1 manager and 1 trainee to handle the 100+ crowd of people waiting in different lines. I didn’t say a word when I was sent to the wrong line twice and only told I was in the wrong line when I reached the front of the line as this had happened when I had been there to submit the first part of my application in early December. Not to mention when I was sent to the wrong office on the other side of town, only to be told when I arrived there that I couldn’t file the visa extension at that location. I later found this out to allegedly be untrue, but at this point I think it better to cover all my bases than to believe anything anyone who works for Home Affairs or Customs says. Finally, after waiting, starving and sweating for over 6 hours, my visa extension was in my passport. Success! This only happened because the 4th woman to handle my application was herself a former student at Fezeka and walked me up to the office on the floor above where the visas were physically put into the passports. After I paid my repatriation fee, the man behind the counter asked me if I hadn’t had to pay one in Canada when I made my initial application in late 2007. Indeed I had, I told him. He then informed me that the receipt for that deposit would have sufficed to pay my deposit here. Of course, I had not been told this by Home Affairs in Cape Town prior to my departure, nor was I informed of this little tidbit of information by the staff the South African Consulate General in Toronto, whom I spoke with on 3 different occasions during the month I was in Canada for the holidays, and as a result the receipt for my initial deposit is somewhere at my mother’s house in Toronto.

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud.

To add insult to injury, when the refund for my airline ticket appeared on my credit card statement yesterday (2 days after the initial charge had been processed), because of foreign exchange rate fluctuations, I ended up getting charged $55 CDN or close to R450 (almost a quarter of my monthly rent) for the ticket.

Lol…

And one more thing...

2008-12-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

The insights into my students’ lives that I am privy to through reading their written work never cease to amaze, shock, and often dishearten me.

In English, end-of-year exams are administered in 3 sections on three different days.

Paper One is based on Language. Here, spelling, grammar and reading comprehension are tested. Paper Two focuses on literature and students are asked questions about short stories and poetry that they studied over the year. Paper Three evaluates their writing skills through an essay, as well as transactional and functional writing tasks (letter-writing, dialogue, etc.). Students are provided with a range of essay topics, from which they can select one.

In Western teaching contexts, there is protocol for teachers who are confronted with personal disclosures of a serious nature made by students. If a student confides in a teacher that s/he is or has been abused, neglected, is involved in anything of an illegal nature, etc., or if the teacher has a reason to believe that any such thing may be taking place, we are legally obligated to report said information to the school social worker or the institution’s equivalent, so the matter can be handled by social or child services as need be.

At my school, and I would venture to say at the majority of other township schools, so lacking is funding that having something that even resembles a trained social worker is extremely unlikely. At our school one of our Heads of Department is responsible for addressing issues relating to students’ social welfare, bearing in mind that this is on top of her already very heavy teaching load. It is also doubtful that she is in any way technically qualified to perform such tasks, though not to undermine her ability to do so.

Of the close to 100 essays that I marked over the last month, I have read 5 essays that discuss incidences of abuse and rape by relatives, family friends (one of whom was named) and strangers, 4 about crimes being committed/witnessed, 3 about the death of a loved one, and one that described having sex with a well-known local rapper. This author of this last one is 16 years old. All are written in first person and vivid detail. It is not impossible that these may be works of fiction, although I am inclined to believe otherwise.

I discussed some of my findings with an English department colleague who empathized with the difficult situation we find ourselves in when we uncover revelations such as these. Unfortunately, unless a student actually verbally confides in a teacher that something is going on and that they want help or it is blatantly obvious that an intervention is needed, it is difficult for us as teachers and as a school to act. Most crushing is that because such occurrences and treatment are so common in students’ lives and in the experiences of those around them, many do not even think to reach out.

End of year rumination.

2008-11-07T22:11:00.000-08:00

Friday November 7th, 2008, the last day of classes before final exams.

While the mood at the school was calmer than expected, there was an undeniable sense of anticipation in the air.

My first year Fezeka will soon come to an end. In the past 11 months I have borne witness to many new experiences and keenly observed a school culture which is in many ways foreign to those with which I am familiar.

It has been an interesting line to walk (tiptoe?), as being ‘the new [white] girl from Canada’ and in the interest of not wanting to ruffle too many feathers, more often than not I have remained silent when I see teacher practices and behaviors with which I disagree. This has not always been easy.

I have worked closely with hundreds of incredible, inspiring young people. Young people who live in environments that are often toxic, come from homes where they are paid little attention, are involved in activities or been subjected to experiences that no child (or adult for that matter), should ever be exposed to.

As mentioned in several writings over the past year, it is the strength and resilience of these adolescents and young adults that I find the most astonishing. Despite the constant hardships that are a part of many of their daily lives, I have difficulty remembering when I have ever heard any of them complain about their circumstances. Even once.

“Miss you have to be really careful when you’re in the townships. Don’t walk around by yourself. There are people that like to cut people’s eyes out to sell to other people. Miss you have beautiful eyes so you have to be really careful. They will cut your eyes out and leave you on the road.”

“My brother used to live with us but he had to go away. My sister found a big bag of Tik (crystal methamphetamine – a huge and rapidly growing problem amongst young people in the Cape Flats – see http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2005/june/tik.htm for further info) and lots of money under his bed and she threw him out. He tried to come home a bunch of times but she wouldn’t let him. I found out after that he was a really big gangster. Now he sends money to her but she won’t take it. I don’t see him very often. Sometimes he’ll come find me when I’m walking home from school. He’s always driving a fancy car and wearing designer clothes. Miss you know True Religion? And Hugo Boss? Yea. That’s what my brother wears. He’ll come find me and give me money and ask how me and my sister are doing. I don’t tell my her that I’ve seen him because then she’ll get mad and make me throw away the money that he gives me. Sometimes, when there’s fights with gangs, if they can’t find the guy they want they’ll take someone in their family. I miss him but its better that he doesn’t live with us anymore.”

“I used to live with my mom but then she sent me to live with my Stepfather’s brother. I didn’t like living with him because he wasn’t very nice. Then I went to live with my friend and her mother. Its better living with them even though her mother is sick (I later found out this friend’s mother has full blown AIDS). My mother keeps calling and saying she wants me to come back to the Eastern Cape to work in the fields with her and my younger sister. But I just want to go to school.” (15 year old student)

Laughter – not a search for sympathy or a handout – is generally what accompanies the snapshots from their lives they share with me. When they talk about how getting robbed, stabbed or even killed for as little as R2 (about $0.25CDN) is commonplace; about parents, siblings or relatives who have died – from illness or been killed in gang-related violence and car accidents; about their fathers hitting them in the face if they don’t clean the house; about friends who have dropped out of school because of drug addiction or pregnancy…they are not telling me to shock me or scare me. These are just simply part of their lives. More often than not I hold back tears and hugs for fear of overwhelming them, cognizant that the line between pity and compassion can sometimes be hard to interpret by someone who may have never felt the latter of the two.

But still they come to school. And they laugh. And [most of them] want to learn.

And, in light of these realities, I wind down the year feeling optimistic about next year at Fezeka. If these young people can continue to smile and laugh and try to learn, in the face of unbelievable adversity, how can I not?

Self-evaluation is customary at the conclusion of any undertaking. As I reflect and try to quantify what – if any – impact I have made during my first year here, admittedly I don’t think I am any more well-suited to answer that than I was when I arrived. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind, in my soul and in my heart however that Fezeka has made an impact on me. I now have another year to see if I can return the favor. Who knows if I will.

But I’m certainly going to try.

inside their minds...

2008-10-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

a small selection of my students' words...both spoken and written.

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"I want to know what it is like to have money...not that I will spend all of it, but I want to know what it is like to have money...to have lots of food...to have nice things...a nice car...a nice house..."

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My First Prayer

Oh! Lovely bird,” oh lovely bird
Im Flying to no where”,
Im Flying to be there”,
But I can’t reach those Mountains
And inhale that brilliant climate
And Feel my mind by my own
But only that strong wind”,
Only that strong wind of that moving cloud
Over-powered my denstination.
I’m to weak to survive by my own
Oh! why these Earth is against me
Cause the more I goes higher my furthers
Becames wek, I can’t survive climate condistion
It becames “heavy”, oh these circumstances”,
how Can I handle these, to succeed these journey
Oh! I’m tired, “I’m tired,”
I can’t take these any “more”
I can’t handle these any “more”
Why? Can’t you take my breath
To land of peace
To the land of revealness
To the land of good hopes
To the land of no hunger
So that I can rest and pleased with peace
Please take me out of these land of ploughting and harvesting
I can’t fly any more
Even to reach the behalf of thee:
Mountain, “AMEN”

My Second prayer

Crying tears Are tired: ‘oh not’, the dams are drouned, is only vibration of voice that cannot be heard but only can be seen, Still there is no one can take out all her toilet-paper to take care of whom’s tears has been ignored.
but how can ‘it’ be?
but why it ‘supposed’ be?
but why ‘should’ it be
Like Im nothing to these earth
Like I do not belongs to human being
Like I was not borned by two people
Female and male, to come and be a hero of tommorow, be a gold in future a gold of those who loves gold
Oh! Why?
Oh!!! For what?
Oh!!!! like these?
But when it cames to ask myself
I get many answers that causes
My emotion to be eritated, oh!!!!!
Cause I don’t have loud voice?
Cause Im shot so much?
Cause Im born in a small township
Oh!! I cant get true answer that can
take me out of thse dark place that
cannot be seen or heard by an
of those who are passing.
but when I ask myself for the second time
I found one answer,
do not let the circumstances to determine my denstination.

...

50 tips to love a man/keep a man
Girlz feel free to give me one/two

1. Love him for him
2. Don't judge him
3. Always have a convicetion
4. Have something in comon
5. Don't be bossie to him
6. Please cheat on him
7. Don't be inocent to him
8. Know his bad side
9. Know him from A to Z
10. Know his family and friends
11. Don't sleep with him
12. Don't love sex to much
13. Kiss him only
14. enjoy his company
15. laughth at his jokes
16. always smill
17. Mic him a lot
18. Don't show him how much you love him
19. Be confident and self respective
18. Don't make him a fool
19. Be different every time you see him
20. Don't have sex on the car, kitchen, bathroom or toilet
21. Don't underestimate him
22. give him, his space
23. let him have fun with his friends
24. Drive him crazy a lot
25. Don't give him up on him
26. just be yourself
27. Have his time
28. love his pets
29. Don't fake your smile
30. Be easy to talk with
31. Don't 4get his birthday/ur anivesary day
32. Don't controil his life Plz girlz
33. Don't wait for Mr right be Mrs right
34. Never slap him
35. Don't compere hjim with someone else/with your ex
36. Don't let him see that you are desperete for him
37. Don't be too faithful

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"If you want your dreams to come true, don't spend too much time sleeping. Open your eyes and realize."

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My Dream Career

I would like to be a Pilot. the most I like about this career is to travel all over the world, going to other countries. because it's not easy for me to go anywhere I want because of the money but I once I get this opporturnity, I'll be able to go to those countries without paying a cent. also to experience to be on air, flying like a bird, looking down on earth. Seeing the clouds when I was young I thought the plane was not reaching the coulds, to me It was like the sky is very very far nobody can reach it. but one day I saw a plane disappear inside the clouds then come out on the other side. Since I was asking myself: "how did it happen?", until today I learned about it. but I'm waiting to be me who is doing it one day.

Oh: not forgeting to speak those different languages.

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"In townships we don't really think much about things like dreams."

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first look!

2008-10-21T02:26:00.000-07:00

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the wonderful and talented filmmakers of CieL Productions (http://www.cielproductions.co.uk/), have been making a documentary about our choirmaster P., and the choir's trip to England earlier this year.

Here is the trailer, a first look at what is sure to be an incredible account of life at Fezeka, in Gugulethu, and the hope, strength and talent of our kids.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmLtmAIjCWU

...

*click here to visit the website that has been set up for the film and to learn more about this incredible project.

Mid-morning mid-week musings

2008-10-16T08:07:00.000-07:00

I feel sad for my students.

And not just my students but many students at my school. And since I'm pretty sure the situation that presents itself here is far from unique, by extension I feel sad for much of South Africa's black youth.

I am not even sure where to begin quantifying how deep this sadness runs.

Time and time again I am reminded of how disadvantaged these young people are, even aside from the obvious difficulties many of them face due to their socio-economic locations - hunger, neglect and the constant threat of violence leading the charge.

No, this particular sadness is more directly correlated to the realm in which I work - the education sphere - where every day I am shocked and disheartened at the utter disregard many of my colleagues have for the scholastic advancement of their students.

Teacher absenteeism is rife, with teachers missing days...weeks...even sometimes months at a time on a regular basis. And while in the contexts to which I am accustomed an absent teacher is expected to leave work for their students, in this environment - while technically a requirement - very seldom is this the case.

In addition to this problem however, there are many teachers who will be present at school but for whatever reason do not attend classes. The frequency of this occurrence is such that students are often left without a teacher for a number of their lessons in a given day. I have lost count of how many times my students have told me that I am the only teacher who has attended one of their lessons that day.

Further still there is the issue of teachers who will come to school, attend classes, but because they have not completed a certain task (i.e. tabulating end-of-term marks for the term that has just ended or marking tests), they spend the in-class time working on the task at hand and give their students worksheets (without having taught the background necessary to complete said worksheets), or sometimes nothing at all to do.

Yesterday I was in my classroom during a spare period and two Grade 10 students I had never met before came to my door to ask if they could sit and do some work in my classroom. As always I asked where they were supposed to be. I was answered with the expected reply of ‘in a class where the teacher was not attending’ and allowed them in. After a while I wandered over to see what they were working on. I asked what it was and they told me a project on Development. Development of what? I asked. Of anything, they said. They had been told that they had to interview people to ask them about development (Social? Political? Historical? Environmental?), but that they had not had enough time to complete the task and so they were taking notes from material research they had found on the Internet. I asked them if it was that they had not had enough time or if they had left it to the last minute. No, they told me, they really had not had enough time. When was it assigned? I asked. Friday, they told me. When was it due? Today, came their reply. Yesterday was Wednesday. This was a term research assignment worth a significant percent of their mark that clearly the teacher had forgotten to give them and so they are left to try and get it done in far less time then they should have been allocated. The most disturbing part is that the teacher would most likely mark the test in keeping to the prescribed evaluation standards (which assume they have been given adequate time and had access to the relevant resources necessary to complete the task), which will mean that most of them will fail.

I have seen teachers administer and mark tests that are far above the level of comprehension possessed by their students, with no regard for the fact that the language used is inaccessible. These are the same teachers who in no way see their students’ subsequent failures as a reflection of their teaching or who don’t recognize evaluation standards that are set unfairly high. Today a student who I don't teach asked me for help with an assignment. He is in Grade 12 and this was the final project for the year. It had been assigned 3 months ago and has 6 different phases. I sat down with him and read through the instructions. Although my knowledge of the assignment's subject area is basic, I was able to understand what was being asked of the students as the language used was regular English versus discipline-related jargon. This is not to say that the level of English was easy, far from it in fact. I asked him if he understood what was being asked of him, if it had been explained to him properly. 'No Miss', came his shy reply. I then noticed that the page for the 5th phase was separate from the stapled package of sheets explaining each of the other 6. When I asked him why that page wasn't attached he told me that the teacher had forgotten to give it to them. He then went on to explain how the teacher had come into class the day before and angrily demanded to know why none of them had completed the 5th phase. When they told him that they had not received the instructions on that part of the assigment the teacher went and photocopied the missing sheet, gave it to them, and set a due date of tomorrow. 2 days. They should have had 2 weeks.

Perhaps the most disheartening fact about all of this is that the vast majority of the kids aren’t even aware of the far-reaching consequences of the injustices that are being committed against them. Whereas in a privileged Western context where we are raised to know our rights as youth and as students and even as young men and women are fully aware of what we deserve, as previously mentioned, a similar culture of entitlement is glaringly absent here. When teachers don’t come to class, students kick back, chat to their friends, sleep. A stream of students milling about the schoolyard during class time is constant, a result of all the above-mentioned reasons. I see these kids sitting around…chatting…chasing each other…holding hands…flirting…laughing…and can’t help but feel saddened at how oblivious they are to what they are being denied. At how they will suffer because of this disregard.

Their learned acceptance of injustice enrages me. I encourage students to complain. To get their families to take up issue with the administration and to report those teachers who don’t come to class to the Principal. While this could be construed as a lack of loyalty to my colleagues, my primary concern is for the impact of their neglect on the kids who are here to learn and whom they are being paid to educate.

...and now the sadness has been replaced by anger.

I feel infuriated for my students.

Madame Deputy President, I presume?

2008-10-05T19:25:00.000-07:00

On the final day of last term we had an assembly to celebrate Baleka Mbete, (South Africa’s new Deputy President)’s birthday. While this may sound strange, it happened to be something that was planned long before she was inaugurated as Deputy President and held her previous position as the Speaker of the National Assembly. Gugulethu and by extension Fezeka fell under her then-jurisdiction, and she has had a long-standing relationship with the school. Recently, and while she still held the Speaker position, a decision was made to donate some computers to Fezeka. Initially the pledge was to donate 12 computers, which was then upped to 20. When the day came however, there were 12 new computers that lay waiting in the gleaming and freshly-painted lab, waiting to be christened by Ms. Mbete.

The assembly that we had to accompany this visit was wonderful. Fully catered by the office of the Deputy President, we had about 500 students in attendance, and close to 50 officials from various positions within the Government. Speeches were made by the politicians and the Deputy President, as well as by our principal and English HOD. And then the students took over. The drama club performed, as did the choir, a ballet group of which one of our students is a part, and a couple students recited poetry they had read.

The day was capped off with lunch for everyone and the Deputy President ceremoniously cutting the ribbon that had been tied across the doorway of the computer lab, which was met with flashes and applause from the members of the media et al. who were also in attendance to capture the moment.

It was during the assembly that I came to find out that Fezeka holds a unique honor of being one of very few, and perhaps one of the only township schools in the Western Cape who has been visited by both the Deputy President and the President of the Republic of South Africa (Thabo Mbeki visited during his time at the helm). It was lovely to see the students swell with pride as this fact was brought to their attention, as it was (as always) to see their smiles and hear their cheers and laughter when they watched their colleagues perform.

It was only after the assembly however, after the cameras and bodyguards had left and school had reopened and we were back in full swing that I came to find out that despite taking the time to re-tile the floor of the lab, paint the walls, fix the broken desks, and install these shiny new flat screen PCs, they had not ensured that each of the computers was online, or bothered to install Microsoft Office on any of the new machines. Roughly half of the new computers cannot access the Internet, and none of them have Microsoft Word. Or Excel. Or PowerPoint. On high school computers at a school where we are trying to encourage digital literacy. After spending a tidy sum on the whole overhaul, they didn't think it important to invest another R1500 (roughly $200CDN), the cost of that a basic Microsoft Office 2003 package.

Seriously?

Like lambs to the slaughter...

2008-10-01T15:02:00.000-07:00

For the past month and a bit, once a week I have been running an after-school basic digital literacy class. It is doubtful that the irony of me, an example of computer-ineptness at its finest, actually teaching anything to do with those plastic boxes is lost on anyone, least of all myself, but here we are. So far it has been going really well. The size of the group varies from week to week, sometimes upwards of thirty, others closer to three. Although I am fully aware that teachers – like parents – are not supposed to have favorites, I may have a few of my own. The computer class is composed of students from a variety of classes and grades, including each of mine.

Three young men from my Grade 11 class are the most consistent attendees of the computer class, all very eager and keen to learn as much as possible in the computer class, just as they are in English class as well. In the lesson where we set up email addresses they could not stop smiling. These three may be my favorites.

Last week was the last week of school before break, and as the norm, a notoriously low-attendanced time of the year. The turnout for the class was meager, more specifically, my three little stars were there alone. As the computer lab we usually have used was being renovated in preparation its big unveiling later in the week (more on that to follow), and students were writing an exam in the other, I opted to use an empty classroom and to change the lesson plan somewhat.

Earlier in the week, one of these three students had asked me for help with his CV. So we sat down and talked curriculum vitae. As none of them have ever had a job before, there was not much to list in that department. When we came to volunteer work, they were equally at a loss. I asked they what did when they weren’t at school. Other than watch TV, they said they played sports, and participated in their youth groups. I asked if any of them coached sports, and what sort of youth groups they were part of. One of them did indeed coach a sports team and all three were involved in youth groups related to their churches.

The conversation then snowballed into a particularly interesting discussion on religion. All three young men are Christian, though each belongs to a different denomination, none of which I had heard of before. Not wanting to pry, I asked very surface-level questions about their beliefs, and let them tell me what they wanted to. They asked me about my beliefs, and what church I belonged to. I told them that while I have been baptized as a Roman Catholic, growing up and today my church attendance has been generally limited to the big holidays (much to my devoutly religious Grandmother’s chagrin).

Then they asked me about religion in Canada, and the role it plays in people’s lives. As previously mentioned, religion has a large role of the day to day lives of the communities in which my students and colleagues live, with Christianity being the overwhelmingly dominant faith.

I talked about the religious diversity of Canada and in particular Toronto, and how we have such a cornucopia (say it with me now – cor-nu-co-pia) of people of different beliefs living together.

‘So Miss, you wouldn’t ever slaughter a sheep to celebrate an important event?’ They asked me next.

I attempted to broadly explain the Western world’s take on this sort of thing (the physical slaughter of animals for religious or cultural purposes, not to be confused with those animals who are slaughtered for human consumption, particularly on religious holidays - although in writing this now I find myself confused as to why and how the two differ). I also touched on groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and the importance of respecting the laws of the land. This then bled into an analogy on Female Genital Mutilation being practiced in Canada by Sudanese immigrants and the uproar that it created. Little did I know at the time that none of them were familiar with what FGM is. Oops.

In any case, the conversation was an interesting reminder of some of the stark cultural differences that exist between their lives and my own, or more specifically the social/religious mores and attitudes that are commonplace in and unique to each of our home environments.

Oh and I received an invitation to the next sheep-slaughtering ceremony that any of them attend.

Just another manic Monday...

2008-09-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I left my house for school in the morning. I had driven about 2 blocks when suddenly my car just died. There was no big noise or warning, she just conked out. Had thankfully not yet reached the main road and was able to steer her off to the side of the street. Attempts to restart her were fruitless. Knowing I had been low petrol on the day before I thought this could be the problem. Walked to the Engen station only a short distance away, filled up a jug of petrol, walked it over to my car, poured it in (getting a span of it on myself in the process), and tried starting her again. Nothing.

Ended up having to her get her towed. A group of mechanics crowded around my car’s engine, tried starting her and had the same luck as me. They checked my petrol tank and told me I had no petrol. Impossible I told them, as I had manually just poured about R100 into it. Well, its reading as empty, they said. Fine. Poured in another R100. and still no reading on the gauge.

Then they looked under the car.

‘You know your petrol’s been stolen, hey?’ One of them told me.

Uh, no. Might have told you if I did, no?

In any case, apparently the night before, some sneaky thief had crept under my car, cut the wire connecting the petrol tank to the engine, and siphoned out the remaining (what I would guess to be not more than R20 worth’s of) petrol out of my tank. R300 to repair the damage. Good times.

back in the day...and how!

2008-09-16T10:18:00.000-07:00

The day following our Sowetan tour, our gracious tour guides took us to yet another must-see on any first-time visit to Johannesburg, the apartheid museum. (http://www.apartheidmuseum.org/)

This museum documents the history of apartheid in this country – from its earliest roots to present-day, as well as the various systems of oppression upon which it was modelled (special shout out to Canada and its First Nations Reserves), with in-depth looks at key figures in its inception and implementation, countless images, reports, audio and video footage, eyewitness and survivors’ stories… a truly vivid and upsetting journal of South Africa’s history.

Authenticity and a brutal metallic aesthetic is consistent through the museum – from the separate entranceways for whites (blankes) and non-whites (nie-blankes) to the industrial high-ceilinged exposed-beam brick wall architecture and the prison bars that run throughout, to the stark and sometimes harsh lighting that you soon discover is often little more than natural light, varying between very bright and shadowy darkness.

The sections on Education* and transportation proved the most disturbing for me with discussions on the huge disparity between what was available to black (and to a lesser extent, coloured) children in contrast to their white brothers and sisters. A look at transportation offered insight into the lengths that black people had to go to to get from A to B, and the endless blockades that stood in their way of even earning enough to feed their children, let alone themselves. While I have been learning more and more about the history of apartheid during my time here, seeing photos and reading stories of people who lived in these times made it much clearer.

The exhibit ends on a positive note, with oral history stories from South Africans both young and old on their hopes and thoughts for the ‘new’ South Africa. I couldn’t help but notice how optimistic everyone was, given the realities of inequality that still exist, although I suppose, perhaps, in a comparative sense things are [inarguably] far better than they once were, and at the end of the day it is all but impossible to move forward without a hope that things will only continue to get better.

Sunday’s weather provided us with another stunning day, as we set out on yet another historical journey; though this time we were going a little further back.

The Cradle of Humankind (www.cradleofhumankind.co.za) is about an hour’s drive from Jozi. A UN World Heritage Site, it is the place on earth where the earliest human remains have been found. Along with landmarks and replica bones, there is a museum on location which traces humankind’s evolution to modern man. Special attention is also paid to the devastating effects humans have had on the earth since we arrived – particularly on the environment and animal and plant kingdoms – and to the inequalities in education, health care and standards of living that exist across the globe today.

...

*The history of the disparities in the education system (the Bantu Education Act in particular) in this country is an important one to know and understand to fully grasp any discussion on where things stand today. I will discuss in greater detail in a future blog, but in the interim, if interested, I would suggest reading the brief bit written about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bantu_Education_Act