Monday was a linguistic trainwreck. The kind you just can’t look away from. There is a new Salvation Army pastor in the village, originally from Mozambique. He wants to learn English. One of my teachers, who is very active in the church, volunteered me. Sure, why not?
I walk up to the house, which is right behind the church and built by (of course) the donations of Salvation Army churches in America. So now you know where the $5 you paid for that awesome Halloween costume last year went.
I walk in. “Sanibonani!” I say. “Yebo.” He replies. We are polite in siSwati. I turn to his wife. “Ninjani?” (how are you?) “Si…khona??” she replies. How odd. She sounds suspiciously like me in her confusion. “Oh, she is also from Mozambique, she is just learning siSwati.” Her husband tells me. “Oh, I’m sorry! Avuxeni!” I am both contrite and proud of myself for remembering correct greeting in xiTsonga. (Later, a teacher tells me that I did not in fact remember the correct greeting in xiTsonga. Avuxeni means good morning. It was currently 2:30 in the afternoon.). Once again, Mrs. Pastor shrugs her shoulders and shakes her head. “No,” her husband tells me again, “we are from Mozambique. Portugese only.” I am a moron.
So we progress to the lesson. “What do you want to learn?” I ask naively. (The condition in which I ask most of my questions, come to think of it)
“English.”
“Oh, okay, well, we can do that. But we need a place to start. So what parts of English do you want to focus on? Conversations? Sermons? Travel? Reading? Writing? We need a starting point. So what part of English do you want to learn the most.”
“No, just English. All of it.”
“Oh…kay…” Of course, as you can see he essentially already speaks English. Not perfectly, not smoothly, but functionally. So where do I start? We dance around a bit, we try to find a good starting point, a good teaching method, some way be can both leave this interview feeling like something has happened. The longer this goes on, the more doubtful that outcome begins to look. I have decided in my head that really what he mostly needs is practice with a native speaker, so why don’t we just hang out and chat for an hour a week or so. The blank, open notebooks and pencils hovering in the hands of he and his wife tell me that this is not their preferred approach.
So we abandon that approach for a bit, and he offers to teach me some Portugese. I can now say “Boa Tardi” and “Bom Dia” (good afternoon, good day) with reasonable accuracy. Five minutes later I forget how to say “I am thirsty” within 30 seconds of him telling me. I am still a moron.
Somehow, during all this mess, we discover that we have both taken a decent amount of French in high school. We switch to French. I begin mixing my siSwati and French, because its been about two and a half years at this point since my last French conversation. We say goodbye, and make plans to meet up again the next day, when I promise to have something actually prepared.
“A demain!” I say.
“A demain!” He replies.
“Abrigado!” calls his wife.
“Bye!”
Thirty minutes. Five languages. I start laughing hysterically, and don’t stop until I make it home.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Locutius
The powers that be have recently set each school in our circuit, or region, or province, or…something, a task. The school has to decide on the best teacher and learner of 2007, so that those who are chosen can go to an awards ceremony and serve as an encouragement to those around them, etc...
At the school I’m at this week, we were apparently given all of 18 hours notice to get this done. The principal held a brief after-school meeting on Wednesday to let the educators know and give them a chance to think things over, then on Thursday morning they had to decide. It got a little ugly.
In America, of course, the situation might be handled delicately, but the idea of picking a ‘best’ for the year would make sense, and be seen as a fairly run of the mill thing to do. It’s not virtual blasphemy to acknowledge different levels of skills, and that some teachers might be way, way better than others. That’s just how it is. Some people are really good at their jobs – better than other people in fact. Lets acknowledge and reward them for it.
Here…not so much. Here the most common use of the term Ph.D comes not when we’re discussing relative educational levels, but instead the acronym: Pull Her/Him Down. Which means that it doesn’t do to try and rise above those around you, because those around you will only get mad and try to drag you back down. Or say, “fine – you do all the work then if you’re the best.” It’s a very South African thing, with any number of dimensions. The idea that the collective is more important than the group, of course, plays a big part. Ubuntu’s evil twin. It seems to me that its almost rude to rise too far above the rest, its disrespectful. Like saying that you’re better than them. Being the best – or rather, being the stand-out best – is like giving the finger to everyone else around you. So you can imagine some of the dismay when the educators were asked to choose just one of a collective to be singled out as the best. They were deeply uncomfortable with the idea, and both the Principal and Deputy Principal had to keep reassuring them with, “no, no, we know that we are all the best teachers. We are all good. But we just have to choose somebody to go to this function. Just one name to go to the function. But we are all still the best.” Of course, everybody sitting in the room knew it was a lie. Quite a few probably could have pointed out the lady who honestly is the best teacher in the school, because last year we had a teacher of the month award and she got it. But they just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They suggested drawing names out of a hat, they suggested going by who does the most extracurriculars, they even suggested having the principals or myself just choose (I declined. I’m not stupid. I know what disaster would ensue for me if I chose just one, even though the choice was so obvious to me I wanted to pull my hair out). In the end, they chose one of the favorites of the staff, not the best teacher, far far from it, and the principal knows it too, but a nice outgoing guy who adds to – surprise – the group dynamic.
Of course, now you may be wondering: but what about the Mercedes? Is Babe that out of touch with the community, or is that entry or this one full of it? Well here’s how I see it: I think that a certain amount of mobility within the community is perfectly acceptable. Babe’s not the only one with a Mercedes (though he’s certainly the one with the poopiest*), and therefore the Mercedes is acceptable. It falls within the acknowledged range of success and status in the village. Some people, who do well and have good jobs and a fairly high status in the community, those people have the material goods to show it off. And even if they don’t have all those things, they can still attempt to mimic them with the physical status symbols. The Mercedes falls within the acceptable collective status/success continuum. Saying you’re the best – or better than everybody else – does not.
Or maybe not. Maybe this is what it is: The Mercedes is a tangible status symbol. Big houses, satellite TV, an American hanging out at your house and school, the enormous entertainment system – all of these are tangible, we could even say commercial or material symbols. Materialism on that level is a relatively new thing in this culture. I can practically guarantee you that nobody in Steenbok drove a Mercedes prior to 1994. Because they are new, the rules haven’t been made yet.
Or maybe not. Maybe its this: The tangible, material symbols are proclaiming status not only amongst the smaller group – one school, one family, one village – but within an entire society. I said, I can practically guarantee you that nobody in Steenbok drove a Mercedes prior to 1994. So could there be a certain sense of pride to see that car go up and down the road? Does it become not just “his” Mercedes, but instead “our” Mercedes? Does the big house with the satellite TV in fact not show up the neighbors, but instead instill in them a sense of pride that now they too can live in a neighborhood with big houses and satellite TV (even if the house isn’t theirs). Maybe the acquisition of things that were previously unavailable to the group – even if they are only being acquired by an individual member – serve as a sense of pride to the whole group. Now they can do that too.
The third option seems the most likely to me. But more than anything else all the possibilities and interpretations just serve to remind me that I’m still only an observer here – and probably not all that good of an observer. I’ve been in Africa nearly 19 months with not that many left to go, and I’m still just making my best guess. It is entirely possible, and even likely, that all of the above is complete bull pucky. If I showed it to somebody who stayed here, they would probably just laugh their heads off and point out all the places where I was wrong.
But after over a year and a half in Africa – I’m okay with that too.
At the school I’m at this week, we were apparently given all of 18 hours notice to get this done. The principal held a brief after-school meeting on Wednesday to let the educators know and give them a chance to think things over, then on Thursday morning they had to decide. It got a little ugly.
In America, of course, the situation might be handled delicately, but the idea of picking a ‘best’ for the year would make sense, and be seen as a fairly run of the mill thing to do. It’s not virtual blasphemy to acknowledge different levels of skills, and that some teachers might be way, way better than others. That’s just how it is. Some people are really good at their jobs – better than other people in fact. Lets acknowledge and reward them for it.
Here…not so much. Here the most common use of the term Ph.D comes not when we’re discussing relative educational levels, but instead the acronym: Pull Her/Him Down. Which means that it doesn’t do to try and rise above those around you, because those around you will only get mad and try to drag you back down. Or say, “fine – you do all the work then if you’re the best.” It’s a very South African thing, with any number of dimensions. The idea that the collective is more important than the group, of course, plays a big part. Ubuntu’s evil twin. It seems to me that its almost rude to rise too far above the rest, its disrespectful. Like saying that you’re better than them. Being the best – or rather, being the stand-out best – is like giving the finger to everyone else around you. So you can imagine some of the dismay when the educators were asked to choose just one of a collective to be singled out as the best. They were deeply uncomfortable with the idea, and both the Principal and Deputy Principal had to keep reassuring them with, “no, no, we know that we are all the best teachers. We are all good. But we just have to choose somebody to go to this function. Just one name to go to the function. But we are all still the best.” Of course, everybody sitting in the room knew it was a lie. Quite a few probably could have pointed out the lady who honestly is the best teacher in the school, because last year we had a teacher of the month award and she got it. But they just couldn’t bring themselves to do it. They suggested drawing names out of a hat, they suggested going by who does the most extracurriculars, they even suggested having the principals or myself just choose (I declined. I’m not stupid. I know what disaster would ensue for me if I chose just one, even though the choice was so obvious to me I wanted to pull my hair out). In the end, they chose one of the favorites of the staff, not the best teacher, far far from it, and the principal knows it too, but a nice outgoing guy who adds to – surprise – the group dynamic.
Of course, now you may be wondering: but what about the Mercedes? Is Babe that out of touch with the community, or is that entry or this one full of it? Well here’s how I see it: I think that a certain amount of mobility within the community is perfectly acceptable. Babe’s not the only one with a Mercedes (though he’s certainly the one with the poopiest*), and therefore the Mercedes is acceptable. It falls within the acknowledged range of success and status in the village. Some people, who do well and have good jobs and a fairly high status in the community, those people have the material goods to show it off. And even if they don’t have all those things, they can still attempt to mimic them with the physical status symbols. The Mercedes falls within the acceptable collective status/success continuum. Saying you’re the best – or better than everybody else – does not.
Or maybe not. Maybe this is what it is: The Mercedes is a tangible status symbol. Big houses, satellite TV, an American hanging out at your house and school, the enormous entertainment system – all of these are tangible, we could even say commercial or material symbols. Materialism on that level is a relatively new thing in this culture. I can practically guarantee you that nobody in Steenbok drove a Mercedes prior to 1994. Because they are new, the rules haven’t been made yet.
Or maybe not. Maybe its this: The tangible, material symbols are proclaiming status not only amongst the smaller group – one school, one family, one village – but within an entire society. I said, I can practically guarantee you that nobody in Steenbok drove a Mercedes prior to 1994. So could there be a certain sense of pride to see that car go up and down the road? Does it become not just “his” Mercedes, but instead “our” Mercedes? Does the big house with the satellite TV in fact not show up the neighbors, but instead instill in them a sense of pride that now they too can live in a neighborhood with big houses and satellite TV (even if the house isn’t theirs). Maybe the acquisition of things that were previously unavailable to the group – even if they are only being acquired by an individual member – serve as a sense of pride to the whole group. Now they can do that too.
The third option seems the most likely to me. But more than anything else all the possibilities and interpretations just serve to remind me that I’m still only an observer here – and probably not all that good of an observer. I’ve been in Africa nearly 19 months with not that many left to go, and I’m still just making my best guess. It is entirely possible, and even likely, that all of the above is complete bull pucky. If I showed it to somebody who stayed here, they would probably just laugh their heads off and point out all the places where I was wrong.
But after over a year and a half in Africa – I’m okay with that too.
Friday, February 01, 2008
^3
And finally, there are lots and lots of new pictures up at snapfish, if anybody is interested in looking at them.
Why I'm Rooting for Barack
"...I will speak...as someone whose grandmother lives in a hut without indoor plumbing in a Kenyan village devestated by HIV/AIDS." Is this an outstandingly ludicrous political statement that you kind of just have to laugh at? Sure. But hey, I live in that village too, so I'm sold.
Also, what the US really needs is a first Gogo to keep things in line. Nobody messes with a Gogo.
Also, what the US really needs is a first Gogo to keep things in line. Nobody messes with a Gogo.
I Wish I Was...
(Apologies to the immediate Miller family – especially Mira – who have already read this. But I liked it, and wanted to expand).
Today, a grade 3 teacher walked into the school office and asked me to help her with something. “Awesome!” I thought to myself. “I would love to help you!” I said to her. She then explained that she was having some trouble disciplining her learners – “I’m too soft with them you see, they just think I’m their friend.” Could I maybe help her come up with some ways to improve discipline? Well sure. Let’s sit down and plan. But no wait – there’s more. “You see, whenever I leave my classroom – like now when I came to talk to you – they are just running up and down and making noise. How can I keep them quiet?” A year and a half ago, I would have been circumspect and non-confrontational about maybe, you know, just as a thought, things might be better if she was in her class instead of with me. (“well…lets go to your class and see what we can do.”) Six months ago I would have suggested, with a sense of abject and defeated cynicism, that she at least give them some work to do if she doesn’t ever plan on being there. Today, I have essentially 6 months of school to go, and I said. “Oh! I know! I have the perfect solution for you – its really easy! Do you want to hear it?!” “Yes, please.” “Stay in your class! Problem solved.” The teacher then began laughing at shaking her head at my ridiculous solution, and then left the room still laughing and has yet to ask me about it again – since obviously by giving such an absurd answer, I was just joking and never meant to help her in the first place. This response has not changed at all over the last 18 months, nor do I imagine it will in the next 6. It’s just one of many things that make me miss America – and be more than happy to be heading back in not too long.
Quite often, in fact, I find myself becoming a lot or a little homesick. What I never knew, before I came here, is that homesickness has its levels and degrees, and in the past year and a half I think I’ve experienced many (though probably not all) of them. There’s the raw, ripping, grief-like feeling of being 10,000 miles away from everyone you love and all those who love you; the sudden sucker-punch of dislocation just when you thought things were fine; the sense of isolation and frustration that comes from sitting in the middle of a conversation that you can’t understand – and probably wouldn’t even if it was in your own language. Most of all though, there is the constant and low-grade sense of alienation, of disconnect or misconnect. Its as if even while I sit and move in the middle of things – take the taxi, go to the store, walk down the street, chat with a friend – some part of something is not quite genuine, is not entirely supposed to be there, and I just can’t quite get to the heart of things, behind the scenery and the script to the reality. I am, constantly, out of place. That *is my place, to be the alien, the mascot, the obvious one. Its one of the reasons that going to Pretoria and walking through the campus is such an escape. I am escaping into the invisible, to a place where I am unseen, and therefore normal. To a place where -- to those around me even more than myself -- I could be at home.
Which of course is completely normal, I think. It is grinding, the constant process of being the alien, the mascot. Smiling and greeting, being stared at, and always always always standing out. To the point that on my worse days I can only hope that there will be enough of me left after all this grinding to last seven more months. Home, after all, isn’t the place where everybody knows your name (and that could probably be a mixed blessing in a bar, too) – because I’ve got that now, and Celebrity and Home are two very, very different things. Home, I think, is the place where you know everybody else’s name, and more than that you know that you belong to it, and it belongs to you more than any other place in the world. (“Its not so very difficult to own something.” in the words of Neil Gaiman, “You just have to know that it’s yours, and then be willing to give it up.”).
Steenbok does not belong to me, and I do not belong to it. We are visitors to one another, brief – if powerful – moments in one another’s existence. That’s not ownership, or belonging, so its not home.
Will as many people ever know who I am in Davis, in Ventura, in wherever I end up eventually? Will I have as big an impact there, or will the place shape me in the same way, with the same sharp and fleeting collision? No, probably not. But they were, it will be, mine, in the same way and for the same reason that Africa never could and never will be. I have no right to claim a place here, that’s what it is. Just like you can see a place for the first time and think “Home.” “Mine.” I think in the same way you can know that a place, a person, whatever, isn’t meant to be yours.
I remember in one of my very first letters home I wrote something along the lines of, “I can feel myself falling in love with Africa, and that surprises me.” It’s still true, of course. I still love this place. I love the feeling of coming home (a place can of course be home, even if it’s not Home) through the bush, watching the sun set to my right. I love that the other day one of my teachers called me “skoni,” which means ‘sister-in-law’ (no I haven’t married anybody! It’s also a term of endearment). I love this place, but I don’t own it, and it doesn’t own me. We maintain our distance from each other, and on some level we both know that it will not last. The place where we are coming from is not the same – and neither is our destination, even if the road parallels for a bit. Which is why a suggestion as simple and obvious to me as a teacher staying in her classroom, instead seems to that teacher the funniest thing she’s heard all day.
Today, a grade 3 teacher walked into the school office and asked me to help her with something. “Awesome!” I thought to myself. “I would love to help you!” I said to her. She then explained that she was having some trouble disciplining her learners – “I’m too soft with them you see, they just think I’m their friend.” Could I maybe help her come up with some ways to improve discipline? Well sure. Let’s sit down and plan. But no wait – there’s more. “You see, whenever I leave my classroom – like now when I came to talk to you – they are just running up and down and making noise. How can I keep them quiet?” A year and a half ago, I would have been circumspect and non-confrontational about maybe, you know, just as a thought, things might be better if she was in her class instead of with me. (“well…lets go to your class and see what we can do.”) Six months ago I would have suggested, with a sense of abject and defeated cynicism, that she at least give them some work to do if she doesn’t ever plan on being there. Today, I have essentially 6 months of school to go, and I said. “Oh! I know! I have the perfect solution for you – its really easy! Do you want to hear it?!” “Yes, please.” “Stay in your class! Problem solved.” The teacher then began laughing at shaking her head at my ridiculous solution, and then left the room still laughing and has yet to ask me about it again – since obviously by giving such an absurd answer, I was just joking and never meant to help her in the first place. This response has not changed at all over the last 18 months, nor do I imagine it will in the next 6. It’s just one of many things that make me miss America – and be more than happy to be heading back in not too long.
Quite often, in fact, I find myself becoming a lot or a little homesick. What I never knew, before I came here, is that homesickness has its levels and degrees, and in the past year and a half I think I’ve experienced many (though probably not all) of them. There’s the raw, ripping, grief-like feeling of being 10,000 miles away from everyone you love and all those who love you; the sudden sucker-punch of dislocation just when you thought things were fine; the sense of isolation and frustration that comes from sitting in the middle of a conversation that you can’t understand – and probably wouldn’t even if it was in your own language. Most of all though, there is the constant and low-grade sense of alienation, of disconnect or misconnect. Its as if even while I sit and move in the middle of things – take the taxi, go to the store, walk down the street, chat with a friend – some part of something is not quite genuine, is not entirely supposed to be there, and I just can’t quite get to the heart of things, behind the scenery and the script to the reality. I am, constantly, out of place. That *is my place, to be the alien, the mascot, the obvious one. Its one of the reasons that going to Pretoria and walking through the campus is such an escape. I am escaping into the invisible, to a place where I am unseen, and therefore normal. To a place where -- to those around me even more than myself -- I could be at home.
Which of course is completely normal, I think. It is grinding, the constant process of being the alien, the mascot. Smiling and greeting, being stared at, and always always always standing out. To the point that on my worse days I can only hope that there will be enough of me left after all this grinding to last seven more months. Home, after all, isn’t the place where everybody knows your name (and that could probably be a mixed blessing in a bar, too) – because I’ve got that now, and Celebrity and Home are two very, very different things. Home, I think, is the place where you know everybody else’s name, and more than that you know that you belong to it, and it belongs to you more than any other place in the world. (“Its not so very difficult to own something.” in the words of Neil Gaiman, “You just have to know that it’s yours, and then be willing to give it up.”).
Steenbok does not belong to me, and I do not belong to it. We are visitors to one another, brief – if powerful – moments in one another’s existence. That’s not ownership, or belonging, so its not home.
Will as many people ever know who I am in Davis, in Ventura, in wherever I end up eventually? Will I have as big an impact there, or will the place shape me in the same way, with the same sharp and fleeting collision? No, probably not. But they were, it will be, mine, in the same way and for the same reason that Africa never could and never will be. I have no right to claim a place here, that’s what it is. Just like you can see a place for the first time and think “Home.” “Mine.” I think in the same way you can know that a place, a person, whatever, isn’t meant to be yours.
I remember in one of my very first letters home I wrote something along the lines of, “I can feel myself falling in love with Africa, and that surprises me.” It’s still true, of course. I still love this place. I love the feeling of coming home (a place can of course be home, even if it’s not Home) through the bush, watching the sun set to my right. I love that the other day one of my teachers called me “skoni,” which means ‘sister-in-law’ (no I haven’t married anybody! It’s also a term of endearment). I love this place, but I don’t own it, and it doesn’t own me. We maintain our distance from each other, and on some level we both know that it will not last. The place where we are coming from is not the same – and neither is our destination, even if the road parallels for a bit. Which is why a suggestion as simple and obvious to me as a teacher staying in her classroom, instead seems to that teacher the funniest thing she’s heard all day.
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