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.