This weekend, I also spent some time at a semi-local orphanage helping out a couple of friends of mine with a "Freedom Fun Day" activity camp. Just something fun for the kids to do over a long weekend. There was a little boy there who couldn't have been older than 3. The first time I saw him he was just skirting the edges of all the activities and was completely filthy. His clothes were crusty, his face was snotty, he was carrying around a bucket and rag (not sure why) and there were flies all over his face. He's the youngest kid there by a few years, my friend told me that he and his sister are from Mozambique, though he speaks siswati.
This child broke my heart. He gets fed, he gets washed every now and again, but he's certainly not potty trained (he can't even reach the toilet) so...you can imagine. It was so obvious, nobody touches him, nobody holds him, nobody spends the time to play with him or talk to him or cuddle him or do any of the 100 basic things that every child deserves. The first day he just skirted all the action, though halfway through I gave him some soda (well, I gave him some of Mike's soda) and then he was my shadow for the rest of the day. The second day he was less shy, and got kind of into the balloon game the kids were playing (by which I mean he got sad when his balloon was popped and happy when I got him a new one). Halfway through the day he was happy to sit by Christy or myself, to be tickled and played with, though he still seemed deeply skeptical about this whole affection thing. By the end of the day he was sitting in my lap, perfectly happy with his balloon (or occasionally my watch or camera) and a safe place to be.
When was the last time somebody let this child sit in their lap? When was the last time he was hugged? And this is South Africa, so I had to wonder too: what happened to his parents, and what about all of those old sores on his arms and legs? (Well, you know, southern Africa, 1 in 4 infection rate. Take a guess). This is HIV, isn't it? This baby that I held in my lap because nobody else would, or could. The children with no parents and the classrooms with no teachers. It would be easier if there were somebody to be mad at. Someone who I could go yell at, or blame, or be pissed at until they got their act together. But there's not. There's just these babies with no parents, with nobody to love them, and not a few of whom will die of the same disease their mothers passed on to them.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Do Re Mi in 6 8 Time
I mentioned to one of my favorite teachers about 2 or 3 months ago that I had studied music a bit in college, and play an instrument or two...including the piano. She, suddenly and spontaneously, broke into any number of emphatic 'hallelujah amen, oh praise jesus!'-es so that I started looking around me wondering if maybe the big man himself had materialised somewhere behind us. Nope, turns out that they were in desperate need of a piano accompanist for an upcoming choir competition in which EVERY SCHOOL IN THREE DISTRICTS was participating. So, you know, good thing I hadn't touched a piano in about a year. So I spent about three days at a semi-nearby teachers center that had a piano, practicing the music that turned out to be kind of hard (damn). And then approximately 3 hours of one saturday playing for all the music teachers/choir leaders so that they could get an idea of what things would and/or should sound like before the big day. (They had the option of bringing their choirs that day so that the kids could actually practice singing with the piano but, well, TIA).
Last saturday was the big competition, and THANK GOD the official piano player actually showed up. The teachers all claimed that they would rather have had me because I "listened better" (which means I was perfectly willing to ignore all musicality and ink on the page in favor of whatever they wanted) and wouldn't really believe me when I told them that no, they didn't. By coincidence two of the schools that I had been hanging out at the past week also did really well and will move on to the next round.
The school that I was at this past week claims that those two schools did well because I happened to be around (because, you know, sporadically clapping my hands to the beat every now and again and occasionally pointing out things like 'hey, I think you're supposed to be a bit louder here' = BEST CLINIC EVER!!!) so my job for the week was to hang out with the choir. Thats fine, I can do that. It was really fun.
I felt so bad for the kids though, the teachers had them practicing 5 hours a day for a week! Which, of course, is just horrendously bad for you. A lot of them couldn't even talk at the end of the week, I'm hoping that the long weekend will help them out some. They're singing "Funniculi Funnicula" which is actually really hard even if you do read music, and apparently none of the teachers do. Every song, every tune, everything is learned by ear or by do re mi sight singing. Its really amazing when you consider how much singing happens around the village and how beautiful it all is. ...But I've spent a lot of time explaining time signatures and rests and chords.
The kids are sounding really good, which is impressive because they've only had a week to practice. I'm rooting for them on Friday, its the second round of competition so they're not just up against the neighboring schools, now there are the rich schools from around Malelane and Komatipoort in it too. I don't know if the teachers are thinking of it this way, but what a coup for the to do well, to win or move on. I know they can, I have total faith in them, and they're so dedicated too. Wish us luck.
Last saturday was the big competition, and THANK GOD the official piano player actually showed up. The teachers all claimed that they would rather have had me because I "listened better" (which means I was perfectly willing to ignore all musicality and ink on the page in favor of whatever they wanted) and wouldn't really believe me when I told them that no, they didn't. By coincidence two of the schools that I had been hanging out at the past week also did really well and will move on to the next round.
The school that I was at this past week claims that those two schools did well because I happened to be around (because, you know, sporadically clapping my hands to the beat every now and again and occasionally pointing out things like 'hey, I think you're supposed to be a bit louder here' = BEST CLINIC EVER!!!) so my job for the week was to hang out with the choir. Thats fine, I can do that. It was really fun.
I felt so bad for the kids though, the teachers had them practicing 5 hours a day for a week! Which, of course, is just horrendously bad for you. A lot of them couldn't even talk at the end of the week, I'm hoping that the long weekend will help them out some. They're singing "Funniculi Funnicula" which is actually really hard even if you do read music, and apparently none of the teachers do. Every song, every tune, everything is learned by ear or by do re mi sight singing. Its really amazing when you consider how much singing happens around the village and how beautiful it all is. ...But I've spent a lot of time explaining time signatures and rests and chords.
The kids are sounding really good, which is impressive because they've only had a week to practice. I'm rooting for them on Friday, its the second round of competition so they're not just up against the neighboring schools, now there are the rich schools from around Malelane and Komatipoort in it too. I don't know if the teachers are thinking of it this way, but what a coup for the to do well, to win or move on. I know they can, I have total faith in them, and they're so dedicated too. Wish us luck.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Abyss
Yesterday I left school a little bit early to begin my walk home. Class had gotten out about 30 minutes ago, so there were still lots of kids all over the place. A few of them decided to walk me home. And then a few more, and then a few more, and a few more – until I had an enormous pack of children giggling and surrounding me like an atom cloud as I cruised down the road. They practiced their English (“Good morning! Hi, Nomvula! Good morning!”). I practiced my teaching skills (“seriously guys, its 2 in the afternoon – at least say ‘good afternoon.’ Okay, how about this: ‘whats cracking’ – say ‘whats cracking’” They didn’t) So we all headed down the road together while everybody in the village laughed at me and my new-found horde. I was beginning to congratulate myself on how well I was putting up with my popularity, feeling all proud of my tolerance and patience, etc… and maybe enjoying my celebrity a little bit too when all of a sudden…my horde disappears? Wtf?
I look around –
I’ve been abandoned for a new and interesting hole in the ground.
Such is fame, I guess.
I look around –
I’ve been abandoned for a new and interesting hole in the ground.
Such is fame, I guess.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Spring Break...Woo!*
I just got back from a vacation in Mozambique – which I can actually see from my backyard, so I suppose it was about time I made it over there. I think that the best part of being an education peace corps volunteer in Africa is probably about the same as the best part of being an education worker anywhere else in the world –ridiculous amounts of vacation time. So for spring break (well, autumn break. I am so tired of this stupid southern hemisphere) we decided to head to a tropical beach.
We spent a night in Maputo, the capital, which is a little bit sketchy but can be pretty interesting if you’re willing to walk all over the place to find stuff. Probably the best part is the ridiculously fresh seafood. There’s a fish market right on the beach, and then all of these little restaurant-like places that are basically glorified kitchens. They cook your food for you for about the equivalent of $2 a plate. Its completely delicious.
After a night in Maputo we got into a bus for a comfortable and delightful 8 hour ride up Tofo beach – which is incredibly beautiful and totally worthwhile. You know all those corona commercials where you’re looking from the perspective of a person in a hammock and its all white sand and completely clear blue water and coconut trees? Pretty much just like that. And I spent about the whole week in that hammock. We also tried to go snorkelling with whale sharks (what a ridiculous sentence to write. Who does that? Who says, “oh, last week when I was snorkelling with whale sharks”) but sadly we never actually found any. We just rode around in a boat off the coast for 2 hours instead. It was a nice boat ride. Maybe some other time.
Generally the whole trip was really amazing (especially the part where I accidentally pulled the handle off the backpacker’s propane stove and created an enormous fountain of flames and explosion that kind of threatened to burn the whole place down, when all I really wanted was to make spaghetti. That was fun.) Mozambique is definitely much more what people probably think of when post-colonial Africa comes to mind. Its very poor, but you can see the remains of the Portugese/Arabic/European influence in the architecture and infrastructure, which is occasionally very pretty even in a completely run down state. It has a very Caribbean tropical feel to it, lots of palm trees and sudden rain storms. I kept thinking to myself how much mom and dad would love the place, its so beautiful and so very real and down to earth at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if Mozambique and its beaches start becoming a real touristy resort destination in not too many years. (Maybe 20). I'm glad I got to go there now and get the 'backpacker' feel before that dissapears. Of course, it is also a complete economic mess: the people are poor, the streets are covered in filth, and the cops are corrupt.
We actually got hassled by a group of cops when we were walking through Maputo on our last night. They wanted our passports, but only one of us actually had his on him. They wouldn’t accept our PC IDs, were giving us a hard time, and generally things were looking like we were headed towards a night in a Mozambican jail (and…ew) because God knows we didn’t have the money for bribes, when this dude in a car pulled over and just started shouting at them over and over in Portugese. I have no idea what he was saying, but he was pissed. So the cops turned to us and asked if there was a problem here. We said most definitely not and got the hell out of there.
So Mozambique was fun.
*This might look pretty familiar to a few of you getting letters pretty soon. Sorry, but I can only write the only thing so many times in so many ways, you know?
We spent a night in Maputo, the capital, which is a little bit sketchy but can be pretty interesting if you’re willing to walk all over the place to find stuff. Probably the best part is the ridiculously fresh seafood. There’s a fish market right on the beach, and then all of these little restaurant-like places that are basically glorified kitchens. They cook your food for you for about the equivalent of $2 a plate. Its completely delicious.
After a night in Maputo we got into a bus for a comfortable and delightful 8 hour ride up Tofo beach – which is incredibly beautiful and totally worthwhile. You know all those corona commercials where you’re looking from the perspective of a person in a hammock and its all white sand and completely clear blue water and coconut trees? Pretty much just like that. And I spent about the whole week in that hammock. We also tried to go snorkelling with whale sharks (what a ridiculous sentence to write. Who does that? Who says, “oh, last week when I was snorkelling with whale sharks”) but sadly we never actually found any. We just rode around in a boat off the coast for 2 hours instead. It was a nice boat ride. Maybe some other time.
Generally the whole trip was really amazing (especially the part where I accidentally pulled the handle off the backpacker’s propane stove and created an enormous fountain of flames and explosion that kind of threatened to burn the whole place down, when all I really wanted was to make spaghetti. That was fun.) Mozambique is definitely much more what people probably think of when post-colonial Africa comes to mind. Its very poor, but you can see the remains of the Portugese/Arabic/European influence in the architecture and infrastructure, which is occasionally very pretty even in a completely run down state. It has a very Caribbean tropical feel to it, lots of palm trees and sudden rain storms. I kept thinking to myself how much mom and dad would love the place, its so beautiful and so very real and down to earth at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised if Mozambique and its beaches start becoming a real touristy resort destination in not too many years. (Maybe 20). I'm glad I got to go there now and get the 'backpacker' feel before that dissapears. Of course, it is also a complete economic mess: the people are poor, the streets are covered in filth, and the cops are corrupt.
We actually got hassled by a group of cops when we were walking through Maputo on our last night. They wanted our passports, but only one of us actually had his on him. They wouldn’t accept our PC IDs, were giving us a hard time, and generally things were looking like we were headed towards a night in a Mozambican jail (and…ew) because God knows we didn’t have the money for bribes, when this dude in a car pulled over and just started shouting at them over and over in Portugese. I have no idea what he was saying, but he was pissed. So the cops turned to us and asked if there was a problem here. We said most definitely not and got the hell out of there.
So Mozambique was fun.
*This might look pretty familiar to a few of you getting letters pretty soon. Sorry, but I can only write the only thing so many times in so many ways, you know?
Monday, March 26, 2007
Haven't You Always Wanted a Monkey?
Sadly, this entry has absolutely nothing to do with its title. But wouldn't it be fun if I moved to Africa and really did have regular contact with monkeys? I'll have to settle for my 2 year old host sister instead, I guess. She is probably much cuter and smarter than any potential monkey, anyway. And probably throws her own poop around at least a little less.
One of the reasons I love spending time with Azora so much is because language is tends to be a non-issue. The two of us speak roughly the same amount of siSwati, but we seem to understand eachother perfectly anyway. She usually wants to play, sleep, have a drink, or avoid a bath, so we relate well. We also have our language lessons togehter: here is my head, my nose, my eyes, my hands, etc... (I have also taught her to say nose, mouth, spaghetti, and obnoxious in english. Each time she points to her nose when I ask where it is, I am convinced that I live with the most brilliant child in the world).
There are also certain key phrases that she has recently picked up due to having reached the potty-training stage of her career, and these I've had to learn with a certain amount of rapid necessity. So when she informs me that "ngifuna kaka!" I know that its time to get her off my bed and into the pit toilet. (There's also a certain sense of bizarre comfort to know that some words don't change no matter what culture or language you're in. Kaka means exactly what you think it does.) The trip to the pit toilet is accompanied by much commentary from both her ("unuka!") and me ("yeah, it does smell. Don't look down, friend, pit toilet rule 1! Azora, I love you but I am not fishing you out if you fall in." etc...) and finished up with her ordering me to 'sula!'
Any hint that I might have been succumbing to maternal instincts tends to end right there. No matter how much I may adore this child, I firmly believe that in the end we just all need to learn to wipe our own rear-ends.
(I really was planning to write something at least a little insightful up there, but sometimes you just have to give into the bizarre instead. Next time.)
One of the reasons I love spending time with Azora so much is because language is tends to be a non-issue. The two of us speak roughly the same amount of siSwati, but we seem to understand eachother perfectly anyway. She usually wants to play, sleep, have a drink, or avoid a bath, so we relate well. We also have our language lessons togehter: here is my head, my nose, my eyes, my hands, etc... (I have also taught her to say nose, mouth, spaghetti, and obnoxious in english. Each time she points to her nose when I ask where it is, I am convinced that I live with the most brilliant child in the world).
There are also certain key phrases that she has recently picked up due to having reached the potty-training stage of her career, and these I've had to learn with a certain amount of rapid necessity. So when she informs me that "ngifuna kaka!" I know that its time to get her off my bed and into the pit toilet. (There's also a certain sense of bizarre comfort to know that some words don't change no matter what culture or language you're in. Kaka means exactly what you think it does.) The trip to the pit toilet is accompanied by much commentary from both her ("unuka!") and me ("yeah, it does smell. Don't look down, friend, pit toilet rule 1! Azora, I love you but I am not fishing you out if you fall in." etc...) and finished up with her ordering me to 'sula!'
Any hint that I might have been succumbing to maternal instincts tends to end right there. No matter how much I may adore this child, I firmly believe that in the end we just all need to learn to wipe our own rear-ends.
(I really was planning to write something at least a little insightful up there, but sometimes you just have to give into the bizarre instead. Next time.)
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Success!
I found out yesterday that my grant has been approved for a girl's empowerment/HIV education camp this coming summer (Or...winter...June. Whatever). I'm so, so excited, not least of all because this was the first major grant that I've written and it was accepted on the first attempt. I've asked for a little under $3,000 American to fund 4 days at a youth hostel in Kruger Park (!). We're going to spend time with 24 12-16 year old girls from my village to discuss things like gender roles, self-esteem, life goals, relationships, and of course HIV and how it is effected (affected? whichever) by all of the above. I'm ecstatic, and I feel like this is something that really has a chance of helping girls in my village.
As far as my other project goes, I sent out 11 letters last week requesting book donations from various philanthropies and NGOs throughout the world (though mostly the US and UK). Hopefully we'll start hearing back from them soon. Would anybody out there in the US like to do a book drive with me? (Mom? Ed'd? Kate and band-uh!?). This is going to be the only accessible library for 20 miles -- which actually translates to about 2.5 hours. Which, of course, actually translates itself to inaccessibility. My dream is sections of books in SiSwati, Xitsonga, and English. Children's books, novels, books for adult literacy programs, pamphlets and information on health and agriculture, resource and textbooks for learners to do research projects and papers. I want lots of shelves and comfortable chairs and a computer with internet access. I want this to be a place where both kids and their parents can come to spend a few hours just enjoying the written word, or learning something new, or...whatever.
Is this ambitious? Incredibly so. But if there is one thing I've been passionate about my entire life its books and literacy and I can't imagine a better windmill to start tilting at.
Wish me luck, friends.
As far as my other project goes, I sent out 11 letters last week requesting book donations from various philanthropies and NGOs throughout the world (though mostly the US and UK). Hopefully we'll start hearing back from them soon. Would anybody out there in the US like to do a book drive with me? (Mom? Ed'd? Kate and band-uh!?). This is going to be the only accessible library for 20 miles -- which actually translates to about 2.5 hours. Which, of course, actually translates itself to inaccessibility. My dream is sections of books in SiSwati, Xitsonga, and English. Children's books, novels, books for adult literacy programs, pamphlets and information on health and agriculture, resource and textbooks for learners to do research projects and papers. I want lots of shelves and comfortable chairs and a computer with internet access. I want this to be a place where both kids and their parents can come to spend a few hours just enjoying the written word, or learning something new, or...whatever.
Is this ambitious? Incredibly so. But if there is one thing I've been passionate about my entire life its books and literacy and I can't imagine a better windmill to start tilting at.
Wish me luck, friends.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Likusasa Letfu
I’m currently working on two major projects that make me very happy.
The first is a girl’s empowerment/HIV education retreat that will be held at the end of June. I just finished the grant application for funding, and hopefully I’ll hear back from Peace Corps about it soon. The basic idea behind the retreat is this: women, for any number of reasons, biological as well as psychological and cultural, are at a much higher risk of HIV/AIDS in the village than are men. The women’s movement hasn’t quite made it all the way to Steenbok yet (which is why my key school principal occasionally tries to get me to wash his shirts for him…good luck). Girls in high school and primary school feel compelled to have sex for all the same bad reasons that their counterparts in the US do – so that the boy won’t leaver her, to prove that she loves him, because all her friends are doing it, etc… They also feel far less able to force the boy to wear a condom when they do agree to sex (assuming that they have actually agreed.) Teen pregnancy is rampant and verges on no big deal in the eyes of the girls. I’ve heard estimates that upwards of 50% of the female learners at the secondary school have children. My own estimates put the teen pregnancy rate at about 15% a year in the village. So the idea is, if we spend some time talking to girls from every school about self-esteem, about their own plans for their own futures, about the fact that they really are good enough and strong enough to do whatever they want and say whatever they want, then that itself will drastically effect choices they make in the future. We’re also going to spend time discussing HIV myths and facts, ways to protect themselves, etc… Its impossible to live in South Africa and not have heard about HIV of course. By some estimates the HIV infection rate is as high as 25%. Its highest in Mpumulanga (my province) and rural villages (like mine). They’ve heard ABC. They’ve seen the slogans. But I think that sitting down and discussing HIV, and STIs, and pregnancy – processing things in their own way and words instead of being passive receptors for government slogans – will go a lot further. I hope. I have a teacher from every school in the village of the committee to put this together, and we’ve all already decided that this camp should come back and create some sort of peer-education club at each school when they start up again in July. Potentially this can be a really awesome and sustainable program, or that’s my dream. I’m also really excited because my brilliant host sister, Latoya, is just the right age to go. The girls are going to be chosen via an essay contest, and I know that her English writing skills are good, so I think that she’ll get to go (and I’m not above pulling a few strings either…)
My second project is a school library that has the potential to become a resource for the entire community. The thing about it is, too – I didn’t even start it! A teacher at one of my schools came to me and said that she wanted to start a library for the school. She had already cleared out a room (this is the only school with spare classrooms. Hopefully within the year we will manage to get enough extra space to create libraries at the other two schools too). I told her that I would be completely delighted to help her, and as I just happened to have my copy of Libraries for All on me at the moment, I lent it to her. Finally on Friday she showed me the spare class, already complete with bookshelves. We went through a list of potential book donors, and talked about who we thought could use the library – what kind of books did we want? We both agreed that the dream is creating a community resource and that she is more than willing to act as librarian (which is, in its own way, unfortunate since she’s also one of the best teachers at the school. But we can burn that bridge when we come to it). So we’re requesting books on agriculture and community building and appropriate technology as well as reference and reading books. Looking around the room we could both see it: the computer will go here, the shelves will go here, and chairs and beanbags and tables and lamps and rugs, and… So my job this weekend is to write a general letter from a list of key points that we put together and then tailor it slightly to each organization we identified. I’m also planning to hit up Adventures for Kids and any other groups I can think of for book drives (perhaps some members of the Santa Paula or LAUSD school districts would like to help…?). My nearest neighbor recently got nearly 3900 books donated from one drive to her schools. Not that I’ve ever been at all competitive or anything, but…I’d say I have an obligation to at least double that.
In addition to those major things, I’m also going to start English clubs at two of my schools, and I want to see if I can actually start teaching a class a couple days a week at my key school. What better way to show teachers that it really can be done than through really doing it myself every day?
The first is a girl’s empowerment/HIV education retreat that will be held at the end of June. I just finished the grant application for funding, and hopefully I’ll hear back from Peace Corps about it soon. The basic idea behind the retreat is this: women, for any number of reasons, biological as well as psychological and cultural, are at a much higher risk of HIV/AIDS in the village than are men. The women’s movement hasn’t quite made it all the way to Steenbok yet (which is why my key school principal occasionally tries to get me to wash his shirts for him…good luck). Girls in high school and primary school feel compelled to have sex for all the same bad reasons that their counterparts in the US do – so that the boy won’t leaver her, to prove that she loves him, because all her friends are doing it, etc… They also feel far less able to force the boy to wear a condom when they do agree to sex (assuming that they have actually agreed.) Teen pregnancy is rampant and verges on no big deal in the eyes of the girls. I’ve heard estimates that upwards of 50% of the female learners at the secondary school have children. My own estimates put the teen pregnancy rate at about 15% a year in the village. So the idea is, if we spend some time talking to girls from every school about self-esteem, about their own plans for their own futures, about the fact that they really are good enough and strong enough to do whatever they want and say whatever they want, then that itself will drastically effect choices they make in the future. We’re also going to spend time discussing HIV myths and facts, ways to protect themselves, etc… Its impossible to live in South Africa and not have heard about HIV of course. By some estimates the HIV infection rate is as high as 25%. Its highest in Mpumulanga (my province) and rural villages (like mine). They’ve heard ABC. They’ve seen the slogans. But I think that sitting down and discussing HIV, and STIs, and pregnancy – processing things in their own way and words instead of being passive receptors for government slogans – will go a lot further. I hope. I have a teacher from every school in the village of the committee to put this together, and we’ve all already decided that this camp should come back and create some sort of peer-education club at each school when they start up again in July. Potentially this can be a really awesome and sustainable program, or that’s my dream. I’m also really excited because my brilliant host sister, Latoya, is just the right age to go. The girls are going to be chosen via an essay contest, and I know that her English writing skills are good, so I think that she’ll get to go (and I’m not above pulling a few strings either…)
My second project is a school library that has the potential to become a resource for the entire community. The thing about it is, too – I didn’t even start it! A teacher at one of my schools came to me and said that she wanted to start a library for the school. She had already cleared out a room (this is the only school with spare classrooms. Hopefully within the year we will manage to get enough extra space to create libraries at the other two schools too). I told her that I would be completely delighted to help her, and as I just happened to have my copy of Libraries for All on me at the moment, I lent it to her. Finally on Friday she showed me the spare class, already complete with bookshelves. We went through a list of potential book donors, and talked about who we thought could use the library – what kind of books did we want? We both agreed that the dream is creating a community resource and that she is more than willing to act as librarian (which is, in its own way, unfortunate since she’s also one of the best teachers at the school. But we can burn that bridge when we come to it). So we’re requesting books on agriculture and community building and appropriate technology as well as reference and reading books. Looking around the room we could both see it: the computer will go here, the shelves will go here, and chairs and beanbags and tables and lamps and rugs, and… So my job this weekend is to write a general letter from a list of key points that we put together and then tailor it slightly to each organization we identified. I’m also planning to hit up Adventures for Kids and any other groups I can think of for book drives (perhaps some members of the Santa Paula or LAUSD school districts would like to help…?). My nearest neighbor recently got nearly 3900 books donated from one drive to her schools. Not that I’ve ever been at all competitive or anything, but…I’d say I have an obligation to at least double that.
In addition to those major things, I’m also going to start English clubs at two of my schools, and I want to see if I can actually start teaching a class a couple days a week at my key school. What better way to show teachers that it really can be done than through really doing it myself every day?
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Ngitawukushaya!
One of the biggest things that I struggle with in my schools – and I’m far from being alone in this – is corporal punishment. Not so much the struggle to get teachers to stop doing it (though obviously I do) but the struggle within myself to process my own feelings and knee-jerk reactions to it.
In theory I’m not completely against the occasional slap on the wrist or other physical correction of a child. Sometimes you just want to give a kid an immediate physical reminder that what they did probably shouldn’t be repeated. Of course there are other and better ways to get your point across, and I don’t think that myself I could ever hit a child in any way but I’m just saying…probably there will be no lasting psychological scars from the calm occasional or once in a great while spanking. (Can you see already how many qualifiers I’ve worked in? How uncomfortable this makes me?)
That said, the first time I witnessed a teacher hitting students in her class it was probably one of the more horrible things I’ve ever had to sit and watch. Those children were terrified of every movement she made, and I personally was on the point of tears. First grade for goodness sake! How can you expect kids to learn to love reading if their first experience with it is like something out of Full Metal Jacket? But that’s not really the point (for now). I’ve seen other teachers hit, slap, humiliate, and pinch their learners. Other volunteers tell me horror stories involving full on whips. My schools, to be fair, are actually pretty good about corporal punishment. I’ve only seen three outright text-book examples (of course, I’m sure there were all sorts of other instances that I didn’t), but I felt like I was the one being hit each time.
Many of my teachers, while they won’t admit to hitting their learners, per se, still see nothing wrong with it as a teaching method, and herein lies the root of my problem:
In my eyes if you are capable of hitting a child openly and without remorse you are, with no shades of black and white, a Bad Person. In the eyes of my teachers and the people in my village, you are probably just a Caring Guardian. I have trouble talking to any teacher after I have seen them do this. I don’t want to be in their classroom, I don’t even want to look them in the eye or greet them in the morning. They have shifted catergories, moved into the unforgivable.
Is a good part of this a cultural thing? Yes, probably. I know perfectly well that corporal punishment was and is practiced in pretty much every school system that ever has existed. I know it is a very recent innovation that means that I (or more to the point, Robbie) never got called into an office and whapped good for whatever stupid thing I had done. I know all about nuns and rulers, and Mr. Spoon, and Roald Dahl’s stories, and all the rest of it. It happens, it happened, western civilization doesn’t seem to have come crashing down for it. But still. I was never hit as a child (maybe once, I have a vague recollection…), teachers in my classes never threatened to hit me, the very thought of violence as a disciplinary measure is something that I managed to grow up blissfully unaware of. And so when I see it, I am shocked. I consider it immoral, bad, I am incapable of seeing shades of grey. I cannot translate this as ‘culture’ even though every rational, far off part of me is saying that these are exactly the sort of clashes I was warned and taught about over and over.
Am I right? Are they wrong? I don’t know. I just can’t condone the violence as a solution, in any context, but I am willing to work towards understanding why my teachers can. Understand that I mean the rational, under control, occasional slap or pinch or whatever. I have also seen teachers simply lashing out at students at anger and in frustration, and I think that that is just wrong – no culture, no mitigations. Children should never be the vent for your aggravation. I don’t care how much the teacher hates their job or how poorly trained and frustrated they are. Unacceptable.
So what am I going to do about all this? I really don’t know. I’ll put on my workshops, I’ll explain the alternatives to every teacher I catch. I’ll tell them how against it I am and that I will walk out of any classroom where I see learners being hit. I’ll refuse to work with that teacher again until we work out a solution, a suitable set of disciplinary alternatives. It is, all my cultural qualms aside, against the law anyway.
But what does this mean for my cross cultural education? Do I just accept this as an example of “our cultures are different, hooray diversity!” Is it something I can change? Is it something I should bother changing? Is it inherently wrong or is it just my perspective?
Its that last one that gets me. Does cultural diversity translate to moral relativism? Do I get to be the one to draw the line in the sand?
In theory I’m not completely against the occasional slap on the wrist or other physical correction of a child. Sometimes you just want to give a kid an immediate physical reminder that what they did probably shouldn’t be repeated. Of course there are other and better ways to get your point across, and I don’t think that myself I could ever hit a child in any way but I’m just saying…probably there will be no lasting psychological scars from the calm occasional or once in a great while spanking. (Can you see already how many qualifiers I’ve worked in? How uncomfortable this makes me?)
That said, the first time I witnessed a teacher hitting students in her class it was probably one of the more horrible things I’ve ever had to sit and watch. Those children were terrified of every movement she made, and I personally was on the point of tears. First grade for goodness sake! How can you expect kids to learn to love reading if their first experience with it is like something out of Full Metal Jacket? But that’s not really the point (for now). I’ve seen other teachers hit, slap, humiliate, and pinch their learners. Other volunteers tell me horror stories involving full on whips. My schools, to be fair, are actually pretty good about corporal punishment. I’ve only seen three outright text-book examples (of course, I’m sure there were all sorts of other instances that I didn’t), but I felt like I was the one being hit each time.
Many of my teachers, while they won’t admit to hitting their learners, per se, still see nothing wrong with it as a teaching method, and herein lies the root of my problem:
In my eyes if you are capable of hitting a child openly and without remorse you are, with no shades of black and white, a Bad Person. In the eyes of my teachers and the people in my village, you are probably just a Caring Guardian. I have trouble talking to any teacher after I have seen them do this. I don’t want to be in their classroom, I don’t even want to look them in the eye or greet them in the morning. They have shifted catergories, moved into the unforgivable.
Is a good part of this a cultural thing? Yes, probably. I know perfectly well that corporal punishment was and is practiced in pretty much every school system that ever has existed. I know it is a very recent innovation that means that I (or more to the point, Robbie) never got called into an office and whapped good for whatever stupid thing I had done. I know all about nuns and rulers, and Mr. Spoon, and Roald Dahl’s stories, and all the rest of it. It happens, it happened, western civilization doesn’t seem to have come crashing down for it. But still. I was never hit as a child (maybe once, I have a vague recollection…), teachers in my classes never threatened to hit me, the very thought of violence as a disciplinary measure is something that I managed to grow up blissfully unaware of. And so when I see it, I am shocked. I consider it immoral, bad, I am incapable of seeing shades of grey. I cannot translate this as ‘culture’ even though every rational, far off part of me is saying that these are exactly the sort of clashes I was warned and taught about over and over.
Am I right? Are they wrong? I don’t know. I just can’t condone the violence as a solution, in any context, but I am willing to work towards understanding why my teachers can. Understand that I mean the rational, under control, occasional slap or pinch or whatever. I have also seen teachers simply lashing out at students at anger and in frustration, and I think that that is just wrong – no culture, no mitigations. Children should never be the vent for your aggravation. I don’t care how much the teacher hates their job or how poorly trained and frustrated they are. Unacceptable.
So what am I going to do about all this? I really don’t know. I’ll put on my workshops, I’ll explain the alternatives to every teacher I catch. I’ll tell them how against it I am and that I will walk out of any classroom where I see learners being hit. I’ll refuse to work with that teacher again until we work out a solution, a suitable set of disciplinary alternatives. It is, all my cultural qualms aside, against the law anyway.
But what does this mean for my cross cultural education? Do I just accept this as an example of “our cultures are different, hooray diversity!” Is it something I can change? Is it something I should bother changing? Is it inherently wrong or is it just my perspective?
Its that last one that gets me. Does cultural diversity translate to moral relativism? Do I get to be the one to draw the line in the sand?
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Quarterly Report
The other day as I waited in line to buy electricity for my family, an old man came up to me and said (in SiSwati), “Wait, are you THE Nomvula Sambo living in --------?” “Why yes, yes I am.” He then shook my hand and wandered off.
I am famous.
A few nights previous to that, I woke up to the feeling of something on my leg. It was a cockroach who had cleverly managed to sneak inside my mosquito net and commence crawling up the inside of my pajama pants.*
I am desired.
Later in the day I watched a woman at the grocery store do a visible double take when I told her that yes, in fact I was living in my village and not in Komatipoort.
I am…sort of confusing.
And so it goes as I find myself rushing towards the 6 month mark of my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer. That’s like the end of freshmen year, you’d think that I’d have learned something by now….you know, in theory.
What I probably have learned is why every other PCV I met during training, the ones who at that point had all been around for at least a year, kept telling us that we would end up scaling our ambitions back. That failure was sort of inevitable, and we would learn to be happy with ‘small victories.’ At the time I thought, “To heck with that! I came to Peace Corps to save the world and I’m going to do my best with the little corner I have!” I plotted workshops, young reader’s faires, 20 minutes of reading every morning, libraries I would put together, computer labs that I would build. I read policy documents on alternatives to corporal punishment and plotted all the facile answers I would give my teachers. I memorized curriculum booklets and waded through Department of Education policy documents, ready to explain all of them at the drop of a hat.
And I will still probably do a lot of that, but I’m also starting to realize that mostly those things are all external. The reason we are here, and the way that things will finally, eventually (someday…) change is much harder. Computer labs are great. Explaining policy is great, but at a certain point everything else is just external to good teaching practices. The way the schools will change, the way that things will get better, is just straight up better teaching. Kids here can’t read and they can’t think critically. You ask anybody “why?” and you get the blank stare to end them all. No computer lab or workshop is going to change that, only good teaching will. And I’m willing to help my teachers with that for the next 2 years ceaselessly. I’ll explain classroom management, and open-ended questions, and why essays are fun, and books are good, and sticks are bad until the end of time, but…that doesn’t really mean that they’ll be interested in it.
How do you convince people that the way things have been done practically forever really isn’t the way to do it at all, and instead they should try this? People don’t change their actions unless they see a really good reason, and currently many of my teachers don’t. It was good enough for them when they were in school. Their teachers beat them and they turned out all right. Why should they listen to the crazy PCV with the ridiculous, new, and difficult ideas?
Why indeed?
Turns out these are the small victories those in the know were talking about. When I can convince a teacher to erase the answers from the board and let her kids find it themselves for classwork. When someone else asks to borrow my book of grammar games (I was comp lit, okay?) and really does seem to notice that the ones encouraging creativity are better. When I can make at least one person understand the difference between regurgitating something and knowing it. Those are my victories. Tiny moments that happen maybe once a week, twice if the hippy gods are smiling down on me. I suppose that those are scaled down a bit from my original plans of saving the world, but they are what will make a difference, so I’ll go with it. Besides, I’ve got 18 more months.
*Oh yes, that is one very, very dead cockroach now. Simply unacceptable.
PS
Kelsey! I can't wait to see you!!
I am famous.
A few nights previous to that, I woke up to the feeling of something on my leg. It was a cockroach who had cleverly managed to sneak inside my mosquito net and commence crawling up the inside of my pajama pants.*
I am desired.
Later in the day I watched a woman at the grocery store do a visible double take when I told her that yes, in fact I was living in my village and not in Komatipoort.
I am…sort of confusing.
And so it goes as I find myself rushing towards the 6 month mark of my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer. That’s like the end of freshmen year, you’d think that I’d have learned something by now….you know, in theory.
What I probably have learned is why every other PCV I met during training, the ones who at that point had all been around for at least a year, kept telling us that we would end up scaling our ambitions back. That failure was sort of inevitable, and we would learn to be happy with ‘small victories.’ At the time I thought, “To heck with that! I came to Peace Corps to save the world and I’m going to do my best with the little corner I have!” I plotted workshops, young reader’s faires, 20 minutes of reading every morning, libraries I would put together, computer labs that I would build. I read policy documents on alternatives to corporal punishment and plotted all the facile answers I would give my teachers. I memorized curriculum booklets and waded through Department of Education policy documents, ready to explain all of them at the drop of a hat.
And I will still probably do a lot of that, but I’m also starting to realize that mostly those things are all external. The reason we are here, and the way that things will finally, eventually (someday…) change is much harder. Computer labs are great. Explaining policy is great, but at a certain point everything else is just external to good teaching practices. The way the schools will change, the way that things will get better, is just straight up better teaching. Kids here can’t read and they can’t think critically. You ask anybody “why?” and you get the blank stare to end them all. No computer lab or workshop is going to change that, only good teaching will. And I’m willing to help my teachers with that for the next 2 years ceaselessly. I’ll explain classroom management, and open-ended questions, and why essays are fun, and books are good, and sticks are bad until the end of time, but…that doesn’t really mean that they’ll be interested in it.
How do you convince people that the way things have been done practically forever really isn’t the way to do it at all, and instead they should try this? People don’t change their actions unless they see a really good reason, and currently many of my teachers don’t. It was good enough for them when they were in school. Their teachers beat them and they turned out all right. Why should they listen to the crazy PCV with the ridiculous, new, and difficult ideas?
Why indeed?
Turns out these are the small victories those in the know were talking about. When I can convince a teacher to erase the answers from the board and let her kids find it themselves for classwork. When someone else asks to borrow my book of grammar games (I was comp lit, okay?) and really does seem to notice that the ones encouraging creativity are better. When I can make at least one person understand the difference between regurgitating something and knowing it. Those are my victories. Tiny moments that happen maybe once a week, twice if the hippy gods are smiling down on me. I suppose that those are scaled down a bit from my original plans of saving the world, but they are what will make a difference, so I’ll go with it. Besides, I’ve got 18 more months.
*Oh yes, that is one very, very dead cockroach now. Simply unacceptable.
PS
Kelsey! I can't wait to see you!!
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Deep Thoughts With Steenbok
South Africa’s Wisest Village:
(In the spirit of the last few posts titles, I thought that I would compile some of the true gems of wisdom I hear in my village everyday. These are just the ones that have stuck in my head, for one reason or another.)
“If I could be president for a day, I would send half the women in Parliament packing. There’s too many of them, they should be at home cooking.” –Principal
“Hey Nomvula, you look nice today, you must have looked in a mirror this morning!” –Teacher
“Hey Nomvula, you look nice today…must be that week you spent with Bafana [the male volunteer down the road, all of us had just spent a week at training]!” –Teacher
“Where is the phonebook? I tell these people they need to keep track of the phonebook and make sure its always near the phone…we need the pages to smoke dagga [pot], they’re much thinner than newspaper.” –Teacher
“Wait, why are you laughing at us? Explain why ‘boys vs. girls’ is a bad debate topic.” –Teacher
“You know that when a learner gets sick and dies its because the teacher or principal went to a sangoma to curse them, right? And then the parents come, and they’re angry, and they charge us! And it’s the same if a woman’s husband dies, it is because she has gone to the sangoma. But if a husband’s wife dies, its okay, he has more.” –Principal.
And finally
"Unuka!!" [you smell!] - my 2 year old sister.
(In the spirit of the last few posts titles, I thought that I would compile some of the true gems of wisdom I hear in my village everyday. These are just the ones that have stuck in my head, for one reason or another.)
“If I could be president for a day, I would send half the women in Parliament packing. There’s too many of them, they should be at home cooking.” –Principal
“Hey Nomvula, you look nice today, you must have looked in a mirror this morning!” –Teacher
“Hey Nomvula, you look nice today…must be that week you spent with Bafana [the male volunteer down the road, all of us had just spent a week at training]!” –Teacher
“Where is the phonebook? I tell these people they need to keep track of the phonebook and make sure its always near the phone…we need the pages to smoke dagga [pot], they’re much thinner than newspaper.” –Teacher
“Wait, why are you laughing at us? Explain why ‘boys vs. girls’ is a bad debate topic.” –Teacher
“You know that when a learner gets sick and dies its because the teacher or principal went to a sangoma to curse them, right? And then the parents come, and they’re angry, and they charge us! And it’s the same if a woman’s husband dies, it is because she has gone to the sangoma. But if a husband’s wife dies, its okay, he has more.” –Principal.
And finally
"Unuka!!" [you smell!] - my 2 year old sister.
Friday, February 02, 2007
Pictures!!
Okay, todays the day. After 6 months I finally figured out how to make it happen. Ready?
Photos:
At swearing-in on September 21. We are now officially Peace Corps Volunteers. Uh oh.
Some of the kids from Bhambatha Primary School -- my key school -- on a bus on the way to the Pretoria zoo.
A view of Kruger National Park without any animals at all.
Little girls perform traditional Swazi dances at a grade R graduation.
My "pack"from Bundu. They used to follow me around screaming "Nomvula!!!"-- well, me or any other volunteer who might happen to look vaguely white and blonde.
Photos:
At swearing-in on September 21. We are now officially Peace Corps Volunteers. Uh oh.
Some of the kids from Bhambatha Primary School -- my key school -- on a bus on the way to the Pretoria zoo.
A view of Kruger National Park without any animals at all.
Little girls perform traditional Swazi dances at a grade R graduation.
My "pack"from Bundu. They used to follow me around screaming "Nomvula!!!"-- well, me or any other volunteer who might happen to look vaguely white and blonde.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
"If I could be president for a day...
...the very first thing I would do is send half the women in parliament packing.
There are too many, they should be home cooking anyway." ~my key school principal (followed, of course, by a healthy debate. Dana, if you're reading this, that one's for you.)
Its just a good season for quotes or something in the village, I don't know.
The village that I'm living in is a little bit of an anomaly. Its considered 'deep rural' (can you believe I asked for that? In the US I think I've been camping all of 3 times my whole life, and then one day in training I find myself requesting a super-rural village. Where did that come from? But I love it) however it is fairly large -- I think at least 10,000 people, judging by the primary schools. It is in the middle of nowhere though, and I guess thats where the designation comes from. The nearest village to it is about 5 or 6 miles away, through pretty much scrub and nothing. My official 'shopping city' is 45 minutes by car on a good day, 2.5 hours by taxi on a bad one. We have half a tar road and no bodies of water anywhere nearby. There are donkey carts and lots and lots of cattle that parade past my window every day like clockwork (they are quite possibly they only living things in the village that seem to pay attention to any sort of schedule). The sangoma (traditional healer) lives next door, and while apparently she is semi-retired I still hear drum beats every now and again coming from her rondavale. Never on sundays, of course, because thats when the church on the other side of my house has their services. Professional courtesy and all that.
The people here speak 2 languages (well, the people here speak 2 home languages. They probably actually speak at least 4 a piece and smatterings of a few more.). Fortunately one of those languages is the one I learned/am learning -- siSwati -- and the other is tsonga/shongon. (Tsonga or xtsonga is the language, shongon is the culture group but they're used sort of interchangeably. Sort of.) Anyways, people speak siSwati because we're near Swaziland. They speak Tsonga for a couple of reasons. We are pretty close to Mozambique (where tsonga is spoken) and there are refugees who have crossed the border over the years and through the various political upheavals. But mostly, well, my village is like a moment in time. Apartheid's leftovers, one of those messy little things you can't really clean up now.
Nothing where I live dates from before 1954. Thats when the oldest church was erected, when the first school was founded. When I was told this, I thought, "hmmm..." and thought back to my days in Mr. Gray's world history class. Reading through some of the school's files, though, there it all was in neatly printed black and white. So matter of fact.
"The village is a result of the group areas act. Families were uprooted from rich farmland of Komatipoort and the outlying areas and moved to this area, approximately 40k from the nearest town-center."
In komatipoort they speak shongon. All the older people in my village speak shongon. And there's the Group Areas act in its stark simplicity. I'm living in something I read in a textbook nearly 7 years ago.
There are too many, they should be home cooking anyway." ~my key school principal (followed, of course, by a healthy debate. Dana, if you're reading this, that one's for you.)
Its just a good season for quotes or something in the village, I don't know.
The village that I'm living in is a little bit of an anomaly. Its considered 'deep rural' (can you believe I asked for that? In the US I think I've been camping all of 3 times my whole life, and then one day in training I find myself requesting a super-rural village. Where did that come from? But I love it) however it is fairly large -- I think at least 10,000 people, judging by the primary schools. It is in the middle of nowhere though, and I guess thats where the designation comes from. The nearest village to it is about 5 or 6 miles away, through pretty much scrub and nothing. My official 'shopping city' is 45 minutes by car on a good day, 2.5 hours by taxi on a bad one. We have half a tar road and no bodies of water anywhere nearby. There are donkey carts and lots and lots of cattle that parade past my window every day like clockwork (they are quite possibly they only living things in the village that seem to pay attention to any sort of schedule). The sangoma (traditional healer) lives next door, and while apparently she is semi-retired I still hear drum beats every now and again coming from her rondavale. Never on sundays, of course, because thats when the church on the other side of my house has their services. Professional courtesy and all that.
The people here speak 2 languages (well, the people here speak 2 home languages. They probably actually speak at least 4 a piece and smatterings of a few more.). Fortunately one of those languages is the one I learned/am learning -- siSwati -- and the other is tsonga/shongon. (Tsonga or xtsonga is the language, shongon is the culture group but they're used sort of interchangeably. Sort of.) Anyways, people speak siSwati because we're near Swaziland. They speak Tsonga for a couple of reasons. We are pretty close to Mozambique (where tsonga is spoken) and there are refugees who have crossed the border over the years and through the various political upheavals. But mostly, well, my village is like a moment in time. Apartheid's leftovers, one of those messy little things you can't really clean up now.
Nothing where I live dates from before 1954. Thats when the oldest church was erected, when the first school was founded. When I was told this, I thought, "hmmm..." and thought back to my days in Mr. Gray's world history class. Reading through some of the school's files, though, there it all was in neatly printed black and white. So matter of fact.
"The village is a result of the group areas act. Families were uprooted from rich farmland of Komatipoort and the outlying areas and moved to this area, approximately 40k from the nearest town-center."
In komatipoort they speak shongon. All the older people in my village speak shongon. And there's the Group Areas act in its stark simplicity. I'm living in something I read in a textbook nearly 7 years ago.
"Nomvula, you look nice today...
...you must have looked in a mirror this morning"
~One of my teachers. (This may or may not have been far less insulting if said in swati...I think).
Here is a list of things I don’t miss from the US:
*Smog
*WalMart
*Arbys
*Driving through LA at 5pm on a weekday
*Having an action star for a Governor
*The persistent, nagging feeling that eventually I would have to find something to do with my life.
Here is a list of things in South Africa that make me think of home:
*My sister lying on a mat in the shade and chatting with her best friend
*The weird steel cans coke uses here instead of aluminum
*The mall in Nelspruit
*The flashing clock in a taxi that looks just like the one in my mom’s car
*The way the busses all pull out of the station together, and the drivers flash thumbs up and jocky for position…I used to do that, too.
Its strange, and you hear it a lot, but it really is the little things in life that grab you in an immediate and abrupt way. The busses and the drivers in Malelane make me think of Davis and of Unitrans so much. The way we were almost playing games with our 40 foot, 10 ton toys, the way they do it too. It makes me smile on a few levels – at the memory, at the sense of kinship, at the knowledge that of all the people on the bus they would never suspect that I’m the one who ‘gets it.’ The way my teachers joke around in the staff room brings me back to the time I spent subbing, and the times when I got the in-jokes, too.
Here I am the perpetual outsider, by my skin color of course, but also by my language, my clothes, by my expectations of friends and family, even my very thought processes are strange and different -- untaught. I hear young men walk down the street in front of my house at dusk. They’re laughing, and talking, yelling at each other. Its probably closer to a stumble than a walk, if I wanted to get close enough to examine it. How many times have I done the same march home, surrounded by my friends? How many times have I roamed a neighborhood at an hour when ‘respectable’ people were in bed and becoming severely irritated by whatever those damn university hooligans were up to? I want to smile as the men walk by my house, but instead I melt back behind the door, hoping that they don’t see me. I’ve been there, yes, they should not be so alien, so frightening to me, but…they are. How many little old ladies do you think we frightened on our midnight walks? How many people felt like the outsider because of something I said or did? Who always felt like they were on the margins, unable to quite fight their way through that invisible boundary of voice and thought and color?
Its me now, trapped by the little things.
~One of my teachers. (This may or may not have been far less insulting if said in swati...I think).
Here is a list of things I don’t miss from the US:
*Smog
*WalMart
*Arbys
*Driving through LA at 5pm on a weekday
*Having an action star for a Governor
*The persistent, nagging feeling that eventually I would have to find something to do with my life.
Here is a list of things in South Africa that make me think of home:
*My sister lying on a mat in the shade and chatting with her best friend
*The weird steel cans coke uses here instead of aluminum
*The mall in Nelspruit
*The flashing clock in a taxi that looks just like the one in my mom’s car
*The way the busses all pull out of the station together, and the drivers flash thumbs up and jocky for position…I used to do that, too.
Its strange, and you hear it a lot, but it really is the little things in life that grab you in an immediate and abrupt way. The busses and the drivers in Malelane make me think of Davis and of Unitrans so much. The way we were almost playing games with our 40 foot, 10 ton toys, the way they do it too. It makes me smile on a few levels – at the memory, at the sense of kinship, at the knowledge that of all the people on the bus they would never suspect that I’m the one who ‘gets it.’ The way my teachers joke around in the staff room brings me back to the time I spent subbing, and the times when I got the in-jokes, too.
Here I am the perpetual outsider, by my skin color of course, but also by my language, my clothes, by my expectations of friends and family, even my very thought processes are strange and different -- untaught. I hear young men walk down the street in front of my house at dusk. They’re laughing, and talking, yelling at each other. Its probably closer to a stumble than a walk, if I wanted to get close enough to examine it. How many times have I done the same march home, surrounded by my friends? How many times have I roamed a neighborhood at an hour when ‘respectable’ people were in bed and becoming severely irritated by whatever those damn university hooligans were up to? I want to smile as the men walk by my house, but instead I melt back behind the door, hoping that they don’t see me. I’ve been there, yes, they should not be so alien, so frightening to me, but…they are. How many little old ladies do you think we frightened on our midnight walks? How many people felt like the outsider because of something I said or did? Who always felt like they were on the margins, unable to quite fight their way through that invisible boundary of voice and thought and color?
Its me now, trapped by the little things.
Friday, January 12, 2007
So There's These Two Pies Chilling in an Oven
Partially because I am lazy, and partially because I always wished that people would, on the myriad Peace Corps blogs I myself used to read before landing here, today let me describe to you a typical day in the life of Nomvula (whom absolutely nobody calls Becca). Also let me provide the caveat that to label any of my days here with words like "typical" or "routine" is sort of a vast stretch of anything resembling the truth, one that I assume can only make the gods laugh. But hey, you know, who doesn’t like a good joke?
At 5am my alarm goes off, at just the time I conscientiously set it last night. I immediately turn it off and go back to sleep.
5:07am – alarm goes off again
5:14am – and again
5:21am – and again.
5:28 – and one more time. This time I actually get up. I would just throw the stupid thing across the room, but my alarm happens to also be my cellphone, which I love because it keeps me in contact with the outside world.
I roll out of bed, put some sandals on, unroll some toilet paper, and head for the outhouse. Hopefully I get there early enough that the goats haven’t already started hanging out in it for the day.
After wandering back to my room, I plug in my electric kettle to the outlet that I assume is going to horribly electricute me at some point in the very near future. It hasn’t yet though, score. While the water heats up, I get the clothes I plan to wear today together (the sniff test has never been so gloriously useful as when laundry involves 2 hours of scrubbing in a bucket under a hot sun). I roll them up in my towel along with my fabulous Dr. Bronners. When the water gets hot I pour just enough into my watering can (yes, watering can). I then trek everything out to the enormous water tank next to the main house, fill the watering can up, and head for the outdoor "shower." Said shower actually consists of a cement stall where I can dump water out of my watering can and onto myself, but it still beats a bucket bath. It works surprisingly well. The only trick is to get there early enough that the adjacent outhouse hasn’t started to smell too bad. I dress in the shower and head back to my room.
I usually leave for my schools somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:30, and once there…who knows. I may be observing classes, chatting with teachers, re-typing obtuse department of education documents, putting on a workshop, trying to put together a school newspaper, or just writing in my journal and plotting how, exactly, I’m going to manage to take over the world from this tiny village. It varies, really.
School gets out about 2, unless I’m mean and keep my teachers late for a workshop (this makes them grumpy, so I try to avoid it). I head home, where I now have approximately 5 hours to kill until bed. I read (a LOT), or talk to my sisters, or write, or sms other volunteers until I think I have thumb sprain. I go for walks or head to the post office. I really should work in regular siSwati tutoring sessions, but I sort of suck and haven’t yet. Occasionally I’ve been known to knit (one hat, one sock, and 2.5 phone cozies down. It’s the one sock that’s really the pain).
I make some dinner in my sweet kitchen (hotplate on a TV stand next to a mini-fridge). Currently I’ve been eating a lot of beans and rice and cereal. Maybe I’ll read some more, maybe use my phone to check my email. When we had a TV I would watch Generations religiously every night at 8:00pm (South Africa’s favorite polyglot soap opera. Its awesome). And by 9pm…I’m in bed.
Exciting, no?
Of course all of this ignores the possibility that somewhere in there I might also meet the President at a Memorial dedication, or find myself giving an ad hoc inspirational speech to a group of graduating grade 7 learners, or chatting about the biblical ramifications of corporal punishment with the local pastor, or making friends with a bus driver, or discovering that at some point in the near future I will probably be expected to eat a grasshopper, or making kushe with my family, or hanging out with a random gogo on a mat next to a mud hut, or having an intense debate about the value of the women’s movement to South Africa (that I did NOT initiate, but had no problem giving my opinion in), or…
The possibilities are endless.
Also:
Happy Birthday Hortensia!
Emily I got your package and I'm so excited to have your address.
Kelsey kicks ass, AND:
My baby brother just got accepted to Chico State. Hooray Robbie!!
At 5am my alarm goes off, at just the time I conscientiously set it last night. I immediately turn it off and go back to sleep.
5:07am – alarm goes off again
5:14am – and again
5:21am – and again.
5:28 – and one more time. This time I actually get up. I would just throw the stupid thing across the room, but my alarm happens to also be my cellphone, which I love because it keeps me in contact with the outside world.
I roll out of bed, put some sandals on, unroll some toilet paper, and head for the outhouse. Hopefully I get there early enough that the goats haven’t already started hanging out in it for the day.
After wandering back to my room, I plug in my electric kettle to the outlet that I assume is going to horribly electricute me at some point in the very near future. It hasn’t yet though, score. While the water heats up, I get the clothes I plan to wear today together (the sniff test has never been so gloriously useful as when laundry involves 2 hours of scrubbing in a bucket under a hot sun). I roll them up in my towel along with my fabulous Dr. Bronners. When the water gets hot I pour just enough into my watering can (yes, watering can). I then trek everything out to the enormous water tank next to the main house, fill the watering can up, and head for the outdoor "shower." Said shower actually consists of a cement stall where I can dump water out of my watering can and onto myself, but it still beats a bucket bath. It works surprisingly well. The only trick is to get there early enough that the adjacent outhouse hasn’t started to smell too bad. I dress in the shower and head back to my room.
I usually leave for my schools somewhere in the neighborhood of 6:30, and once there…who knows. I may be observing classes, chatting with teachers, re-typing obtuse department of education documents, putting on a workshop, trying to put together a school newspaper, or just writing in my journal and plotting how, exactly, I’m going to manage to take over the world from this tiny village. It varies, really.
School gets out about 2, unless I’m mean and keep my teachers late for a workshop (this makes them grumpy, so I try to avoid it). I head home, where I now have approximately 5 hours to kill until bed. I read (a LOT), or talk to my sisters, or write, or sms other volunteers until I think I have thumb sprain. I go for walks or head to the post office. I really should work in regular siSwati tutoring sessions, but I sort of suck and haven’t yet. Occasionally I’ve been known to knit (one hat, one sock, and 2.5 phone cozies down. It’s the one sock that’s really the pain).
I make some dinner in my sweet kitchen (hotplate on a TV stand next to a mini-fridge). Currently I’ve been eating a lot of beans and rice and cereal. Maybe I’ll read some more, maybe use my phone to check my email. When we had a TV I would watch Generations religiously every night at 8:00pm (South Africa’s favorite polyglot soap opera. Its awesome). And by 9pm…I’m in bed.
Exciting, no?
Of course all of this ignores the possibility that somewhere in there I might also meet the President at a Memorial dedication, or find myself giving an ad hoc inspirational speech to a group of graduating grade 7 learners, or chatting about the biblical ramifications of corporal punishment with the local pastor, or making friends with a bus driver, or discovering that at some point in the near future I will probably be expected to eat a grasshopper, or making kushe with my family, or hanging out with a random gogo on a mat next to a mud hut, or having an intense debate about the value of the women’s movement to South Africa (that I did NOT initiate, but had no problem giving my opinion in), or…
The possibilities are endless.
Also:
Happy Birthday Hortensia!
Emily I got your package and I'm so excited to have your address.
Kelsey kicks ass, AND:
My baby brother just got accepted to Chico State. Hooray Robbie!!
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
And a Happy New Year
I've been hanging out in Durban for Christmas break for the past week or so, and its been really fun. We started out at a backpackers that was not at all far from the beach -- only 5 minutes -- so of course first thing in the morning we all grabbed our suits and towels and quite literally sprinted for the ocean. And just as naturally I instantaneously got a vicious sunburn that decided to haunt me for the rest of vacation and severely cut down on my beach-going time. But just having the ocean nearby, having that familiar smell in the air, watching enormous tanker ships navigate into port, seeing the waves and the vastness of the gray Indian Ocean blend up into the horizon -- its been like visiting a little bit of home. Not to mention the fact that we found a Mexican restaurant just up the street from where we're staying. You can NOT find Mexican food in South Africa, its just impossible. There's some Portugese from time to time, but its not even remotely the same (despite the occasional viciously deceptive name like "Amigos." How can you call a restaurant something like 'amigos' and then not sell tacos? Its just wrong.) But we found Taco Zulu, which was amazing, and large groups of PCVs have been invading it lunch and dinner (and possibly breakfast) for the last 10 days.
All in all its been a good Christmas and an excellent New Year's as well -- a nice way to bring in 2007 -- but I'll be happy to get back to my village. School starts on the 8th and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and actually get to work -- my observation time is over and I am itching to actually do something. Wish me luck.
Shortly I should have a power cord for my computer again, so I'll be able to type these in advance and go back to more and better updates.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2007, its been a good Summer break.
All in all its been a good Christmas and an excellent New Year's as well -- a nice way to bring in 2007 -- but I'll be happy to get back to my village. School starts on the 8th and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and actually get to work -- my observation time is over and I am itching to actually do something. Wish me luck.
Shortly I should have a power cord for my computer again, so I'll be able to type these in advance and go back to more and better updates.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2007, its been a good Summer break.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Renovations
Now its really Summer break, and consequently I have absolutely nothing to do. So I decided that I would renovate my room, which is essentially a glorified garage. The walls are smurf-orgy blue, and the cracks are big enough to allow all my friendly little lizards free access whenever they want in or out. Which I guess is okay since at least they eat the cockroaches. There was also a random bookshelf full of dusty strange old textbooks (some of them, especially the history books from the mid 80's are interesting little pieces of history in their own right) and a huge pile of papers, boxes, and what I can only and accurately describe as crap. So I spent a day dragging the bookshelf from my room into the storage room next to it, and then I organized all of the books on it -- including adding my little collection to the bottom shelves. I even found a couple good short story collections, so that made it all worthwhile. The next day I hauled the random pile of junk into the same spare room, and swept out the literally inches of dirt and junk that had accumulated under it. Fortunately, no spiders. (Or at least no living ones). Thursday was move all the furniture into the middle of the room and scrub down the walls day. Honestly, I gave that up about an hour in when I realized that I was mostly just moving the dirty around more than anything else. I at least got rid of the larger scorch marks and the enormous dirt tracks left over from -- well, I'm not really sure what. Yesterday was patch the huge cracks and buy some paint day, and later this week...new paint will be on the walls.
I'm going to be honest, the workmanship is a lot closer to "man, I hope the landlord gives my my deposit back" then "This sure is great and mom would definitely approve." But...I've never done this before, and anything is better than living in a glorified garage.
Someday I will figure out how to post pictures and do so.
Wish me luck.
PS
Hi Tierrans!
I'm going to be honest, the workmanship is a lot closer to "man, I hope the landlord gives my my deposit back" then "This sure is great and mom would definitely approve." But...I've never done this before, and anything is better than living in a glorified garage.
Someday I will figure out how to post pictures and do so.
Wish me luck.
PS
Hi Tierrans!
Saturday, December 09, 2006
Everybody's Sister Has a Crush on Morgan
Its now officially summer break (though I just can’t bring myself to call any vacation that encompasses Christmas that – I’m sticking with “December Holiday”) which means that there’s not a whole lot going on in any of my schools. Mostly the teachers are just marking exams, filling out schedules (which is apparently pronounced ‘shed-ules’ and is essentially a list of all their learner’s grades) and I am desperately trying to find something – anything! – to do with myself. Last week I went to a Grade R graduation, and today I’m going to another. Last week’s was so adorable that it was nearly pain-inducing, and I’m hoping for similar things today. Its essentially a kindergarten graduation like you would see in the states (I think I vaguely recall having one myself) but everybody gets very into it! 3 or 4 of the teachers wear official graduation gowns, and all of the little kids wear caps and gowns as well. Then they all introduce themselves: “hellomynameissfisoiwanttothankmymommydadmybrothersmysistersandevvvvvvverybodywholovesme.” And there are speeches, recitations, poems, skits, gifts, you name it. I saw that many of the moms were in tears – this is a big deal. My personal favourite was the traditional dances performed by the little girls and little boys in turn. It was too cute, especially the little boys since I think (but am definitely not sure) that the men’s dance mirrors a sort of stylized fight. The little boys had such serious looks on their faces, and they stamped their feet down like they meant business. I was very impressed, and even a little bit jealous that despite everything I know I will have in life that they may never have access to…they still have this. They know where they come from. They have a traditional culture that is still alive and well and, well, kicking.
That’s something that I think is lacking in the US, and that a lot of people are trying to make up for. We’re an immigrant nation, which is wonderful and I think where the large majority of our strength comes from, but immigrants have to grow new roots to replace the ones they’ve left behind. Do I speak a word of Irish, Yiddish, Italian, Russian? No. I don’t really know my family’s history, or what our traditions were, or honestly anything to do with how things were more than 50 years ago except for what I’ve researched myself. I certainly didn’t grow up with this blend of old world and new that seems to be nothing special for all of the people in my village. Where one day they can sit down at a restaurant for a burger and coke, and the next be cooking samp over an open fire. Where learners put on a traditional dance while their mothers ululate with pride, and then turn on some 2Pac and do the latest dance moves that they saw on Jikamajika .
Its something very rare, and it seems like it should be (in my eyes at least) a delicate balance. But to the people around me its not. Its just the way things are. My house is half rondavale (traditional round hut) and half western. We have an electric stove and a solid collection of kettles for cooking over the outside fire. Everybody speaks in a mix of shongon, siswati, and english -- whistles and clicks and "hey, how ya doin'?" Is some of this just me romanticisizing an extreme poverty? Well, yes. But I think its also the recognition of something valuable, and rare, and worth holding on to.
That’s something that I think is lacking in the US, and that a lot of people are trying to make up for. We’re an immigrant nation, which is wonderful and I think where the large majority of our strength comes from, but immigrants have to grow new roots to replace the ones they’ve left behind. Do I speak a word of Irish, Yiddish, Italian, Russian? No. I don’t really know my family’s history, or what our traditions were, or honestly anything to do with how things were more than 50 years ago except for what I’ve researched myself. I certainly didn’t grow up with this blend of old world and new that seems to be nothing special for all of the people in my village. Where one day they can sit down at a restaurant for a burger and coke, and the next be cooking samp over an open fire. Where learners put on a traditional dance while their mothers ululate with pride, and then turn on some 2Pac and do the latest dance moves that they saw on Jikamajika .
Its something very rare, and it seems like it should be (in my eyes at least) a delicate balance. But to the people around me its not. Its just the way things are. My house is half rondavale (traditional round hut) and half western. We have an electric stove and a solid collection of kettles for cooking over the outside fire. Everybody speaks in a mix of shongon, siswati, and english -- whistles and clicks and "hey, how ya doin'?" Is some of this just me romanticisizing an extreme poverty? Well, yes. But I think its also the recognition of something valuable, and rare, and worth holding on to.
Friday, December 01, 2006
New Address
Since trying to get my mail in Steenbok has mostly been one pain after another, I decided that it was about time to try something different. Therefore I present to you my brand new, mail getting, package recieving, mailing address:
Rebecca Miller
Box 1395
Malelane 1320
South Africa
Its on the side bar too, in case you forget.
Rebecca Miller
Box 1395
Malelane 1320
South Africa
Its on the side bar too, in case you forget.
eligama jesu hallelujah, amen!
Today I was taking the bus with two of my fellow volunteers. This is not terribly out of the ordinary. And outside of a couple of differences in protocol from busses in the US (for example, here it is okay for somebody to stand in the stairwell talking to the driver with the doors open as the bus whizzes along at 120 km/hour. In the US...not so much). So we're hanging out, doing the sardine thing on the morning commuter to Malelane and slowly everybody starts to sing. Which is also fairly par for the course and pretty neat. Its like being in a musical -- one person busts out in song and before you know it everybody else is singing along. I've wished that would happen in the US any number of times, it really spices things up. So we're driving and we're sardin-ing and we're singing, and life is good, and then the woman who had started to sing stands up. She continues to sing, so maybe she just wanted to stretch her legs, right? The singing dies down, and she calls out, "Hallelujah!" and the whole bus echoes back, "Hallelujah, Amen!" Now there's going to be a sermon. Sweet. This has happened once or twice before, and mostly its fun to see how many words I can pick out and a good way to pass a long bus ride. She greets the bus. Still standard, and then...then she turns to me. Apparently I know this woman, or she knows me.
She points me out to the entire bus, tells them all where I am living, what I am doing, and then proceeds to preach or witness or testify, or whatever the right term is for the next 15-20 minutes. Punctuated frequently by very fervent "Hallelujah!"s. I know at the very least that the first 5 minutes were about me. My assumption was that it was all good, but I don't really speak enough siSwati to be sure. For all I know she was exhorting the entire bus to beware the white devil-woman. But I sort of doubt it. The preaching goes on. Everybody is into it, not too many people are staring -- which is nice. She's swaying, she's yelling, she's stop mentioning my name so maybe I'm in the clear. Finally we get the closing Amen and I hear one more "make Sambo." This might be a reference to me. I'm not sure, there's a lot of Sambos in the area and people never refer to me as make (mother) though it is a polite form of address for a woman when you're using her surname.
The gogo finishes, and we all bow our heads and pray (out loud of course) and then shake the hand of the person sitting next to us. Gogo has a seat, and everybody looks satisfied at a piece of mobile evangelizing well done. I steal a glance at my friend sitting next to me, and feel like I would give anything to be fluent in siSwati not just soon, but 5 minutes ago.
She points me out to the entire bus, tells them all where I am living, what I am doing, and then proceeds to preach or witness or testify, or whatever the right term is for the next 15-20 minutes. Punctuated frequently by very fervent "Hallelujah!"s. I know at the very least that the first 5 minutes were about me. My assumption was that it was all good, but I don't really speak enough siSwati to be sure. For all I know she was exhorting the entire bus to beware the white devil-woman. But I sort of doubt it. The preaching goes on. Everybody is into it, not too many people are staring -- which is nice. She's swaying, she's yelling, she's stop mentioning my name so maybe I'm in the clear. Finally we get the closing Amen and I hear one more "make Sambo." This might be a reference to me. I'm not sure, there's a lot of Sambos in the area and people never refer to me as make (mother) though it is a polite form of address for a woman when you're using her surname.
The gogo finishes, and we all bow our heads and pray (out loud of course) and then shake the hand of the person sitting next to us. Gogo has a seat, and everybody looks satisfied at a piece of mobile evangelizing well done. I steal a glance at my friend sitting next to me, and feel like I would give anything to be fluent in siSwati not just soon, but 5 minutes ago.
Sunday, November 26, 2006
Thanksgiving
With apologies to past years and my family at home, this weekend I celebrated the best Thanksgiving of my entire life.
I wasn't expecting that at all, honestly. I thought that my very first thanksgiving out of the country and away from my family was going to be incredibly difficult. I thought I would be a depressed, crying, miserable, mess. Instead, I feel like everything that I really do have to be thankful for was just thrown into a sharp relief, and the day became so much more meaningful. About 15 of us got together, made delicious food, hung out and talked, toasted everything that we had to be thankful for, made a mess, ate to the point of pain, sat around holding our stomachs, and then ate some more. I was sad not to be with my family in the US of course, but this weekend for the first time it was really brought home to me how much all of the other volunteers have become my family. These are my brothers and my sisters, we commiserate and talk shit and cook and irritate eachother, but most of all we're all there for eachother. I spent Thanksgiving with my family, and I'm so grateful.
It was also the best thanksgiving ever because I got a HUGE packet of mail! Peace Corps had sent it all to another volunteer (damn the fielding-miller/miller nonsense). I got letters from my parents, from Erin and Roy and signed by a ton of other people (what a great idea guys, thank you SO much!!!), The Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a DVD full of excellent music from my charming and fantastic baby brother. So later in the evening, we all sat around watching Pirates and talking and picking at left over turkey -- followed by watching the international edition of The Daily Show (!! bliss!!!), the Simpsons, and ESPN's updates on college football. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but here its almost a small miracle. It was like having a small piece of home out in a place where I can appreciate it even more.
I'm aware that this whole thing is poorly written, and I'll come back and fix it later. But I wanted to share, while I'm still on cloud 9, what a wonderful weekend I've just had. In the words of Angie, "When I'm 80 and sitting around with my grandkids at Thanksgiving, I just know I'll be thinking: 'you guys are ok I guess, but that Thanksgiving 2006 in South Africa was the SHIT!'"
Also, bagels are a pain in the ass to make, but worth it.
I wasn't expecting that at all, honestly. I thought that my very first thanksgiving out of the country and away from my family was going to be incredibly difficult. I thought I would be a depressed, crying, miserable, mess. Instead, I feel like everything that I really do have to be thankful for was just thrown into a sharp relief, and the day became so much more meaningful. About 15 of us got together, made delicious food, hung out and talked, toasted everything that we had to be thankful for, made a mess, ate to the point of pain, sat around holding our stomachs, and then ate some more. I was sad not to be with my family in the US of course, but this weekend for the first time it was really brought home to me how much all of the other volunteers have become my family. These are my brothers and my sisters, we commiserate and talk shit and cook and irritate eachother, but most of all we're all there for eachother. I spent Thanksgiving with my family, and I'm so grateful.
It was also the best thanksgiving ever because I got a HUGE packet of mail! Peace Corps had sent it all to another volunteer (damn the fielding-miller/miller nonsense). I got letters from my parents, from Erin and Roy and signed by a ton of other people (what a great idea guys, thank you SO much!!!), The Princess Bride, Pirates of the Caribbean, and a DVD full of excellent music from my charming and fantastic baby brother. So later in the evening, we all sat around watching Pirates and talking and picking at left over turkey -- followed by watching the international edition of The Daily Show (!! bliss!!!), the Simpsons, and ESPN's updates on college football. Maybe that doesn't sound like a lot, but here its almost a small miracle. It was like having a small piece of home out in a place where I can appreciate it even more.
I'm aware that this whole thing is poorly written, and I'll come back and fix it later. But I wanted to share, while I'm still on cloud 9, what a wonderful weekend I've just had. In the words of Angie, "When I'm 80 and sitting around with my grandkids at Thanksgiving, I just know I'll be thinking: 'you guys are ok I guess, but that Thanksgiving 2006 in South Africa was the SHIT!'"
Also, bagels are a pain in the ass to make, but worth it.
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