Thanksgiving

This was the first Thanksgiving that I didn't spend on Long Island with my family. Instead, I spent it surrounded by gum trees, gas burners, and my north KZN Peace Corps family. Our dinner was potluck style (like all Thanksgiving dinners should be) and everyone did their best to recreate favorite dishes from home, or something that represented harvest food. Someone had sweet potatoes covered, so I didn't make my favorite dish made by my mom each year: sweet potatoes with apple slices and cinnamon. Sorry Michael: the sweet potatoes were good, but not as good as what I know my family in New York enjoyed on Thursday :)

I brought apple and pear crisp. Others brought green salad, beets, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and chicken to replace the lack of available turkey in the area. This year Thanksgiving was spent with two families: the Peace Corps family and Briana's South African host family.

This holiday is not celebrated here, obviously because there would be no need for South Africans to rejoice in the arrival of the Pilgrims to the east coast of the United States centuries ago. We did our best to show them what it is all about for us. When everyone arrived, we were asked to make a hand turkey. You remember this from elementary school: trace your hand, each finger is a feather, the thumb is the head. I was part of the last group to arrive, and worked together with B's seventeen-year-old host brother Sphamandla on his. "What do I do now? Why are you coloring that in?" We each wrote our name on our hand turkey and Bostick'ed (sticky putty) them to the wall of the living room. (Picture below!) On a separate sheet, as each person stuck their turkey to the wall, they were also asked to list one thing that they were thankful for. The page was full of different colored gel pen responses in different sizes and handwritings.

One of Peace Corps' three main goals for its volunteers is that they share American culture with those that they live and work with. This Thanksgiving after all the love and support that our host families show us, we gave back to them and demonstrated just how thankful we are for their welcoming us into their homes and their lives.

This Thanksgiving, I am thankful for all the usual stuff: family, friends, health, happiness. But I think more than anything at the moment, I'm thankful for all the people that have opened up their arms, their homes, and their lives to me these past few months. Obviously I'm talking a lot about my host family the Mngomezulus here, but also the staff at my school who treat me like and refer to me as their daughter. To the learners who laugh at me when I attempt to communicate with them in Zulu, come to me with list of English vocabulary words that they want to know, and ask me if we can go to the storeroom to find a book to read. To the woman sitting at the taxi stop every morning on my way to school who yells "Good morning my friend!" as I pass by. And last but not least, to the other PCVs who have made me feel not so alone when things are tough or not so far away when I need someone to share a story or a laugh with, whether you're telling me about an awkward moment created by your principal or how many bats you've killed in your home. Thank you for being my support and my encouragement.

Swollen Eyes, Swollen Heart

Yesterday was the second time I've been on the verge of tears at school. The first time, I actually cried alone in the store room where I said I was going to go organize old books and whatever else has been out there untouched for who knows how many years. That time was after having learned more about Blind Side's life and the specific reasons behind why he is so far behind in school. His mother is sick, and it became his responsibility to care for her at the expense of his education. He has worked to pay for every piece of clothing that he wears. And he still comes to school because he just wants to learn. I lost it, but contained myself until I was confined by the musty walls of my future library.

This time was different. We have morning meeting every day beginning at around 7:45. When learners arrive after it has started, they take a slightly longer way around the Foundation Phase block and file to the back of the line with the rest of their class. Yesterday a learner showed up only moments before the "going to class song" begun, in which each line for each grade marches off to their respective classrooms. This learner's eyes were so swollen I don't know how he could see what was in front of him. The song is being sung by the other grades, because all of his classmates in Grade 3 and the surrounding lines are too busy pointing and laughing at this one kid. He shuffled to his classroom and tried to hide his face by looking at the ground, but a mob formed and the laughter overpowered the voices of the Grade 6 and 7 singers. I felt sick to my stomach.

After invigilating (SA English for "proctoring") the Maths common paper exam, I went to the Grade 3 teachers and asked about this learner. "What happened to the one learner with the very swollen eyes?" I asked them. After a moment of hesitation I'm told that, "he fell." "He fell. …really?" I ask with doubt in my voice. "Yes. We sent him home. He is probably at the clinic now. He was climbing a tree and fell from it." Things I wanted to say: "Yeah. He fell from a tree. And landed only on his eyes," as well as 'I fell' or 'I walked into a door' are two of the most used excuses in domestic abuse incidents. But of course I didn't say these things, and instead felt helpless and heartbroken for the rest of the day.

This is not the first time I've seen learners show up at school with signs of aggression and violence leftover on their faces. I've seen some black eyes, some fat lips, and some scabs and cuts from God knows what. I have yet to see a learner (or a South African in general) who does not have a visible scar on their body. I obviously come from a place where this kind of behavior would land someone in prison, but I still can't fathom how a parent or a teacher could do this to a child and not feel sick with their actions. This behavior and acceptance of the behavior is the biggest and most difficult cultural difference for me thus far, and I can't think of any example that I will see that hurts more.

When talking with my counterpart about corporal punishment a week or so ago, he said that the Bible justifies hitting children. "It gets the confusion and badness out of them," he explained. Bull shit. This is just another example of my reasons for my intolerance for the Bible and religion, but that is an entirely different story. He says he won't hit children, but still justified it. I'm confused.

Yesterday after I invigilated the exam, I returned to the Grade 7A classroom where I spend most of my time and leave all my stuff. I found two sticks on my desk. I snapped them into three pieces each and loudly slammed them into the dustbin behind the door. A few kids looked at me in disbelief. I've said it before and I'll say it again: I will never, can never, hit a child. With a stick, with my hand, with anything. One of Peace Corps' three main points is sharing American culture with our host country and the people we spend our days with. I know that I can't change the entire system of education and discipline here, both of which frustrate me more than words can express. But I do want to show the teachers and learners at my school that learners can be disciplined without force and brutality and still turn out fine. I am an example of that. My country is an example of that. And if I can get through to a small fraction of the population through the individuals at my school, I will feel like I have achieved something really meaningful.

Blind Side

I have spent the past two weeks at school with my counterpart teacher; he teaches Grade 6 English, which is what I'll be teaching next year. My Peace Corps assignment says that I must spend the day with him to get a feel for what being a teacher at a rural South African school is like. He also teaches three classes in Grade 7, so I've got to know the Grade 7s pretty well in a relatively short period of time.

This blog post is about one student in particular whose nickname is Blind Side. Blind Side is just under a year younger than my brother Derek. Derek is 18 and just began his first year of college in late August. Blind Side is nearing the end of Grade 7, which he will not pass. He is 17 years old.

The nickname comes from the 2009 movie of the same name. My Blind Side is slightly taller than his peers and has a much manlier voice. In the movie, the character "Big Mike" is huge in comparison to other kids, especially those in the family he is taken in by. He plays with and protects the smaller, younger children. He's like a big teddy bear. He works hard, and is awfully quiet.

My first day in Grade 7, I asked my counterpart about him because you can tell that he is older than the twelve year olds he is surrounded by. He told me, "that one is never going to proceed. He was in an accident and missed months of school. He suddenly came back one day and was put in Grade 7. He will never pass this grade." There are other kids at my school who are way too old for the grade they're presently in. There's a girl who has to be almost 10 in Grade 1, a boy who must be just about a teenager in Grade 3, and a 16 year old in Grade 4. How these things happen without intervention or some way to help these kids along, I'm not sure. So I've kept an eye on Blind Side these past two weeks to get a better idea of what he's all about.

He surprises me a little more everyday. The first time he stood out to me was on a day that has become all too common nearing the end of the fourth term: teachers write the exams that they will give their students during class time, and they tell the kids to "work on preparing for _____ exam." On this particular day it was "discuss your arts&culture exam." Why and how a class on arts&culture can have an exam, I'm not sure. "Discuss" is key for "talk about whatever you want for an hour." Most kids broke off into groups with their friends and did just that. Blind Side's seat is in the very back row during class. During this discussion period, he sat in the front row and worked with four or five other boys. They wrote notes in their exercise books and even stayed for five minutes after the bell for break to finish what they were doing. At one point during the period, a member of the group was distracted by another boy who thought it would be fun to start a small fight in class. Blind Side grabbed his group member's shoulder and hauled him back into their circle to keep working on their project.

Later in the week, I was told "you teach class today!" and given only a few minutes to pull something out of my ass to work on with these kids for English period that day. I went over to the cabinet (falling apart filing cabinet whose doors don't close) and pulled a book from the very back. It was a Grade 7 English book that had probably never seen the light of day, for reasons I can't understand or explain. I told them to open to a story about the importance of rainforests, particularly the Amazon in this story. Each learner read a paragraph and I wrote reading comprehension questions on the board after we talked about vocabulary that they weren't sure of. This didn't take the full period, and I left the books on the desks until the very end of class to see what the kids would do. I was pleasantly surprised to see many of them flipping through and reading stories that they found interesting. I was especially surprised to see Blind Side doing just that, mostly because his average in English class last term was 12%. He later took out a dictionary and flipped through that too. My mind = blown.

Two days ago was Career Day in Grade 7. You may be imagining what "Career Day" means in an American context, but it's not like that here. This version of Career Day was a day where learners were to dress up as their chosen career and speak about why they were interested in that career to the rest of the class. The largest group was educators (maybe because they all wore street clothes and because it was the easiest profession to pull off on the spot?) followed by social workers. Other careers depicted included doctors, police officers, nurses, farmers, TV presenters, electricians, traffic cop(per), and a nature conservationist. Blind Side had to be talked to by the principal and the other teachers in the room; not because he was misbehaving, but because he had to be told that he couldn't have more than one career. He wanted to be an electrical engineer and a carpenter, and even brought in an example of one of his woodworking projects to show. My counterpart told him he was "a jack of all trades" and he smiled really big.

His grades are low. And without proficiency in English, he will undoubtedly fail everything that comes his way. At Grade 4, testing turns over to English. It breaks my heart to think of him dropping out of school to find work because he gets stuck in the last grade of primary school. I'm going to try to pull him into my Grade 6 English class in January. I teach in a much different way than most others at my school, and I stop to explain things to individual students if they are struggling. I'm also planning on having a session after school once or twice a week for any learners that are having difficulty in English. His talent and passion are too much to let go to waste. I wanted to take the time to write about him because this job is frustrating. And some days I don't feel like going to school. But when you have learners like Blind Side, they make it worth every minute.