Africa The journal

Working in the school

 

Journaling has been fun and therapeutic.  These are journals that I sent while in Africa with my impressions and reactions to what I experienced.  I hope you enjoy them.

 

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Be the change you wish to see

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I am now starting to see some kids and the group started today.  I may have left the impression with you that there are no cracks in the walls of Christel House.  But like all places there are the various issues.  The lunch staff, which comes from a catering company, is pretty territorial over who they are going to serve and when…  The kids grumble a lot because they have to stay later than any other school kids - which is true.  As late as 5:00 PM though the last 1.5 is usually athletics.  The staff is over worked and a faculty meeting at 4:15 Monday afternoon is about as exciting as getting your oil changed.

Still in all, they trudge through the day somehow keeping site of the important goal.  A teacher sent a kid out of class today.  So I went to the teacher to find out why.  I probably have done this 10,000 times throughout my career.  I wonder what the problem is: late, no supplies,  talking,  rude,….  Here is what the teacher said:  “I don’t know what the problem is.  Maybe something at home,  maybe deep seated… I’m not sure.  Spend some time with her and see if you can get to the bottom of it.”  Spend some time with her?  That is a rare thing.

I spent some time with another student today.  She was called down for what looked like a little 9^th grade bullying.  As it turns out that might be partly true, but the ‘victim’ was conniving extra treats from the cafeteria and not sharing them.

The real story was what she described as her home.  Sunday afternoon a body was font near her ‘house’ [she lives in the townships].  After the police left shooting broke out around her home and a bullet just missed her foot.  Rival gangs are having a revenge war and fighting over territory.  Bullets flew all night.  Monday the police came and the gangs started shooting at the police.  The police withdrew and after a short time brought in reinforcements.  In that short break the gangs picked up every bullet, every casing, and disappeared.  Nothing more happened.  Except a warning that there would be more to come.  Because she gets home late after school she has about an hour with her friends before the gangs claim the streets.  It’s not safe to be out your door.  That isn’t to say it is safe any other time.  Safe is a relative term.  In the daylight she only has to cope with drug offers, sex offers, random violence [just to prove who is the boss]  crime, and the worst rape rate in Africa.  But she is tough.  Very street wise, appears confident and sharp.  Someone you wouldn’t want to meet alone.  After the Sunday meal  she does the dishes for 7 people, washes the uniforms for 5 kids, irons 30 shirts  for the week baths the younger ones, takes care of herself and it is 11:00 PM.  Somewhere in there she tries to study.  Her dad died long ago and mom took off leaving her with her aunt.  She lives in very small space with her aunt, 2 cousins, 5 younger kids and herself.  She is tired. She is scared, she is angry, and resentful. She is 14.

I asked her, “Do you ever feel like giving up school and just staying home because it is just too much?”  She

looked at me like I was crazy… NO, she said defiantly.  I smiled and tapped her on the foot, Smart Girl I said,  smart girl.”  She wants to learn and raise herself out of this but it looks like such a long road.  Hope is a precious thing and she soaked it up like a sponge.

 

We started the first anger management group today.  I am co facilitating with the social worker Eunice and it is my hope that after I leave she will continue to run groups like this.  If today is any indication this is going to be a smashing success.  The kids [called learners here]. took it seriously, honestly and opened up in a way I didn’t expect.  We did some simple sharing really designed to set a tone of openness and to assess the trust level of the group.  During the course of the hour 5 kids were in tears at various times sharing simple feeling.  They look like any kids in any class.  Fooling around and being teenagers.  But just scratch the surface and you have a room full of kids like the girl I wrote about earlier.

We will teach them anger is real… human… and that you can choose how to act when you are angry.  We will teach them new ways of acting out so they don’t cause more problems.  We will teach them hope.

 

I am getting out some.  I went to Robben Island Saturday. This is where Nelson Mandela and others were imprisoned for over 20 years.  They were kept in a 6x6 foot cell in conditions that were harsh to say the least.  Many men died in that prison.  Each day they were marched in the hot sun to the limestone quarry where they had to break up rocks.  Just to keep busy.  On some days the guards would have them carry the loose rock to one side of the quarry and then haul it back the next day.  Pointless back breaking labor.  While they were working the educated ones like Mr. Mandela would pass on what they knew to the uneducated ones.  Education was denied the blacks.  In a country of about 8,000,000 blacks there were only TEN black medical doctors.  So this quarry became there university.  The University of Robben Island they used to say.  But here also is where RECONCILIATION started.  That means…do not take revenge.  Mr. Mandela would call the guards in closer so they could hear what was being taught.  He openly invited these men - his captors - to listen and learn.  He would say, “We must draw the white man, these guards, close to our hearts, not push them away.  Only then can we become a truly free people.”  Imagine that.  How do you forgive the very people who kept you captive for 26 years?  And when he was released and became president and dismantled apartide RECONCILLIATION became the corner stone of building a country that was for whites and non-whites alike.  He actually invited one of his jailors to his inauguration.

Hope is a precious thing and we all soak it up like a sponge.

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