There is a tendency, I believe, among the well-off to imagine the lives of the poor as a sort of noble struggle. People don't realize that, in reality, the lower classes live just as sordidly as the characters on Gossip Girl.
In October last year, the same weekend as the matric farewell, there was a rape of one learner, Sarah, by another, Paul. Sarah went to an educator, Sam, and reported it. He then reported it to the police. Fast-forward almost a year through the trial, and last week Paul was sentenced to fifteen years in jail.
Simple, right?
Except that the educator, Sam, was having an affair with the learner, Sarah, and he manipulated her into testifying against Paul.
Or did he?
There's no way to tease out the truth from all the swirling rumours. I'd believe the learners based on Sam's odd behavior, but then as an occassional victim of village gossip I can sympathize. A few inside jokes with a male educator, and suddenly we must be dating! Loopeng is a regular gossip manufacturing machine. But isn't every rumour based on a shred of truth?
Anyway, I was on my way to school this morning when my host mother stopped me. "No," she said, "You must not go to school today."
I went.
At school I found a small huddle of educators, and across the road, in front of the school gates were dozens of learners and even a few community members. They were singing, dancing and drinking. It might have been a party were it not for everyone holding sticks and hurling rocks. The mass got bigger as more learners arrived and joined in. Burning tires added to the atmosphere of chaos. Signs waved saying, "No Paul! No school!".
Yep, that's what this is about. The learners have decided that Paul's sentence is too harsh and they've shut down the school in response. I guess Sam's involvement makes it a school issue, but the lack of critical thinking that has gone into this display is, well, I have no words.
After an hour, during which one educator was hit and received a small but bloody cut and Shaka took a rock to a back leg, I went home. I promptly locked myself in.
Several times in South Africa I have witnessed the violent potential of a mob. This may just be a band of schoolchildren, but it is large and in the frenzy of marching and chanting, rational thought sails out the window right along with individual responsibility. Collective action can turn violent quickly, and until everyone puts down their bull horns, I'm not going out there again.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Communist Propaganda
Loopeng's middle school, Bosheng, recently hosted the regional South African Democratic Teachers' Union (SADTU) meeting. It was a big event, complete with much song and dance.
One song went like this (call and echo):
My mother
(My mother)
Was a kitchen girl
(Was a kitchen girl)
My father
(My father)
Was a garden boy
(Was a garden boy)
That's why
(That's why)
I'm a communist
(I'm a communist)
Most people actually pronounce "communist" as "commonist". I believe there is a grave misunderstanding among the locals as to what communism actually is.
One song went like this (call and echo):
My mother
(My mother)
Was a kitchen girl
(Was a kitchen girl)
My father
(My father)
Was a garden boy
(Was a garden boy)
That's why
(That's why)
I'm a communist
(I'm a communist)
Most people actually pronounce "communist" as "commonist". I believe there is a grave misunderstanding among the locals as to what communism actually is.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Apocalypto
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I'm wet and freezing cold.
School has started back up, and I'm recently returned from an epic journey in Botswana. I'd love to tell you more about it, but I'm just too darn cold to lift my frozen fingers out from their fleece pockets. The weather is not supposed to be like this. Winter in southern Africa is chilly, but dry and cloudless. Except that this year, it's cold, cloudy and, occassionally, rainy. I think it's a sign of the apocalypse, or maybe the rapture. Whatever it is, I'm popping straight back to bed and blankets soon.
I will give you a little teaser about my vacation though. In the words of Spamalot...
Oh, Patsy, this is a total bloody disaster! All my knights have fled, and we're lost in a dark and very expensive forest.
Throw in a couple broken ribs, a hefty portion of theft, two overzealous banks and a sprinkling of bizarre (and mildly offensive) strangers, and well, that's basically it. Obviously, it was a good time.
School has started back up, and I'm recently returned from an epic journey in Botswana. I'd love to tell you more about it, but I'm just too darn cold to lift my frozen fingers out from their fleece pockets. The weather is not supposed to be like this. Winter in southern Africa is chilly, but dry and cloudless. Except that this year, it's cold, cloudy and, occassionally, rainy. I think it's a sign of the apocalypse, or maybe the rapture. Whatever it is, I'm popping straight back to bed and blankets soon.
I will give you a little teaser about my vacation though. In the words of Spamalot...
Oh, Patsy, this is a total bloody disaster! All my knights have fled, and we're lost in a dark and very expensive forest.
Throw in a couple broken ribs, a hefty portion of theft, two overzealous banks and a sprinkling of bizarre (and mildly offensive) strangers, and well, that's basically it. Obviously, it was a good time.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Snake Devil
This story was just told to me by a friend here in the village as a warning. I'm passing it along to you as entertainment.
In another village, not too far down along the main road, a local woman encountered an attractive stranger. The usual pleasantries were exchanged, Africa-style. Eventually, the young woman brought the handsome man home to her parents and introduced him as her boyfriend. More pleasantries were exchanged, and then the girl prepared water and a basin for the man to bathe in. She left the room. Upon her return, she saw not a man in the basin, but rather an enormous snake!
The young woman fled, but returned later that night. The snake was gone, and the attractive man was waiting for her. "Forget what you saw," he said. "If you tell anyone, I'll kill you."
The girl kept silent. The next day, the couple ventured into the bush. At the sight of the tall, weaving grasses, the man's eyes glittered and he began to transform into a giant snake. "If you tell anyone," the snake hissed, "I'll break every bone in your body."
The girl kept silent. In time she learned that she was pregnant. She would give birth to two beings: one human and one snake. The snake-man promised that as soon as she gave birth, he would take the "children" and disappear forever.
As no women in the area have given birth to snakes recently, we can only assume that the snake-man is still staying down the road. However, I will keep my wits about me should an attractive stranger with a child and baby snake ever want my number.
In another village, not too far down along the main road, a local woman encountered an attractive stranger. The usual pleasantries were exchanged, Africa-style. Eventually, the young woman brought the handsome man home to her parents and introduced him as her boyfriend. More pleasantries were exchanged, and then the girl prepared water and a basin for the man to bathe in. She left the room. Upon her return, she saw not a man in the basin, but rather an enormous snake!
The young woman fled, but returned later that night. The snake was gone, and the attractive man was waiting for her. "Forget what you saw," he said. "If you tell anyone, I'll kill you."
The girl kept silent. The next day, the couple ventured into the bush. At the sight of the tall, weaving grasses, the man's eyes glittered and he began to transform into a giant snake. "If you tell anyone," the snake hissed, "I'll break every bone in your body."
The girl kept silent. In time she learned that she was pregnant. She would give birth to two beings: one human and one snake. The snake-man promised that as soon as she gave birth, he would take the "children" and disappear forever.
As no women in the area have given birth to snakes recently, we can only assume that the snake-man is still staying down the road. However, I will keep my wits about me should an attractive stranger with a child and baby snake ever want my number.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Progress: More Power, More Problems
Electricity arrived in Loopeng shortly after the end of apartheid. Prior to the arrival of electricity people relied on paraffin or wood fires for cooking, and the well-off had a generator to power their televisions and a few lightbulbs. Power lines, which extended to every home, shanty, mansion or shack, were a great equalizer. Suddenly, everyone was able to cook on a stove, flip a lightswitch and watch the soapies. Life was much improved.
Or was it?
An older Loopeng resident explained to me, during the journey home from town, how much life had worsened in the village since the arrival of electricity. Back in the day, residents relied on local ingredients in their cooking. Meat was prized, and rare. Everyone kept a garden, and grew what little they could. Vegetables were a large part of the local diet. Sure, not everyone got enough to eat, but those that did ate a healthy, balanced diet. All of that came to an end when the power lines introduced their good pal, the freezer.
Gone are the vegetable gardens. Hello, giant bags of frozen chicken! Those who can afford meat now buy it in massive quantities becaue they are able to keep it frozen at home. The local diet has shifted to one of maize for the poor, meat for the rich and vegetables for no one. Naturally, this has caused health problems, but no one seems eager to throw out their freezers and start killing their own chickens again every time they want a bit of meat.
Additionally, as Loopeng has transitioned from a complete, apartheid-era hellhole to a mere, moderately uncomfortable pit of despair, it has attracted shopkeepers. The shopkeepers in Loopeng don't sell expensive organic kale, no, they sell soft drinks, chips and sweets. Basically, everything they sell has as little nutritional value as possible, but the people gladly spend their pension money at these shops. Fat cakes may be terrible for your arteries, but they are filling and, most importantly, cheap. Similar to more developed countries, South Africa's poor generally do not eat properly and this trend has been aided, not abetted, by "progress". So much for "development".
Or was it?
An older Loopeng resident explained to me, during the journey home from town, how much life had worsened in the village since the arrival of electricity. Back in the day, residents relied on local ingredients in their cooking. Meat was prized, and rare. Everyone kept a garden, and grew what little they could. Vegetables were a large part of the local diet. Sure, not everyone got enough to eat, but those that did ate a healthy, balanced diet. All of that came to an end when the power lines introduced their good pal, the freezer.
Gone are the vegetable gardens. Hello, giant bags of frozen chicken! Those who can afford meat now buy it in massive quantities becaue they are able to keep it frozen at home. The local diet has shifted to one of maize for the poor, meat for the rich and vegetables for no one. Naturally, this has caused health problems, but no one seems eager to throw out their freezers and start killing their own chickens again every time they want a bit of meat.
Additionally, as Loopeng has transitioned from a complete, apartheid-era hellhole to a mere, moderately uncomfortable pit of despair, it has attracted shopkeepers. The shopkeepers in Loopeng don't sell expensive organic kale, no, they sell soft drinks, chips and sweets. Basically, everything they sell has as little nutritional value as possible, but the people gladly spend their pension money at these shops. Fat cakes may be terrible for your arteries, but they are filling and, most importantly, cheap. Similar to more developed countries, South Africa's poor generally do not eat properly and this trend has been aided, not abetted, by "progress". So much for "development".
A World Without Fathers
The typical South African village is composed of hordes of young children, a few young people, some mothers, a great number of gogos and a few old men. The number of fathers hovers between zero and none. Where's daddy?
In the most functional of family units, daddy is at work. Many men are employed by mines across the country and their families are unable to accompany them. Thus, the wife and children stay behind in the village while the man is at work. He will likely come home once per month, after pay day. This is the best-case scenario.
There's a wide variety of worst-case scenarios that result in a no-show dad. Perhaps the most unfortunate is death. Poverty kills, particularly in South Africa where HIV/AIDS, rampant alcohol abuse and dangerous roads all make a potentially lethal lifestyle widely available to the country's poor.
Even if a man survives to become a father, he is still likely to be absent. I attribute this mostly to cultural values, or a lack thereof. Children are seen as a financial drain, and thus men have a compelling reason to deny responsibility. By and large, women let them do it as the importance of having a father figure around is ignored. Additionally, most children are born outside of marriage. The father has very little link to the child, who is often packed off to some distant relative and then, effectively, abandoned.
The results of a fatherless society are disasterous. The young, fatherless men of South Africa are poorly educated, frequently unemployed and often part of the large criminal class that makes South Africa such an infamously unpleasant country. This should not be surprising. While the young girls of Loopeng have role models in the gogos and aunts who look after them, clean their homes, cook their food and budget their money, the young boys have role models only in the men wasting away on the front stoop of the bottle store. It's no wonder that they grow up to be the same thing.
While most development projects focus on the plight of girls in third-world countries, I've found the suffering of boys in South Africa just as, if not more, troubling. Without appropriate male role models, young boys in this country are set adrift in the sea of adulthood utterly unprepared to make good decisions and the result is a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty.
In the most functional of family units, daddy is at work. Many men are employed by mines across the country and their families are unable to accompany them. Thus, the wife and children stay behind in the village while the man is at work. He will likely come home once per month, after pay day. This is the best-case scenario.
There's a wide variety of worst-case scenarios that result in a no-show dad. Perhaps the most unfortunate is death. Poverty kills, particularly in South Africa where HIV/AIDS, rampant alcohol abuse and dangerous roads all make a potentially lethal lifestyle widely available to the country's poor.
Even if a man survives to become a father, he is still likely to be absent. I attribute this mostly to cultural values, or a lack thereof. Children are seen as a financial drain, and thus men have a compelling reason to deny responsibility. By and large, women let them do it as the importance of having a father figure around is ignored. Additionally, most children are born outside of marriage. The father has very little link to the child, who is often packed off to some distant relative and then, effectively, abandoned.
The results of a fatherless society are disasterous. The young, fatherless men of South Africa are poorly educated, frequently unemployed and often part of the large criminal class that makes South Africa such an infamously unpleasant country. This should not be surprising. While the young girls of Loopeng have role models in the gogos and aunts who look after them, clean their homes, cook their food and budget their money, the young boys have role models only in the men wasting away on the front stoop of the bottle store. It's no wonder that they grow up to be the same thing.
While most development projects focus on the plight of girls in third-world countries, I've found the suffering of boys in South Africa just as, if not more, troubling. Without appropriate male role models, young boys in this country are set adrift in the sea of adulthood utterly unprepared to make good decisions and the result is a self-perpetuating cycle of poverty.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Most Children Left Behind: Education in South Africa
South Africa, compared to the rest of the African continent, is developed, wealthy and well-governed. So why does its education system consistently underperform, even and especially when compared to such kleptocratic basket-cases as Zimbabwe? There are a thousand potential explanations, but there are a few in particular that I've gleaned from my experiences as an educator in this country.
By far, the biggest issues are social and involve the break-down of the family unit. Children are abandoned or orphaned, with alarming frequency, at a young age. If they are lucky and taken in by a neighbor or relative, instead of forced into miniature adulthood, they often live a Cinderella-like existence. Except sadly, their prince never comes. In most cases, using children as little more than free labor is not a malicious act, nor a necessity. Instead, it springs from a lack of modern parenting skills. Case in point, several neighborhood children and I spent an afternoon drawing pictures. One child, five years old and infinitely pleased with his scribblings, took his picture to show his adoptive mother. She picked it up, glanced at it and threw it away. He was crushed. The same inattention that is paid to childish drawings is also paid to schoolwork. Children frequently receive no parental feedback regarding their progress, and so naturally begin to view the whole endeavor with the same indifference as their caretaker. While children lucky enough to live with one or both parents may suffer similarly, in my experience biological parents are willing to invest more in the education of their offspring. For example, my host mother's biological children all went to boarding school while her adopted children are stuck in the village schools.
Unfortunately, regardless of the level of parental involvement, many South African schools manage to fail their learners all by themselves. Within the four walls of the average classroom in this country, the biggest obstacle faced by learners is often the educator. Teacher training, in my experience, focuses much too heavily on dealing with the bureaucratic elements of teaching a national curriculum and way too lighly on actual content. Far too frequently I have observed teachers teach information that is factually incorrect. Connecting circuits in parallel has no effect on how bright or dim the lightbulb shines, but I know dozens of students who are convinced it does. Teachers without a solid grasp on content knowledge are doing a huge disservice to their learners, and that has a direct impact on learner performance on national exams.
Granted, being taught the odd bit of misinformation may have little impact on whether a learner passes the class or grade because the passing score necessary is so incredibly low. In my subject, it's 30%. Yes, 30%. You can pass maths literacy with a mere 30%. This is the cause of an enormous amount of trouble. Learners are passed into upper-level courses without a solid grasp on lower-level material. For example, I'm expected to teach linear functions to learners with virtually no understanding of the basics of arithmetic. Because of the pressing and insistent spectre of looming national examinations, there's only so much time available to review before moving on the material to be tested. This is an impossible situation, and cannot be maintained for long. Imagine a Jenga tower where each level consists of only one block. How many levels can be built before it all falls apart, and the learner either fails or drops out? Additionally, the low threshold for passing cheapens the value of school-leaving certificates. Too many learners leave school with just a piece of paper in their pocket, and virtually nothing rattling around their minds after a dozen years in the South African school system.
Such a long post, and I haven't even started in on the curriculum itself! I think I'll save that for another day. Oh, South Africa...
By far, the biggest issues are social and involve the break-down of the family unit. Children are abandoned or orphaned, with alarming frequency, at a young age. If they are lucky and taken in by a neighbor or relative, instead of forced into miniature adulthood, they often live a Cinderella-like existence. Except sadly, their prince never comes. In most cases, using children as little more than free labor is not a malicious act, nor a necessity. Instead, it springs from a lack of modern parenting skills. Case in point, several neighborhood children and I spent an afternoon drawing pictures. One child, five years old and infinitely pleased with his scribblings, took his picture to show his adoptive mother. She picked it up, glanced at it and threw it away. He was crushed. The same inattention that is paid to childish drawings is also paid to schoolwork. Children frequently receive no parental feedback regarding their progress, and so naturally begin to view the whole endeavor with the same indifference as their caretaker. While children lucky enough to live with one or both parents may suffer similarly, in my experience biological parents are willing to invest more in the education of their offspring. For example, my host mother's biological children all went to boarding school while her adopted children are stuck in the village schools.
Unfortunately, regardless of the level of parental involvement, many South African schools manage to fail their learners all by themselves. Within the four walls of the average classroom in this country, the biggest obstacle faced by learners is often the educator. Teacher training, in my experience, focuses much too heavily on dealing with the bureaucratic elements of teaching a national curriculum and way too lighly on actual content. Far too frequently I have observed teachers teach information that is factually incorrect. Connecting circuits in parallel has no effect on how bright or dim the lightbulb shines, but I know dozens of students who are convinced it does. Teachers without a solid grasp on content knowledge are doing a huge disservice to their learners, and that has a direct impact on learner performance on national exams.
Granted, being taught the odd bit of misinformation may have little impact on whether a learner passes the class or grade because the passing score necessary is so incredibly low. In my subject, it's 30%. Yes, 30%. You can pass maths literacy with a mere 30%. This is the cause of an enormous amount of trouble. Learners are passed into upper-level courses without a solid grasp on lower-level material. For example, I'm expected to teach linear functions to learners with virtually no understanding of the basics of arithmetic. Because of the pressing and insistent spectre of looming national examinations, there's only so much time available to review before moving on the material to be tested. This is an impossible situation, and cannot be maintained for long. Imagine a Jenga tower where each level consists of only one block. How many levels can be built before it all falls apart, and the learner either fails or drops out? Additionally, the low threshold for passing cheapens the value of school-leaving certificates. Too many learners leave school with just a piece of paper in their pocket, and virtually nothing rattling around their minds after a dozen years in the South African school system.
Such a long post, and I haven't even started in on the curriculum itself! I think I'll save that for another day. Oh, South Africa...
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