South African Politics, on a microlevel

We found out on Tuesday that we should probably cancel the afterschool program for Thursday because there was going to be a big ceremony at the school. The principal faxed Mike (sort of boss) an invitation. Apparently there had been a competition for the best poster design for Fire and Flood Safety. Out of 600 submissions, the first and second prize had gone to students at Ikaya Primary School. Although I needed to be working on a paper (that I still haven't finished), I decided to go. It ended up just being me and Mike, because Andy and Bibi had class. First we waited for like ten or fifteen minutes for Andy to come, but he didn't. When we got to Kayamandi, the thing had actually already started, which was bizarre, because things never start on time. Apparently though, when local government is putting on an event, things happen.

There was a huge tent/canopy thing that everyone could sit under. It was like a khaki colored circus tent, at least 15 ft (5 m) tall, I wish I could have remembered my camera. There was a mini stage, with wireless mikes for the performers, and a decent speaker system. The kids were all seated on the ground, but it was only a few grades. Definitely grades 7 and 6, but possibly 5 too. The front row kids looked really small, but I used to say that about the seventh graders. Numbers-wise, I think there were over 300, which would mean just two grades (4 classrooms of forty learners for each grade. Big smile.).

When we walked up to the tent, there was a performance in progress of the Safety Brigade, or something like that. There were four young people of varying ages (and skin color) in brightly colored shirts excitedly talking about the Emergency phone number, staying calm, and getting help. They also gave out prizes for the kids that answered their questions correctly. The local government officials didn't know what to do with us until another woman came over and told them that we were supposed to sit in the chairs, just like all the other visiting guests. What do you know?

We were seated in time to watch the grade 6 singers/dancers, and then for the two speeches. Then came the announcements. It was two boys from grade 6, classroom C. We got to see the posters that they drew, and they received a drawing kit, a trophy, a certificate, and a cash prize (the MC said the last part very quietly each time). Each boy had his picture taken with all the powerful dignitaries present. Everyone was happy and proud. Then the children were dismissed to go eat the lunch that local government bought for them (chips, pie [think Hot Pocket], candy bar, soda?). The teachers and guests got to go inside the teachers' lounge.

We had prawns, calamari, mini-ribs, chicken, sausages, veggies, fruits, crackers, cheese, sparkling juice, and more. It was super fancy. I didn't know anyone other than Mike, and he didn't really introduce me to anyone, so that was kinda awkward. I did get to meet a youngish woman who works for the Emergency Safety department or something, so I chatted to her a while about prawns. As we were saying goodbye, I met a few of the teachers of our kids. I met the principal too.

We got in the car, drive maybe 50 meters, and Mike says, "that thing cost no less than 50,000 rand ($5,000). With that money, they could have hired another teacher for a semester, or even a whole year if we think about what the teachers really get paid not should get paid. But no, the kids did an assignment in class, for class, won a prize, so the local government puts down the big bucks to celebrate"

Which raises some really interesting questions.

A big theme at FIRM and in community development theory is that you celebrate your accomplishments. Any time anything exciting happened at FIRM, we would have a potluck. If it was really big? A full scale community meal. Celebrating is really important. And those kids at Ikaya should be proud of the distinction. The posters were drawn really well. They were really good, and I think definitely deserved a prize.

They also deserve a decent education. They also deserve a government that acts on their behalf.

So whats the balance? A less nice tent? Crappy speakers that don't project the sound so everyone can hear clearly? A certificate delivered in a classroom? No unnecessary poster competitions in the first place? No free meal? Less fancy food for the teachers? (don't forget teachers have votes and a really influential local ANC party woman is also a teacher at the school) how else will we know that the government is good if they don't give out nice free stuff to the people?

The kids don't deserve a crappy ceremony just because the rest of the school/government services are crappy in some degree or another.

Dunno. Interesting stuff here though.

In celebration of the fact that it is Friday night and I don't feel horrible about the state of the world, I'm writing on my blog instead of going out. This may sound contradictory and somewhat odd, but I have a very heavy class on Fridays from 4:30-7:30, so it usually takes me a day or two to fully process.
Tonight though, Nora just told me she was glad I was in the class because I think about things completely and totally different than she does. And then that made me feel like I was crazy and am going to end up like my Papa Ed or something. Nothing against Papa Ed, but I dunno... or Aunt Lucille. All this crazy hippie blood in me or something. I can't seem to help it that I'm so structural and so anti-Western, anti-neo-liberalism anti-white-privilege. I just don't know what I'm for I guess.
In talking to my dad a few nights ago, I said that this class makes me feel more distanced from everyone else. It makes me think, it makes me process, and critically analyze the world. Heidi calls it "giving things space" and "Living in the contradictions". I feel like it is a process of humanizing. My dad reminded me that that's why I came... to grow as a human. even if it does distance me more from other people who aren't quite as haunted as I seem to be by the bigger questions of the world. And even having the leisure to contemplate Questions that aren't directly related to food, shelter, safety comes from having a place of privilege in society.
Everything about the world that I occupy is almost entirely dictated by Western thought, Western tradition, Western history, colonialism, capitalism, white-over-color ascendency (yay CRT). There is so much more in the world. But if I am the champion of the Other, that is a product of Western thinking as well. I cannot be another white savior. But how do I exist as who I was born as in the context of the questions...
The kids in my class in Kayamandi. They know the following three things about apartheid which ended just before they were born. 1. They weren't allowed to live with their fathers. Families had to live in Eastern Cape. 2. They weren't allowed to go placed without a pass. They couldn't go into King Pie in town to buy fast food. 3. White police shot black people. (and after apartheid)In 1994 we could vote and Nelson Mandela was our president.
There is such a rich history of protest. The ANC despite its corruption and governmental failings has sUUUch a rich history beginning in 1914, I think. What do the kids know about ANC? they know who is for them. They know whether or not their families support them. Maybe I'm romanticizing a brutal history that should not be even partially redeemed. But shouldn't lessons be learned? shouldn't the people of this country be proud of ridding themselves of apartheid? in class today we talked about how TRC basically established that apartheid was wrong, violence was wrong, and that public confessions were cheaper than trials. It did not really address the premise of apartheid. It didn't really ever say, racism is wrong. And structurally in South Africa, not much has changed. There's not space for relationship between races because townships are still townships. The roads still say "NY ###" which stands for Native Yard.
Even in the rememberences of people who died in the struggle, the white martyrs have names, the black ones have locations and numbers. The Gugulethu 7. The Cradock 4.
Amy Biehl an American Fulbright Scholar, who dove, swam, did gymnastics and went to Stanford, was murdered by a mob when she was somewhere she probably shouldn't have been. She was in Gugulethu. She stood for all the right things, but theres a white arrogance in thinking that will save you. Under apartheid, there was no discriminating between a good black person and a bad black person. Both could get shot just as easily for just as irrelevant reasons.
And now history just isn't taught? The schools don't want another angry generation? I don't know.
Yes this has implications for me. and for Fresno. and for the States. I'm not done thinking them through yet though.

Yesterday

After a morning of waiting for a phone call which didn't come until we left the message with our phone numbers
i went to meet with mike to talk kayamundi
what does it mean to have an existing structure in my head for an afterschool program?
how do I react to situations where i think discipline is necessary?
how do I determine who to talk to? who to sit with?
then met with leah and joelle
watched cnn for a blissful 10 minutes
left to sit on the pedestal of cecil rhodes
where jesus and his disciples, local soapie stars, went to temple in a cheesy American movie of the book of Matthew. I think we watched it in Terry McGonigal's Shalom claass.

what does it mean to have preconcieved notions of poverty
what does it mean to be haunted by visions of home that i didn't understand then
and applying to this context still can't properly process
people just want to be heard.
kids need the same meaning giving context that adults do,
where do i fit? why does it matter so much?
what are the capacities of grade 7 students and why do we give them folders to color for 40 minutes?
where was the hw help?
where was the setting of expectations?
what about the volunteers? where is the structure for them?
how do I fit into this structure?
who are the people who dreamed this up in the first place? where is the learner imput for the current structure?
why don't I want to deal with KP right now?
why is it so complicated to live here and know when you need, for emotional stability purposes, to back off calm down, close your bedroom door and process? and when do you know that you need to calm down, let go, and not worry and go out and be social? how do you know what to accept and what to tear apart?
there's too much happening to process everything
and when are you supposed to do your homework?

"what's your favorite subject"
"English"
"why?"
"because it sounds prettier"
"you don't like speaking xhosa?"
"no."

"I have to go now. I have to leave the creche[preschool] with all these people. i'm going to put you down now...no, you can't come with me...no, you have to stay here...no, its gonna be okay...will you hold him while i leave?"
[run away and try not to look back at wide-eyed toddler straining against nine-year old girl]

"is it hard, leaving your mother and family behind here?" (while you live the good life going to college and living with a Brit)
"yes, i won't be able to not think about them tonight, i won't sleep"

"She [odey] doesn't have a home. She's been here since a child. She's half Angolan. Her mother is somewhere in Congo, you know how impossible it would be to find her in that mess. we've tried...All she wants to do is play football...She's good enough to play for the national team... but she doesn't have papers. Her father brought her here as a child... but it was too much to handle. he left her at the ark and went back to angola...I think she misses him a lot... she's without a country now... i can't adopt her legally without papers... she's been with me since she was fourteen.. it would take ten years to track down birth certificates from the hospital in kinshasa. it doesn't have a telephone number on the internet. they won't even have paper records probably...you can't adopt a thirty year old."

I didn't have the 15-30 seconds where i wondered whether i was going to die or not, so I didn't have the trauma of being shot in a hi-jacking. we all just thought it was glass in my face in the aftermath...it was only in the x-ray that they realized i had a bullet lodged in my tongue... Miraculously a police car drove by as it was happening so they caught the boys...it was their first hijacking...it was for a gang initiation
...when i realized what was happening, i yelled for the 6 girls to get out of the car. they all did but odey (her foster daughter) who was paralyzed in the corner.
the gun was in his hand..i think he was quite nervous actually. it went off as he approached the car. so the window took most of the impact, then it went into my cheek and down. that's why i have these two monstrosities of false teeth now. i always tell people, if they want money for their support, they need to adopt foster daughters and get shot in the face in a hijacking... i used to be quite naive really.

"leah, whats the hardest thing for you to see? you see a lot of hard stuff"
"i think i'm pretty desensitized to it by now but i guess the hardest is the young mothers. the ones that don't have anything to live for, they are carrying these children in their arms that they have no hope for."

what does it mean to be human?
what does it mean to have a meaning-giving context?
how do you help other people find that when you find it for yourself by helping them with mundane things like math homework?
how do you assist english language learning while encouraging pride in their native tongue which is too complex for most volunteers to learn?
how much does language affect individual identity?
how do you encourage capacity and listen to and encourage middle-schoolers?
how much of a difference does Kayamundi Project make in the long run?
how could that much well-meaning quality ISOS time be utilized differently? more effectively?
in such a structured/top-down environment, how do i make the change i learn about in Community Development class?
how much of this is reinforcing stereotypes? preconceived notions? how much is allowing for paradigm shifts?

I went to Kayamundi, the closest township, for class on Tuesday.
I'm sure that it looks the same as all the pictures you've seen. The corrugated metal shacks, the dirt roads, the people walking everywhere, the women with the bags of laundry on their heads, the roadside vegetable stands. There are minibus taxis that have seats for 8, that carry at least 15. There were stray dogs sleeping in the shadows of the trees. There were many smiling people everywhere.
Some unexpected things that I saw:
cell phone shacks. Vodacom is the biggest brand, but MTN competes with it too. But scattered throughout the township of tiny shacks were the occasional shack that said "Authorized Vodacom Community Telephone" or something to that effect. I need to ask what they are next time I'm in Kayamundi, but I think it could either be a) a really cool social entrepreneurship program that gives an income to someone with a cell phone or two that the entire community can use. or b) evidence of commsumerism taking over the world and infiltrating this area of extreme poverty trying to get people to spend nonexistant money on a new necessity.
I've also learned that Kayamundi is the meth capital of the country, which makes me feel like I'm right at home again, aww Fresno.
. . .
So the reason that I was in Kayamundi in the first place, was for my first session of my Service Learning/Community Development class. We met our lecturers, we had a nice lunch in the botanical garden. Then, we were told that we were going to do the following activity.
We were led silently to vans, and split up into three grooups. We were given notebooks and pens and told to observe the entire journey.
We drove past a prison with gardening convicts in the yard. We drove maybe five minutes until we entered Kayamundi. We drove a bit, dropped two people off. Kept driving and winding through the township, dropping pairs off at seemingly random places. Each pair was told to be silent for the first 15 minutes, just to observe. Then we were allowed to walk around and talk to people and see what was happening at the 'random' site where they were placed. But if we were approached, we could talk back. The van would return in 30 minutes. We were also told of a 'safe place' where we could go if we felt threatened. There were only four of us left at the top of this hill. There was a construction site across the street for a nonprofit named Legacy. It was gorgeous standing there. The mountains and green hills in the distance, the hope of a new building. I dunno. It was good.
It was around 2:30 when we were dropped off, which is also right about when the kids get out of school. So no sooner had I settled myself in the shade under a tree, some kids came by and were curious. They stood at a distance, and slowly got closer, and once they were pretty close, I said Hi. This encouraged them, and they came over right up next to me, and were chatting away. I think my silence lasted maybe 2 minutes. The girls were really sweet, i think they were around seven. I haven't figured out how to judge age yet here; all the kids are so small. We played hand games, and one girl had two little sisters with her. One could speak and one was too young. I played high five with them.
Then some boys walked by in their crisp new uniforms (the new school year started a few weeks ago), and they wanted to know what was going on, so I talked with them for a while too.
highlights:

baby peeing in the middle of the road. Just walked away from the group, down into the road, pulled her pants to her ankles and popped a squat
the girls started playing with my hair. They discovered that my scalp has been peeling from a sunburn. Like huge chucks of skin. So they started picking it all out.... that was probably the most awkward part for me. The rest felt perfectly natural and exactly right
a boy pulled out a kitchen knife to chop a palm frond off a nearby tree. whatever. no big deal.
the same boy took his belt off and then rehooked it with his front loops of his pants, and the top of the belt around his head. It looked like he was an old man with his overalls/pants pulled WAY too high. Of course all the other boys did it too.
They wanted to write in my book too. One girl wrote the alphabet. They all wrote their names. Another wrote out the vowels followed by Sa Se Si So Su. A girl named Precious wrote a sentence for me "I like you. you are the best.thank you?" She was at least nine.

When the van pulled up again, they all clamored to give me the last hug, and then some of the boys tried to get in the van, just for kicks. and i went home with so much more peace than I'd had for a while.
We still don't know our exact placements, and we don't know what we'll do at the place. But I know that my place speaks Xhosa, so thats the language that I'm going to take.
Its going to be good.
Much love from christine

3 days left

Today is a beautiful sunny day in Fresno. Still cold, but my brain functions better when the sun is shining, so I am happy.
I finally started my goodbyes, and I'm ready to leave soon.
I love the calm of goodbyes. Somehow there is a grace and peace that comes with accepting the change that is coming. Goodbyes cement relationships into their proper place. I've started goodbyes to people, and Fresno too.
Today the paper ran a good opinion piece by a Hmong activist. I cut it out, to help me remember home. Apparently there are some references to things that happened while I was in Spokane that my mom explained to me later, but thats okay. Fresno is such a beautiful mess of poverty and wealth. I am so thankful that I got the opportunity to enter into a tidbit of Hmong/Southeast Asian culture when I worked at FIRM last summer. It helped me see Fresno a little more completely, and also complexly. I had the opportunity to enter into a few high school girls' lives. That opportunity touched/changed me more than anything else. I think I'm going to come back this summer to work for FIRM's Family Festival. I love those kids, and those leaders.
I know this blog is supposed to be about South Africa. Its important to me though, that the world not be so black-and-white.
I am going to a wealthy secluded corner of the richest country on the continent of Africa. I am coming from the city with the highest concentrated poverty in the country that has the largest economy of the world. I live in a state that would be the tenth largest economy in the world, if it were independent. There is still a lot of economic disparity in both countries. Definitely worse in South Africa. It'll be interesting to see, for sure.
I don't know how I'm going to react to the poverty and wealth I see in South Africa. I've done my good poli-sci student research. I know about the political parties, and the history. I will definitely learn more once I am there, but I feel somewhat intellectually prepared. In Fidens' words though, "You can never be prepared for Africa"
I'm so excited.