A Nation in Mourning

For the past year, South Africa has been holding its breath, not wanting to let go of their hero. Every time Nelson Mandela entered the hospital, thousands would gather around his home in Soweto to pray for his health. Critics around the world questioned the motives behind the lengths that South African doctors took to keep the 95 year old man alive. It was a struggle, both for him and for his people, but on December 5^th 2013 this nation said goodbye to the greatest humanitarian of our time.

Being here in South Africa at the time of Mr. Mandela’s death has been somewhat surreal. The reactions from the people of this country, as well as people around the world were not what I expected. It was easy to see the amount of love that this country had for Mandela. From the moment our plane touched down in July 2012 we were surrounded by reminders of the changes made possible by this one man. Every bank note shows his face, and his iconic smile adorns poster and buildings throughout the country. He has been a true hero for this country and the world. His sacrifices united a nation previously filled with so much hatred and violence. It is easy to see his influence within the country, but it goes so much further than just South Africa. Nelson Mandela showed the world what a message of love and tolerance could accomplish. His forgiveness for those who had wronged him showed inhumane strength, making him an iconic figure around the world. 

However, when you look around this country, you really only see his influence within the larger areas. It is in cities and townships that people speak Mr. Mandela’s name in awe. His face only appears on posters and monuments in specific areas and those areas don’t include where I currently am. The extremely rural areas have a different history than the rest of South Africa. Apartheid didn’t hurt the villagers the way it did in the townships. White people didn’t care what was happening to people in the middle of nowhere, so when apartheid ended, nothing really changed.  Rural areas still don’t have running water, consistent electricity, functioning schools, or local governments that show any interest in their progress. People here still have had little influence from the outside world, so when Nelson Mandela passed, little was done. As a foreigner, who had heard the horrors of apartheid only told from the side of people within the cities and townships, I was expecting my village to be devastated when the news hit. People throughout the country flocked to Mr. Mandela’s home and to the different capital building to show their love for the former president, and to support each other in their sorrow. However, in the village life went on. We said a short prayer at school, but everyone went about their business as usual. At first I was shocked. I expected crying and wailing (which is a very normal expression of grief in this country) but there was none of that. People in the villages didn’t have the luxury of being able to take time from their day, and to be honest I don’t think Mandela’s passing touched them the same way as it did the rest of the world. Nothing has changed for the men and women who have spent their whole life in the rural areas. It is not that they don’t respect of love Mandela, but his influence did little to touch their difficult lives.

Nelson Mandela unquestionably did amazing things for this country and the world. He was a hero for millions how had no voice until he stood up for them. He gave peace to a nation in turmoil, but many people forget that things in South Africa are still far from perfect. This beautiful country has come such a long way in the 20 years since the end of apartheid, but it still has such a long struggle ahead.   

Long Delay

Hello Readers,

I want to apologize for the long period of silence since my last post. Unfortunately my method of internet access in my village is no longer working. My modem has decided that it no longer wants to be compatible with my computer, so I will most likely only be able to update posts when I am on vacation. So, since I am currently in Durban celebrating my birthday by spending three days taking showers, I will be posting a few new updates. The posts span the last few months, and will hopefully get everyone caught up on what I have been doing.

Thanks for reading my crazy experiences here in Africa, and hopefully in the future I will be able to keep things a little more consistent!

When Things Get Physical

Today (8/29) I had a physical altercation with a learner, and it has shaken me. I was not hurt except for a scratch across my hand, but I still feel like something was taken from me. I'm not sure if I feel like I lost a little peace of mind, or if I actually feel unsafe at the moment, but whatever it is made me seriously consider going home for the first time in a very long time. I think sometimes being in a position of power over someone, like a teacher over their students, can give you a sense of security and maybe that is what I lost today, my sense of security in my school.

During a test today in my grade 6 class I caught one of the older boys cheating by using his phone as a calculator. My policy in class is that if you are caught cheating I take your paper and make you start over. In this case I was also taking his phone because my school has very strict policies about no phones at school. When I approached him and asked for his phone he hesitated. I expected this because I had dealt with this issue before. Learners are very hesitant to give up their phones, which I find amusing because it’s not like I'm just going to change my mind and walk away if they don’t give it to me the first time that I ask. After the third time that I demanded he hand over his phone he finally complied. I then went to remove his paper, and that’s when things got difficult. At my school kids write tests in specific books because making copies with enough room to show your work is expensive, so what I have done in the past when kids cheat is I rip out the page they are writing on, and then allow them to start over on the next page. This boy however decided that wasn’t going to happen. With his phone and book held in my left hand I attempted to rip out his page with my right hand, which is when he grabbed me. Apparently he thought that it would be okay for him to grab my right arm to stop me from removing the page, and then shove me away while trying to take his phone and book back from my left hand. In order to right myself and get the kid off of me I pushed back and was finally able to free my arm when he stumbled back into his desk. I was able to maintain my hold on his belongings, but received a nice scratch across my hand in the process. At that point I was livid, and will admit I imagined taking him by the arm and throwing him face down against the desk in a “you don’t know who the hell you are messing with” kind of way. Unfortunately in a class of 50 learners that didn’t seem appropriate, not to mention this kids is as big as I am and probably a lot stronger, so I'm sure it wouldn’t go as smoothly as I planned it in my head.

Instead I took him and his phone to the office so that the head of my department could deal with him. While I knew that it probably meant he would get the stick, I just didn’t know what else to do with him, because nothing I'm doing seems to make a difference to these older boys. My HOD then apparently handed the boy off to my principal who gave him a warning and then sent him back to class. A warning? Are you F***ING kidding me?! Of all the times this kid deserved a warning, this was not it! Give him a warning when he is late to school for the 10^th time this month. Give him a warning when he doesn’t stop talking during class no matter how many times you speak to him. Don’t give him a warning when he tries to forcefully keep a teacher from taking his phone and book away after he was caught cheating. This is not the time to hand out a pass, this is the time to do something!!! And to make matters worse, I still had another hour of class with grade 6 today. Once a week I get the privilege of having two hours a day with both of my classes, and today just happened to be my day with grade 6 twice.

When I had finally calmed down enough to not see red, the boy came to apologize to me. He had tried to come earlier but I had sent him away because I was still too angry to hear it and hadn’t decided how I wanted to handle things with him yet. In the time it took me to somewhat calm down I realized that the reason I was so angry was because I felt violated in a sense. Was I hurt, no, but did I feel like my authority and status as a teacher was challenged, absolutely. I felt like I had come to Africa to do something good, to help people that wanted my help, and I felt like this kid just threw that back in my face. He is only one of a hundred learners, but the fact that he was willing to go that far over the line made me feel like being here meant nothing. After almost 14 months away from everything I’ve ever known, that hurt. So when my learner made his way back to apologize I wasn’t hearing it. As he stood with me outside repeating “I’m sorry, I’m sorry” over and over again I just didn’t believe it, and I still don’t. I’ve spent three full terms accepting this kid’s apologies for his bad behavior, but today he crossed a line with me and I don’t believe he is sorry at all. Do I feel bad for him, yes, because I know he has had a hard life. At the age of 15 he has lived through the death of both of his parents and is being raised just by his grandmother, but I am past the point of letting him use that as an excuse for his behavior. Was it a little bit heart breaking watching him cry after I asked if he would have ever put his hands on his mother like he did to me, absolutely, but at the same time I see this as his last chance. I told him he has until the end of the year to prove to me that he is actually sorry for what he did. He has until December 6^th to show me through his behavior that he regrets treating me the way he did. I think it is about time that someone held these kids accountable for their behavior and forced them to change for the long run. Warnings and beatings are only temporary, and those are obviously not teaching these kids anything. 

How I Would Want My Parents to React

What would you do if you saw your daughter being carried home between two of her teachers? Would you panic and go rushing up to help, would you freak out and call 911, or would you casually sit down on the porch and ask how the teacher’s day is going? If you think that last option sounds crazy I would agree with you, but that is exactly how one of my learner’s mother reacted last week (8/9). On Tuesday of last week one of my grade 5 learners had a seizure while on her way to the pit latrine at school. I happened to be sitting in the staff room when a learner came to inform the teachers that a girl was “sleeping” by the toilet. Of course the only words I really understood in Xhosa were girl and toilet, so I had no idea what was happening when two of the teachers angrily left the staff room. A few minutes later though, I watched as they basically dragged this poor girl into the building while she was seizing and drooling all over. After working in a nursing home during college I felt that I had enough medical knowledge to assist the other teachers, so I got up to help. Turns out their idea of taking care of this girl was laying her on her back on the floor in an empty office, shoving a spoon in her mouth and then leaving. I was shocked to say the least, and decided that I would take it upon myself to make sure the girl didn’t swallow her tongue or hurt herself so I held her on her side for the next hour all alone. Occasionally my head of department (HOD) would come in and ask if she could be moved yet, but once she realized she was still having spasms she would close the door and leave again.

           

When the poor girl was finally still my HOD decided it was time to take her home. Not take her to a hospital or a clinic, just home. Another teacher helped me pick her up and transport her to a car, and then we drove her through the bumpy dirt roads to her hut up in the village. When we got to her small house we carried her to the house while my HOD went ahead to inform the mother that we were bringing her daughter home early. When we finally made it around to the front the mom was casually sitting on the front steps while her daughter was propped up between me and another teacher, and kind of looked like she was died. Her mom never even got up. She just pointed to the room to the right and asked that we lay her down in there. When I was done positioning her in the bed I went out to join the other teachers and try to explain why her daughter needed to see a doctor. She said some things in Xhosa that I of course didn’t understand, and then we were leaving my learner in the care of her seemingly unconcerned mother. To be honest, I was a little pissed. When we got back to the car I asked my HOD if the mom was going to take the girl to the clinic. Turns out the mom had said that my learner had been having seizures on and off recently ever since she had been raped a few weeks before. I guess at this point I shouldn’t be surprised by the lack of concern shown for this little girl, but I was still shocked that no one seemed to be remotely worried about what was going on with this learner, both physically and emotionally.

        

Two days ago she had another seizure. The same thing happened. I stayed with her alone in the empty office until she stopped seizing. We basically carried her home, and then left her all alone with a drunken old man, because he was the only one home. I don’t even know if he was part of the family, or if he just happened to be at the house when we showed up. I tried to talk to the teachers about how she really needed to see a doctor, but they seemed disinterested. They told me that the only way that the family would be forced to take her to the doctor was if a social worker got involved. Unfortunately my school was unwilling to call a social worker because “it’s not their place”. It seems like there is some unwritten rule around here that teachers and schools turn a blind eye to problems at home because kids are at the bottom of the totem pole in this culture.

To say that I am struggling with the callousness of the staff at my school and the learner’s family would be an understatement.  I can’t help thinking about how I would want my parents to react if I was in that girl’s situation. When I was her age it was always a big deal when I was sick. My mom would make me tea while I watched Beauty and the Beast in her room, my dad would take me to school with him so he could keep an eye on me and I wouldn’t have to be alone. If I had a seizure I would have expected a little bit of panic followed by a speedy trip to the hospital and then at least a week of being smothered with concern. I would even expect some of that from my teachers. It is hard to come from a culture that puts so much emphasis on the importance of children and then see how little children are valued here. I am keeping my fingers crossed that eventually someone will take her to the clinic and that she will be able to get some physical and emotional support. This is one of those times that being able to speak fluent Xhosa would be really helpful.

(Month Later Update: The girl has not had another seizure during school in the last four weeks. Her grandmother came to visit and apparently forced the girl’s mother to take her to the clinic to be checked by the doctor. Since then she has been doing much better at school and seems to be getting more social in my class (which is not always great while I am teaching, but I am happy to see). Hopefully as time goes on she will continue to improve.) 

Fat or Skinny: Who's the Judge?

In the United States there are some things that you just don’t say to people, regardless of if it is true or not. When a woman asks her husband, boyfriend, or friends if those jeans make her butt look big the only acceptable answer is a big Hell No. It doesn’t matter if those jeans make her ass look like a balloon; you lie, because you know it will hurt her feelings and her wavering self-esteem if you tell her the truth. Unfortunately, South Africans did not get that memo before I moved here. Since I have been here I have been told that I am too skinny (which I was excited about), that I am going to get fat, that I need to get fat, and that I am getting fat. People I have never spoken to will come up to me in town to comment on my weight and then walk away. I have tried to remind myself that the culture is different and that I shouldn’t take anything personally, but let’s be honest ladies. If some stranger came up to you and said “Wow, you are looking so fat today” and then walked away, how do you not take that personally?!

Now, the last time that I went to the doctor I was told that I had lost a little over ten pounds since I have come to South Africa. I know that I have not gained weight because I am still able to easily fit into the size smaller jeans that I brought from home in the hopes that I would lose weight while I was here. I told a group of my teachers once that comments like that make me feel really bad and that in the US you would never say that to someone. They seemed extremely confused and told me that getting fat means South Africa is good for me. So the fact that people have taken it upon themselves to inform me of how my weight is looking has made me really think about the idea of weight and beauty in different cultures.

Looking around at women in my community you will see variations of size to the extremes. There are women who look like they might blow away in a strong gust of wind, and then there are women who could crush me with their thigh alone. For the most part though, women are BIG in this country. When I am coming home from town and stuffed in the back of the taxi, I am usually the smallest or one of the smallest women in the truck. The trend seems to be that the older you are the bigger you are, to the point that many women have trouble walking by the time they are in their 40s. South Africans have serious problems with heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes, but if you ask them about it, no one mentions weight or poor diets as the cause of those problems. The average life span in South Africa is 52 years, but in this country it seems that bigger is better, regardless of the repercussions that that might have on your health.

When I watch my host mother, who is a very large woman, I am reminded of the idea that in the olden days being larger was a sign of wealth and higher social standing. My host mother makes a lot of money for someone in a rural village. She has multiple small businesses that she runs out of her house, and has a few properties in other villages that she rents out. She also has a few orphan girls that live at her house for which she collects grant money from the government for taking in. These girls are basically treated like indentured servants. They fetch water from the river, wash the clothes, mop the floors, and do most of the cooking. This allows my host mom to basically be sedentary and eat for the majority of the day. It is like being fat shows that she is able to eat and be lazy all day, which in this country translates to having the money and the means to not do any work. While I think that this lifestyle is not good and extremely unhealthy, most people seem very happy with eating fried chicken and a loaf of bread for lunch every day, but you never hear people telling them that they are fat.

So what does this mean for me? Are people telling me I am getting fat as a complement, or do they just not know that a comment like that is extremely rude? Do they think that because I am an American that means that I should have lots of money and therefore I should be very fat? Do they want me to be fat so they feel better about the fact that they are extremely obese, or are they intentionally being rude? I guess it doesn’t really matter. Being overweight does not have the same negativity associated with it here, and people have no problem commenting on my weight regardless of how much smaller I am than they are. Regardless of knowing that, the next time someone casually tells me that I am looking fat today I might have to smack them!

One Year

One year, 365 days. That’s how long it has been since I have been able to hug my parents, take Butch for a walk, or go to Starbucks with my friends. A lot can happen in one year, a lot can change. When I was preparing for this experience everyone told me that I would end up learning a lot about myself. They said this experience would change me, and they were right.

When I got on that plane a year ago to come to Africa I wanted to save the world. I think most of the 43 other volunteers on that plane had the same intention and naive expectations. It took two days of being in country before the first person realized this experience was going to be way harder than any of us expected, and she was on the next flight home. Over the next few months of extensive training more and more people said goodbye. Now, a year later 16 volunteers from my training group have gone home, and I'm pretty sure that all of us who are remaining have seriously considered leaving at one point or another. This journey is hard, by far the hardest thing I have ever done. It didn’t help that coming into all of this I had expectations that just didn’t add up when I got here. The world is a really big place and I'm just one person. Maybe saving the world was not the best goal to have, but maybe it was the disappointment of not being able to fulfill that goal that taught me my first major lesson here. Change takes time and sometimes, when you are the one who is attempting to instigate that change, you never get the chance to see the end results. I think the one year mark is often a time for reflection for many volunteers, and as I look back on what I have done this year I don’t see very much. I still have learners who can’t add, and others who still get in fist fights every day. There are teachers that still take sticks to class and others who don’t even bother showing up. Maybe being here won’t change them all, but maybe, just maybe some of them are learning something. Maybe by not hitting kids when I get mad I'm teaching some of them compassion. Maybe by showing up to class on time everyday I'm teaching some of them work ethic, and maybe someday, if I'm lucky they will be able to teach those lessons to someone else. If one person ends up having a better life because I taught them something, then maybe it will have all been worth it.

Right before I left a year ago my family and friends threw me a party. Family from up and down the west coast came to wish me luck and party it up in true Lynch fashion. In between the horse shoe tournament, the big bonfire, and consuming too many drinks my mom had everyone sign a journal for me. Before I got on the plane she told me to save it for when I'm feeling lonely and it would remind me that no one back home had forgotten me. Over the course of this year I have turned to their letters of love and encouragement to get me through some of the rougher days. When you are alone in a small hut for days on end without being able to really talk to anyone it tends to run you down emotionally. It’s at those points when I realize I haven’t spoken a single word in over a day that the isolation really sets in. I'm in the middle of nowhere! The closest American is over an hour away and everything I truly know is half a world away. My greatest fear has always been being alone, and here I am. I'm stuck in my worst nightmare, but what I realized last night, when I reread the notes from my friends and family, is that I'm still alive. I’ve spent a year completely alone and I haven’t given up. There have been days where I have been close, days where I’ve sat on the floor and cried thinking I couldn’t keep doing this, but in the end I battled through it. So many people wrote in their letters to me how brave they thought I was, how they were proud of my courage to go off into the unknown, and looking back on this past year I am starting to see what they saw in me. It’s one thing to be told something about yourself, but it’s another thing to actually believe it. I don’t think most people know what it means to truly be alone, and I think fewer people could handle the feelings that come with it. I'm proud that through all the really hard times I have found the courage to stick it out and keep moving forward. This has been my dream since I was 17, and even though there have been a lot of times I wished I had come up with a different dream, I have more faith in who I am now that I have accomplished part of this one.

While I have learned that I am a lot stronger than I thought I was before I came on this crazy adventure to Africa, I want to take this opportunity to thank my friends and family. Family here in South Africa is not the same as back home. Fathers basically done exist and mothers are never shoulders to cry on. Support is not something that is freely given and love is something that is hardly shown. Seeing people who have nothing shows you what you take for granted in your life, and after this last year I can say with confidence that I can live without running water, a car, electricity, and even Starbucks, but I would not be who I am or where I am without the love and support of my family. The number of letters and care packages I have received over the last year have made me feel so supported and cherished in a time when I feared I might be forgotten. It is hard to know that life at home is continuing when you are so far removed, but every time I start to feel left behind they have reminded me I am still in their thoughts. If anything has gotten me through this chaotic experience so far it is them, so thank you to everyone who has supported me! I love you all!!!

What Do You Say To That?

You know that moment when someone asks you a question and realize your immediate response probably isn’t the answer you should give? My time in Africa has been filled with answering the same questions over and over again, and the longer that I am here the more complicated those simple questions become. While on vacation this past week I realized that the answers that I want to give are not always appropriate, and that learning to filter my thoughts might be the greatest lesson from this experience.

No matter where we go everyone in this country somehow knows that we aren’t from here. Even in the big cities where there is a super high population of white people, people just know. Sometimes I feel like I have a flashing neon sign above my head that reads “Ask Me Why I’m Here”. No matter who is asking the questions, the first four are always the same. Question one, where are you from? That answer is always easy and people’s reactions are usually always the same excitement and people gushing about how they have always wanted to visit the United States. Question two is where things start to get a little complicated. This is always were people ask “How are you enjoying South Africa”? This is where the first filter pause comes in. My mind is filled with images of no windows in my classrooms, kids getting in fist fights in the middle of a lesson, and fetching water from the river, and I just can’t help wanting to blurt out that it kind of sucks most of the time. Unfortunately I don’t feel like that is an appropriate answer, so I usually go with the smile and say it’s great and leave it at that, but let me tell you, nothing about washing your clothes with river water full of cow crap is great.

So once the pleasantries are exchanged we get down to the real questions. Question three is usually some form of “How long are you here”? If I could just walk away from the conversation at this point I usually would. Unfortunately, most of the people asking are taking care of me in some manner whether it is the taxi driver, waiter, or the cashier at the supermarket, so for the most part I am trapped until they are done with the inquisition. So at this point I can either lie, and say I am here for holiday if I want to get out fast, or I can tell the truth, that I am living in South Africa for a little over two years. The latter answer then involves an explanation of what I am doing here and where exactly I am staying. This inevitably leads to question four, which is often delivered in a tone of shock, disgust, or concern.

“Why?” It’s such a small word, and you would think that the answer would be so simple, because in my mind it always was. I wanted to go somewhere that I could give back. I wanted to help people that could really use it, so I packed my bags, said goodbye to everything I have ever known, and shipped off to Africa. Apparently when you tell that to a South African they just don’t get it. Volunteering and giving back just isn’t a thing in this country, so there in lies problem number one with that answer. No one understands why I would leave home to come help in a different country, and they sure as hell don’t know why I would essentially work for free. They all want to know what I am getting out of this experience, and I have absolutely given up trying to explain that it isn’t about what I get out of it, I didn’t come here to get anything. So now my go to answers are about growing as a person and that it looks really good on job applications. I usually still end up getting looked at like I have lost my mind, or like I am a child that just doesn’t understand life.

Once people somewhat wrap their head around the idea that I am making no money for teaching we move on to their main concern of where exactly I am working. Strangely enough I thought the concern about this topic would only come from the white South Africans, who have most likely never set foot in a rural village, but the black South Africans have shocked me here. Turns out that most of the black people living and working in Durban grew up in the rural villages, and they have no intention of ever going back. I don’t really blame them there, but I find it funny that they are so shocked that people would choose to go there to help. The black people cannot fathom how we survive living in the rural villages as white people. Initially I thought maybe they were talking about safety issues, but no, they are concerned about how we live with no running water, whether or not we do our own laundry, and how we don’t die of boredom. It’s like they don’t see the two hands attached to the end of my arms and they think that I am a baby lost in the big bad world. I forgot how much I hate being treated like a little kid who can’t get dressed by herself yet. It actually starts to make me mad, and that is usually when the filtering starts.

Aside from the four main questions that literally every single person asks, there are a few others that are fun to try and filter before I say something super offending. My favorite is when people ask how the people are treating me. What I really want to say is that the men here are pigs! I have never wanted to tell more people to f**k off in my entire life put together. Anyone who thinks it’s ok to grab someone as they are walking down the street, or make inappropriate sex noises when they walk by should get hit by a car (I’m a little bitter about this subject, in case you couldn’t tell). Sadly, I don’t think that would go over very well and I defiantly know that is not the answer that most people are looking for. So normally I smile and say that people have been very welcoming, while in my mind I'm envisioning kicking a whole lot of people in the nuts.

My other favorite is people asking about how I enjoy South African food. The first thing that crosses my mind is the image of a dead cow laying in the dirt and covered in flies for multiple days at a time. Then I think about walking through the meat section at the super market and coming across a full cow head, hairy ears and all. At this point I'm trying not to gag as I come up with a reasonable answer. How do you politely tell someone that you would rather eat anything other than traditional South African food?  I have enough stomach problems here as it is, I don’t need to combine meat that has been out of the refrigerator for multiple days into the mix.