When is it No Longer Boys Being Boys?

I’ve said more than once that being at my school is like being in Lord of the Flies. Everything I have seen so far has been mad chaos where learners are left on their own to handle things that should be dealt with by authority figures. This becomes extremely apparent before school and during breaks. When 500 learners aged between 6 and 20 are left unsupervised there are bound to be problems. If a child comes to the staff room crying because of something that happened during break, they are often turned away while the teachers laugh because it is absurd to them that they should be disturbed during their break to deal with petty issues among children. I recently learned that at my school breaks are meant for the teachers, not for the learners, and that means that they will not be bothered with school issues during said breaks. This complete lack of supervision and rules in general has left the learners to create their own ranks among each other, most significantly among the boys.

I have seen the evidence of this in my grade 6 class, where I have two boys who have recently turned 18. I now have boys and girls who are 11 in the same class with boys literally twice their size, and almost twice their age. I’m sure you can guess where the 11 year olds rank in the hierarchy created among the boys throughout the school. In my class I have seen more fist fights in the last five months than I have seen in my entire life. These are fights occurring in a room, with a teacher present, so how many do you thinking are happening outside when there is no one around to even try and break them up? When I have brought this issue up with the other teachers and the management at my school I have been given the same generic answers of “our learners are naughty” and my all-time favorite “boys will be boys”. I agree to some extent that boys will be boys. I grew up with two older brothers, and I have seen how they like to handle altercations, but I also believe that at some point that excuse is just teachers, parents, and authority figures being lazy and not wanting to monitor and discipline their children. The boys at my school have taken it upon themselves to be the judge, jury, and sheriff, and for all the people who have read Lord of the Flies what does the mad chaos escalates into, violence.

Last week was when the petty fights and arguments escalated past the point of boys just being boys. A 19 year old boy brought a knife to school, waited until classes were supposed to be starting, walked into a classroom and stabbed a 17 year old boy in the back of the neck. He knew that the first ten minutes of first period are when teachers are in the staff room “preparing” for the day. He saw this as the perfect time to corner the boy inside a small room, and that there would be no teachers around to interrupt his plans. The packed staff room was alerted to a problem when students began to pour out of the classrooms screaming as the boy was trying to escape his attacker. After a few minutes chasing around the school yard, that boy with the knife was finally tackled by our school security guard, and promptly locked in the principal’s office. The boy who was stabbed had a laceration on the back of his neck that demanded stitches and medical attention. Unfortunately emergency services such as ambulances are pretty slow to get out to rural areas, so some of the teachers strapped a bunch of gauze to the wound, put the boy in the back of a car, and rushed to the local clinic. The rest of us had the privilege of staying at school and trying to figure out what on earth caused this, and how the hell to get 500 gossiping learners to calm down and go back to class.

After the police showed up later to take the older boy into custody the story came out as to why he felt it was appropriate to stab another boy. Apparently on the previous Monday there had been a fight during lunch between the same two boys and a few of their friends. This fight was reported to staff members after the fact, but the two who started the fight simply received a slap on the hand with a stick for being disruptive. Nothing was done to figure out the reason for the fights or to help resolve the issue. So as retaliation, a few days later a knife was brought to settle the dispute. The fight eventually ended with one boy in jail and one in the hospital.

While the boy who was stabbed is now fine, he did have to spend three days in the hospital. The knife was shoved far enough into the back of his neck to reach his vertebra. As he was running to escape his attacker blood drained from his injury into his lungs, so a shunt had to be inserted into his left lung in order to drain it, so he was kept in the hospital to monitor for infection. He is now back in school and doing perfectly fine.

I realize that violent outbursts happen in schools all over the world, and that this is not just a third world problem. However, this incident really got me thinking about how differently we monitor and discipline students in the United States. When I had my first fist fight in class I sent the boys to the principal, only to have them sent right back. Discipline here is at the end of a stick, but pain only lasts for so long. Learners here aren’t afraid of getting in trouble because there are no lasting consequences. Getting suspended or expelled isn’t a discipline tactic used in this country, and even if it was, parents are so uninvolved that kids would probably welcome a few days off at home. There are no consistently enforced rules at my school, so the learners have made up their own and enforce them themselves. While most of these learner imposed rules are regulated by school yard fights and bullying, it seems that eventually they escalate to something more extreme. It makes me really curious what has to happen in order for the staff at my school to realize that this is beyond boys being boys, and that they need to do something in order to insure the safety of the learners. Obviously a boy getting stabbed and spending three days in the hospital wasn’t enough, because it took less than one day for the teachers to migrate back to the staff room leaving the learners unattended. 

Vacation Photos

Hungry Hungry Hippo

Growing up I thought I had heard all the reasons not to walk around alone after dark. As a child I got the warnings about how it’s harder for cars to see you at night and it’s easier to get lost, and as a girl I got all the warnings about it not being safe because creepers walk around at night. Then when I got to college I got the warning about how nothing good ever happens after midnight (which looking back, I would have to agree with). Over the years I thought I had heard them all. Then I showed up to the beautiful coastal town of St. Lucia, South Africa, where I was given a new reason not to walk around at night. Here you don’t have to worry about drunks stumbling around, or murderers lurking around dark corners, it’s a pretty safe place. That is, until you are walking back from dinner and come face to face with a 5000 lbs. hippo in the middle of the street.

The town of St. Lucia is located right on the edge of the St. Lucia estuary, home to the largest hippopotamus population in the world. I always imagined hippos kind of like the dancing ones on Fantasia. Even when you see them on the Discovery Channel they look so cute with their wiggly ears as they float around in a big muddy pond. I’m just going to add this to my list of things Disney lied to me about as a child. I’m pretty sure any animal loses the cute factor when they are bigger than a minivan and have teeth longer than bananas, and just to set the record straight, they don’t dance around in tutus.

My week long vacation started by meeting up with my friend, and fellow volunteer, Monica in Durban. From there we made the trek to the town of Manguzi, near the Mozambique boarder to spend a few days at another volunteer’s site. We met up with Briana, got some groceries, and then hopped in the back of a caged pickup truck to head to her village. Briana’s village could not be more different than mine. First of all she is in the tropics, and it is HOT. Being close to the boarder and only about an hour from the ocean her village is situated among sandy dunes and is infested with every creepy crawling bug known to mankind. I use the term infested because even after nine months in Africa I would rather never see an ant or dung beetle ever again. It’s also home to two of the most aggressive snakes in the world, the black mamba and the puff adder, but we were fortunate enough to not run into any of those.

Our big adventure in Manguzi was paying a local to drive us through the back roads to the beach. We were going to spend the day soaking up some much needed vitamin D with Briana’s host family and their friend (who was our driver). We assumed that since they were all locals that they would know how to get to the beach we were aiming for, but unfortunately we were wrong. The driver kept leaning out the window of the truck to ask us if we knew how to get there. It apparently never occurred to him that the white girls from out of town would have no idea where we were going, hence why we paid him to drive us. So after a few wrong turns, and a few sandy hills that we got stuck on, we made it to the beach…just not the right beach. Being the easy going Americans we figured a beach is a beach and the one we were at would be just as good as the one we were aiming for, right? Wrong!!! We hadn’t even had time to get out of the truck bed when we were approached by three men in uniform, carrying very large rifles. Nothing says “you are not welcome here” like an automatic rifle. Turns out that we had unknowingly entered a protected wildlife area that was not open to the public, and that was being monitored by South Africa’s equivalent to park rangers. Except these park rangers carry big guns rather than flashlights and radios. Fortunately they believed the obviously foreign white girls that we were just lost and were looking for the public beach a few dirt roads over. They were kind enough to not shoot us and even gave us directions on how to get the hell out of there! Looking back it is an entertaining story to tell, but in the moment nothing makes you want to pee your pants more than big guys with guns in a foreign country where you hardly speak the language.

So after that fun little detour we finally made it to one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. It kind of reminded me of the scene from the beginning of the second Jurassic Park. All you could see where miles and miles of undeveloped beaches with huge hills covered in tropical jungle plants rising up behind the sand. The Indian Ocean is a beautiful blue and so refreshing after spending two hours riding in the back of a truck on a hot day. We spent the day playing with Briana’s host siblings and lounging on the beach. Of course I got sun burnt  again, but this time I blame my friends because I only got burnt on my back where it was their job to apply the sun screen. Apparently it is impossible for me to go to the beach and not get burnt.

So after a few days of lounging around and an amazing day at the beach, we left Manguzi to spend a few days back in the land of restaurants and showers in St Lucia. The first thing you notice when you enter this little town are the road signs. Who would have thought you would ever need a hippo crossing sign, especially in the middle of town. When we finally made it to the backpacker that we were staying at we were greeted with another sign. On the back of every door leading out of the building there was a warning about hippos roaming free after dark. No joke, hippos walk up from the estuary at night to find a nice little grass area to chow down on. It just so happens that many of these hippo dining areas are people’s front yards. Who needs a lawn mower when you have a herd of hippos?

Like most Americans none of us had ever seen a hippo outside of the zoo, so our first adventure was to go on a hippo/croc tour that evening. Briana was a little hesitant to get on a small boat with mesh railing to get right up close and personal with some hippos. Turns out some people in her village had recently been attacked by hippos, and one guy was killed. Once again, Disney lied, wild animals don’t always want to be your friend, and hippos are super mean. You don’t ever want to piss one off, and you especially don’t want to get between a mom and her baby, unless the idea of being skewered by a banana size tooth appeals to you. However, after a little reassurance that we would not get eaten by any wild animals we got on a little boat to find some hungry hungry hippos, and it was amazing! This two hour boat ride at sunset was by far the coolest thing I have done in Africa so far. I set out thinking I would see maybe a few hippos here and there, but they were everywhere. Turns out hippos hang out in family type clusters usually with multiple females and their babies with one or two big males depending on the group size. The guide was careful to not put the boat between the moms and their babies, but we were able to get right up next to them. While the babies were super cute, the big males kind of still scare the crap out of me. They are huge, and they make some super strange noises. They kind of sound like Butch when he snores really loud. They like to grunt at each other as a way to show dominance. I didn’t find it a very attractive noise, but based on the number of babies we saw the female hippos sure liked it!

We unfortunately were about two weeks too late for crocodile season, but we were able to find one female still hanging out on shore. Turns out she built her nest a little too close to the water’s edge, and her nest flooded during the rain. Most other nests hatched a few weeks earlier, but this mom was still guarding the nest and trying to keep it warm in the hope that her babies would hatch. It was super sad hearing the guide tell us the story while watching this croc just sit there above the water line. I’m pretty sure it was the first time I ever wanted to cuddle a crocodile.

After this epic first night of animal watching we spent the majority of our time in St. Lucia eating real food, taking a lot of showers, and attempting to avoid running into two ton hippos on the sidewalk. It was a pretty fantastic vacation and I was able to add a bunch of animals to my list.

Animals seen in Africa

Ostriches

Peacocks

Zebras

Baboons

Monkeys

Mongooses  

Water buffalo

Springbok

Wildebeest

Hippopotamuses  

Crocodile

Exam Schedule

Sorry it has been so long since my last update. This will be a catch-up post, and then my next one will be about my amazing vacation.

There are only two words that can adequately describe the end of term routine in South Africa: mad chaos! Imagine 500+ learners running wild and unsupervised while 60 learners are stuffed into one room trying to take an exam. That’s how I spent the last few weeks of my first term teaching. Sometimes I would wonder how it is possible that South Africa is ranked 144 out of 145 countries in math and science education since they are one of the most developed African countries, but then I got to experience firsthand how exams are conducted in this country and I am no longer surprised at all.

The current curriculum in South Africa runs on a 10 week schedules. To me that meant 9 weeks of teaching and 1 week of exams. Unfortunately at my school that was not how things played out. During week 6 I was informed, out of the blue, that my end of term exam was due the following day to be approved by my HOD. Seeing as I was still in the middle of teaching I was a little confused as to why my exam needed to be ready when I still hadn’t covered many of the topics supposed to be covered in term 1. I was not surprised however, that they would tell me about something like that being due the next day. I have sadly come to expect that I will be informed last minute about everything because all the other teachers are using the same lesson plans and exams that they have been using for the last 10 years. But I digress, so after a quick conversation with my HOD I was informed of the exam schedule that would be starting the next week. The general schedule was there would be one exam per day during week 7, with two exams on Monday. Exams would start at 9am and end at 11am, except Monday that had another exam from 11:30am to 1:30pm. When learners were finished with their exam they were expected to leave the classroom to go eat, and then would be dismissed when the exam time had ended. Teachers were required to remain at school until the end of the school day at 2:45pm. Apparently as long as teachers are at school for the full day, it can count as a full day of teaching even if the learners are not there.

At first I was confused as to why we were doing this during week 7 when we still had three weeks to go, but then I got that answer as well. The current curriculum has six subjects for grades 1 to 6, but nine learning areas for grades 7 to 9. This meant that those three grades needed to continue their exams into the next week, because heaven forbid they schedule more than one exam per day throughout the rest of the first week. To say I was super annoyed would be a drastic understatement. I couldn’t really understand how the majority of my grade 5 class can’t subtract correctly, but now that I know only 6 weeks of each 10 week term is used for teaching I get it.

So there went two weeks of teaching. It was suggested that if I wanted to continue teaching after the exams that I could request having my classes stay while all the other learners left at 11am. That lasted for about 15 minutes before I discovered it was the worst idea ever. I thought my learners were loud and out of control before, but when you force kids to stay at school when all their friends just got to go home, they turn absolutely crazy. I’ve had to break up enough fights in my classes as it is, I was not going to watch while they rebelled, so they were sent home pretty fast that first day.

Unfortunately that left us with two more weeks still. Week 9 was taken up by the Annual National Assessment (ANA) for grades 3, 6, and 9. The South African government has schools take the first ANA last September, and then realized just how bad the rural schools were really doing. This year they decided that for all the school that averaged below 25% in English and math needed to take the ANA every term as practice. However, only grades 3, 6, and 9 had to take them because those are the transition grades where kids either get held back (until they are 18 in my grade 6 class) if they continue to fail. So week 9 consisted of administering the ANA exam to those three grades, while the rest of the school ran wild outside waiting for their free lunch. It was horrible. But once again the exams were between 9am and 11am, and then all the learners were dismissed. The one good part about this week was I now actually had things to grade to occupy the rest of my time stuck in the staff room.

Week 10 was the absolute worst. This was the week grades were due. Since we are in rural Africa, this meant that grades were all due by hand. A report was submitted by each subject teacher to the class teacher, who is in charge of a specific grade. The class teachers must then compile all of the grades into a class mark sheet, and then hand write individual reports for each learner. Imagine if all the report cards you got while in school were hand written. It takes a lot of time, but only one teacher is allowed to do it, so the rest of us basically sat there for a week. No learners came to school, there were no free lunches, and there were just 18 teachers crammed into one small room with nothing to do. In South Africa having nothing to do means free time to sing and dance! Something that was cute and cool when I first got to site, but after about two songs it now makes me want to go hide, which is exactly what I ended up doing for a week. I decided that I would go “lesson plan” in the grade 6 classroom so that I could get away from the singing, eating, and yelling going on in the staff room non-stop. The whole thing was just too much for me to handle.

As a teacher it was extremely frustrating to teach for only six weeks and then have four weeks of doing basically nothing, but I think that I am the only teacher that felt that way. 

My Africa Doctor Experience

If you think being sick in America is bad, I can promise you being sick in South Africa is a million times worse. Over the last few weeks I have been suffering from pretty bad allergies. Of course I wasn’t too worried about it, I had suffered from allergies before and this was nothing new, or so I thought. Turns out after three weeks of coughing and sneezing, your body starts to get mad at you. In my case, my body got super pissed off, and I ended up with a really bad sinus infection. This is far from my first sinus infection, so I was able to self-diagnose my problems pretty quickly. Feeling like my head was a giant balloon and that I had just been punched in the jaw a couple times made it pretty easy to tell what was going on, but unfortunately being able to self-diagnose gets you nowhere in getting prescription antibiotics. As much as I really didn’t want  to go to the doctor in rural South Africa, I also didn’t want to feel like crap for another week or two, so I gave in and called Peace Corps medical staff. Of course they are located 10 hours away in Pretoria, so my only option was to have them set up an appointment for me at the doctor’s office two towns over for the following day.

This is where the fun part really began. The doctor’s office is located in the town of Ixopo. If I had a car it is maybe 30 minutes from my village, which isn’t bad at all. However, I don’t have a car, so I had to brave public transportation to get there. It takes two different taxis to get from my village to the doctors. I walked up to get the taxi from my village to my shopping town of Umzimkulu at 11am. Even though my appointment in Ixopo wasn’t until 2pm, I had to take the 11am taxi out because the next taxi usually doesn’t leave until school gets out, at 2:45pm. We waited 45 minutes to get the other 13 people needed to cram that pickup truck full before we could head into town. Those 45 minutes taught me an important lesson; when you are sick, nothing makes you feel worse than being stuffed in a taxi with 13 other people who are all yelling at the top of their lungs in a language you don’t understand. I spent the majority of that drive praying I wouldn’t throw up all over the person across from me because my head hurt so badly. I kind of wanted to kiss the ground when we finally got out in Umzimkulu, but then I remembered I was in a 3^rd world country and I probably shouldn’t be putting my face anywhere near the ground in town.

The next leg of my journey was to catch the taxi from Umzimkulu to Ixopo. The positive side of this part is that the taxis are actually vans rather than pickups, so you aren’t quite as smashed in. The negative side is that the taxis I needed are located in the sketchiest part of Umzimkulu. On a normal day I am extremely rude to people in that area for safety reasons. South African culture is that if a woman tells you no nicely she doesn’t really mean no, she means try harder. Obvious that is not the message I am ever trying to convey, so I am normally downright rude to men hanging around the taxi rank. Unfortunately for the men who tried to yell at me yesterday, I was already in a bad mood, so rude might be an understatement. In America I’m sure I would have been classified as a bitch, but here I’m betting they would say I was just being feisty. Once I made it through the obnoxious drunks, I only had to wait for about 20 minutes for the taxi to fill and head off to Ixopo. Now, since I had to take the 11am taxi out of my village, I ended up getting to Ixopo around 1pm for my 2pm appointment. At home I would normally go sit in the closest Starbucks to burn some time, but coffee shops don’t really exist in the rural areas, so I went to my next best option, KFC. South Africans love their KFC, in fact most towns have signs telling you to turn around and go back the 2km to the closest KFC, just in case you didn’t see it when you drove by. It wasn’t exactly where I wanted to sit for an hour, but there are far worse places in these towns to hang out than KFC.

Eventually I felt it was an appropriate time to head to my appointment across the street. Surprisingly the doctor and the receptionist spoke flawless English, and I was checking in without a problem. Unsurprisingly they were a little behind schedule, and I had to wait for a little over an hour to be seen. Once I was finally taken back it took less than five minutes for the doctor to confirm that yes I do have a sinus infection and that I needed antibiotics. As glad as I was to hear that I had been right all along, I was not that happy that I spent four hours suffering while waiting for a doctor to tell me something I already knew. My frustrations, however, were substantially lowered when the doctor just started handing out medications. Turns out in South Africa some doctors write you prescriptions and send you to the pharmacy, while others act as a pharmacist and just hand out drugs like candy. The last time I had a sinus infection in the US I was just given your standard antibiotics and told to rest for a few days. In South Africa I was given everything I could possibly need to make my life more comfortable during my recovery, and probably some things I really didn’t need. I got the usual antibiotics, and on top of that I got a probiotic supplement so the antibiotics don’t upset my stomach, and over the counter decongestant, cough syrup with codeine which worked wonders helping me sleep last night, pain meds just in case (of what I’m not really sure), and a nasal spray to try and help my allergies. It was kind of like getting a gift bag for coming to the doctor. The excitement did wear off a little when I realized I had at least another hour of travel time in order to get home, and then wore off completely when my last taxi back to my village was filled with 13 other people and 6 live chickens. I was having problems breathing enough as it was, but adding a bunch of chickens in the back of a packed truck just made it so much worse.

So, the next time it takes you twenty minutes to get to the doctor, where you have to wait for another twenty minutes in a spacious waiting room that’s full of magazines and the smell of cleaning products, don’t complain. The experience could be so much worse. My new goal is to not have to go back to the doctor for the next 18 months that I am here. Unfortunately that might be a little hard with my allergies because I am too much of a baby to take the stupid nasal spray. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the 12 years I spent getting water up my nose when I was swimming, but nasal sprays freak me out. I have spent all day trying to get up the courage to just do it, but every time I get that little bottle even close to my face I panic and can’t do it. I’m going to call this one of my 1^st world problems in a 3^rd world country. 

Don't Believe Everything You Hear

Have you ever wondered if your teacher or your boss was just making crap up as they went along? Have you had the moment where you think to yourself, hmmm no that doesn’t sound right, but then just let it go because an authority figure said it was true so therefore it has to be true?  After being a teacher for eight weeks with absolutely no teaching credentials, I think it is time we start teaching our kids to question basically anything a teacher says in this country. I have recently discovered that in South Africa information takes the back burner to personal opinion and mythology, which I often find entertaining but also worrisome. I have taken note of this week’s information blunders and hope you find them as enjoyable as I did.

Turns out South Africa has come up with its own answer to the age old question: is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable? While some people argue the science and say it is a fruit, others argue the fact that they are gross so therefore it has to be a vegetable; South Africa takes a different approach. They just make up their own category. According to a poster that I recently found in the staff room (published in 2010) there are fruits, vegetables, and vegetable fruits. What is a vegetable fruit you ask; well no one could actually give me an answer to that. Maybe people just got tired of arguing about it here and decided to name it both so no matter what you call it you’re only half wrong. Here 50% is way above passing, so now kids can pick either answer and they will be close. Strangely enough avocados and green peppers were also thrown into the vegetable fruit category. I’m not really sure why green peppers would be classified different than red and yellow peppers, which were shown under the vegetable category, but I’m just going to go with it. So now if someone ever asks you if a tomato is a fruit or a vegetable, you always have to option to tell them that in South Africa it is both.

Soon after my discovery of the vegetable fruit poster I began to sneeze due to the two years of dust sitting on top of said poster. After third sneeze the other teachers in the staff room became very concerned for my health. I had a minor cough all week and now I was sneezing, so clearly I was dying. Although I tried to explain that I just had allergies, the concern didn’t end there. Apparently, as I was informed by three very concerned women, there is no such thing as allergies. That’s right people, all those times the doctor told you that you are allergic to pollen, cats, or nuts, they were lying. It’s shocking right, all these years of taking antihistamines was a waste because I obviously have asthma, or maybe pneumonia, or possibly bronchitis, but definitely not allergies because those aren’t real. Luckily for me, it doesn’t really matter what I have because there is some traditional Zulu medicine to cure just about anything. While I stuck to my story of having allergies and not needing to see a doctor or a chemist (pharmacist), the older teachers decided that they knew better than my young naive mind, so today a was greeted with a little home brew to cure all. I know some people out there will swear by traditional medicines, but I am a firm believer in not drinking things if I don’t know what’s in it. I’m also a firm believer that you should never drink something that looks like sludge, and this stuff fell under the unknown and sludge category, so there was absolutely no way I was drinking that crap. Unfortunately it is rather hard to explain why you won’t drink something that looked like a Harry Potter potion gone really wrong to a group of people who truly believe it would cure me. So going with the theme of the week, I just started making shit up. Apparently I am now a firm believer that medicine should not be used unless you are extremely ill, and that Americans believe it is better to just let illnesses run their course so your body can learn to fight it. Turns out lying is a great way to get out of taking the scariest medicine I have ever seen.

This was about the time that I started thinking that maybe teachers aren’t as smart as students think they are. This thought was confirmed after school when I was walking home with a group of grade 8 learners who have decided that I am a walking encyclopedia. These kids don’t exactly have access to the internet so they can’t just Google thinks when they have questions, so obviously the next best option is ask the white girl. Today’s questions focused on pants and animals for their Natural Science class. The questions started off pretty normal about what types of plants can live underwater vs. plants that just need water to live. Then they took a turn for the weird when one of the girls asked what plants can fly. Turns out they were informed during class today that some plants can fly. I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to that, so I told them I would ask their teacher about it tomorrow, but right now there are 42 grade 8 learners who now think that plants can fly. Maybe my next lie will be, “No mom, Butch didn’t trample over all your flowers because I threw the ball in the garden. The flowers simply flew away”.  A teacher told me it was possible, so obviously it’s true.

The progression of information this week concerns me. In the US we teach kids to at least use critical thinking, so hopefully by 8^th grade they would not buy into the flying plant information, but that’s not how things work in this country. Kids here are taught not ask questions, and to never talk back to an authority figure, so how are they ever supposed to figure out some things people say just aren’t true? 

A Love Story

As I’m sure you noticed, last week’s post was filled with some pretty strong emotions. Sometimes it surprises me how stressful this experience is. Before I left for Africa people told me over and over again that this will be the hardest thing I ever do, but no one can prepare you for what it’s really like. You might be able to prepare yourself for the physical hardships that you will face living in a small village, but there is no way to prepare yourself for the emotional roller coaster that is your Peace Corps service. The smallest thing can make me feel like I own the world, or it can bring me to my knees; I kind of feel like I’m losing my mind sometimes. Last week I was really struggling with the idea that some people obviously don’t want us here. My desire to help people within this area is tainted to some because of the color of my skin, and emotionally that is hard for me to comprehend. Sometimes I look at my classroom and wonder what the hell am I doing here? Kids on one side of the room are hitting each other, while kids on the other side are sleeping, and it makes me wonder if these kids are getting anything out of me being at the front of the classroom.

Then something small happens. Something I wouldn’t have thought twice about in the US, but here it was different, and it showed me just how much these kids will get to experience by having me here. The 14^th of February was Valentine’s Day. As a kid I loved Valentine’s Day. Back when you got to spend the day at school doing crafts, and everyone got a valentine from everyone I thought it was awesome. However, kids here have never gotten to experience the joys of getting little cards from everyone else in their class, or from anyone for that matter. Valentine’s Day was just another day of school with a ten minute lecture about the history of Valentine’s Day before school. There was no bright colored cards, no shy smiles as people tried to sneak notes to each other, no love in the air, until today. It might have been a few days late, but today my grade 5 and 6 class got to experience a little bit of American culture. My wonderful Aunt Nancy surprised me by sending a huge envelope filled with handmade Valentine’s Day cards from the students of Pine Ridge School. There were enough cards for each of my 100 learners to get their first American Valentine.

I went into class as if it was any other Monday. I started both my classes off with their warm-up questions, and then went into continuing my lesson from last week. Twenty minutes before class was out I had everyone put their books away, and explained that today I had a little surprise for them. I explained that in America my aunt is a teacher, and that her students sent a little something for Valentine’s Day. When I pulled out the stacks of red, purple, and pink cards the kids went wild. I never thought a 16 year old boy would get so excited about a heart shaped card that said “Be Mine?” on it, but every single learner couldn’t wait to get their hands on those cards. Some learners wanted to show the whole class their cards and brag about them to everyone who would listen, while others didn’t want to let anyone anywhere near theirs. They opened their cards, read them, and then slid them into the protective plastic cover of their notebooks where they would be safe. It was by far the cutest thing I have seen here. To see the look of pride on their face as they read the cards and put them somewhere safe was heartwarming. To most of us a handmade Valentine would mean nothing. We would look at as if it was cute and then probably not think of it again, but for them you could just see that it meant so much more. It was theirs, someone made that for them and that meant so much more than I can really comprehend. One small act of love and kindness showed these kids that other kids half way around the world know about them, and are thinking of them. Maybe it will help them see that they aren’t alone, and that the world can have some really great things to offer them.

So, thanks to the students and teachers of Pine Ridge I got to spend the day watching kids show their friends their first Valentine’s Day card and trying to explain what “cutie pie” and “U R GR8T” meant. I couldn’t have asked for a better Valentines gift. 

Grade 6

 Grade 5