This is the beginning of week 3 at site, but the past weekend was incredibly long
Today is Monday, but I need to back up to Thursday to start my incredibly long weekend story.
Thursday afternoon I was finishing lunch in the staff room of the Middle School I volunteer at when I noticed a teacher come into a cabinet and get out a stick. I've been warned that corporeal punishment still happens in schools here so I immediately set out to follow him to class and hoped he'd just use it as a pointer stick. This teacher is the Arts & Culture teacher and since he was wearing his favorite team jersey Thursday I'll call him Sport. Now Sport is all about the dancing, and has kids in small groups showing off the dances they've been learning. One group of 8 kids is shy and giggling, unprepared. Sport verbally berates them for a while, then stands up with his pointer stick and makes each learner hold out their hands. He smacks each palm with the stick. Hard. I heard/saw wooosh-smack! 16 times. It was obvious that this punishment really hurt, but learners who flinched away were hit again, harder.
I was shocked and appalled. The school Principal had made it clear to educators that I was completely against corporeal punishment and I never imagined I'd see this much this soon. Sport is a tall, strong man. Can you imagine seeing someone hit a student like this? A group of students like this? School is supposed to be a safe haven, not a place to fear. This corporeal punishment is completely illegal. He could lose his job or get the school in trouble for this. What if he had broken a child's hand or finger? What if that child was already having a rough time and decided to quit school because of this incident? What if a student took a picture on their cell phone and sent it in the television stations like has happened in other parts of the country? All this passed through my mind at dizzying speed during the punishment.
As soon as Sport was finished and sat down I turned to him and said “I'm sorry but I cannot tolerate this.” I took his stick and left the room. The students didn't hear what I'd said, they just saw me with The Stick, and cowered as I walked by. That broke my heart. I wanted to go home, but I had made plans to stay for a project with Grade 8, so I had to stay. I walked to the bathroom to cry a minute and saw the punished students out practicing on my way back to the office. Another educator saw me upset and ushered my into the staff room where I tried and failed to hold back my tears. Teachers came and went, I tried to carry on normal conversations but I know it sounded fake. One woman brought me some water. The Principal came in to say she was sorry. She was on her way to a meeting but we'd talk about it tomorrow.
Then Sport himself walked in. He came over and apologized for “terrifying me” and said that those particular Grade 9 learners were naughty and making excuses. He told me to come back tomorrow and see the Grade 8 dance, they would be wonderful. I could not say anything to him. I wanted to explain that I wasn't terrified, I was livid with anger, bu he wasn't even really interested anymore. Even looking at him directly made me feel nauseous. I couldn't explain anything to this man.
I barely made it through the Grade 8 after school activity without bursting to tears. I vented a little to the school's Administrative Assistant (AA) while the kids were busy. He was on my side. The AA said that all the teachers were frightened to punish in front of me now and he hopes they stop altogether. I tried to explain that classroom management and discipline start way before the problem but I don't have any great ideas or magic tricks to help these teachers out just yet.
At home, I showed the stick to my mom and sister, hoping they would be as outraged as me. My sister kinda was, but she's been sick and not too expressive about anything. My mom told me not to worry and brushed it off as maybe Sport was just having a bad day and took it out on the kids. Even if that was true, he handled that stick like he'd had a lot of practice. There's no excuse for that kind of consistent corporeal punishment. I burst into tears again, and since that tends to make South Africans really uncomfortable I took myself out to my room to message some friends and tell them about it. Mom sent my little brother Lebo in to sit with me, but I ran him out. Then she sent him with dinner for me. She came by too to check on me before bed. And called the Primary school Principal to tell him I wasn't feeling well. David called me to check in and I had to try and explain things over the phone. Sheesh, South Africa, just let a girl cry.
Luckily I have some amazing friends and family both here and in the states who are more than willing to talk about my bad days. I cannot begin to describe how much I appreciated them that night.
Friday morning I walked to the Primary School and dreaded every minute leading up to my talk with the Middle School principal and Sport. The Primary School kept me busy in the morning and sent me over to the local library to check out the Heritage Day events. On the walk over, my Primary Principal figured out exactly who “Sport” was. Remember the teacher in legal trouble from my previous post? This guy is out on bail, and I can't even talk about what for because it would allow you, reader, to figure out who he is and where he works and where I am. That's a safety risk that Peace Corps discourages. But hearing about the accusations literally made me feel sick.
I continued to feel ill during the festivities. I tried to engage the lady next to me in conversation but got too creeped out by her full beard and lack of eyebrows. Seriously weird how so many women here have chin hair but have to draw on eyebrows. And the drawings aren't even subtle, it's super obvious when the eyebrow line is thin, perfect, and 3 times longer than a normal eyebrow would be.
Anyway, I really did get sick and left the library early. I had to walk by both schools on my way home and I just prayed that no one from the middle school stopped me. I made it home without incident, told my mom I was sick and went straight to bed. I was seriously worried I'd have to call the Peace Corps Medical Officers and get myself to a hospital. My mom went and bought me some medicine here, some kind of magic powder that fizzed in water but made me feel much better.
We had lots of family visiting all weekend. As bad as I felt, I had to make several appearances. The 2-year-old boy is fascinated by my flashlight I leave out by my bed and my 20-ish year old brother is really excited to get to know me and improve his English with me. My attention was demanded everywhere. I can't tell you how many games of Go Fish I played, or how much the people here love to watch me shuffle because I can do the bridge thing. I went back and forth to play or rest all weekend.
Saturday night I'd spent several hours in my room resting. I was also watching a movie when my mom comes in and begins her conversation with “I don't want you to worry but...” (this reassuring start again) three girls came to visit but my family ran them off since I was “sleeping.” They had bad attitudes and were from the “wrong side of the tracks” and my mom says the next time they come she'll sit them down and tell them they must not come anymore. She lectured me about making sure I had reputable friends and that everyone who comes must meet her so she can ascertain whether they are good or bad people. Everyone from that side of town is bad and everyone from this side is good. She says of course I can help them with their homework at school but those girls don't need to come back here. The first time they were here it was just to see what I had and next time they'll take my things. She may be a little extreme, but my mom really cares about me. And I don't care about visitors, I'm an introvert, so this suits me just fine.
On Sunday our visiting family left with promises to come back next weekend. I stayed a little while in the house then went back to my room. My mom came by to borrow a plastic shopping bag. Random. She sends Lebo out with my dinner.
Monday morning I'm feeling strong enough to face the Middle School, so I go to their morning assembly. They are in the middle of national exams so teachers are spread thin invigilating (proctoring or monitoring) exams and still teaching classes. It's pathetic and obvious how little the teachers there care about teaching. At least twice an hour I'm asked to take over a class, make up an exam, grade homework, mark grades in the grade-book, proctor an exam for a teacher, or any number of other things so that they don't have to do as much. I say I'm willing to do whatever I can to help a teacher be in the classroom, so I've marked grades or typed exams. But the teachers I help are not actually in the classroom, they are just taking advantage of me, of the system with no repercussions for absenteeism. One math teacher had me writing grades in the grade-book, and out of 100 points the highest any learner made was 34. He was the only one who passed (yeah, 30% is enough to pass any class or exam here). Most learners earned in the SINGLE DIGITS on this exam. The teacher keeps saying they don't want to learn or do well. I tried to say that when this many learners are failing in America it becomes the teachers fault. She didn't want to hear that. It was funny to watch her fight with herself, should she give me more work to do so she doesn't have to do it or does she send me on my way so I don't criticize her anymore? I left her thinking about it.
At the Primary school I had one major thing to finish today so the school could order supplies for next year. What should have taken 3 minutes took me over an hour because teachers kept coming in with stupid requests. All computer related. I'm convinced that no adult at that school even knows how to turn a computer on. It's so sad because they use a government issued computer program for submitting grades to the Board of Education. The teachers wanted some of those grades printed, or a new title page made for a binder, or their picture printed or the finances put into an Excel document. No one can do any of this by themselves. That school has a half a dozen computers but only 1 is even plugged in to the wall. And I'm using it for other, more pressing assignments.
Even though I left after school was out, I felt like I came home early today. My mom was laying down, having a rest, even though she “only cleaned Tumi's room today.” I'm Tumi. I'm terrified. I open to door and find that my mom had completely rearranged my room. She said she wanted to scrub the floors so she needed to move all the furniture. She threw out my trash, washed ALL my clothes (even things that I had just washed this weekend), went through everything I own, rearranged my furniture, strung the laundry line over my bed, and basically moved and touched everything. I was speechless. She says she was only helping me, that I'm her daughter and she's protecting me and helping me out. She did some laundry for her other kids this weekend so of course she'd do my laundry. “So don't worry. It's okay I think. I will only clean sometimes and you will clean sometimes.” I couldn't make her understand that I am a grown woman, self sufficient and perfectly capable of cleaning my own room. It wasn't even messy!! She doesn't understand that I have this whole “violation of privacy” problem since this culture is all about sharing and what's-mine-is-yours. I have definitely decided to buy a lock-block so she can't get in here when I'm not home.
I sit and start to write this when 2 girls show up to visit. Luckily they are from this side of town, the good side, so I invite them in without worry. One of them is carrying a rooster. She's got his feet tied together with a strip from a plastic bag and is holding him by the wings. I think they wanted to see me freak out but I disappointed them. I struggled through some small talk before I asked them to show me some dance moves they learn in Arts & Culture class. They put the rooster down outside (his legs are tied, where's he gonna go?) and our rooster immediately attacks. So one girl must hold this soon-to-be-dinner rooster and the other dances a little. The holder also pets and strokes her rooster so feathers fly into my room through the open door. Great. Mom just cleaned today.
I want this week to be more normal than this weekend was, but I'm beginning to think that the word “normal” just doesn't even apply to this village.
No comments:
Post a Comment