yes to life, yea to it all

it's july now and i'm leaving the village in 3 weeks. woa! and i realized i have yet to blog this year. they say there's no hurry here in south africa... school went so much smoother this second year. i felt more relaxed and comfortable. i continued teaching grades 6, 7, and 12 english with 2 counterparts. i dropped the grade 9 solo class as it was just not working. both logistically and for my sanity. as i delved deeper into the challenges of teaching english in this rural school, i had a super rough time. i can firmly say that sticking with teaching english here has been the most difficult thing about working in the school. all the problems with the department of education: the corruption, training, mismanagement, curriculum, power structures, unions, etc etc most affect and hurt the learners. teachers not getting paid leads to laziness and demotivation. government officials yelling and dictating to the ward managers, ward managers doing the same to the principals, principals to teachers, and teachers to learners, just doesn't seem to help anyone. a tradition of you scratch my back ill scratch yours which translates to someone else completing the distance education teacher certification diploma doesn't prepare the now teacher to be a good teacher. and the list goes on and on. and so when my counterpart, mr ntuli comes to me and says, 'today lets teach them reading comprehension.' i just want to shake myself and everyone in the country. because teaching reading comprehension to kids who don't understand english, who's books are far beyond their level... doesn't work. but we try anyways. we read a sentence and i ask them if they understand. they all say, "YES!" and so i ask them to say it in their own words. and no one can. they have been programmed to say, "YES!" out of respect for the teacher. to say no or to question is very disrespectful and taboo. a cultural reason why westernized education doesn't make sense in rural south africa. mr ntuli is brilliant and one of the best teachers at the school. together we've pushed for a personal dictionary program for all grades and have held meetings with the teachers to express our concern. the learners have such a small vocabulary that they are far behind their grade issued curriculum. they cannot answer the questions on their standardized tests because they do not have the vocabulary to understand what it's asking. and without stopping and teaching them new words, we're just swimming in circles. mr ntuli and i have encouraged the teachers of all subjects to stop during lessons, define new words and have the learners write them in their small notebooks designated, the personal dictionary. so the question is now, is it helping? i think so. are the teachers stopping and defining words? sometimes. it's a start. in this education system they stop using native languages in the 4th grade. from kindergarden to grade 3 they are taught their mother tongue, which here is zulu. in 4th grade the medium of instruction becomes english. at my school the teachers of grades 1-3 speak very little english. 4th grade learners do not understand english and thus cannot be taught successfully in english. some teachers of grades 4-7 also do not speak english well and definitely do not write well. the learners are far behind before they even get a chance. it's a big mess. and so everyone teaches in zulu. but their books are written in english and their tests are in english. you can imagine the challenges. there isn't an easy solution. the problem has so many complexities beyond what i have just shared and beyond what i know. i honestly think its going to take generations for the effects of apartheid, the racism and corruption, the historical injustices and disadvantages of this area, and so much more to fade before a western education system can be successful. but in the mean time, to use a favorite south african english idiom, 'we try our level headed best.' people use so many strange sayings here it blows my mind. and then i realized why. mr ntuli one day gave me the most prized book of south africans whose 1st language is not english. a book of quotes, sayings, idioms, and words of wisdom. things like, 'it's raining cats and dogs', cheaters never prosper', 'a rolling stone gathers no moss', all these crazy idioms that one actually uses. but if you know them here you're an english god. every speech i've heard here is centered around some words of wisdom or idiom that usually culturally makes no sense. when we held a grand opening for the library at the primary school the guest speaker used, 'the elephant in the room,' which i suppose does have some relevance as there are occasionally elephants in the village destroying gardens and trees. but still. not really. so, teaching is hard. i've become very invested with my learners and it becomes more emotionally taxing every time a challenge arises reminding me of all we're up against. and that's what's so amazing about this experience. about peace corps. it teaches you perseverance, patience, understanding, and it forces you to pick yourself up again and again. it teaches you that failure is part of life and that it's ok. it teaches you how to fail and how to deal with it. and part of failing is getting back up and trying again. and so i keep teaching and trying new things and struggling and failing and trying again. somedays i can really see improvement in the learners, i see them gaining confidence, i hear them say "No, we don't understand." someone asks a question, they do well on their homework, and that makes it worth every heart ache. teaching literature in grade 12 is a whole different story. thankfully by grade 12 at least 4 or 5 of the 19 learner class can understand the gist of what i say. and i can use different tactics, like acting. we read james thurber's, the secret life of walter mitty. a very difficult story for learner's who are trying to learn english. once scene involves a firing squad. which no one knew what was. and so we lined up the criminals and elected a gunman and everyone laughed and then had an idea about a firing squad. i never imagined myself play shooting teenagers/young adults in africa. apart from teaching, sindiswa and i continued the girls club. it got off to a rough start for lots of silly reasons but eventually started in february. we continued a similar curriculum to the one we developed last year and all is going well. it's still my favorite part of the week. sindiswa has gained so much confidence and now she approaches me to talk about the upcoming meeting. if i'm away on a thursday she goes to them alone and makes plans on her own. where as previously she would not. it feels so good to know that when i leave she now feels comfortable enough to continue the program alone. she is still my saving grace at school and is one of my best friends here. i don't know what i'd do without her. the libraries. like everything else the libraries have their own set of challenges. at the primary school things went well. teachers used the library with their classes and the library monitors kept it clean for the most part. things still get crazy disorganized but eventually it looks presentable again. its my brightest hope the next volunteer has a passion to work in the library. at the high school we almost completely finished organizing the books and recording them. i worked with the library monitors several days a week to finish up the books and they enjoyed doing something to better their school. in february i was invited to the us embassy in pretoria to view the art work on display from the world AIDS day art exchange. the embassy was super intense. i went with the peace corps south africa country director through mountains of security as we were escorted around by marines. i had to beg to take pictures and was allowed to only photograph the walls. the art looked great and it was really amazing to see artwork from around the country. the country director invited me to the business meeting of a life time, the south africa state of mission meeting. here the ambassador, diplomats, and various governmental heads reported their news in a concise down the line fashion, with the occasional white man with a comb over cracking jokes. i stood and was introduced i suppose to remind everyone the peace corps still exists. the meeting was held over video conference featuring conference rooms from cape town, durban, and johannesburg all while a huge countdown clock was displayed as if something more terrible than running over time would happen. but what i really learned is i never want to work for the foreign service. also in february, i had a birthday! the 29th finally came around and the teachers at the primary school had a surprise party for me. i walked into the staff room after coming back from the high school and when i opened the door the whole staff was lined up, starring at me, and immediately started singing happy birthday. i was shocked and literally jumped backwards. we had cake, snacks, juice, and fruit. i felt very very loved. the girl's club all made birthday cards for me and i nearly cried. everyone was amazed and slightly confused about me turning 6 years old. on the home front, host mamma #1 did a jig and sang hip hip hooray! it was an incredible birthday. in march i went to danny's primary school for the last two weeks of the term to help him paint a world map. he organized all the supplies and his team of student minions whom we taught to draw and paint via the grid system. some of his teachers helped and it was a blast. i was so happy to be painting with kids and to have something concrete to do everyday. we got several job offers, including a church altar. yes, the man wanted a map of the world on his church altar. we declined but danny's very talented counterpart will hopefully get some part time work from painting now. doing the mural at the school reminded me how much i love painting with kids, especially murals. it motivated me to paint at my schools and to make plans for the next term.