Well, I presume it is much like how I wake up in South Africa. I bemoan the fact that my alarm is going off; I stretch and grumble as I hit the snooze button. When I do pull myself out of bed, I probably take a shower and wash my face, put in my contacts and eat some breakfast. Of course, in America my breakfast, if I eat it, might be oat squares or yogurt and granola, whereas in Africa I eat crushed wheat cereal in milk or yogurt and muesli. Granola is muesli. So, I guess technically waking up is much the same. I still sleep in a bed, go to school, drive (theoretically), eat three meals a day, and bathe regularly. And so do you, fellow varsity student. So what is this myth of the American?
You say that every time you meet an American you want to talk to them and learn all about their country. You say that you watch American movies and listen to American music and want more than anything to travel to this land of opportunity. How great it must be.
And yes, I guess it is. And I am coming to terms with that more and more, as I live for the first time in a new country. I am proud of my country’s new President; I am proud of the ideals of racial tolerance that we strive for. I feel a sense of ownership when I hear a bit of an American song, or pass by a KFC. We are, more or less, free in America, more so than most are here in South Africa.
So, yes, fellow varsity student, it is incredible to wake up in America, but it is also pretty wonderful to wake up in South Africa. You have a beautiful country and I hope you are proud of your country as I am of mine. Thank you for sharing it with me.
I spent this past weekend in Ndumu, a rural village in northern Zululand, near the South African borders with Mozambique and Swaziland. This trip was the first of many for my classmates and me; we will be going up every month through July to spend time with a group of local teenage youth.
The road to Ndumu was long. We were to leave at 9:30am, but did not depart campus until 11am; this is what we call “Africa time.” So we were both on time and late when we arrived in Ndumu around 4pm that afternoon. The roads we traveled digressed as we moved further and further away from Durban; from multi-lane interstate, to gravel road that had us bouncing all over the koombi. We drove past townships with their colorful houses, vast expanses of game reserves, fields of tall trees to be harvested, and more herds of cattle than I could possibly count.
Driving into Ndumu, our koombi kicked up the red earth into a whirlwind of dust. Through the cloud, children waved and mamas, carrying various packages on their heads, slowed to glance inside our vehicle. We are a diverse group, begging attention. We were led by two (white, South African) professors, one an organic farmer, the other a long red hair and bearded, no shoe wearing, environmental scientist. We students come from South Africa, Kenya, and the United States; we are 3 parts black, 3 parts Indian, and 2 parts white American. We are 3 parts male and 5 parts female. We study environmental science, geology, community development, psychology, and, of course, drama.
In Ndumu, we stayed in the Environmental Education Center, a series of buildings comprising offices, bedrooms, toilets, and a kitchen. We chose rooms, although most of us slept outside under the unobstructed southern hemisphere stars. Once we had thrown our stuff down, we drove back out and to the Ndumu community center, and then to a plot of land that is being built up for the purposes of this UKZN program. It is a beautiful stretch of land, owned by a man named Vusi, with two round huts made of, what looks like, a type of bamboo, and an outhouse/shower of the same material. From a small garden on the property, we picked two eggplants and a chili for use in that night’s dinner. A herd of goats and chickens wandered the premises, which proved ample entertainment as some of our group tried to pet the goats, sending them all running away.
This was a theme of our stay, I think. It was so easy to think that life in Ndumu was “so cute and rural.” We are just passing through, really, and tomorrow will go back to our air-conditioned houses and our hot showers. It is fun for a night or two to sleep in sleeping bags and to feel rustic. But would it be fun if it were a daily part of life? Would it be fun to walk kilometer upon kilometer to school each day through the violent dust clouds kicked up by passing bakkies/trucks? Would it be fun to study for months on end to try to get to varsity, and be turned down at the last minute?
Behind the community center are a variety of lean-tos, one of which houses a couple of donkeys. All of the animals in Ndumu roam free, grazing where they choose. But here was a donkey that was not roaming with his friends. This was a thin, emaciated donkey, which suffers from a terrible wound on his back hoof. Bone had splintered and was sticking out through a swollen ankle. Flies buzzed all around the wound, having a veritable feast, and the donkey struggled to stand upright through the pain he was obviously feeling. Of course, this was a horrifically sad sight, but what was this animal’s pain a result of? What is this instance an example of in the larger society? The next day, we found a small puppy in a similar condition, sick and surrounded by flies. Why are so many animals ill? Who do they belong to, and why aren’t they being taken care of?
We met the students who we are going to be working with briefly on Friday. But it was Saturday that we spent a great deal of time with them. Many of these kids are in their matric, or final, Grade 12, year of high school; others are out of school now, and did not get high enough points on their matric exams (think EOCs, kind of) to make it to varsity, and so are still living at home in Ndumu. All of these young people have big dreams to be chemical and electrical engineers, doctors, teachers, and social workers. They want to make a change in their communities and in their world, but do not know how to even begin that process.
The goal of our time in Ndumu is to work with these young people and create a mutually beneficial learning experience. The content of this process is our own to create. We spent a good deal of Saturday afternoon developing these ideas, but in the morning the students took us on a walking tour of Ndumu.
The African sun was stark white when we set out, and the humidity was visible as mist in the air. We met at 7am at the community center, where we learned that a community meeting that had been scheduled for the day had to be cancelled due to a death. I am told that HIV/AIDS is rampant in this community. I do not know how to notice the virus at work. Maybe it is in those injured animals. Maybe it is in all of the unaccompanied girls coming to the community center today, dressed in their red skirts and beads, for their virginity testing. Where are the adults? Where are the people my age? I did not meet any this weekend.
We set out on the dust and gravel road, avoiding the crunch of cars on gravel and turning our faces away from the whirlwind of earth they created. We walked up a hill, mingling amongst each other, trying to learn names and break the proverbial ice in the sauna of a blazing hot day. Sbu, Bousie, Dumi, Sandile.
In the past year, Ndumu has been put on the map by the introduction of a small shopping center to their community. There is now a gas station, post office, grocery store, furniture store, clothing store, and bank in addition to the informal market that builds up around these institutions. Sbu tells me that groceries are expensive here, because there is no competition, so the store can charge whatever it likes. Sbu and I go inside this grocery store, he wants me to see it, and we end up buying a 1.5 kg bag of apples and a 2-liter of cream soda to share with everyone. Sbu pulls out a debit card and pays for everything, 27 rands. This is on top of the 7 rand koombi ride he had to take to get to Ndumu this morning; he is staying with his brother in a larger city many kilometers away. I slip Sbu some money, and we bring these treats back to the group, who is very willing to devour them.
We walk and walk with the sun beating down on our heads, past grazing cattle and goats, past the St. Patrick’s Primary School, past larger brick houses, past small round traditional Zulu huts. Eventually, we end up in the local tavern; there is a pool table and a jukebox inside. Some of the guys play some pool, 2 rand a game, and someone puts a song on the jukebox. It’s a Zulu song that I’ve never heard, but before long Dumi is dancing and I am trying to copy his movements. He laughs and I laugh. He is a darling boy with high round cheekbones and a wide smile. He seems quiet and reserved, but expresses himself through hip-hop dance and rap. He says that he started the hip-hop trend in Ndumu, and I am prone to believe him.
Back at the community center, the line for virginity testing has swelled. The girls sit giggling, peeking around the corner at my white skin. I wave and they smile. I practice some of the Zulu that Sbu and the others have been teaching me. I feel terrible that I cannot speak Zulu, but here are these teenagers whose English is incredible. And here we come, these privileged few who were able to get into varsity, demanding that these kids who are trying so hard must abandon their native language to speak ours.
Soon we all come together in the courtyard to discuss what we would like to do together over these next six months. I have never been involved in such a haphazard meeting. We, as UKZN students, had not previously talked with each other to make any sort of plan, or even talk about the things that we are interested in. So, when we began, the meeting was about us feeling each other out, which left our Ndumu counterparts with a complete lack of voice. Power relations were at play 100% here in Ndumu; the UKZN students have so much of what these kids desire: a college education, a life in the big city, a bank account, a possible career goal. We were the intruders coming in to “do good,” and the people we came to be with, suddenly became insignificant.
Luckily, our professor swung by at this point and suggested that we elect a facilitator to moderate the conversation. I was immediately appointed, although I am not sure why, since no one knows my background. So, I started winging it, lesson planning on the spot, trying to facilitate conversation and rectify the damage we had done in the previous 15 minutes. And we did still struggle. I started pulling out all of the tricks I could think of, attempting to switch from leading questions, “I like to dance, do you want to make a dance?” to open-ended questions allowing the youth to answer for themselves, “What is something you love to do in your free time?”
My goal became about giving everyone a chance to speak. We went around the circle, all getting a moment to say what we were thinking, which worked well. But above and beyond everything, yet again, are small group conversations. We were stopped at 1pm for a lunch break, and when we came back, I broke us into 6 small groups of two Ndumu youth and one UKZN student in each, and I asked the groups to talk about what kind of projects they might like to do together. Everyone got a change to talk, theoretically; a lot of the college students seemed to forget how to listen and that sometimes silence means that people are thinking. I tried to get around to these groups and ask which of the Ndumu students would be presenting their ideas to the large group, giving ownership to the young students and trying to communicate to my peers that this is not about us; its about the kids.
From these conversations, the kids developed a slew of good ideas; from creating talk shows that deal with issues of their community (from HIV/AIDS to crime to drugs), to having a University Day where the UKZN students talk about what it is like to go to college and live in a big city, to a soccer day where we invite the community to come and play a series of games, to raising money for books for a library. The best result of these conversations was not the ideas we came up with necessarily, but that some of the Ndumu youth who had been quiet up until this point starting speaking in the large group. Success! How exciting to see these youth breaking through language barriers and giving voice to their thoughts and opinions. The thing about these kids is that they are so smart and are full of so much potential, but at least this first day, they were too meek to stand up for themselves. I hope that, whatever our “project” is, that in the end, these kids have more confidence in their abilities.
The project that the kids fixated on was that idea of the talk show, combined with a talent show. They want to create an event that everyone in their community can attend, that will talk about the issues that are important to them, as well as give them an opportunity to showcase their many talents and skills. Hopefully this event can be coordinated with fundraising efforts for either books for a library or solar-powered lanterns, so that the students can study even when it is dark outside.
There is a lot of work to do, and a lot of logistics to plan. These dreams of ours are incredible, but unfortunately this program is receiving no funding from UKZN or any other institution. But, all in all, it was a major success to get so far with a previously unknown group of youth in a single day. I would never plan a process such that in one day we had to meet and then decide what we would be doing for the next six months. But all of the power dynamics, language barriers, and other obstacles aside, what a cool group of kids with dreams that are bursting out of their bodies.
So what is great about America, fellow varsity student? Many of the same things that are wonderful for you in your northern suburb, I think. We can wake up and turn on a light. We can read when it is dark outside. We can turn on a faucet in our homes to get water. We are not covered head to toe in dust every time a car passes by. We are in university. We are able to drive to the store when we want to buy something. We are able to escape to the sanctuary of our air conditioners when it is too hot outside.
But do we have the same power of dreams that these kids without such luxuries have? Do we believe as strongly in ourselves and the people around us? Do we really think that we can make a change in our own communities? Or do we run away from our own situations and find those people who we can separate ourselves from and pity from afar? You may yearn for America, but I think we could both learn more if we spent a little more time with the youth of Ndumu.
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