the long and winding road

Ndumo, March 6-7, 2009

The road to Ndumo was even longer this weekend. Literally, due to an unexpected return to Durban, and figuratively because it was such a struggle for me to find the energy and motivation to make the trip. Although the work is important, I was not interested in the pressure of being a mover and shaker.

But, to Ndumo we went. We had had two meetings on campus prior to our departure that helped to reshape our understanding of this process. While most of us, the UKZN students, had thought our goal in Ndumo was project based, some study of Paulo Freire and a reminder that we do not actually know these people, shifted our hopes for our time. It is true, we do not know these kids and they do not know us or each other, so how can we decide upon a project that will carry us through six months? Isn’t it then more important to get to know each other than it is to solve the world’s problems right now? We can get to that later, once we know each other’s names and dreams.

We planned in the koombi on the way up, and I strongly believe that we should not plan in such a setting again. We struggled to hear each other with the windows open, and with the windows closed, it got so stuffy we had a hard time breathing. We could not face each other, we could not monitor our own participation, and we could not stay focused. I suppose we did get the work done, which is good, but in planning games, we could not get up and physically explain them, having to rely solely on our own poor verbal attempts.

We arrived in Ndumo, late, but able to catch the tail end of a dance class run by Flatfoot Dance Company; a company based in Durban, directed by one of my professors, that does modern dance but also teaches workshops to youth all over KwaZulu-Natal. This class was one for teen girls mostly, but a few boys were participating as well. And how empowering! Because of this program, this group of girls has a place where they can come and wear pants and move their bodies away from the prying sexualized eyes of the men in their community. We were later told that of the girls in the Saturday morning class, a group of much younger girls, many of them had been molested or otherwise victims to sexual assault or violence. How much more important this work then becomes!

While the Friday evening class is more of a traditional dance class, the morning class is a three-hour interactive dance and environmental education workshop. We played games, one called river/bank, where the girls laughed and squealed as they jumped over a line on the floor. We played a London Bridge’s kind of game, where all one hundred of us grabbed a partner and held our hands up in the air; we sang in IsiZulu as pairs scurried under our outstretched hands. We pledged our friendship to the earth as part of the environmental awareness component of the class, “If you are my friend, and I am your friend, who is the earth’s friend? Me! I promise to take care of the earth.” One hundred little girls, speaking in unison, moving their arms to illustrate the lines of the pledge. We played falling games, building trust in the group, except instead of saying “I’m falling,” they spoke in IsiZulu, their native and comfortable language. The girls taught each other songs and dances, and the laughed as my university colleagues and I attempted to learn their dances that were so innate in their bodies.

Friday night we went back to our camp at the environmental center. While dinner was being made, I taught the group all of the games that we had decided on playing. I would facilitate the game, and we would play for a few minutes. Then I would ask who would like to lead the game tomorrow for everyone; someone would volunteer and they would practice teaching the game. This proved to be an effective method. It got everyone involved in leading, but in a safe way, since someone else had already done it. The problem was that not everyone elected to participate in this game-learning session. And those people were the one who decided to make jokes at the expense of group unity the next day. Those of us who worked on Friday night, for instance, practiced playing Je Tombe, a trust building exercise where people fall backwards trusting that their ensemble will catch them. We learned just how important it is not to make jokes during this game, as it is very scary to fall, and we promised to play seriously the next day. The university students who missed this work, nearly rendered the game ineffective the next day with their jokes and reckless playing.

It is so hard, as a facilitator, as a peer, and as a colleague to correct behavior in the middle of an exercise, especially when the culprit is one who is supposed to be leading, supposed to be a role model. And it is hard, because I am not the leader of this group, although it might seem that way. Later in the day on Saturday this same reckless player chose to answer a phone call in the middle of working with the youth. One of the other university students came up to me and asked me if I would please talk to him. I did. But how can we self-police ourselves and others, so that such intervention is rendered unnecessary? Can we all agree to work hard and respectfully? The point of the project is not for me to lead all of the time.

One of the supervisors of this process, Lliane, who is also the director of Flatfoot, said to me, “Robin, it’s because you are older than everyone else.” And I had to say no, I’m actually not, there are members of this team older than me, and there are some younger. The difference is that I study facilitation; I choose to dedicate my life to working with young people. I’m not older, I’m not better. It’s just that we are working in my element. If we were doing geography or engineering, I would not be as instrumental.

We’ve talked so much among the university students about how we want our work with the Ndumo youth to instill in them a greater sense of confidence and an ability to speak in front of a group of people. Well, after this past weekend, I think that we need to set the same goals for ourselves. It is hard to lead a game, to explain it clearly and articulately, and to model the proper behavior for the game. It is one thing to speak in front of others, it is another to take a leadership position and endeavor to teach. We can all improve there, and it comes with experience as well as guidance.

Friday night I slept out under the stars, and by stars I mean under a mosquito net under the stars. A few of us pulled our cots out of the hot stuffy rooms and spread them out on the grass. The night is so alive in Ndumo. There is a game reserve just a few short kilometers away, so it is said that at night you can hear the hyenas laughing. Well, I don’t know if I heard any hyenas that night, but certainly the birds and bugs. Dogs barked, and large birds hooted and cackled. The roosters in Ndumo must have horrible internal clocks because they all thought 3am was the perfect time to make an utter racket.

We met the students at 9am the next morning back at the community center, where we sat in on the second dance class. At 11, we broke away and moved over to Umshlanga Rocks, our new camp. Umshlanga Rocks is comprised of two large traditional Zulu rondavels, or round huts, and an outhouse with a pit latrine. Once we get running water there, we will move in officially, leaving the environmental center. But for now, we just spend the days there.

During the morning session, we played. We played games so that we could all laugh together, fail together, win together, find our similarities, break down language barriers, work as a team, and learn to trust each other. I think that in the end we were a lot closer than we had been before, but there remains, and perhaps naturally so, a need for us university students to dominate the playing. In a game where, without talking, we have to make shapes with our bodies, the university students literally moved the grade 12 youth around like pawns. All agency was taken away. It didn’t even matter who was who anymore; you were a body, and you had to stand just so in order for the triangle to be perfect. In playing individual accomplishment games, like red light/green light, university students threw their bodies around, haphazardly playing in such a way that emphasized the ego and not the group.

But the youth brought games as well, and in those games, they were comfortable, their individual voices started emerging. So, by lunchtime, everyone was participating and enjoying our time. After lunch, we sat down with small groups and told stories, stories about why we are who we are today. I cannot speak for everyone, but I had real honest conversations with the three youth I was spending time with. We talked about school and family, failures and dreams. I asked them questions and they asked me questions.

What a terrible dichotomy, me and them, us and them. That’s true, that’s not good. It sets up otherness and difference. Does university students and grade 12 youth also set up the same polarization? Maybe not, because it is descriptive of our actual education? But education is separating in and of itself. I am redefine these words, us and them, but they will still carry with them their past definitions. Can I create new words, new concepts? Or does the English language even allow for that?

After storytelling, we did some English reading, writing, and comprehension exercises. Each university student, well most of us, brought newspaper articles and we broke into small groups to work on these articles. I grouped with two Ndumo girls and one other UKZN student who did not bring an article. The article I brought was specifically controversial, being about Proposition 8 and gay marriage in California. First we read the article, and then I asked what happened in the article. That was a hard question, so I summarized what has been going on in CA and we talked about the arguments in the article. Somehow the other university student raised the question, “Do you know any gay people?” One girl said no. The other mentioned a schoolteacher who was gay; she was beaten and basically ostracized from the community. I asked, “How does that make you feel?” The girl thought for a moment and said, “It makes me feel bad, I feel bad for her.” The University student I was working with said, “Are you sure?” The girl was silenced for a moment, and then he continued, in IsiZulu. I had no idea what he was saying. I knew from a comment on a previous day that he is extremely homophobic and does not believe gays should have rights. I had to stop him, “What are you saying?” This exercise is not about pushing our views on the youth, but rather inciting conversation around topics. “I was just reminding her of Zulu tradition.” Uht-oh, peer pressure, pressure of cultural responsibility. My alarm bells started going off. Of course I am biased, I strongly believe in the rights of all people to love whomever we choose. But it is not our job to try to change the minds of these youth, especially when a girl is taking such a huge risk in expressing her care for a victim in the face of a culture that would shun her behavior. We should be commending her ability to think for herself and to care for those less fortunate than her, not harassing her for thinking outside of the box.

“Let’s change the way we are looking at this article, okay?” Immediate relief. “Let’s imagine that we are concerned citizens of San Francisco writing letters to the Mayor either supporting gay marriage or opposing it. The viewpoint you choose does not have to be your own. For example, I am a vegetarian, but I could write a convincing argument on why eating meat is a great thing. The goal of this exercise is to write a persuasive letter expressing an opinion. Shall we try this?” Yes. Okay. Crisis averted.

The girls begin to write. I have no idea which viewpoint they will take or what their arguments will be, but I do know that my teaching partner will write in opposition of gay marriage. I must write in favor. The girls need to hear that disagreement is okay, that the debate is vital. After a few minutes, we all share our pieces. He goes first, gay marriage is an abomination, and it is against all things natural. But it is a good letter. Next, the girls read. Both letters are beautiful. They take the prevailing argument against gay marriage, and homosexuality in general, that it is against the teachings in the Bible, address it and argue that humanity should prevail and that gays should be allowed to get married. On the one hand, I was thrilled by their writing skills, especially in a language that is not their own, on the other, how great to hear them express these views! Whether they believe them or not, to try to understand why equal rights is a beautiful and necessary thing. To top it all off, my teaching partner, after getting over his mildly apparent dismay that they girls wrote in support of gay marriage, said, “If I was the mayor of San Francisco, these letters would have convinced me. There is no argument against this.” Whether he actually believed this or not, what a perfect moment, what a gift he gave these girls. Confidence.

The next step of this writing process was to put it on its feet. Each group wrote their own newspaper articles based on issues that are important to them in their own community, and we turned these articles into a news broadcast or a talk show. Every group approached this assignment differently, so in the end we had two evening news shows, an interview with an author about his new book, and a talk show with important guests. But the issues were the kids’ own. They talked about teenage pregnancy, community leadership, abortions, gender equality, and xenophobia. What HUGE issues! What bravery in lifting these ideas up into space.

In reflection at the end of the day, many of the youth stated that this newscast was their favorite moment, because they are getting practice speaking English in front of people, because they are gaining confidence, and because they are being trained for life. What beautiful things to say, and what a gift of an experience we all had together. And for me, personally, as a theatre artist and educator, was reinforcement of the validity, power, and necessity of this kind of work.

We left Ndumo in much higher spirits than the last time. And although I think this weekend went much smoother and we accomplished real and beautiful work, we have so much farther to go in terms of team building and a sense of group. As university students, our levels of commitment vary drastically. It is never more important to take photographs on your phone than listen to a young person speak. It is never respectful to draw on the floor in chalk as instructions are being given to a group. It is never allowable to walk away from the young people that you are supposed to be working with. We as a group need to work on these things, and I as a leader need to become more comfortable in correcting behavioral issues.

We are all realizing the amount of work that this class is, and how much more we can get out of it than any other class. I am concerned because I am aware of how little we know of this place, this community. And I am even more aware of this for myself, a recent immigrant to this country who knows so little about what makes it tick. I need an overview, knowing that it will be from a biased source, no matter what that source is. And I suppose I feel this way because so often I function on a need-to-know basis. But because I am stepping into such a leadership position, I feel the weight of relationships and experience and do not want to mess it up. Not knowing is fine, but when a six month process hangs in the balance, I would rather know.

I am learning and questioning, and that is wonderful. But so often I feel like we are on our own in this process, which on the one hand is great because we get to structure our own learning, but on the other, there seem to be certain expectations that we are not apprised of. It is a long and winding road to who knows where. And I guess we just have to trust that we will make it, and that it is about the journey, whatever that is, not the destination.