Week One in Jo'burg

Things are still going well in Jo’burg. We’ve spent a lot of time at the school (obviously, because we live here, which is really strange) doing observations of different classrooms. The students are amazing! I have yet to see a single behavior problem or lack of participation. When other kids are not participating, the other students call them out. Another impressive experience with students was a meeting we sat in on of student leaders who each run separate community outreach groups. Each of the students was so articulate and serious about making change in their community through different partnership activities.

Back at our apartment things are still as they were before…lots of tea drinking, snuggie wearing, cooking and general foolishness. Sara’s best friend was having her bachelorette party back in the states, so we thought we’d participate remotely. Some of you might be lucky (or unlucky…depending on how you look at it) to see some of the pictures we took for the photo scavenger hunt. They feature tattoos, mullets, missing fingers, 3 karat rings, cracks and stripes; quite a treat.

In other news, we finally rented a car yesterday. Her name is Dolores and she sure is beautiful. We figure it makes us look like less of tourists since as it was said that “no self respecting tourist would ever drive this car.” Mike has been our chauffer so far, but I hope to try out driving soon. They drive on the left side of the road here so it’s a little strange. For now, though, I’m comfortable as a passenger.

There are currently reports about violence in the Townships, but it hasn’t been apparent to us yet. Last night we got lost on our way home from a dinner party and ended up in an industrial area on the outskirts of the Alexandra Township. Although, we probably should have been nervous, everything felt fine to me. A lot of people warned about the general sketchiness of Johannesburg when I was planning to come here, but I feel really safe. I’ve actually felt way more nervous in parts of Mexico. It probably helped that on the first day here, we set off the house alarm on accident and within five minutes a security guard with a bullet proof vest and gun showed up in our kitchen. Since then, I think we’ve set the alarm off about 15 times, so hopefully he doesn’t get too sick of us.

Jo’burg has been challenging so far. We have been taking barely warm sponge baths in a freezing cold bathroom for the past three days, dealing with a testy alarm system which has gone off several times and have been without any transport. The shower situation has been fixed as we found a working shower next to one of the classrooms on the campus and this weekend we had a few people who drove us around which was really generous. The alarm system is still a pain, though. Tonight as Mike (a fellow here with me) and I were running we were talking about how we felt about being here so far and we both agreed that we loved it despite the challenges we’ve had so far. I feel that I will be really helpful to the school and community here and I am excited about everything I will learn and bring home.

Saturday we went with two teachers from the LEAP3 school named Oral and Thabila to visit a hospice in the Alexandra township near the school. We spent some time with the women who have been caring for AIDS and cancer patients. These were a really amazing group of people who have been working at this clinic since March without any stipend and still remain committed to the work. I was touched by the idea that someone who lives in one of the “worst” townships in South Africa would work for free to help others. This really challenged my idea of charity as I have always (shamefully) thought of it as something you do when your own cup has been filled to an adequate level. We only spent a bit of time there, but I really want to go back as much as possible during the next 3 weeks.

On Sunday Stacy, a life orientation teacher at LEAP3, picked us up and took us to Lion Park where we saw some animals. It really wasn’t my thing and I found the whole experience to be a little strange, but it was nice to get out of the house. Afterwards we sat in the park and had a braai (a South African BBQ).

Today was our first day of school at LEAP3. All of the students returned from their winter holiday break today so the day started with a community meeting in the barn. Besides being absolutely freezing, it was a great experience. The entire meeting was led by two grade 11 students who started the meeting by asking students to share important feelings and realizations from their break. Some students had been in Cape Town with the LEAP1 and 2 schools and other had gone to the zoo. When the student running the session felt that the students who were sharing were focusing too much on surface experiences, he encouraged his classmates to share some of the struggles they experienced. This opened up some rich dialogue among the students. The only time I heard any faculty speak was to share their experiences and never to redirect or prompt. This is definitely something I will bring back to my own classroom.

Later, we started our work on planning the upcoming workshops and outreach efforts we will be doing with teachers at LEAP3 and other schools in the Alexandra township.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to mention my acquisition of a South African Snuggie. Totally awesome and super warm!

Our New Pad

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_Q7pcRV5JU

7/17: The trip to Jo'Burg

After an extremely late night celebrating our departure from Cape Town we headed to Johannesburg. It was really sad to leave the crew in Cape Town, but knowing we’ll be back in a month makes it a lot easier to deal with.

Instead of staying at a lodge like in Cape Town, we are actually staying on the campus of the school in an apartment that adjoins to one of the classrooms. It’s a really strange set up. I’m not exactly sure what this place was before it was a school. There’s a barn, pool and playing field on the grounds. Inside, it is like a maze. What was once a bar is now a classroom, the garages are the computer labs. There is also an indoor Jacuzzi tub in this glass room. It’s a little strange being here with just the three of us in this huge compound. I’m a little spooked, but I’m sure it will be fine. At least we have a boy with us and don’t have to go investigate any scary noises or kill any big bugs that come visit us.

Tomorrow is Nelson Mandela’s 91st birthday and everyone here does 67 minutes (not sure what the significance of this number is) of community service. We are going to go into the Alexandra Township and spend time at a hospice with the idea that we are going to care for the caregivers. In the morning we’re going to make food to take with us there and then spend some time listening.

The Weekend

my feeble attempt at gumboot dancing

Another great weekend! It rained almost the entire time, but we all still had a blast. On Saturday morning, we spent time at the LEAP school cooking together and performing what we had learned in the classes the former LEAP students put on for us on Friday. I elected to do the African drumming. Others did some singing and dancing. Drumming seemed like the most reasonable choice for me. Cooking together was really cool as well. It’s a little crazy to me having that many people running around a restaurant style kitchen, which totally ruined all of my fantasies about working in a restaurant kitchen.


Saturday night all of us went out to dinner on Long Street, then went out to some bars and clubs. It was a lot of fun, but sad that this was our last Saturday night in Cape Town for a month. Sunday it was still raining all day, but since we had no food we had to walk to the grocery store. We bought so much crap that we had to borrow two shopping carts from the market and walk in the rain back to the house like a bunch of hobos. It was pretty awesome. When we got back I learned to tame my obsession with playing rummy by learning how to play spades. It was made even better by the great Christmas tunes Matt bumped. We figured that since it’s winter here, it might as well be Christmas. Later, we made dinner. There is someone else here who likes to cook who is also going to Jo-Burg with me, so we’ll continue to eat well the whole trip. Unfortunately, my plan to avoid all of the touchy-feely group discussion is not working out as planned. That part always seems to happen after dinner. I’m very in touch now so when I get back if anyone wants to talk about their feelings, I’m down.

Tomorrow is going to be my first day doing student workshops. I’m team teaching two lessons with some of the other fellows: one on how the Fibonacci Sequence occurs in nature and another on Psychology (obviously the other fellow is taking the lead on this one). It’ll be good to get to work; I feel like even though we’ve been super active since we’ve gotten here, it has been like a vacation.

July 7

Being patient sure is hard! I think I did an alright job of faking it today, though. Today, with about 90 students visiting from the Johannesburg campus, we took a boat out to Robben Island. There we were able to see the facilities, which held imprisoned political activists during Apartheid, including the cell of Nelson Mandela. In total, I think that during the first part of the day we spent about 50% of the time waiting. Later, we took the kids up Lion’s Head (our second time up). Instead of climbing all the way up I marinated on a rock for a bit, then made my way back to the buses and waited for about two hours for everyone else to make their way down from the top. This was absolute torture. When the kids started coming down I immediately felt stinging feelings of guild as the smiles and excitement became apparent. I’m such an ass! Another lesson learned. As we started loading up the buses we looked over and saw the full moon rising over the opposite mountain and it was so beautiful. This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but hopefully it gives a good enough idea of what it looked like. Enjoy…

July 6

The days seem to running into each other so I guess I may be a little off as I describe the events of certain days. Like today, for instance…
First, I’m really excited to be leaving for Johannesburg in a few weeks to work with the LEAP 3 school. I’m going with two other people from Teach With Africa: one teacher and one who works for Electronic Arts. We’ll be living together in an apartment on campus. Strangely, I’ve gotten really comfortable living with 20 people at the house now, which is definitely not my normal style. Maybe with only three of us I’ll get better internet access though (such an enticing idea!). The school in Jo-Burg (that’s what the cool kids are calling it these days) has a lot of need and is not quite as far as the two LEAP schools we are working with here in Cape Town so I anticipate this being very rewarding and challenging. The decision to come here was a very difficult one as I know there are a few people back home who have very strong opinions about me staying in Cape Town along with the fact that Matt (my cousin who is here with me) was very unhappy this morning when I told him the news. I think he is going to try to come meet up with me for a couple of weeks at the end of my stay. The unknown aspect of Johannesburg is very appealing to me as I feel that I rarely take chances on things that make me nervous or anxious; and this trip certainly makes me feel both of those things.
In other news…as Matt and I were exploring the city a few days ago we were accosted at an ATM from a group of “locals” who wanted to show us the “international” way to use the ATM. They warned about this in many of the guidebooks, but it was weird to actually have it happen. As most of you know, I’m pretty spastic. I would have expected to freak out, but I was surprisingly calm and made sure they kept their hands off of me, which they were trying to do from many angles. Pretty sweet and totally bad ass (imagine me saying this with my usual tone and it seems a lot cooler).
Today we started a dialogue with the founder and director of the LEAP schools and discussed some of the problems plaguing South African education. Strange how many of the issues are parallel to those I see in the urban schools of America. Many things struck me about his observations and ideas about school reform; however, the way he spoke about communication and hierarchy in schools will stick with me. During every presentation we’ve seen so far has been very student led and I have never heard him speak before any student. He also has no problem calling out students who do not speak from the heart and asks them constantly to not speak to please others but from a place that is real and true. He has encouraged and demanded that all of us move away from the cognitive places that we tend to be comfortable operating from and speak and act from an intuitive place that will allow us to have truthful discourse. I’m not very good at this; but will undoubtedly improve this summer.

Sunday

I don't think today could have possibly been any better! We hiked and it was gorgeous!

Photos

So, I'm having trouble uploading my photos. I'm going to try to put them on my Facebook page...so check that.

Friday

Our feet in the Indian Ocean

I finally had a full night’s sleep last night and woke up and went for a run with three of the other fellows. It felt really great to get out of the fog that I’ve been in over the past few days.
First thing today we visited the Chrysalis Camp in the mountain area of Cape Town. A group called Realistic which serves at recovering drug addicts were working through the first part of a twenty-one day rehabilitation camp. After some singing and dancing (which is how every new experience seems to start here) we broke off into small groups to learn about each other and our pasts. I think that this was my favorite part of the trip so far. The immediate comfort of the group was totally unfamiliar to me, but was totally refreshing. The lack of barriers and inhibition in the way the “realists” spoke about their struggles with drugs and alcohol was something I’ve never seen before. It was not about addiction or blaming; but about taking complete responsibility about the choices they have made in their lives and the affects those choices have made on those around them. They were really interested in talking about the way Americans deal with their addictions and drug use and were unrelenting in challenging our way of thinking.
Afterward we went to Fish Hoek Bay and I got to put my feet in the Indian Ocean.

Day 2

Langa

7/2/09
Being an observer and visitor somewhere does not mean that you need to have immediate feelings or reactions to experiences and sites that you have seen; regardless of how discomforting, jarring or challenging to our own baggage we bring. With that being said, I’m not going to editorialize today by saying how meaningful or upsetting it was because I’m not quite sure how I feel yet.
We visited the LEAP school campus today where we will be partnering over the next two months. The school choir who sang us several traditional songs as well as the LEAP school song greeted us. Many different performances followed including a drum circle and gumboot dancers. Afterwards, we were all engaged in an African drumming lesson (I know I said I wouldn’t insert opinion…but this was super cool!). We then were assigned to four to five student ambassadors who gave us a tour of the school grounds.
After lunch we all packed into the buses with some former LEAP students who currently act as student teachers to the current LEAP students to visit the Langa Township where most of the students live.

Getting Here and Being Here...

The view from Table Mountain

It was an interesting trip here to say the least. I hopped on the plane in San Francisco for the first leg to Atlanta and was seated in the emergency lane (extra leg room=sweet, middle seat=not so sweet). The girl to my right was clearly nursing a bad hangover and reeked of booze and the guy to my left was a weird military Raiders fan, also not very sweet. Once we took off the Raiders fan noticed that my hands were shaking and asked me to hand him my hand; I reluctantly handed my left one over and he proceeded to start giving me a massage, which was weird. Then, he commented on the fact that I was not wearing a wedding ring and quickly asked me to turn around so he could start working on my back and shoulder; of course I said “no”; at which point he grumpily put his headphones on and left me alone. Relieved, I did the same and started listening to my new favorite playlist that RJ made me. Moments later the hung over girl next to me started puking; luckily she made it into the barf bag.
Fast-forward four hours to Atlanta where we rushed to the plane that was taking us to Dakar (Senegal)…. The plane was completely full and as one of the last people to board I walked into a mad house. People were franticly trying to claim what little space there was left. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see someone attempt to stuff a live chicken into the overhead compartment. This flight had no individual TVs like the last flight and with both my laptop and mp3 player out of juice I started to anticipate a really horrible 22 hours ahead. I was determined not to cry, I didn’t want the guy next to me to think he was stuck next to a freak show; so I bit my tongue and let the tears drip down the back of my throat. Which, of course, made me go into a coughing fit, causing me to tear up. A lot of work for nothing, a typical job well done on my part. After reading two books and drinking a few free mini-bottles of wine, I was in Cape Town. At the stop in Senegal I was able to stick my arm out the back service door they were using to reload the food, so I could say I’ve been there, which I know is a stretch.
We were met at the airport by a group of learners (that’s what students are called here) who welcomed us with a song. Typically, something like this would make me start rolling my eyes, but it was really special and lacked anything artificial. I have video of it that I’ll post when my connection is better.
The next morning the same group of learners and the principal and founder of the LEAP schools picked us up. They took us to Table Mountain, which overlooks all of Cape Town. We took a cable car to the top and spent hours exploring and getting to know one another. Several times throughout our time up there the students would break out in song. It was explained to us that the mountain, among other places around Cape Town, were seen as places only for the whites; singing was their way of reclaiming these places as theirs as too. It was really interesting and unsettling to see the excitement of some and the clear disdain of others as the kids performed.
We ended the day with lunch on the beach below the mountain. We went and bought a huge thing of bread, drumsticks, cheese and fruit; which was delicious; it might have been because I was starving though.