I'm still alive!

“We propose to call the age of development that particular historical period which began on 20 January, 1949, when Harry S. Truman for the first time declared, in his inauguration speech, the Southern hemisphere as ‘underdeveloped areas’. The label stuck and subsequently provided the cognitive base for both arrogant interventionism from the North and pathetic self-pity in the South.”
-Wolfgang Sachs, The Development Dictionary


Yes, it’s been a long time. I won’t bother making excuses. :)

Things at the clinic have been slow. The contract for BONEPWA, the NGO that was contracted to assist with our PMTCT program, expired in mid-September, leaving Amy and Edith out of a job (I still smile that so many people here take on an English name). In panic, Amy quickly started applying for all kinds of jobs – to be cleaner at a school, to do construction, etc. It was really upsetting. Here is someone – one of the few, really – who not only LIKES what she does, but is good at it, and is actually passionate about it. Many health workers and counselors here are either burnt out, apathetic, lazy, or only in it for the money. But Amy likes this work – and someone like that needs to stay in it. I told her I refused to let her clean toilets in the Primary School when she has a passion for something that not everyone is good at. But her response, of course, was: “But Kagiso, what can I do? I have to survive.”

After making some phone calls, I discovered that another NGO, BOCAIP, is going to take over – though the question of ‘when’ is always an issue here. However, the transition seems to be happening fairly quickly (so far). As soon as I heard that BOCAIP would be coming, I made sure to contact them and highly recommend that both Amy and Edith be reinstated. Unfortunately, they were only going to be funding the position that was formerly filled by Amy, while the equivalent of Edith’s position was going to be consolidated and based in Tutume, 50 kilometres away. After a letter and several phone calls (and upon meeting her), they agreed to keep Amy on as the Peer Mother (the one with whom I do home visits and community outreach). Edith – who is more educated and experienced - began applying for jobs elsewhere, and after I wrote her a zealous letter of recommendation for Harvard’s Botswana research team, she managed to get an interview and secure a position with them in Francistown. It is a really big upgrade for her, both professionally and financially (it’s HARVARD!), so I hope she does well but I already miss her here.

Supposedly Amy will go for training in two weeks and begin two weeks after that, but I told her not to hold her breath. For now she is having trouble making ends meet with many young brothers and sisters (some of who are sick), her sick mother (and by “sick” I mean HIV positive), her baby, and her disabled teenaged son... not to mention her own health. As many of you know, it’s hard to watch people you love struggle – especially when they are putting forth the effort and they’re not frivolous with the money they do have. So I’ve been trying my best to keep her and her family afloat until the job begins, but in the process I too am spreading myself a little thin, with another month to go until the end of our financial quarter (we’re “paid” quarterly here, and even that is only a local wage). Luckily, I have a post-Great Depression mentality when it comes to food so I tend to have an excessive amount of things like rice, beans, and lentils stored for such occasions. There’s an expression here that translates roughly to mean: “Invite your neighbors, and dinner will make itself.” In other words, “never fret about feeding your loved ones, the food will manage to be enough.”



When we arrived two Aprils ago we were given a table dissecting each year of our service into quarters, with each quarter detailing the average or “normal” issues we would face and subsequent behaviors/reactions for that time. Currently, in the 17-20 month phase, we are dealing with “hyperactivity or apathy, procrastination, self-recrimination, resignation, disappointment, downgrading of achievements, [and/or] over identification in behavior.”

This seems to be fairly accurate.

But a good break came this past week. I have been hassling our 3 primary schools for months to come and assist them – either with teaching English, after school activities, etc. I’ve mostly received no response, but last week a teacher from our “bush” school asked if I would come and help his Standard 6 students (about 12-13 year-olds) with English for they take their examinations this upcoming Friday. Schools here run on trimesters, beginning in January, so the last trimester is closing in the next few weeks, depending on the grade. I was a little disappointed that he waited until the final two weeks of the term to ask, but I figured something was better than nothing.

So this past week I started making the 90+ minute-each-way journey first thing in the morning into the bush to help with English. This teacher has 60+ Standard 6 kids, divided into two classes of roughly 30. While one class learns, the other class sits silently in another room doing assignments. The kids were of course ecstatic to see a white man at their school – many of them knew my name, either from word-of-mouth, from having been to the clinic, or from seeing me at the mobile clinics we do in the bush. But I was surprised at the percentage that said it was their first time seeing a white man (probably about 10% of them).

When I walked in, the kids were copying from the board (in English) about classical musical instruments – “A violin has four strings”, and “The keys in a piano cause vibrations…” I was shocked that they “knew” this, but the teacher assured me they did. He and I went through some of the objectives for Std 6 students so that I could get an understanding of where they needed to be with English. He insisted they knew a lot, but they just needed help with tenses and writing one-page compositions (what we know as 3-paragraph essays), as they will have to write one on an unknown topic this upcoming Friday. As soon as I began the class I realized that they actually knew very little; what they “knew” was how to copy from the board. And this is the problem with many education systems in Africa – they’re not relevant to the students. They’ll probably never see a violin in their lives, so of what use is it to a kid in the bush to learn that a violin has 4 strings??? Hell, that hasn’t even been of use to me and I am familiar with and enjoy Bach’s “Double Violin Concerto” or Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra”. But these things are remnants of the colonial system, and are still taking time to dissolve.

I’m reminded of a line from a favorite book of mine, The Paternalism of Partnership: “It is impossible to plant an alpine flower in the savanna. It will not grow. You have to plant a flower which is adapted and suited to the living conditions here and give it the proper nutrition.”

Anyway, class went fairly well – it’s hard because I am not supposed to speak Kalanga – I wouldn’t say it’s ‘illegal’ but it’s certainly not allowed. Kids are beaten for speaking it, and teachers would be at least scolded if they spoke it. There are even signs on most school grounds saying, “We follow a strict language policy: Please speak Setswana and English only.” This is largely political and, according to some, part of a quiet governmental attempt to squash minority cultures. So these kids are being taught a third language in their second language, which is itself another separate lesson later in the day. When I was noticing a road block, I would try and use Kalanga to explain or compare, and some of the kids would shoot eyes to the teacher to see how he was reacting. He mostly breathed heavily, but towards the end I think he wasn’t very happy. He’s a Kalanga himself, so he is a little more lenient, but I think he is worried about his own butt more than the rule. I talked to him about it after class. I said, “Is the goal for these kids to learn English or not? Because I can be an ok teacher using English only or I can be a great teacher using some Kalanga.” His job performance is largely evaluated on the performances of his pupils in examinations so he had an interest in relinquishing, under the agreement that I am not to write Kalanga on the board and that the kids are not to speak it to ask or answer any questions. I agreed.

We went through the 3 parts of a composition: Introduction, Body, Conclusion (which they knew pretty well). I stressed that the introduction should tell the reader the When, Who, What, and Where of the story (I told them to remember it as “LYIN,” an acronym for the interrogative pronouns’ Kalanga equivalents: Lini, Yani, Ini, and Ngai.)

I wanted us to ‘write’ a composition orally, as a class. I chose the topic “My First Journey to Francistown”. After about 3 minutes I realized we had a problem. I said, “Raise your hand if you have never been to Francistown” … almost 50% of the class raised their hands. Can you imagine? Can you imagine having never left your rural life? Having never been 2 hours away to the nearest urban area? Having never entered a store or seen a sidewalk or a street light? And then having to learn about violins. I felt a little foolish for making the assumption – particularly because I know a lot of these kids don’t even know their own birthday or what they look like in a mirror, but most people here are fairly mobile. Then again, I was at the bush school. I could tell there was also confusion with trying to do something orally that they had only done manually. They were confused.

I switched gears.

In half Kalanga and half broken English, I told them lets pretend I was their mother or their grandmother, whoever they stayed with. They laughed at this of course. They were to pretend that it was the end of the day and they were going home to tell their guardian about the new white teacher at school. I asked them, “What would you tell your grandmother about today”?

One boy said, “Today a white man came to teach at school” (Right there he said the ‘when’ and ‘who’ ‘where’ and ‘what’). They went on “It was my first time to see a white man,” “He was wearing a black shirt,” “He was very good in English and Kalanga,” etc. etc. etc. Their English was not as good as I am transcribing, so we had to work through each thought, but after a few minutes I asked them, “And what would you say about all of that?” (sneakily getting them to say what would be their conclusion about the day). They said “I was happy because the teacher was beautiful” (Haha, someone wanted extra credit!). “It was nice because I learned a lot.” “It was a very good day.”

“Great,” I said. “You just wrote a composition and passed your examination.” Most of them just blinked heavily. The smarter ones understood: they had just done a full composition. I told them, “You ‘write’ compositions all day every day, using your mouth. You tell people stories, starting with When, Who, What, and Where the story takes place, followed by what happened, and you finish with thoughts of the experience. That is a composition. The only difference is on Friday you have to write one.”

I gotta say, it was a breakthrough moment for them. Even the teacher’s eyes were big. Their homework assignment was to write two compositions – one about their first day with the new teacher and one on their first day of school several years ago.

The next day was a great improvement. Each student stood up and read his/her account of the first day with the new teacher. It was sad that nearly 25% of them said something along the lines of, “It was a good day because Mr. Kagiso did not beat us” or “I was happy when I gave a wrong answer and Mr. Kagiso didn’t hit me” and “I know Mr. Kagiso is a good man because he did not beat me when my shoe was not tied.” But they overwhelmingly had holistic introductions and good conclusions, which was the point.

I asked the teacher if I could be the one to mark their books as I wanted to see where they lacked and where they excelled, so that I could in turn teach to their needs the next week. Of course he agreed, as it was 60 less books for him to mark. The books have been really heartbreaking to read. Not for the errors, which are predictable, but for statements on how badly they are treated at school. Some excerpts from their first day at school (about 5 or 6 years ago):

“When we got into the class our teacher asked us our name. When she asked me my name I don’t speak to her because I was don’t hear what she saying. The children laugh to me. The teacher beat me with a stick saying you come to school to eat food only. Then I started crying after crying I told her in Kalanga that I don’t hear what she say. The teacher shouted shut up here is not at your home. Stop speaking Kalanga in class…. I was unhappy because the teacher beat me until I bleed.”

“When we got in class our teacher asked name. When she asked my name I didn’t speak because I didn’t hear what she saying. The children laugh at me. The teacher asked me us kyashen [a question]. Then I don’t not speak because I was not a Setswana I speak Kalanga. She beat me with a stick I cried and cried then she beat me for cry. I like school because are important you can pass you go to jobs.”


I read 60 of these, almost all parallel. From there I extracted common mistakes and on Monday we are going to go over their own sentences together. I’d like to get a few minutes with each student one-on-one, but with 60 kids… you do the math.

Other than that things are fine. I was asked to come down to Gaborone this week. As some of you may have heard, violence in Guinea (West Africa) has continued so Peace Corps decided to evacuate its volunteers there. As a result, we are getting 5 transfer volunteers – “refugees” as I like to call them. :) Peace Corps asked me to come down to help orient them and be a source of support. I’ll head down Tuesday after class – it will make for a long day (and week), as Gabs is 8+ hours away. I’ll stay for two days then head 8+ hours back with hopes that the kids did well on their examinations.

I remember when I was applying two years ago, I told my recruiter and my mother that if they offered me a position teaching English, I would refuse. I didn’t want to spend two years of my life teaching ABCs to kids – I wanted to do something that I thought would make a difference: I wanted to work with HIV/AIDS. Interestingly enough, two years later, I’d say the exact opposite. Even with relation to HIV/AIDS, I think I would be making a much greater impact if I had full-time access to kids in a controlled environment like a school. I haven’t the time to express (nor you the patience to read) the extent to which I think that the school system here is perpetuating poverty and directly inhibiting the fight against AIDS. I see it every day and it is the hardest thing to digest, even more than all of the deaths. And it just goes past you like the wind, something you can feel but cannot touch.