les peintures

I have a terrible time arranging pictures on blogger....so there is no order here! These are just a few diddles I've done to reconnect with "me" while away. I have found on days when I feel very removed this is an avenue I can easily take to displace my mind a bit, soak up what it is I see daily, and then digest the beauty around me.

There are these mass groups of swallows (???) that I disrupt multiple times in the morning en route to school. The runoff from the roads creates a special habitat for these birds along the roadsides and so there they congregate. The scatter once I'm 10 yards away and fly off together in a swoop and then twist and turn into the most beautiful formations. This could inspire me to be an animator for the mere purpose of describing their aerial gestures. Along the dam I cross on my commute I catch momentary peeks over my shoulder at the soft pinky-peach of the flamingoes, their heads hooked in an s-curve down by their breasts. Still sleeping, perhaps. Daily I am astonished by the bird life here, although, I must say I now understand the human cringing at the sound of the haaaa'claaaww of the haaa-deeeee-da, a monstrous herron-like being.

ANC Split, Cheney & AIDS

Wow, what a hefty title...If I could think of a better way to sum up these thoughts with a one word title, I would.

Since I moved to South Africa, as you may have read, the country has been digging through democracy trying to redefine some elements in its current government. A brief timeline (forgive me for glossing over details), to give you a sense:
*Sept. 20th: African National Congress (ANC), the ruling party, recalls Thabo Mbeki's presidency due to past issues of his challenging Jacob Zuma, the leader of the ANC
*Sept. 21st: Mbeki agrees to resign after all constitutional requirements are met
*Sept. 23rd: Eleven members of Mbeki's Cabinet step down alongside him.
*Sept. 24th: Mbeki's last day as President of South Africa
*Sept. 25th: Kgalema Motlanthe (pronounce KG as a guttural "hhha" sound, the TL as a clicking "kla", and THE as "tay"), Deputy President of the ANC, is sworn into office as interim president until the fall elections of 2009
*Oct. 9 - today: SA's former defense minister, Mosiuoa Lekota, and other ANC members loyal to former president Thabo Mbeki begin speaking publicly about splitting away from the current ANC to form a new political party.

Within a week of my arrival, all of this began to unfold. At first it seemed rather scary and dangerous - especially with the recent violent struggles in neighboring Zimbabwe still fresh on the mind. It seemed confusing, too, because their electoral process differs from America - we vote for a person, while they vote for a party who appoints a president. If at any point, like now, the party deems the person holding presidential office must leave, they have the constitutional means to recall him/her. I must say, many South Africans applauded the peaceful changeover to the new Pres. Motlanthe as a real show to the world of the current strength of its democracy.

The split in the ANC is also huge. The ANC was developed as an organization in the early 1900s to bring all Africans together as one people to defend their rights and freedoms. Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, and many other important forces in the anti-apartheid movement helped bring it to power in 1994 when Mandela assumed role as president of the new South Africa. Basically the ANC formed as a community organization and became a political party...since 1994 it has remained the ruling party with overwhelming popularity. While there are many other political parties that continue to have representation in Parliament, the ANC has over 60% representation. It has no other real competition and many South Africans no longer feel represented by this mass party.

The possibility of a split, once again, means for many South Africans that democracy is at work in the best possible way. If all goes well, they may have a real choice in the next election to "chose" a party, instead of feeling like they must contribute to what has become a one-party system. I have tried to gauge from many SAs what their thoughts or fears are regarding this split...many are hopeful, many are unhappy with Jacob Zuma's leadership of the ANC and are ready for a new face, and many are fearful that violence will ensue between rivalling tribes.

I bring this to Cheney because I had an interesting talk with Miriam....seeing that I was only 4 at the time, I didn't know that current VP Cheney voted against a 1986 resolution asking for the release of Mandela from prison and a formal recognition of the ANC. Unbelievable. But then again, Cheney still defends his vote saying that, "the ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization....I don't have any problems at all with the vote I cast 20 years ago." Wow, maybe not so unbelievable. The result of the resolution in Congress was 245-177 in favor (so obviously not all shared the view that the ANC was terrorist), but was still shy of the 2/3 needed to override Reagan's veto - go figure. Miriam was saying South Africa was lucky the world was ready to take it on as a free nation in the 90's - just think if Mandela were still in prison today, asking the world to help justify his release. This African nation would be a goner. (specific info for this paragraph was obtained at http://www.commondreams.org/views/080300-102.htm)

Today I visited an AIDS/HIV/Cancer Hospice center in Viljoenskroon. I hope to be able to do some art workshops there as well, though I am feeling pinched for time between so many schools already. I feel I can barely even touch upon the issues AIDS presents this country as I haven't really been here to realize the full impact. I will at least make note of a few of the things I've observed...
:: the cemetaries are endless, as are the lines of cars in the funeral processions over the weekend
:: the graves are ultimately heaps of rock covering overpriced coffins
:: people go into debt to pay for the costs of a funeral - including the heaps of food (cows) that are served to the funeral guests
:: in the small town of Viljoenskroon there are at least 4 undertakers - this does not include the number of caretakers for the adjacent township, Ramulotsi, where most of the black people live
:: at least one teacher every week at every school has had to miss school to attend a funeral; note there are no more than 7 teachers at any school, so this is quite a huge percentage
:: not one child at Niekerksrus high school will admit to knowing someone with AIDS/HIV - it is here, but no one wants to acknowledge that it is this virus that is affecting the people THEY know
:: there is roughly 60% unemployment in South Africa & most of the children come to school hungry. I'm assuming people are probably hurting from HIV even more so because they don't have proper food to keep themselves going
-- and some stats from http://allafrica.com/stories/200805040006.html --
:: 7.6 million people are living with HIV in South Africa as of May 2008
:: more than 27 percent of men and women aged between 20 and 64 are HIV positive
:: nearly 722 000 people have died of Aids-related diseases in the past year, bringing the total number of such deaths since 2003 to more than 3.7 million
:: 1.2 million of the country's 1.49 million orphans have lost their parents to Aids and this number is expected to increase by more than 336 000 this year alone.

This is staggering, is it not? I've been storing up all this information in my head to write and am sorry not to put this toget her in a more cohesive way...but for the sake of making sure this information makes it to your computer, I thought the sooner the better! For now, it is Friday night and I plan to give my head a rest from some of this information as I've had the chance to give it some air and word life. adieu adieu, my friends

Set Building

Puppet Making

Gariep Dam

A few composite views of this dam off the Oranje River taken at various points during sunset/dusk. Click on these thumbnails to englarge and see in more detail - it's a beautiful place at the border between the Karoo and the Free State. I went there this weekend with my cousin and her family - it was such a breath of fresh air from the week! Also some quick pics of me and my cousin Leigh + her daughter and my cousin Kira.

The Ruler

please note the video pasted at the bottom of this entry!!!

As I've already spoken of Africa Time it seems I've started a theme on measurement. Counting stitches for a stuffed puppet, numbering the shortage of paintbrushes for a 45 head count, ticking off the amount of votes a particular story received.... But how do you measure the slap of a yard stick on a young child's hands?

:::::

I began my first day at another school yesterday (by the time I finish I will have worked at 5), Huntersvlei Primary. It is another farm school - on my first visit to the school I completely passed it by, not realizing that a series of derelict buildings were in fact the school. On my days teaching at the high school I have passed hosts of children walking to school via the nearby dam. I'm not sure what the distance is for these students but I'm assuming at the very least they must walk about 40 minutes each way.

There are 7 grades (1st thru 7th) at this school and there's one teacher for each grade level, meaning some classes have as few as 17 while others have up to 46 pupils. If one teacher is absent, which often seems to be the case, then one class goes unattended for most of the day.

Before the school assembly is called each morning the students rough around all up and down the dirt road. Scrapping, pushing and shoving, it is obvious these children learn to be tough from a very early age. In some ways this enables their survival. For instance, at the high school and their adjacent primary school, students go an entire day without lunch. At Huntersvlei the government provides "mealie meal" (also called samp, something that we'd know as cooked hominy) for lunch - only yesterday lunch was not served. And not one student seemed to complain, although it is certain many of these students depend on that daily supplement for lack of food at home.

The classrooms at Huntersvlei make Niekerksrus High School seem like a royal court. The chairs are all broken and look like they've been through some sort of nuclear meltdown as
the backs of the chairs are all warped and twisted. Some of the desks have fallen to bits and the pieces of the wooden desk tops lie strewn across the floor, whilst some child has only 6 inches of space to complete their work on. The cream walls have been streaked with numerous sweaty, dirty hands and have then collected the dusty winds of the fields and pencil markings of many individuals. The plaster walls and concrete floors have massive faults running through their entirety and the wind constantly threatens to blow the tin roof off the top. The saving grace of these classroom are the wood stoves they each contain - though I wonder how warm the rooms get with the cracked foundations and leaky roofs.

Yesterday I began my work with Huntersvlei by teaching Grades 3, 2 & 1 in that order. By doing a simple symmetry assignment involving stencils and American Crayolas I tried to assess their skill levels. I was quite impressed by the work of the 3rd and 2nd graders but found the 1st graders' (mind you, their school year ends in December) work to be quite tragic. It was almost like working with American kindergardners on their first day of school. However, the difference in the attitude of the 1st grade teacher from the others was blatant. Her English was poor and her translations to the students must have been very off, for as I went around the class to physically "show" the children what to do, she would then shout at the students and tell them to do differently than what I'd prescribed. That in and of itself was quite awful as I had little recourse!

The day got worse from there when the principal announced a mandatory meeting for all teachers and left me with a heap of 2nd & 3rd graders in the adjoining, partitioned classroom plus the 1st graders. It was utter chaos. Over 70 little ones pushing and screaming and shoving crayons at me, jumping on each other and extracting cries of pain in the process. I tried to
gain some control of the class through games but it was quite impossible with that number of students - not to mention, none of them understand English very well. When the teachers returned I let them know about the chaos - specifically I spoke to the 2nd grade teacher I thought I'd made an ally with earlier. I moved to the adjoining 1st grade class to speak with the other teacher....at which point the 2nd grade teacher rapped each of the 2nd and 3rd graders with a yard stick on the palms of their hands. I honestly did not know what to do and felt like such a shit for not being able to commandeer the situation.

I left the school at the end of the day practically in tears, after letting the principal know I found it highly inappropriate to leave me alone on my first day with 70 pupils. As most of you would know, I don't agree with corporal punishment in the least and I'm certainly not for associating art with violent recourse. To say the least, I felt like the anti-violence work I've engaged in was turned upside down and I felt like such a victim to be witness to this account.

I am realizing how difficult this work is to manage alone. The idea behind working with this organization was to be involved with other artists in this process but, unfortunately, I'm the only volunteer here at this time. Understandably, it is a small and very young organization, still trying to make itself known - so I don't blame them for any of this. However, I'm feeling the dregs of how tough this is without having the buffer of others to empathize with and must be honest about that in this writing space. It's a long post, for sure! But please enjoy the video I'm attaching of my students at Niekerksrus planning music for a few of their puppet productions. I was and am amazed at their vocal talents!

Designing Backdrops

These are pictures from one of my classes today, depicting my group of painters while designing the backdrops for the 5 different puppet shows we're producing. On Friday, after much ado and a lot of headache over how to turn teenage pregnancy issues into a positive skit, my students voted and finalized the casting & puppet story selections.


We're doing 3 longer plays and 2 shorter ones. Yabo & the 3 Goats is a child's story and Johnny the Best Cheater is another short and sweet tale. The longer ones include the Monkey & the Crocodile (a very pointless story) and 2 more modern ones called Linda's Perseverance and A New Way to Love (the teenage pregnancy/AIDS awareness story).

I started another class on puppet design today and they were thrilled with the buttons, yarn, beads, sequins and fabrics I picked up over the weekend. I was worried the boys would pitch a fit over sewing, but rather they all know how to sew very nicely already. Hooray! They're very excited about the puppets and I was pleased as punch to see that they all stayed after the bell to keep working. I will post photos of the puppets when they're further along.

p.s. a lot of the pumpkins in south africa actually have white or pale green skins, thus the white pumpkins!!

Rietpan I

I've been wanting to show you photos of where I'm currently staying, so here is a small batch. Rietpan, the farm, is humongous - I'm not entirely sure of the scale, but to give you an idea, it has it's own dam. Miriam has three horses, who I have yet to ride, but they take kindly to being fed carrots out of the kitchen garden. I hope to ride at some point this week as she often rides around the dam. The birdlife around the dam is extraordinary. I'm only just getting to know my south african bird names and sounds...it's the haadeedaa that wakes everyone bright and early, the guinea fowl that only take flight just as you're about to nick them in the road, and the pale pink flamingoes are easy to identify. It's the million other birds I have yet to learn! This evening we rode on the 4-wheeler to a spot called the vlei, where we watched all the birds congregate at sunset. It's still dry here, but the marshes around the dam are fed by spring water and so it stays pretty full year round. The house is very expansive, with lots of terraces and porches and I feel like a princess in my mosquito-netting bed. The views of the house were taken from my bathroom windows - showing the kraal where the horses stay (through a yellow tinted window at sunset) and the very productive kitchen gardens.

Check out this last picture! What a discombobulated little rider, with her helmet practically falling off whilst giving goobery, tired smiles! This morning I went on a 28k (prob about 20 miles) bike ride with Chris (my host) and a couple he knows who are big into cycling. The ride was intended to be a race but our philosophy the whole time was to take it easy - and we did. It was good to get up on a bike, however I'm poor with gears after living in flatland Chicago, am not used to riding up steep hills with no chance to catch momentum prior and am also not used to off-roading -- all on a man's bike that was too large for me! Alas the views were beautiful, as you can see, and the company was great. This picture was taken only a few kilometers before the end, just before we arrived back in the little city of Parys (called par-ace).

Pictures from the first 3 weeks

Finally I am connected to the internet through my own computer so I can show you some of the sights I've been enjoying. These first images of the river & rocks are from my uncle's farm, called River Dene, in the Great Karoo region of South Africa. In the third one, if you can spot a spec of white on the rocks, that's me. I found a couple of skulls while on my climb in that spot - a monkey and then a dassie skull.

Then there's my gran with her lap dog and fierce protectress, Tina. Following this are some images of the arts in Nieu Bethesda, the closest town. There they have an arts centre that employs many local women and men with sewing and printmaking projects ( I hope to maybe run a screen printing workshop there after Christmas). They also have the renowned Owl House, which many of you have seen pictures of before. Helen Martins was a self taught artist who built an amazing sculpture garden of a pilgrimage to Mecca and wrapped the interior of her house with all sorts of amazing designs, color, and found objects. The image of the mountain depicts Nieu Bethesda on the road leading into the little town.

The last four images show my time in Cape Town. On Sunday evening there I went with my cousin's friend to a local bar - here everyone gathers on the lawn outside to drink and watch teh sunset. Beautiful life! You have the obvious images of me in front of Table Mountain and also my cousin, Georgia, and baby Rebecca on a stroll by the sea.

First Impressions

Today was so scattered I don’t even know where to begin with my impressions of Niekerksrus Agricultural School (a h.s.). I was given an empty set of classrooms that have not been in use for a long time (obvious by the mice droppings and the birds flying inside!). A great space for making a mess in, potentially.

I had the chance to work with 2 groups. I’m going forward with a puppet production for this particular group and have developed 5 groups out of that (actors, musicians/writers, puppet makers, painters & set designers). The two I saw today were the painters and set groups, though we were not able to launch into the puppet project. Wanting to get a feel for my students, we did ice breakers and then I taught them gesture drawing by throwing different objects. I had to be resourceful and used objects such as a tire, old shoe, feathers & paint bucket! The students got the hand of drawing the movement, although the language situation did prove to be a barrier. Most everything I said was repeated through a translator and so I lost a lot of the direct feedback from the students.

Supplies here are sparse and poorly proportioned. TONS of pencils but no sharpeners. TONS of oil pastels that are actually crappy wax crayons. Lots of colored chalk but no colored paper. Already I’m realizing how blessed the underfunded art programs were in Gaston Co., where I subbed last year.

It was a coolish day and with the concrete floor, it was cold inside. I am so glad it’s spring and warmer weather is on the way….I cannot imagine how miserable it would be to teach in one of these unheated buildings in the winter. Yikes!

As I slow down to settle into bed, I can still taste the dust from the chalkboard of earlier today.

Vierfontein/Free State

Vierfontein stands for 4 Fountains. This town, just outside of Viljoenskroon, was once built & owned by an electric company to create housing for it’s employees at the nearby coal mine. There seem to be quite a number of mines around here - mainly coal and gold. I thought I was seeing small plateaus while driving along, as they look like the buttes of the Dakotas. They add a lot of interest in the landscape.

I was told this area was flat and full of mealie (corn) farms and so I expected an Illinois of sorts. Instead, it’s probably more of a Texas. The highly anticipated “first rains” have yet to come and so the farmers leave a stubble of bush grass to keep the fine red dust from blowing too too much, The air is hazy with the combined dust of the mines and the dirt and takes on a smoggy appearance, almost. Not to say it’s unattractive, because it makes the distance trees layer upon one another in the atmosphere.

Vierfontein is a hollow of a town, quite literally, in that’s all alone, appearing quite pointless. Since the min is no longer in commission, the town has been sold and now exists as a private municipality. So it remains a safe oasis in the midst of dangerous South Africa. Mostly pensioners (retirees) reside there now as there isn’t any work to be had. The tennis courts are over run , though there is a post office, a hairdresser and a corner store. Quite an abysmal place, I must say. Tomorrow, I relocate to a farm and my main hosts’ house and I look forward to the different surroundings (not to mention being able to unpack finally!).

Africa Time

Certain information in this education just falls through the cracks - the same cracks created by the many language barriers. The difference between millimeters, centimeters, and meters for instance. Concepts of time & distance. Things many of us (privileged) take for granted because our parents know and because we grew up in a car/mass transit culture. I grew up asking - how far is it til we get there? - the answer would be 5 more miles….and then I would ask, but how much longer? -and the answer would be 15 more minutes. And so my perception of time, space, and distance grew.

Klasie was telling me of a student he gave a lift one day. When they arrived at the school, the child did not get out of the car. Klasie said, “well, come along,” but as it turns out the little guy did not know how to get out of the car.. He has never ridden inside of a car before. It is typical here on the farms, that the workers (and their children) get around on tractors, the backs of trucks, on bikes and on foot. These people have not learned to measure in kilometers, but rather in footsteps.

This difference between white culture & black culture, the lower economic rung and the higher becomes apparent in the way time is valued and measured. The white culture here is very European and functions on an hourly/minute-by-minute basis. Whereas the black or African culture has a completely different concept of speed and time. And thus you get “Africa Time.”

Systemic

I had a discussion tonight with Klasie de Wet, my current host & the principal of the high school where I’ll start teaching this week. We were talking about so many flaws in the free eductaion South Africa is attempting to provide its young, While there are over 12 national languages, all education up to grade 3 must be provided in the “mother tongue” of the area. Here that means Sotho (pronounced soo-too) - although there are also children attending school that come from families where only Tswana, Zulu or Xhosa are spoken. After Grade 3, English becomes the predominant learning language. The problems start here because in these small farm towns there are often farm schools with poorly considered teaching ratios. These farm schools remain from private systems put in place by the farmers of the Apartheid era - they have since been taken over by government. So for instance, one school has 1 teacher and 5 pupils while another has 2 teachers and 70 pupils. These primary schools span grades 1 -6 and, for the 2-teacher school, the students are split up into grades 1-3 and the other 4-6. Now the teacher covering 1-3 must deal with 3 grade levels, all basic subject matter and must be present the material in Sotho (even though that may not be the first language for many pupils). Then, take the teacher working with grades 4-6. Whilst all basic subjects must be covered in English, most pupils cannot grasp the material in English…so they resort to teaching in Sotho and the students go on to High School never fully learning English. On top of all these things, many of the teachers may not have studied math or science in their grade school education and cannot, therefore, teach their students this material. So primary aged students go on to high school where it is mandatory to study in English, as all exams are written in this language - however they go on without having ever properly mastered English, math or science.