I certainly thought I'd be writing Farm, Part II well before I had fodder for any other writings. Instead, I have news to share: today was my first day at my first paid job in almost 19 months! In what must be my shortest job search to date (1 week), I got an SMS on Monday from one of the local principals I was introduced to last week. I drove to the school, Sebenzakanzima, just outside of the limits of Pongola expecting to fill out the paperwork for an official job application. Instead, I was handed papers titled "Assumption of Duty." I was perplexed, not quite expecting what I was being offered, only to find out another position had opened at the school due to the death of a teacher.
And so, after filling out more paperwork yesterday and obtaining all the available English books possible, I assumed the available English teaching post for Grades 8, 9 and 10. I encountered a few of the other educators yesterday and they, too, were perplexed about me. Not being announced as a foreign volunteer come to save the day, they all assumed I was a white South African. A few made comments about how white South Africans have been fleeing overcrowding at the schools - with raised eyebrows and a glare made for cowering. However, I'm not really the white South African they think they're refering to and I'm also not fleeing.
With almost 250 names on my roster for 6 classes, it's going to be a crazy while ahead for me! I have no government curriculum to work from in a no-child-left-behind based system, so it should be interesting. I inquired today as to the discipline code at the school and, well, beating is an unofficial part of the game. So I made a strong point with my students today that I will never hit them, but that they shouldn't opt for pulling one over on me just because they think they can. In the end, my biggest threat is to send them to the principal, who will mostly likely give them a hiding or 3. It's the best I can do apart from alienating myself from the get-go and losing my new job. So, it's a bit harum scarum.
The classrooms are bare, bare, bare. The students stay with the same classroom all day long and the teachers float. Meaning the teachers all share 2 common spaces as their staff rooms. I'm sharing a desk with 2 other educators, one who kindly befriended me today. She even gave me a hamburger for lunch - it feels like school all over again! The teachers slowly started to talk to me today, but conceptually they don't seem to grasp that I'm foreign....and that I'm not living with my father on his farm nearby (a very strange rumor circulating). Everyone speaks Zulu as it is a Zulu-medium school. I don't understand a word excepting hello (sawubona) and work (sebenza), although I'm surely in the right place to start picking it up.
My work with the students went seemingly well, though there's not too much to report yet. I was so anxious yesterday, sleeping fitfully and eliciting words of comfort from Johannes. I don't know if I've ever been quite so nervous about teaching before. I think I realize that these students have never had a white educator before and was nervous that they wouldn't want to take me seriously. Luckily, they all seem to love learning English which will work fabulously to my advantage in the future!
One encouraging moment today came as the day was closing and I was invited to go to the visitation for the teacher who's place I'm filling. I gave about 8 teachers lifts in the back of the bakkie and we set out for Ncotshane (very difficult to pronounce with a click at the front of the word), the local township from where most of the students hail. The former teacher passed away Saturday, presumably from AIDS as many teachers here are dying from it. The visitations take place during the week, before the funeral which always takes place on a weekend. There is a huge ceremony involving a cow slaughter, so the weekend timing is a must.
When we arrived at the house of this teacher, all the women took off their shoes. As the women were filing in, the first teacher down on the ground, Disa, immediately started singing. The others joined in as they positioned themselves crosslegged on the straw mats. The men slowly entered as well (their shoes still on) and they joined the singing. It was incredibly beautiful and the moment's hesistation where I had not wanted to go (due to a long first day) melted instantly. Different teachers led the singing and the same ones led the group in Zulu prayers and passages from the Bible. It was a quiet house, where the sounds of the contracting tin roof made distinct clickings, along with the chorus of the roosters crowing outside. The old, old black women family members sat back, against the wall, letting the words wash over them, their eyes solemn and distant, but deeply open and watchful, their faces puckered with wrinkles from too much death and too much life.
At the end, I saddled off home after dropping the other teachers in town and carried on my long ride home. Home: where I shocked myself on a game fence yesterday and today where the warthogs greeted me through the long grasses and monkeys cried out from the trees. Not to mention the nice little poop our resident frog, Gregory, left for me right inside the doorstep. This feels like an impossibly unusual life I'm living right now. Truly African, in some ways endlessly authentic -- something I've been after with the culture for a long time. It felt good to be invited in today.
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