Vuyani Nyawo. Victim of one of the common car accidents pervading the area. A bright student in my largest class of 60, a face I can easily conjure up in my mind's eye from the usual blur of students. I cannot begin to suggest how sore and heavy it made me feel to have such a young life taken from my class.
After school all the educators collectively visited his home. At the back of the main house was a traditional round hut where we gathered, once again, women with shoes off and men with shoes on, on the floor. The floor was dark and cool in the heat, covered by a tapestry of mats, some grass woven, some made from recycled chip packs in the most elegant way. We formed a semi circle along the wall; the haunting singing began, while the mother and female relatives perched on mattresses opposite us. In the dense heat of the day the mother was wrapped in heavy blankets, a large woman forming a soft mass of fabric that heaved with the sobs of her great loss. My eyelids were wet with tears as I watched her body completely lose form and meld into the patterns of cloth.
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Sibusiso Ntshangase. Twenty-three years old. The man I give daily rides to and from school. He lives in the nearest town, Magudu, and walks at least 5 km just to meet me on the pavement where he hops in. Sibusiso is in my Grade 10 English class, the same as Vuyani was. Except, he's failing with a mere 19% average. I asked him the other day how many times he'd been in Grade 10. He said he didn't remember. I asked, "Two times?" He shook his head, "No." "Three or four times?" Still, "No." "Five times or six times?" He said, "Mistress, I don't remember," but somehow it seemed to suggest he'd repeated this level probably 5 or 6 times.
Sibusiso is quite tall, with a simple look on his face. The other students all call him Mazino and tease him for riding with me, but he always laughs good-naturedly. If I ride into town to go grocery shopping, he comes with and waits by the door to help me carry in my groceries. If I shop at the market, he helps me barter for mangoes, tomatoes, avocadoes and naartjies. I wonder often about Sibusiso's future. Where he will end up and how he will cope. His English is severely limited and I poke at it daily, teaching him the simple differences between when, where, who and what so that I can find out more about him and his life. We haven't gotten too far. I suppose he'll just keep going to school until he finds something better to do with his time. I know, it sounds shameful of me to say.
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The 5-Muskateers. They have no names. They walk in lines across the road, sometimes in groups of 3 and 2, sometimes configurations of 4 and 1. These students study at the school just below our farm. They wear sky blue uniform shirts, always unbuttoned on their commute. One student tends to wear either a bright red or blue shirt. If it’s warm, they go bare-chested, their chests hitting the air in such a proud, determined way. The shortest, who must be age 12, always has a stern, constricted look mounted on his face. They always walk the opposite direction to which I’m driving, so I encounter their 5 faces when walking some portion of their 10+ km journey. Waving to them with a flick of my wrist is a part of my daily routine and it cracks something marvelous in their faces. Strangely, it is just important a part of my day as my morning cup of coffee.
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