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.