Nozuko Matric Tie Ceremony

In South Africa, students doing grade 12 are not called “seniors;” they are called “Matriculates.” This is because at the end of 12^th grade, the students take their Matric exams. This is a nation-wide standardized test that similar to the ACT or the SAT that we take in the states, except that it not only decides your eligibility to college, but also if you pass 12^th grade as a whole. You could have straight A’s in class, but if you fail your Matric exam, you have to take the whole year over. With that in mind, I will tell you that Matric is a BIG DEAL. In this part of the country where education has many problems and is sorely lacking, it is a big deal to even make it to your Matric year in high school. For those who do make it to Matric, it is a great achievement and one that students are very proud of. So when I was asked a month or so ago to be a “guest speaker at an upcoming event,” I didn’t realize that what I was actually agreeing to was to be the guest speaker at this year’s Matric Tie Ceremony. This is a ceremony that happens at the beginning of the year where all of the Matric students are given their special Matric ties. Their ties are different from the other students (keep in mind that all schools are uniform-wearing) and they say their school name and MATRIC 2012 on them. Each tie is placed around a student’s neck by a parent, aunt, sibling, or family friend. The purpose of the ceremony and of the ties is to motivate students to keep working hard, to congratulate them on their success, and to serve as a constant reminder to those students that they are the example now. People keep these ties even after they are out of school the same way that people in the States keep their tassels from graduation.  Because many of the students who start their Matric year don’t graduate and because students do not find out their Matric exam marks until after the school year is finished, this ceremony is, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent in scale and importance to a high school graduation ceremony in the States. When I found this out (after I had already agreed), I kind of panicked. BUT… I had plenty of time to prepare and my speech went over very well, if I do say so myself. The ceremony itself was an occasion to be reckoned with. There was singing and dancing and food and a DJ. There were proud parents and family members and all of the students from Nozuko (plus some students from neighboring schools). It was loud and raucous and joyful and, unlike US graduation ceremonies, it was not at all dull. It went on for hours, but it was so entertaining that no one seemed to mind. I was so honored to be asked to speak to these students and also very aware of what it would mean to them to have someone from overseas as their guest speaker. For them, it was something extra special and prestigious even though I see myself as an average Joe. I hope I motivated them and I hope that my words didn’t go in one ear and out the other. However, if they did, I’m still glad that I could make that ceremony something even more special for the Nozuko S.S.S. Matriculates of 2012. 

Here's a short video recap and some pictures for you all. Enjoy!

Proud parents/aunts/uncles officially bestowing the Matric ties.

Proud mama.

A newly "tied" Matric student!

Uxolo,

Karen 

Progress

Last Friday, we had a group come out to Itipini called Arm in Arm. They are a group from a Methodist Church in Massachusetts that comes every year to bring medical supplies and things for the kids. This year they not only brought us a heap of all kinds of medications, but also brought beaucoups of blankets, dresses for the preschool girls, and these handmade crochet bears for all of the children. All of the kids were, of course, overjoyed and pandemonium ensued. In the end, everyone had a bear, a holographic bookmark, stickers, and some marshmallows. It was fun to see how much the kids enjoyed their gifts and also quite interesting to talk to some of the adults. The most interesting part in talking to many of the adults who were seeing Itipini for the first time was getting to glimpse how they viewed Itipini. Several people made comments full of pity for the Itipini community and others went out of their way to take pictures of barefoot kids next to pigs instead of taking pictures of the garden or the wood workshop or high school tutoring room. I found myself fervently defending the community as I was talking to people who asked me questions like, “How do you deal with how hopeless this place is?” of “Do you think what you do here actually makes any difference?”

 I found that some of the things they said and did really irritated me at first because they were missing the point completely. The more I thought about it, though, the more I came to realize that many of those things they said and did were things that I too said and did in my first few weeks/months here. On the surface the place does look incredibly hopeless and, from a distance, it sometimes looks like what we do there has no impact. It’s only been in getting to know this place and these people and this culture that I have been able to see a clearer picture of the dynamics of Itipini. It’s only because I have had time that I understand (or at least am beginning to) the ways in which the Project is working in subtle but long-lasting ways.  In a single example, we only have five TB patients right now. Less than 5 years ago, there were 20 or 30 at any given time. Our current 5 patients are also after a group of nurses came in from the municipality last month and went door to door to all the shacks and tested everyone they could. An old volunteer, Jesse, used to make daily rounds to administer shots of Streptomycin to all the TB patients who couldn’t make it up to the clinic because they were too weak. Today, we have no patients on Streptomycin which is what they give you when you have a really severe case of TB. So not only do we only have 5 TB patients, but they are all generally mild cases. In summation, because of the patient and diligent work of the clinic, there is very little TB left in a place where it used to run rampant.

I think many people, especially Americans, are always very anxious to see immediate results. We feel fulfilled if we can see the fruits of our labor quickly, quantify the outcomes, and recount them to others. Real progress, however, is something that is slow and organic. It is something that is less ‘problem and solution’ and more ‘transition period’.  It is something that takes time to grow and time to form. Real progress is also something that you can’t always see when you’re in the midst of it. It’s not something that can be boiled down into numbers and figures or fleeting moments of instant-gratification. It is not something that HAPPENS, but rather something that BECOMES when a group of people work and live together. Real progress is always two steps forward and one step back and is always, always endless amounts of patience and perseverance. Real progress starts by really listening to what people are saying and by really seeing what is going on around you. 

Jeff, Sister Dorothy, and Mrs. Twala with an entire counter full of medicines, supplies, bears, and blankets!

The veranda packed with visitors and excited children.

Handing out the crocheted bears.

The world's most adorable crocheted bears.

The kids and their new bears!

Really cool holographic cards that the kids got

Uxolo, 

Karen

A Long Awaited Visit

For the past two weeks, I’ve been able to enjoy the much missed company of my boyfriend, Jeff, and it was marvelous. We worked hard at the clinic and beyond and spent as much time as we could exploring Mthatha and the Wild Coast. I feel like it was the most intense two weeks since I’ve been here, but we could have done nothing and I would have been happy just to have his company. This way, though, we got to enjoy company and adventure! I am so thankful that he had the chance to come out and see Mthatha, Itipini, and the Wild Coast first hand. These are things that, no matter how much I try, I can never really explain to people and I’m glad he got to experience them. That we got to experience them together. It's the vitality of shared experience that really makes the entire thing worth emptying our bank accounts to make it happen. It was also really nice to feel like I was home again. Just having him around reminded me of all of the things I love about Oklahoma. So (before I start getting to sappy), I’ll end by summing it all up simply: It was a GREAT last two weeks!

Jeff made quick friends with the Itipini kids which called him uJesu which means "Jesus"!

I let one of the kids use my camera!

Shootin' pool with the boys in the Itipini rec room.

In the minibus taxi on our way to Coffee Bay - right after I threw up out the window. Twice.

Jeff and Nolitile, a Xhosa woman from the area that was walking home and stopped to come and join us on the grass just to chat. Between her broken English and my broken Xhosa, we managed to have a really nice conversation.

We were working with number series in tutoring and Jeff got really excited when one of the series they were supposed to solve was the Fibbonacci Sequence!

This is the sign that we put on our door the first night he was here. These are our Xhosa names: Mvuyisi (Jeff) means "bringer of happiness" and Nofikile (me) means "I have arrived" (the "no" inbetween simply means "and" or "with").

High School "Study Skills" Sessions

Now that school is back in session and everyone is registered, uniforms are bought, and school fees are paid, the real fun begins. Since arriving in August, I’ve been having Friday tutoring sessions with a handful of high school students where, together, we work on homework and chat about what is going on at school and home. I had consistently had about 6 students coming and it was a great group to be working with in a small setting. Now that the new year has started, we are revamping the entire program. During the kid’s summer break, I took down all of the boring medical posters that were on the walls and painted the room so that is it much more vibrant and contemporary. It now looks like a high school room. The students all have added their handprints to the wall and, thanks to a generous donation from a few folks at Saint Dunstan’s, we now have a large dry erase board to work math problems on together! The program has jumped from one day a week with around 6 students to three days a week and about 25 students! We’ve split up according to grade so that we can work on the problems all together as a group and so that the group size stays small enough for them to still get individual attention. This means much longer hours at Itipini for me, but I never fail to find myself feeling enlivened and exuberant after every session. In other words, it doesn’t feel like work at all. These kids are really great kids and they all have such a drive for learning (not to mention great senses of humor). Another new addition is starting this week, we are going to have one of the ladies make sandwiches, fruit, and juice for the students to eat while we have our study sessions, which is GREAT. Most of these kids do not get to eat lunch at school. This is a wonderful addition in that we will have some social time while we eat before diving into school work and they will also study better when they are happy and fed. It’s also a great incentive for them to keep coming, although so far they have all been there every week without the presence of food.

What kinds of things do we work on, do you say?

Last week, my matriculates (high school seniors) and I worked on Shakespeare – something that is daunting when English is your first language, much less your second. We spent lots of time sifting through the irregular grammar, rearranging sentences, and learning lots of new vocabulary words. “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediment,” was the opening line of the sonnet and took us the longest to get through. With Grade 11, we’re working on math and accounting. Last week, we set up a fictional business and discussed all of the things it would take to open and maintain a guest house successfully. My tenth graders and I are immersed deeply in basic algebra and last week, while working through a set of problems together (and doing pretty terribly at it), there came a point where they all collectively had this “Aha” moment. They all kind of went, “yooooooo,” at the same time and then proceeded to work the last two problems perfectly!  It was a really rewarding moment for everyone. Oh! And here’s the icing on the cake for school work so far. Two weeks ago, the 11^th graders had to write an essay about the saying, “True love conquers all.” We had an open discussion about what true love is and what kinds of things it might help you “conquer” and how which, I have to say, was an absolutely gripping conversation. After that, they set off to work on them over the weekend and I told them to bring them back this week so I could see how they’d done. My favorite line of all of the essays was from Baliswa’s paper, in which she stated, “True love conquers all things except poverty and toothaches.”

This may be something that can go without saying, but I really enjoy working with high school students. This is something I knew about myself before coming because I’ve done a lot of work with youth and high school students though the Diocese of Oklahoma, but these study sessions really drive that point home to me. It is incredible to have to opportunity to organize and structure this whole program in a way that is fitting for the students and myself.  It’s a really freeing feeling to have a blank canvas and room to make this program whatever we want it to be/whatever it needs to be. We have an awesome dynamic going and I’m really looking forward to this school year. I will keep you all updated with amusing high school tales throughout the year!

Some of the crew, kicking off the year on the veranda!

In the High School "room" (ie. a shipping storage container) with abahlobo (friends)!

Uxolo,
Karen

Another Itipini Invention

This is the best use of free government condoms ever! The South African government would be proud. Haha!

Living into the Fullness of Life

I was talking with a good friend of mine the other day about present day technology and how, in the Western world, we are often living life in an artificial reality. We use social networking tools like Facebook, emails, texting, etc. almost obsessively and life is often put through these filters before reaching us. Likewise, we live outwardly with these filters, as well. She admitted to me that the other day, she was on Facebook on her computer and got out her smart phone and logged into Facebook on there at the same time. And I don’t think that is uncommon for a lot of people. We have unlimited access to information via the internet and tend to live vicariously through that instead of living our own lives in the moment. The longer I am here, the more I am aware of this change in how I live. Here, where few people have computers and cell phones are used as a means to contact rather than communicate, I feel less bound by technology. Subsequently, I feel more connected with my life, with this place, and with the people around me. I feel more whole. I have the time and the space to feel and experience life in all of its complexities and live into that mystery.  I feel less rushed, less pressured. Even if my days are filled with work and are no less hectic than they were in the States (it’s possible they are more hectic), I find that it feels less like work. It feels less strenuous. I don’t dread waking up in the mornings or constantly look forward to the weekend; I just live each day as it comes and revel in all of the small joys that are scattered throughout the day.  Maybe it is because society here is more relaxed. It’s not that I do less work in a day, but that it comes as it comes instead of having constant deadlines and a pressure to do things diligently. That’s not to say that I don’t do things diligently and efficiently (I do), but just having that absence of constant pressure makes everything much more enjoyable because I’m living into my work instead of being burdened by it. On top of that, my life here is much more dependent upon nature. I only eat fruits and vegetables that are in season, plans and chores are often dictated by the weather, and my power and water supply are often dependent upon the weather as well. Because of that, I feel infinitely more connected to the earth as well as with society. This lifestyle suits me. It fills up all of those pieces that I often felt were missing in the States.

I think this will be one of my major hurtles in moving back to the States. It is going to be very hard to readjust to a life that, from my point-of-view here, seems more sterile and more controlled. Things in the States are often so rigid and unwavering. Things have to be done NOW. If it’s storming outside, you strap on a pair of rain boots and grab and umbrella and go to the store anyway. Here, you just make do with what you have for the night and go to the store tomorrow, taking advantage of a free evening. Why has this constant pressure to preform overtaken our lives in the States? Why are we always on edge with these menial tasks that just have to be done for no other reason than getting them done? Why does that constant pressure have to exist when people will do work of their own accord for the simple fact that we, as humans, are inclined to make use of ourselves and those things around us? We find joy in accomplishment and good work naturally. So why is it that we so often corrupt that joy by making our work something that is no longer enjoyable?

Uxolo,
Karen

Courage

COURAGE

Oh Lord, give me courage

To do good things

Give me courage

To do the things I want to do

Without being afraid of what other people say

Give me courage to be different. 

AMEN.

Giving and Living

 Earlier this week, I wrote a blog about gratitude and the frustration I’ve been having with feeling walked-on lately. I don’t like that post; it was short-sighted and self-centered. I came across something this week that gave me pause, helped mend some of my wounds and reconcile with some of the frustrations I’ve run into recently. Funnily enough, it was on the AMM website under a section about volunteering that I (ironically) hadn’t read before. Why I felt compelled to peruse the AMM website yesterday, I don’t know, but it seems like I went almost immediately to this:

“Do not give to the poor expecting to get their gratitude so that you can feel good about yourself. If you do, your giving will be thin and short-lived, and that is not what the poor need; it will only impoverish them further. Give only if you have something to give; give only if you are someone for whom giving is its own reward.”

It made me stop and think about the nature of giving rather than of receiving and what could be the downfalls of both of these, if not done with grace. It made me think about the fact that I am here because I want to give and I want to share who I am and what I have. I want to receive who other people are and what they have. And even if things don’t go the way I think they should, it doesn’t mean that things are going wrong. Things are just going differently than I’d planned. And that’s okay; the universe will never cow-tow to my every whim, nor would I want it to. Living life in all of its fullness – in all of its joys, sorrows, pains, and complications -  is what I am meant to do. It is what we are all meant to do. It’s not about the destination and it’s not about getting to the next high point or trying to weasel your way out of a cork-screw loop; it’s about the ride. It’s about the experience. And this is all part of that, good and bad. It is all part of life.

On a completely unrelated note, I wanted to share this picture of one of our Itipini kids, Xolelwa! (I’ve been trying to find a place to put squeeze it in)

Uxolo,

Karen