HEY TEACHER, LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE

This year our days are jam packed with teaching, teaching and more teaching. Our day starts at Siseko JSS which is about 10 km’s from here, so every morning a taxi bakkie collects us and as we bounce to school on the gravel roads, I practice my Xhosa on the driver. His English isn’t too wonderful but he enjoys helping me build up my Xhosa vocabulary and laughs at some of my pronunciation attempts.

We really enjoy teaching at Siseko JSS as the principal is serious about education. The classrooms are tiny and 2 grades are squashed up in a single classroom. Many learners sit 3 to one desk. Some desks are broken or have tops made of hardboard which is disintegrating at the corners and some students can’t fit their legs under the low tables. None of these factors make writing an easy mission. One grade face their teacher in the front while the other half face their teacher at the back of the classroom. I can’t imagine how this situation works effectively. The grade 1’s don’t have desks, just a plastic chair, many of which are broken so writing is not an option. Their little faces light up when I enter the class and I always bring a teddy bear, a coloured ball, a floppy hat, home made alphabet flashcards or some sort of realia to make the lessons interesting. They love pleasing me and they are so eager to shout out the answer and sometimes they can’t contain themselves and they rush forward, shouting missy missy, with their little arms reaching up and their face scrunched up as they shout “f for fish”. As cute as they are, I prefer teaching the Grade 5 and 6 class since, even though there are a few boys who don’t really try and can’t really read, never mind speak English, I find it easier to teach them since, as a class, they are able to understand me much better and I teach them grammar in fun activities with realia, role playing and they absolutely love competitions.

Its difficult teaching 2 grades at a time since they are not all at the same level of competency and I can’t use their prescribed English work books since each grade’s book is different. I therefore have to create my own lesson plan every day. Generally, they need basic sentence structure lessons since they’ve had no experience expressing themselves in English.

The principal is very keen to improve teaching at his school but the challenges are tough. The teachers are keen to welcome his new rule as of this year, based on ideas which we’ve presented to him, using English in all lessons as the first change but unfortunately their grasp of English is very poor. Do the maths! They are not very imaginative in creative lessons and games such as Eye Spy are as foreign to them as umfino, the much loved wild leafy vegetable, was to us.

We teach at Qolora By Sea in the afternoons for an hour but unfortunately by then, the teachers at this school are either in some sort of meeting or something or other and the learners are unruly which makes teaching there not very pleasant. We are barely into the year and we feel demoralized having to deal with this schools lack of interest in dedicated teaching. The only thing keeping me there are the little ones who run to meet us at the gate and fight for a chance to hold our hands. My skin and hair are quite a fascination point with all the young kids at both schools. We would much rather teach at Isolomzi, the high school over the hill, where that principal is doing a wonderful job of offering his learners a good education. He has a team of dedicated teachers and the first rule of the school is that only English is spoken after entering the school gates. Mr Butshingi, the principal, is not very popular with the other schools and is considered a tyrant but he just produced a matric pass rate of 75% and many distinctions to boast of. He only has about 25 learners per class since not many students around here want to attend his school as the expectations are too high for them. Alternatively, Tjali High, which is over the other hill, is a totally different setup. They are fed by about 5 junior schools in the area. They have 6 grade 12 classes, each with 80 plus learners per class, 4 grade 11 classes, also with about 80 learners per class and not much less grade 10’s. Teachers go there to do crowd control more than teach.



We open the Qolora Education Centre from 3 to 5pm during the week for the local kids who come around. Some just come because they enjoy being there and have nothing better to do but some enjoy the English and Maths handouts which we’ve been giving them to do lately. I’ve gotten the little ones to read to me in the past, but as of yet, none of the older children have shown any real interest in actually reading a challenging book. At 5 o clock I tutor a couple of students from Tjali high school, 2 walk the 10 km’s 2 or 3 times a week for my English lesson (and computer lessons) which I give them before walking all the way back home again. I’ve asked them what challenges they face at Tjali High School and they tell me that besides sharing desks, some students don’t have textbooks. Also, some students stay after school to hide a chair for themselves to use the next day. Half of the first period is usually wasted by teachers trying to resolve chair ownership issues. I guess some students just have to stand for the lesson due to the shortage of chairs. I believe the one and only maths teacher will be leaving in a month or two and will not be replaced. Abongile also told me of her concerns that when it rains, the long drop toilets get flooded and can’t be used.

Many learners drop out along the way. I can’t imagine why, can you?

It’s just the bare necessities, the simply bare necessities of life.

It’s just the bare necessities, the simply bare necessities of life.


I wonder if I’ll ever understand the ways of the Xhosa people here. I’ve only been here a month so naturally it’s way too soon to even imagine that I’m close to knowing what makes them tick.

The cultural village rondavels where we are staying has given me lots to mull over. A few years ago some or other concern, I think it was the department of water conservation, pumped a lot of money into this development centre and it seems as though this place pumped. There is a massive woodwork rondavel where they made cupboards, chairs, blinds and screens from bamboo. At the leather rondavel, it seems as though hundreds of leather shoes, key rings, book covers and bags were produced. The dusty filing cabinets filled with fishmoth riddled paperwork indicates that different skills were taught here but when the development group left, for what ever reason I don’t presume to know, things just stopped. The fence has fallen down around vegetable garden which is now a field but the nursery is still standing although the sprinkler system doesn’t work anymore and in fact none of the taps around here work since apparently the road construction diggerloader rode over and broke all the irrigation piping at the project rondavels. The handful of crafter women left over from the project just sit around waiting for a miracle or for someone to fix things. That’s the way things appear to be from an outsider point of view. When I questioned Mandisa, who is making a desperate, albeit futile, effort to get things going again in some way, about the possibility of selling the machines for scrap and using the money constructively she showed concern that the people who ran the programme before, might return and demand their equipment back. The programme ended in 2004, which was 8 years ago and the sewing machine, the pattern press and the R100 000 or R200 000 woodwork saw is now a scrap of rusty metal from rotting outside in the rain ever since that rondavel roof caved in. About 4 or 5 women, Mandisa’s team, still come down here occasionally. They have made a few crafts and planted a few seedlings in the nursery which they want to sell but don’t have an offset. We mentioned to Faneka, one of these women that there is an opportunity right here on our doorstep to cook food for the 20 or so construction workers who are building a road here and who Mandisa rents out a few rondavels to for a site office and accommodation for couple of the workers. She seems very keen and wants to learn to cook but has missed out on the past 6 months that the workers have been here. There’s no electricity in the kitchen here but there is a lovely big gas stove and an empty gas bottle. She doesn’t have the know how or the money to lay out to get started. We hope to get this project going soon and I will write about its progress.

A lawyer from Cape Town has sometime ago, kindly sponsored stacks of books and computers which are in another rondavel here. I don’t know why but no-one ever bothered unpacking the books before so this week Theo and I helped ourselves to some of the dusty bamboo shelves from the woodwork rondavel and I’ve unpacked all the boxes, sorted and alphabetized all the books. The library now has one whole rack of wonderful reference books, another with great fiction books and a third with lovely story books for the younger children. There are even another two racks of high school text books which I’ve unpacked as well as a bunch of puzzles for the kids to do. Apparently during the school term, the high school kids come down here to use the computers but there’s no-one around to teach them so I don’t know how much they get used.

So, as a 1st world city person you are probably shaking your head, tsking away about the backward way things happen here. Let me tell you about a few other things which have come to my notice recently. A few days ago I asked Mandisa where she lived, assuming her house was over the road or down past the general dealer since, when she does pitch up here, she arrives at about 9 o clock in the morning and her 3 kids go to school where we teach which is down the road next to the general dealer. She turned around and pointed to the hill in the distance and told me that her house was way over there, more than 5km’s away and that’s why sometimes her children can’t go to school because when it rains, they can’t cross the river. Wow. So they don’t just jump into their double cab and drop the kids off at school when the weather is bad like the folks do back home. A few afternoons ago, 2 matric students pitched up at the computer room to see what was happening after hearing that we were here. They stayed a while, fiddling on the computers, playing music and we chatted in English. I offered to help them with homework projects etc when school starts again in 2 weeks time. Soon thereafter they said they had to leave before it got dark since they had to walk home. They live 10 km away from here so I guess they will spend a huge chunk of their afternoons walking to and from the library in their efforts to get their homework done to pass matric. No internet access at this library or in their bedroom at home so that they can cut copy paste like the kids do back home who prepare for the same matric paper. Today being Saturday is shopping day for many people here. It was raining so I stood in my rondavel doorway watching the countryside get wet and I noticed 3 women walking in the distance. They were on their way over the hill, laden with shopping balanced on their heads and clutching bags in both arms. I wondered how far they had walked already or how far they still had to go or whether they first needed to make a fire to cook dinner since I doubted they were carrying take away Pizzas to feed their families. Every day this week I’ve seen a bunch of kids with buckets on their heads off collecting water somewhere. Half the village’s water has been off for nearly a week again and it’s the 2nd time since we moved in here but luckily there is a rain tank here at the nursery where Theo fills our 20 litre plastic containers. I’m waiting for the water to come on again before I can do my washing in my fancy Sputnik washing machine which I proudly showed to some of the women here who admired it. Many of the people here do have those big green rainwater tanks but they don’t exactly run through to a tap in their kitchen or bathroom like they do in the city so you fill a bucket manually to wash dishes or your body. We have electricity in our rondavel (well we run an extension lead from the site office 60m away) so I’m thankful that I can quickly first boil my water and not have to make a fire first every time.

Last night we visited at Tim’s house (our new friend who I’ll tell you all about later) for a braai and a welcome shower. One of his workers, Doemesan, who had lingered a little later than usual and didn’t go home when the rest did, ended up hanging around for about 3 hours waiting for the moon to come out. He had to walk home, I don’t know how far but I do know that he also lives over the hill and had to walk through the river and his only light was the full moon which only rose at about 10 o clock. There’s a bus which runs to Kentani then on to Butterworth daily but that’s at 7 in the morning so great if you work there (I doubt anyone here does) or need to go there for shopping but otherwise around here after work (the lucky handful who do while the rest live on a government grant) you walk home no matter how far it is. Doemesan said we are teaching at the wrong school and that we should rather come over the hill nearer to his house to teach at the poor school where his kids go. I didn’t even know that there was another primary school other than the high school 15 km’s from here so I wonder if it’s as modern as the one we teach at which has an actual building and even has electricity in most of the 8 classrooms.

I haven’t even scratched the surface yet of finding out what these peoples dreams or ambitions are or what makes them happy or sad so I know that I have a lot to learn. What I have figured out so far is that the Xhosa people here have basic daily needs to attend to, like being able to get to school, access to water, collecting firewood and a simple thing which I take for granted such as the time of day is pertinent to going somewhere on foot like the library to learn how to type and still make it home before dark and definitely not what time the Cape Town Museum closes or what time the next episode of National Geographics is shown on the dish. Fanciful and complicated ideas like starting ones own business or the desire to know the diet of Eskimos are not high on the list of the adults here in Transkei. I on the other hand, once again forgot to close the door down at the ablution rondavel and now the goats have left what looks like 5 kg’s of chocolate coated raisons all over the floor. Oh Dear.



So, look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities of life. Forget about your worries and your strife. I mean the bare necessities, old Mother Nature’s recipes that brings the bare necessities of life. Wherever I wonder, wherever I roam I couldn’t be fonder of my big home.