Molweni!
It’s really interesting to try to string together such a variety of moving experiences. Some aspects of my life here (speaking specifically of South African experiences, obviously I’m still very connected to many of my roots and relationships back home) are exciting and cool, some are disheartening and frustrating, some are inspiring. Some cause smiles, some cause yawning, some cause anger. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with such a variety of experiences. I think in some senses it is helping me to understand the diversity of experiences we all share, whether it’s in South Africa, or Boston, or Rochester. Anyway…
One of those experiences was a weekend trip to Hogsback, which is a tiny town situated in the middle of some awesome mountains and cool outdoorsy stuff. The place is BEAUTIFUL! Almost 15 hours of hiking over two days, waterfalls, amateur rock climbing, campfires, meeting new people at the backpacker joint, sunrises over the mountains, and just general natural beauty made for a cool weekend. There are some pictures up on the site, though the pictures in no way do any justice to the physical beauty of the place. Sweeeetttt. I guess I would say that Hogsback was one of the fun, cool, and inspiring experiences.
Yesterday I went with Matt and Sarah (two full time volunteers/teachers from the United States…they RULE!) to an after-school program they teach at up in the middle of the mountains/hills around Grahamstown at a Benedictine monastery. I’ll be doing a little tutoring and hanging out with the kids for a couple hours every Tuesday. Yesterday I spent most of the time working one-on-one with Bongisani, an eighth-grader, on outlining an essay on trade unions in South Africa. It seemed to be a pretty heavy topic for a student in eighth grade, but I think it is totally cool that such an important and practical aspect of the history and identity of South Africa would be an essay topic. I also got to apply some of my knowledge of the role of unions in organizing workers and challenging apartheid from my South African History and Politics course last semester at BC. I think we’ve still got a ways to go on the English and writing skills, but we got a decent outline to start.
That brings up another thing. The whole teaching English aspect. Education and literacy is such an incredibly valuable tool for every person. Around here, it is very difficult to get any sort of job (if there are even any available with such a high unemployment rate) without speaking English well. So one way to work on that issue is to teach English to students and other people so they are better equipped themselves to grasp the language of business and public relations here. In one sense this is a good thing representing positive progress in educating and empowering people, but it also seems to be an extension of neo-colonialism with English as the dominating language. English is a second or even third language for the vast majority of indigenous Africans and also some Afrikaner people. I suppose that you have to work with what you’ve got, though. And multi-lingualism is pretty sweet. A lot of the young kids are better multi-lingual speakers than I am. Although it’s only a couple hours a week, I’m pretty excited to keep working with them.
It’s really interesting to try to string together such a variety of moving experiences. Some aspects of my life here (speaking specifically of South African experiences, obviously I’m still very connected to many of my roots and relationships back home) are exciting and cool, some are disheartening and frustrating, some are inspiring. Some cause smiles, some cause yawning, some cause anger. Sometimes I don’t know what to do with such a variety of experiences. I think in some senses it is helping me to understand the diversity of experiences we all share, whether it’s in South Africa, or Boston, or Rochester. Anyway…
One of those experiences was a weekend trip to Hogsback, which is a tiny town situated in the middle of some awesome mountains and cool outdoorsy stuff. The place is BEAUTIFUL! Almost 15 hours of hiking over two days, waterfalls, amateur rock climbing, campfires, meeting new people at the backpacker joint, sunrises over the mountains, and just general natural beauty made for a cool weekend. There are some pictures up on the site, though the pictures in no way do any justice to the physical beauty of the place. Sweeeetttt. I guess I would say that Hogsback was one of the fun, cool, and inspiring experiences.
Yesterday I went with Matt and Sarah (two full time volunteers/teachers from the United States…they RULE!) to an after-school program they teach at up in the middle of the mountains/hills around Grahamstown at a Benedictine monastery. I’ll be doing a little tutoring and hanging out with the kids for a couple hours every Tuesday. Yesterday I spent most of the time working one-on-one with Bongisani, an eighth-grader, on outlining an essay on trade unions in South Africa. It seemed to be a pretty heavy topic for a student in eighth grade, but I think it is totally cool that such an important and practical aspect of the history and identity of South Africa would be an essay topic. I also got to apply some of my knowledge of the role of unions in organizing workers and challenging apartheid from my South African History and Politics course last semester at BC. I think we’ve still got a ways to go on the English and writing skills, but we got a decent outline to start.
That brings up another thing. The whole teaching English aspect. Education and literacy is such an incredibly valuable tool for every person. Around here, it is very difficult to get any sort of job (if there are even any available with such a high unemployment rate) without speaking English well. So one way to work on that issue is to teach English to students and other people so they are better equipped themselves to grasp the language of business and public relations here. In one sense this is a good thing representing positive progress in educating and empowering people, but it also seems to be an extension of neo-colonialism with English as the dominating language. English is a second or even third language for the vast majority of indigenous Africans and also some Afrikaner people. I suppose that you have to work with what you’ve got, though. And multi-lingualism is pretty sweet. A lot of the young kids are better multi-lingual speakers than I am. Although it’s only a couple hours a week, I’m pretty excited to keep working with them.
