Losing my way............

Hallo julle,

Hoe gaan dit? Alles gaan hier baie lekker. Ek is baie bly dat ek ’n blog het. Dit is een goeie manier om myn hart te verliggen.

Life is treating me well here in SA, nothing to complain about…. Yet tonight is the first night I feel some sense of homesickness. It’s not like I want to go home or that I miss The Netherlands but I miss my dear friends and family. There are a few reasons for this, for starters, the unpleasant things I hear/witness can become quite a lot at times and because I received some bad news from a friend today, a guy I know who is younger than I am died, and those moments always get u thinking. Another reason is simply because my dear sister told me she misses me. Anyway, nothing biggy…. I will be fine!

I wish to tell you what happened last Thursday, its about on of my favorite pupils (the little boy in my FB profile pic), Dario. Dario is in a special group of children at the primary school which I do not teach but for some reason we seem to have a connection. The reason why Dario is in a special class is because he can’t function the way other children of his age, 9, can. He is supposedly 3 years old in his own mind due to his mother’s alcohol abuse during her pregnancy. I am pretty sure I mentioned that one of the big challenges this town faces is the number of drug addicts (crystal meth/marihuana etc) but I am not sure if I have mentioned the number of alcoholics here. Every day we see people sitting on the side of the street, literally drinking their lives away. So, to get back to my story, I occasionally go and look for him with Margriet, at his grandmother’s house just to spend time with him. Besides the fact that he’s got the most adorable smile ever he is also very funny and whenever I see him in the playground he comes running… Dario sometimes sneaks out of his class to be with me or just to give me a hug and that’s exactly what he did on Thursday morning while I was rehearsing a play with my own pupils. He just came to me and stayed with me to watch the other pupils rehearse. After a while his own teacher came in and looked for him. When she saw him she had is incredibly angry look on her face. She yelled at him and then smacked him SO hard! It was so insanely loud, that Margriet (who was working next doors) could hear it and came to see what the hell was happening! I mean, I know it’s “a part of their culture” but what she was doing went way too far…. I was flabbergasted, I didn’t even know what to do. Dario literally got dragged out by the teacher and another pupil while he was screaming his lungs out….. Such a horrible event…. After that, Margriet and I were so upset, we left quite immediately.

The next Monday we got there, I saw the lady again and she kept giving me dirty looks and she told another Dutch student who is working with her that she wanted to see me because “she could tell that I was saying bad things about her to Margriet and Lizelle”. Well, that’s not surprising is it!? What good is there to say about a child abuser? Right, so I was mentally prepared to start a war with her and walked up to her quite pissed off but she kept her cool which eventually calmed me down. We had a long discussion about the way she handled the situation, how smacking kids is illegal, how she could hit a 9 year old who isn’t even in a healthy mental state, how she shouldn’t take out her frustration out on pupils (physically or verbally) and how she’d feel if a teacher would smack her kids. She, at the same time told me she is a loving teacher, how much she loves kids, that it was the first time she had ever punished a child that way, how much she struggles with Dario and how he never listens to her…. It was pretty much an endless discussion as she was throwing in all kinds of arguments that still weren’t justifying her behavior that day. She was never going to convince me or to make me believe that she is all good, loving and innocent so I just ended up saying to her that I hope she won’t do it again (to any child) and that I will send Dario straight back to his class when he comes to see me outside intervals because I don’t want him to get into trouble.

I find it difficult to deal with these kind of situations sometimes. When you see something happening in front of you that’s wrong, what do you do? If I say something about it, will it help or will it become worse? Who am I to tell those people what’s appropriate behavior and what’s not? Margriet and I find ourselves in awkward positions sometimes (teachers with inappropriate behavior, aggressive teachers and learners) but I am glad we have each other and that we can always talk about it with our project coordinator and the other Dutch students.
Alright, that was the bad thing I wanted to share with you.

I think I am starting to notice a certain pattern when I am blogging: I always tell you a sad and a happy story…

I will wite a short summary of my weekend and tell you about what happened today. Last weekend: On Saturday we went shopping and took the coastal route home. We stopped to lay down on the beach but it was too windy and we couldn’t stay on the beach for too long because it felt like we were laying in the middle of a sandstorm which I didn’t mind at all because it was a good opportunity for us to go watch the penguins and that’s what we did! The penguins were cute and there were sooo many of them! I don't think I have ever seen so many of them in my entire life! Once we left the cute penguins, we drove home and had to get ready for a BBQ party that was organized for a group of students from North Carolina (USA) and we were invited too! The students were studying history and came here to compare the history of the civil rights in SA & USA. We had a very good time and met some very cool people there.

On Sunday we went to church. The reason Margriet and I wanted to go is because our pupils always go and we wanted to see what it was like in their church. Funny enough, the Americans decided they would go too. It was nice to see them and we grabbed lunch together before they left for Cape Town. It is a pity they had to leave so soon because they were awesome and Margriet and I were happy to get some “total immersion” to say it in a TEFL way!

Okay one last thing I want to share with you…. I absolutely love teaching that grade ten class I mentioned last time. The fact that their slightly older than most of our pupils means that you can have deeper conversations with them. Today I asked all pupils to bring lyrics to their favorite song to school so they could share with the class why it was their favorite song and what it was about. One pupil ended up singing Justin Timberlake’s song: Losing my way. It was so touching… Not because he’s “The Voice of SA” but because of the song he chose and it’s lyrics.

The reason why this certain pupil and song made such a huge impression on me is because this isn’t merely a song, it is pretty much the story for a lot of young people in Genadendal or even SA.

For those who don’t know the song, it is definitely worth listening to and here’s a part of it’s lyrics:

Hi my name is Bob and I work at my job
I make 40 some dollars a day
I used to be the man in my home town
Until I started to lose my way
It all goes back to when I dropped out of school
Havin fun I was living the life
But now I got a problem with that little white rock
See I cant put down the pipe

And it is breaking me down
Watching the world spin 'round
While my dreams fall down
Is anybody out there?
It is breaking my down
No more friends around
And my dreams fall down
Is anybody out there?
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Okay, I think I managed to get some weight off my shoulders and I realize I am ending on a sad note which I (once again) apologize for…. But I am sure you’ll forgive me for that :)

Totsiens myn skatties… Goeienag en soete drome!