I was going to wait until I had a chance to write more before posting these pictures but I was so pleased with them I couldn't hold off. These children came into Itipini's new library today, sat down, and didn't move for quite some time.
Not content with teaching the children to sing or to make funny faces, I have decided to teach the babies to walk.
The missionary is not traditionally seen as a “sexy” figure and I don’t quite know how to say this but… the young mothers and young women who come into the clinic are definitely flirting with me.
Of course, pretty much everything they say is in Xhosa. But it turns out that more than just smiles and thumbs-up are universal. So too are embarrassed giggles, blushing faces, and shy smiles, it seems. There’s also the occasional question in halting English – “What is your name?” or “How old are you?” – followed by that universal body language.
Now in English, I’d be my usual debonair and suave self (…) but in Xhosa… well, all I can really manage is, “hello, how are you, I’m fine” or “my name is Jesse.” I can also ask “what is your name?” but I have ask about a dozen times before I get it and I’m only asking so I can find their medical records. So I just sort of return the smile and play with their babies, which only excites more giggles and whispers. (As if they have to whisper – it’s not like I can understand them anyway.) Sometimes when I’m feeling particularly chivalrous, I’ll start speaking to everyone in French (that mostly just consists of calling everyone “mademoiselle” and saying “oui” a lot) I guess just to prove I can speak another language (as if they can tell it’s a different language). When I’m feeling mischievous and have to weigh a patient, I’ll secretly step on the scale or hold onto the weight to make them seem heavier than they are. But I’ve found a woman’s weight doesn’t hold quite the same existential importance here as it does in the U.S. and the women just look at me and wonder why it’s taking so long for me to weigh them.
It’s sobering when I look at their medical records to see just how much these young women, who are often several years younger than me, have experienced in their lives so far. They are experiences – pregnancy, assault, and, of course, HIV – that have never even touched my life. And yet we’re not all that different, really, just people more or less in the same age bracket playing more or less the same games people our age play all over the world.
I like to think I have fairly “enlightened” views on gender relations and have tried to demonstrate that in Itipini by, for instance, taking on traditional female roles, like getting the water for the clinic and learning to carrying sacks of corn meal on my head. And I’m realizing that my interactions with the young women in the clinic are another opportunity to do the same. I can treat their babies with the love and attention they may not receive from their fathers. I can treat the young women themselves with dignity and respect they may not receive from other males my age. I’ve known generally that in many poor communities there is a dearth of positive male role models. But I often thought such role modeling gifts as I have were primarily for the children. I didn’t realize it could apply to their mothers as well. Being a smiling and welcoming male face may not solve a lot of their problems but it’s something I can do pretty easily.
When I like to be pretentious, one of my favorite words to use is reify or reification. The word comes from the Latin word res, which literally means “thing” or “situation” and survives in English in, for instance, the word republic, which comes from the Latin phrase res publica meaning “the public thing.” (I may not always be pretentious but I’m always pedantic.) So reify means something like “to make thing-like,” i.e. to become real.
I mention all this because the word reification has been continually popping into my head as a way to describe my experience in Itipini so far. I have said frequently that I am learning a lot from working in Itipini every day but it is probably more fair to say the experience in Itipini is reifying what I already know. For instance, I knew before I arrived here that many people in the world didn’t have enough food to eat. But it is only now that I can attach particular names and faces to that bit of knowledge. I knew that HIV was endemic in South Africa and particularly affected women but it is only now that I can see the wide variety of people living with HIV and see how it affects the context and fabric of relationships in this country. I was familiar before coming here with the common stereotype of flies landing on poor African children, who are so accustomed to unsanitary conditions they do nothing to shoo the flies away. But now I can see it happening with particular flies and, more importantly, particular African children. (And I see it happening to me – and I too am getting accustomed to it and resigned to it.)
Clearly, reification deepens learning and understanding. When I speak with hungry people, I can get a sense of some of their background that has led them to be without food, stories that don’t come across in statistics. When I make friends with people who are HIV-positive, I can see how they continue to lead their lives in a dignified and proud way despite their diagnosis.
Sometimes reification and learning happen simultaneously. I must confess that one part of African life I knew very little about before moving here was school fees and just how much it costs to send children for what would be free education in the U.S. or Canada. Now, when I speak to parents they tell me just how much it costs them to send their children to get an education so that I can’t think of the issue of school fees without thinking of these particular families.
I’ve been reading some of Desmond Tutu’s sermons and writings lately. In his sermon at Steve Biko’s funeral, he talks about how reconciliation needs to happen between true persons who “assert their own personhood and acknowledge and respect that of others.” (This is a lot like a phrase I have heard frequently that we must strive to see the face of Jesus in others and have others see the face of Jesus in us.) In Tutu’s context, he was saying that peace would only come when Blacks respected themselves as Blacks but also acknowledged the contributions of Whites and vice versa. But in my context, of rich-world/poor-world relations, I think it means more that I have to see beyond statistics and stereotypes I am far too familiar with and actually see the people who are inhabiting those statistics and providing the root of the stereotypes. Because it is only then, when I see that the people I need to be reconciled to are true people with needs and concerns much like my own but expressed in a unique context, that I might be able to take some steps towards the reconciliation I am supposed to help bring about.
Mthatha, as I’ve noted before, has a definite reputation among other South Africans and, particularly, tourists. Generally speaking, it is looked upon as a crime-ridden city and I’ve been advised never to stop for a red light at night because I might be car-jacked. But up until last Thursday, I’d found the reality to be quite different and felt safe around the downtown area; out of place and different to be sure, but safe nonetheless.
I still feel safe but I have a better idea of where Mthatha’s reputation comes from. Last Thursday afternoon, in the middle of a very busy downtown, we returned to the volunteer car to discover some folks had decided our little car needed a bit more storage space and so had helpfully removed our stereo. There was nothing else loose in the car and the steering wheel had a lock on it so the car was fine. (I don’t know what happened to the much-vaunted security system, though). I hope someone else finds a stereo that gets poor reception, a tape player that makes a big clacking noise every time it plays a tape, and a clock that can’t keep time more useful than I did.
This little girl’s name is Siphisihle (that’s Xhosa for “beautiful gift”). She has tuberculosis and needs to take drugs every day. We keep them at the clinic so in an ideal world she would stop at the clinic every morning on the way to pre-school, I’d mash up the pills for her, mix them with a multi-vitamin syrup, watch her drink it, and then give her a little candy and send her on her way. But for several weeks her attendance was sporadic at best and she was missing several days of her pills.
Sometimes I say to myself, “Gee, I’ve got a great job. Every day I can play with children.” And it’s true. The pre-school children at Itipini are an ever-present part of my day and for someone like me, who has always enjoyed the joy and vitality that children bring to their surroundings, there’s a lot to love about what I get to do on a daily basis.
But I’ve been surprised lately that I’m experiencing a fair bit of frustration in my interactions with the children and only a very small bit of it is due to the language barrier. The major part of my frustration centres on dealing with hordes of children who are desperate from some part of me. When I wander over to where they are (or they come find me), I am besieged by children doing anything to get my attention. This ranges from the cute and endearing, like shouting my name, singing whatever song I’ve just been teaching, mimicking me playing the guitar, or smiling shyly at me, to the aggravating and painful, like hitting me, jumping on me, using my shirt to scale me like a rock face, and, my least favourite, tugging my hair, sometimes so hard it jerks my head back. (They make pre-school children tough and strong here.)
It is understandable to me that these children want attention from a grown-up figure. Many are so thoroughly ignored by their parents, relatives, and anyone and everyone else that they’re desperate for anything they can get. And I really sympathize with them. They have been given so little to begin with and if I can build them up a little bit just by spending time with them I want to. But it’s hard to do that when there are 20 or 30 children swarming around you. What I want is to see them in groups of two or three at a time and get to know them that way.
The situation probably isn’t helped by the fact that I’ve developed several “favourites.” I have plenty of experience as a camp counselor and know that playing favourites is just a recipe for disaster. But there are a handful of children who are so gifted and talented and capable and amazing – and it all shines right through their circumstances – that it’s impossible not to want to get to know them better. So when I seek those four or five out, the other children clamber around and want a little piece of what the four or five are getting.
My frustration with this situation has been building lately. I’ve learned the Xhosa word for “stop” (“ima”) and try to use it when my hair is pulled or I’m punched particularly hard. But when I try to speak to one particular child about their behaviour in my “stern voice” (something that has always been more comical than effective for me), they just laugh and smile and ignore me so happy to finally be getting the very attention they crave. And in the meantime five other children are punching and tugging at me.
In all of this, though, I try to keep in mind that the children are not the ones I need to be directing my aggravation at. There are larger targets, like the parents and the broader community and the economic circumstances, that are the real source of my frustration.
This past weekend was Mthatha’s annual festival, sponsored by the Rotary Club. It had all the hallmarks of something I was familiar with – people trying to sell you gadgets you don’t need, halls of mirrors, rides, lots of food, and so forth. In fact, at several points, my friends and I commented to each other that it didn’t feel like Mthatha at all.
But then we ended up in the beer tent and I learned things were a bit different than in the U.S. First off, there was rugby on the T.V. Second, the bar was shut down and when we asked why, one of the men in charge said, “Something is out of order with our license” – I think they had forgot to apply in time – “so we’ve got a couple of people down at the office right now seeing how big a bribe it’ll take to get everything sorted out.”
Not perhaps a strategy the Nome Rotary Club would have adopted to sort things out.
I've been meaning to give you a sense of Mthatha for a while but only recently ended up downtown with my camera. These shots hardly do Mthatha justice, however, as they were taken on a Saturday so it was far less busy than the weekdays when I normally have to navigate it.
Last Thursday, I took a moderately epic journey around Mthatha with our after-school program coordinator, Mkuseli (UM-coo-sell-i), dropping a few people off and mostly searching for various items for his programs and my library. I really like Mkuseli (he has a great smile but gets deadly serious when you ask to take his picture) and towards the end of the trip, I asked him to show me the Anglican church he goes to because someday we plan on going together.
After we saw the church, he insisted on taking me to his home, which was nearby. I wish I had my camera with me, both to show you what it was like but also to capture what my face looked like when I saw it. He and his wife live in a mud-brick house that is probably 10 feet by 10 feet. In that space, they cook, clean, sleep, and do everything else people normally do in their homes. I could barely move anywhere as it was so cramped.
I was first struck by how proud Mkuseli was of his home. A man’s home truly is, I guess, his castle and he showed me the various features of the house and the mementoes crammed here and there (it didn’t take long).
I was then struck by the fact that I probably have six times as much floor space as Mkuseli does, running water and electricity (most of the time), and a bathroom I don’t have to leave the house to get to. And I live all alone and Mkuseli’s daughter right now lives with a relative because there isn’t enough space for her. And Mkuseli has a full-time job, though his wife hasn’t been able to find work.
My stipend is rather small by American standards but it’s still more than twice what Mkuseli makes and I don’t even have to pay rent. Next year, when his daughter gets old enough, Mkuseli is going to have come up with the money for her school fees, books, uniform, and so on, which amounts to about 15-percent of his monthly salary.
