Study Abroad students competed in an essay contest about their experiences abroad. The winners of the contest will be featured in The Senntinel over the course of the month.
A fly, that had most likely wafted in through the open window, floated lazily back and forth, making certain to pay a visit to each of our sweat-shined faces. For a while, it was the only sound present – a familiar one, most likely, for the dusty classroom. I looked around with a growing anxiety as children’s voices drifted along the doorway, with a few materializing into grinning entities that planted themselves into plastic lawn chairs around our oblong table. My seat, though, was a padded office chair: the teacher’s seat. I felt like anything but a teacher. On the first day, I rolled around nervously there at the end of the table, attempting to maintain an air of authority with an excellent posture and clutched hands, which struck me as futile because frankly, the ninth graders before me stood at almost the same height or taller than I.
We spent those first few sessions standing our ground, communicating with confused glances as I flailed my arms around and scribbled pictures on scraps of paper. Many times they would feel overwhelmed as I directed a question toward them, and they sunk into their creaking plastic chairs shyly in defeat. The language barrier was as permissive as the graffiti-ornamented concrete wall that enclosed Kayamandi itself. The kids struggled with the intricacies of the English language, and mumbled to each other with the characteristic clicks and drops of the Xhosa language most of the time. I realized that for this to work, I would have to get experimental with my techniques. Many times a certain flustered student would scamper into my room after class and place a text-heavy worksheet in front of me. “How to do it, teacher?” he would stutter, not even being able to attempt the first sentence of the instructions.
I once read that the more abstract ideas one associates with a concept, the better he or she internalizes it. I would print out colorful pictures and graphs – with the least amount of writing possible . Sometimes, when my worksheets contained a bit of text, I would go around the table and ask each of them to read a section out loud in English and then explain it to the class in Xhosa. For lessons on material transparency, I’d point to the table, to the scratched windows, to my cellphone, and inquire “is this opaque? Is it translucent? Is it transparent?” after letting them pronounce and see the words written on paper. For my lesson on bacteria, an empty yoghurt cup introduced the idea that bacteria can be “good” as well, seeing that they saw the word “acidophilus” written in the ingredients. When I made them tests, I would praise their mistakes and ask them to write the correct answer in a bright color, reminding them that to learn from their mistakes is nothing to be ashamed of. I secretly hope that someday, while looking through their hand-bound cardboard notebooks, they find these and remember just that.
After spending time in the wealthy suburbs of Cape Town, I loved my weekly escape to Kayamandi, where the scenery changed dramatically upon arrival. There would always be at least one pack of barefooted toddlers exploring the alleys of shacks as their mothers washed clothing in buckets under the waning African sun. Dusty old stray dogs were never far behind; they panted in the shadows as if overseeing the situation. Children seldom failed to acknowledge me or anyone as “Sisi” or “Bhuti,” Xhosa for sister or brother. They did not see color, but instead community. They were all each other’s sister, brother, mother, or father – the ideas of ”self” and “mine” were vague there in Kayamandi, in stark contrast to the western world where we often disappear into the crevices of our mansions, sometimes wishing only for the company of a reflective screen on a television or laptop.
It was my last day. My transport was eager to leave before nightfall and an impending rainstorm and we had to run through the rain, through a few alleys, to get to a small athletic center where a white van would be waiting to take us back to Stellenbosch. Just before I began my sprint, though, I looked back to two of the girls – my girls – that had followed me outside. Unintentionally, a few tears were making their way down my cheek and onto my chin; I hoped they wouldn’t notice them as the rainfall was sprinkling my face as well. I hurriedly hugged one of my favorite students. I looked closer. She was crying too.
