10:00 am
I stepped into the principal’s office to discuss our current condition of Leadership Academy. Some leaders are talking back to the teachers. Learners, not in Leadership Academy, are caught daily urinating on the garden that we are working to create for the school. We, as educators, have not provided a strong project for the leaders on which to be focused. The grades of the leaders are dropping. The defensiveness of our leaders towards teachers is increasing. Other students are challenging if the leaders deserve respect. The leaders simply want recognition among their peers without doing work. He, Mr. Mbatha, was busy with some registers. As we discussed the problem with the leadership Academy, he displayed the mirror image happening among the staff.
A pregnant teacher who is away on leave never took attendance. Not ONCE. It is August, term 3. The attendance sheets are blank. Mr. Mbatha is filling them in for the entire year. “And she earned a salary for the whole year,” he said. “You know, Katie, as we are in a post-Apartheid government, our people believe this ‘democracy’ means freedom. Everything you want will be free. Free handouts and the like. We learn to continue using this word ‘unprivileged’ to describe ourselves. When will we stop uttering this word?”
Those words hit home for me. When I give to the school, weather that is in time, materials, manual labor, etc, people often interpret this as a freebee. I’m not sure what the solution to this problem is. The government has seemed to take care of this by requiring more paperwork for people to prove that they are actually working and using the materials given to them. In actuality, they are skipping class and not teaching in order to fill out paperwork that proves they are teaching. Confused? Yeah, the system of education in this country is “still developing.”
I reflect now on the American Dream and feel a deep pride in my nation. Although some have it backwards, I believe I come from a people who understand that work put in has a direct relationship with what will come out.
I can’t help but laugh. A loveable class clown that I taught at Rainier Beach went in shock when I told him I was going to join the Peace Corps to live and work abroad for two years. He came up to me and said, “Ms. Petersen, you are making a mistake. You are going to go abroad and miss it here. Let me teach you a little song,” he placed his hand over his heart, looked up to the ceiling and sang, “And I’m happy to be an American, where at least I know I’m free!”
“Jatorius, it’s proud. I’m proud to be an American,” I corrected.
“Oh, sure. Whatev. Ms. P. You should be proud to be an American. Don’t leave.” I’ve learned many lessons here, from the beautiful people who understand life in much more fragile yet deep terms. However, I am proud to be an American.
As I finish up this moment in thought, my mama reaches behind my chair to take a stick and hands it to a teacher in the doorway. That stick will be taken to class to strike learners.
11:00 am
A bit bothered from the laziness around me and my job of relying on those around me to complete my projects, I turned to Ms. Zondi, an English teacher sitting next to me. “Ms. Zondi,” I said, “I admire Africans. Do you know why?”
“Why, Khethiwe?”
“Because Africans have this ability of strength. I am exhausted from all of the disappointment around me. I am a weak American in many ways, very emotionally sensitive to the surrounding conditions. Africans are like flowers among thorns. You all have this ability to smile and find happiness during hard times.”
“Yes, Khethiwe. Sometime you are beat up.”
“Mhmm,” I agreed.
“Sometimes you are attacked.”
“Mhmm.”
“Sometimes you are raped, beaten within inches of your life, and going into a coma.”
“M---huh?” I looked up from my hands.
“Yes. This is what happened to me,” Ms. Zondi continued to tell me her story. “Do you see this scar?” She pointed to an inch-long scar just below her left eye. “That is from the knife. And this eye,” she points to her right eye, “I lost my vision. The men who did this to me were of my same surname. It is like a Petersen doing this to another Petersen.” Ms. Zondi told me about an August evening in 2006. She was in her grandmother’s village, doing some work in the field. She was returning home, just as the sun was setting, and she felt a stone hit the back of her head. She doesn’t remember anything else. It was later determined that a group of five men attacked her. They raped her, beat her up, stabbed her multiple times, and tossed her into a large hole out in the brush to die. Her family assumed that she went to church with some friends when she did not return home. She laid there for eight hours, until she gained consciousness. Her eyes were almost completed swelled shut and her clothes were drenched in blood. She moaned and cried all the way home. Her family rushed her to the hospital, where she went into a coma for eight weeks. She’s had multiple eye surgeries since.
“What has happened to these men?”
“Nothing,” my jaw dropped at her reply. “And I am called by my faith to forgive. So I have. God gave me strength to survive. Those men wanted me dead.”
I started to think about how I believe we are not given anything we cannot handle. I don’t know if I could deal with such an incident. Ms. Zondi has and continues to face these men when she visits her grandmother. I teared up, thankful for her strength.
“Don’t cry, Khethiwe. I am here today. I have told my story to many and offer encouragement. I may not be able to see very well and perhaps I am covered with scars, but I am alive. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
“You are…” I tried to find my words, “strong. You are so strong.”
Ms. Zondi picked up her marking pen and continued her grading and sang a worship song, “I am safe in the shadow of His wings…”
