My grievances grew daily, each more frustrating than the last. Just how was I supposed to teach anything here? The students were jammed together, three to a bench, a total of roughly 80 in a room built for 50. No one could walk from the front of the classroom to the back because the aisles had disappeared. The ceiling fan didn’t work. It was so hot. Students opened the windows, only to receive a noisy blast of dust and dirt every few minutes as delivery trucks, ambulances and random vehicles rumbled by three meters away en route to the hospital.
The myriad of bright, shining faces, all in their places, watched as I measured and mixed ORS (oral rehydration solution) in a pop bottle. These household ingredients – sugar, salt and water – could save the life of a dehydrated child, I explained loudly. I held up a poster, and passed it around. Two volunteers within easy reach came up and repeated the demonstration. Everyone earnestly took notes, their pencils pressing down hard on their scribblers. The students were so eager to learn and, unlike me, took the classroom conditions in stride. I wanted to use active teaching-learning methods with student participation, not just give lectures at full volume. I pressed on, fatigued by the end of each class, disappointed and convinced that nobody was learning anything. Until one day, the importance of doing what was possible dawned on me. I could aim high but my expectations of myself needed to match the immediate circumstances – expectations that would allow me to carry on and do my best each day, knowing that that is the most that we can ask of anyone, including me. Besides, the terrible classroom conditions couldn’t last forever. And they didn’t.
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This was something I wrote in 1977, while attending a Parks Canada, Naturalist Training Course. It is drawn from my time with CUSO (1972–75), as an Agriculture and Science Teacher at Tutume Community College.
One hot dry day in June, I was sitting on the stoop of my rondavel. As the sun was rapidly falling, a cool relief came washing over me. A woman on a dust covered black bicycle with nearly deflated tires pedalled furiously towards me. “Come friend,” she panted, “the birds have come.” Jumping up and straddling the rack on the back we tried to race to her nearby lands, however the sandy tracks and low thorny acacias slowed us, my feet leaving two bumpy grooves in the path. When we arrived, most of the damage had been done. The last of a dense flock of Quelea Finches were moving towards neighbouring lands. They had come in a swirl of thousands, and settling in the tall stalks had easily pecked out the small exposed grains of sorghum and millet. They would be back, maybe not next year, but they would be back. The 25% of the harvest that remained has been cut, threshed, and stored. The dry season was lengthening. The shallow wells at the lands have dried up and people must move to their village homes located nearer permanent water found in deep wells or sand rivers. There was more time now, people were together. A woman organizes a party as a means to earn cash. Goats or possibly an ox are slaughtered, the pieces of roast meat are sold to the throng for 10 thebe. The grandmother, 3 days before, has brewed enormous clay pots full of grainy, bitter sorghum beer. It is left to bubble and ferment right up to the hour of the party. Much of the reputation of the party is based upon the quality of this beer. To increase the profits, bottles of Carlings Black Label “The Man’s Beer” are sold. Things really begin when the owner of the battery operated “pick-up” arrives. He and his machine are rented for the occasion. You pay 5 thebe to hear and dance to your favourite Gumba Gumba tune. In the cooling evening, the old men huddle around a small warm Mopane wood fire, mumbling about their goats and cattle. Generally younger men dance by themselves, while women sway in long lines together, re-enacting stories from the land. Contact would occur when a catchy “bump” tune was requested. Young children, half hidden in the shadows of the huts and thick pole fence concentrate on copying the tricky foot work of older brothers and sisters. The tempo increases as the level of the beer pots recedes. Puffs of dust explode underfoot from the fast vibrating feet. The party ends with the exhaustion of the beer or the dying of the “pick-up’s” batteries. The cool windy months of the dry season were past, it was now September. Daily temperatures reached new highs; 30 – 35 – 40. A sweatless heat that affected everything. The desiccation was leaving its mark. Greens were no longer existent. The land was shades of fragile browns. Between the sparse grass stubble, large patches of bareness showed. Jigsaw cracks filled these spaces. Radiating from these, thin dust filled cattle and goat tracks were being etched into the sun baked ground. These lines inevitably led to water, usually a thorn enclosed trench, dug out of the river sand. These began near the surface and as the dry season progressed the pits became deeper and wider. Or it might lead to a well, a shaft dug by hand on the river bank. Men would gather here at sunrise to raise the small bucket hundreds of times, from 60 – 100 feet below, using a wooden hand winch. There were years when the well went dry and to keep the herds alive, one man would be lowered into the deep sweat hole with a pick head to chip slowly a few more feet to reach the precious water. Loose folds of skin hang from the neck and sides of the cattle. Bone structure is easy to study, especially as they crane their necks to browse every leaf within reach. They lie in a great ruminating mass under a wide Marula Tree, leaving it only to graze in the cooler morning and evening. October – the suicide month – passes. Tension fills the air, it is felt everywhere, there is an expectation of new life, like a baby long overdue. But each day brings the same, 40 degrees and dryness. Then it comes, the first wispy clouds on the horizon, bringing little relief from the burning sun. These are weak clouds that the earth’s heat immediately knocks out. Each day the build up continues, but again no rain. Hopes and expectations are repeatedly being shattered. December was upon us. Each day now, the clouds gathered strength, till they were too big and the power of the earth was wasted. The earth took its defeat in a moment of silence, and in victory the clouds filled the air with a moist sweetness. The first drops are big and they tease the land as they fall, causing small pock marks in the dust. With each crack of thunder the number of drops increases, till soon a sheet of water drenches the land. The ground is too hard to absorb this onslaught of water. It is rushing off the land filling the dongas and down to the river. The rush is not a cause of slope but rather the sheer volume of water. I slide over the moist surface down to the river to watch the wall of water approach – first nothing and then 40 cm of flow moving down the broad river channel, in a vertical wall, pushing mounds of dried dung before it. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The land was washed clean but a smell of expectant stillness lingered. It was evening and in the low wattage light of the verandah, flimsy wings are reflected; not one, but thousands, millions. Little bumps are appearing everywhere over the ground. Winged reproductive termites are emerging, squeezing out of the tiny pores, as a moth struggles out of its cocoon. They have lain in wait for months, waiting for that softening rain so the workers can remove the last few grains for their escape. They are caught in the breeze, carried a short way, signal for a mate, lose their wings, mate, and then burrow into the soft ground in hopes of being the king and queen of a new colony. Many don’t complete their cycle. What was quiet before is now active; birds, snakes, toads, geckos, and lizards all join in the rain brought feast. People too are recharged. They beat their blankets and gather into baskets the soft squirming bodies, to be roasted in the morning. With the first light of dawn, the land has a flush of green. Dormant grass seeds have also been waiting for the rain. People are moving again, back to their lands. Oxen have been gathered from the cattle post, up to 100 km away, and are quickly regaining their shape from the abundance of fast growing succulent grass. As soon as they are strong enough, ploughing begins. Four oxen are yoked in pairs. A young boy will crack the long whip over their heads as a woman directs the plough. The sharp, single furrow plough cuts easily into the soft sandy soil. It cuts and turns the sod over the hand broadcast seeds, like the skin being peeled off a freshly slaughtered goat. The woman smiles as she feels her thick calloused feet leaving their prints in the newly turned warm soil. It is a way of leaving her smile on the land. It is a smile of hope, to overcome the uncertainty. Maybe this will be a good year. |
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April 2021
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