When I decided to blog my experiences here in South Africa, I contemplated on how negative I would get with my posts. Because we ALL know my Peace Corps service is not simply crazy adventures and wonderful rosy experiences. It involves those two things, as well as, learning to cope with culture norms that I COMPLETELY disagree with, sitting in classrooms and watching educators teach in a manner that goes against everything I’ve been taught and believe in, seeing (first hand) dependency on government institutions and the negative effects of this dependency, hearing racial and sexist comments w/o being able to....well....curse those people out and tell them how I really feel.
I’ve been here for three months and have already experienced things that I never came across in the States. Some of these experiences have been wonderful while others have made me question the natural goodness that I believe all people have somewhere (however deep down) within themselves.
I’ve seen teachers talk on cell phones while their class goes out of control...I’ve broken up 2 boys kicking each other while the same teacher continued to talk on her cell phone...I’ve listened to a teacher explain how stupid and useless a young girl is as the child STOOD there and listened...I’ve watched a teacher sleeping on the floor in the back of the room while class was in session (in his defense…another teacher was teaching the students)...I’ve watched a teacher get angry and yell at Grade 1 students for not being able to do division problems...I’ve seen the same teacher flick, thump, and smack the heads of these learners b/c they were unable to do these division problems (by the way...I don’t know of any 6 year olds who can do double digit division....do you?)....I’ve watched teachers sit in the teacher’s lounge while the students hangout in the classroom doing...NOTHING!
The magnitude of the work ahead dawned on me last week...
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2 comments:
Prayer is sometimes the ONLY thing that gets me through days like that.
Hey- although I was not an EDU volunteer, I experienced many of the same joys and frustrations. Trust that, in order to make positive change, you must lead by example. You will not change everyone (not the intention of PC) but you will def make a positive impact. Keep your head up!
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