South Africa: Soweto

On Tuesday, July 12th, our U.S. crew got up bright and early to head into Soweto at 8:15, planning to start our teaching instruction at 9am. Colin drove us through our neighborhood, past the picturesque homes and their imposing walls, further into the city. Taxis roared through lights, we saw progressively more people trying to sell things at intersections, and the earth changed from landscaped lawns into brown expanses. Finally, we crested a hill adjacent to an enormous dump, and there, stretching before us, was Soweto.

During apartheid, black South Africans were confined to townships, like Soweto, and could only exit if they had approved passes-- which were typically extraordinarily difficult to obtain. Inside the townships, the blacks lived under devastating conditions, while outside of the townships, whites typically lived in cosmopolitan environments. Whites were also restricted from going INTO the townships; a technique that would keep them ignorant about the actual conditions their fellow country-men were living in. Colin has told us that the propaganda machine during apartheid was similar to Nazi propaganda-- the whites were being fed lies about the real state of things, just as the blacks were being horribly oppressed. Apartheid was abolished in 1994, but Soweto remains a giant area for many of Johannesburg's black citizens.

Our goal for the day was to teach the Peer Educators the basic components of planning a lesson effectively-- we'd been up late the night before, working a soccer analogy into the lesson so that they'd have a clear visual to correlate the "education lingo" with. Andy and Sally would present the teaching components, and then I would follow up with how those could be related to a soccer game.

I was really excited. :)

We pulled into the lot where we'd be teaching. In the center of the lot was a giant tree; in front of that was a small shed with two couches out in front, and near the shed were several piles of metal chair frames. Colin told us later that they do upholstery work sometimes. We moved into the building where we'd be giving our instruction—“Fill the Gap Church”-- which was a large, spacious, FREEZING room.

The Peer Educators trickled in around 9:30; there were 8 of them: three girls-- Mpho, Flozi, and Zmikhita, and five guys-- Tshepo, Tlhocks, Mandla, Gift, and Bongoni. Zmikhita had brought her baby, whose name I can't pronounce, but I know it means, "The one that has set me free." I think? Zmikhita is married and also has a 2-year-old... I think I was expecting 17, 18, and 19-year-olds for these peer educators, but they were all around my age or older-- and all, I would imagine, have seen sides of life I can't imagine.

Simphiwe got the whole thing started when he began to sing. Probably my FAVORITE thing about the African culture when I was in Malawi several years ago was the style of African singing. One person leads off—in this case, Simphiwe— and if the singer is anywhere near as talented as Simphiwe, they’re singing a powerful, resonant, fluid main melody. Everyone else joins in, in 2 or 3 part harmonies which come naturally, spontaneously. Typically one of the women then picks up a 4th dominant harmony and riffs off the main part. It’s BEAUTIFUL. I often find myself holding my breath when listening.

Colin spoke for a bit and reminded us all of WHY we were there: “Every day,” he began—always softly, always calmly, always in those immaculate British intonations—“...one thousand people die of AIDS in this country. That means 1,000 people will wake up this morning and this evening… will be in the morgue. 1,000 people will be taken out by this devastating virus. We don’t know how many people will be infected today but we know many will be. The solution... starts here. It begins with education. It begins with passionate young people like you showing their peers that there is a better way. There is a way to live a long, good life—we want these people to be grandparents. We want them to have hope in their futures. That is what you offer them. You offer them a way to say no to the virus, and you offer them what’s far more important: a pathway out of despair, and into eternal hope. You cannot underestimate the importance of what we are doing here.”

Andy and Sally and I began. One of the very best moments for teachers is when you see the “aha!” moments in your students’ faces, and there were SO many of those as we went through this! Especially when we brought in the soccer analogy, we saw the Peer Educators open their eyes wider and begin nodding their heads. I made Colin get up and stand opposite me. “Bongoni,” I said, to one of the peer educators. “Do you think I could beat Colin in a soccer match? You should probably know I’ve never played soccer on a team before, and I haven’t practiced. And just for fun, let’s say that I’m up against Colin when he was on the Olympic track team for Rhodesia. Could I beat him, do you think?”

Bongoni looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “If you haven’t practiced or anything...? No, I don’t think you could beat him.”

“Agreed!” I said. “In this situation, I’m going to say that Colin—my opponent—represents Death and Despair. And that’s what you’re fighting, as Reach4Life peer educators. You are going into the classrooms, and trying to give these students a hope that can triumph over despair, and a plan for their future that will help them defeat an early grave. But this is NOT an easy competition, is it? Your classrooms are packed with 40, 50, 60 students. Many of them will be rooting for the opposing team, even. They may not like you, they may want to destroy you. AND—there’s a ton of cultural pressure for these kids TO be having sex at young ages, and to not worry about protection.

“That means,” I said, “If you want to win this game, you have to go in with every trick and skill and strategy you’ve got. You need to be prepared. You need to have practiced. You will not win this game if you don’t play to win.”

“Thank you Colin, you can sit down,” I said. Colin’s eyes twinkled and he obliged. “How do I win a soccer game?” I asked the peer educators.

“You score points,” Thandi offered.

“Yes! I have to score goals. I will NOT win a soccer game if I just dribble the ball all over the field, I HAVE to get the ball into the goal if I want to win the game. The GAME, guys, is any one of these Reach4Life lessons that you’re teaching. Okay? You’re going into the classroom, with that lesson, and by the time you leave the classroom, you want to have WON that game, you want to have GOTTEN that message through to your kids. And the goal box contains your big ideas. What are the main ideas you’re trying to get across? THAT’S what’s in the goal box. And unless you get your ball to THOSE goals—you can’t win this game. Every move you make on a soccer field is ultimately aimed at getting your ball into that goal box, and when you’re teaching a lesson, everything you do must work towards communicating that MAIN idea.”

We went on to explain the rest of the lesson components, and I continued to act out the soccer equivalent. Andy and Sally helped demonstrate what “practice” looks like (which relates to teachers preparing for their lessons) by doing push-ups and soccer moves. Andy was especially pleased, I think, to show how many push-ups he could do. :) I kept making Colin get up to face me and look ferocious and then I would make him sit back down. At one point, we were demonstrating the “kick-off” (i.e. the lesson’s introductory “hook” or, in technical terms, the anticipatory set), and Colin and I both kicked the ball. Death and Despair clearly had a stronger kick-off than Reach4Life did, but I told everyone, “Okay, but PRETEND mine was better.”

It was really, really fun. :)

We ate lunch in the courtyard to soak up a little of that winter sunshine and got a chance to talk to the peer educators more. I loved that part—Andy, Sally, and I have been consistently blown away by how astute the peer educators are, and it’s awesome hearing snippets of their stories. When I asked some of the guys if there was anything specific that they’d like us to cover, Mandla said in his quiet voice, “Well, sometimes there are the big boys in the back of the class who are corrupt… They are always the ones who are the most difficult, and you know, sometimes they might be older than you. What do you do if those guys say to you, ‘I’m going to come after school and kill you’?”

I stared at Mandla, incredulous. “You have students saying they’re going to come after school and KILL you?”

“Yes...” he said quietly. “They say that we are stealing their girlfriends, because sometimes their girlfriends decide they want to wait for marriage to have sex, so they say we are taking their girlfriends and because of that they want to kill us. So, what should we do in cases like that?”

Bongoni posed another question. “Sometimes girls may come to us and tell us they are interested in Reach4Life, but really, they are only interested in us. Like, maybe they want to date us. What should we do in situations like that?”

Simphiwe explained the situation further. “Many of these girls see only men that want to abuse them, or pay them for sex, or are just corrupt. They see someone like Bongoni, and they see that he is a good man. So, their reasons might be good for wanting to date him… But it is still a difficult situation for our Peer Educators.”

No kidding. I did my best to give them ideas for how to handle those situations, with Simphiwe chiming in at times. Where do you begin with something like that??

After lunch, Andy went over how to give a good lecture, and then at 3, we called it a day. It was a GREAT day. I loved it.

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Writing this now on Monday, 7/18. Must... finish... Soweto... blog!!

Gift, Tlhocks, and Tshepo didn’t show up on Wednesday. I worried that this indicated they’d felt the training was useless until Thandi told me otherwise. “Tlhocks has to work; Tshepo has a job interview; and Gift has a disabled brother who can’t walk. And… today is his medication day, so Gift has to take him.” Thandi shrugged. “These are... our conditions.”

Speaking of conditions, Thandi, incidentally, was late on Day 2 because she’d gotten in a car accident with a taxi. It was entirely the taxi’s fault, and the driver had admitted as much, but he’s not insured. Thandi, then, will need to take care of it on her own time and on her own dime. Colin told us that the taxi drivers’ unions are extremely powerful here—so much so that if a police-man arrests a taxi-driver, there’s enough power in the taxi-drivers’ union that they could kill the police-man for giving them trouble and most likely get away with it. Yeesh.

Gift wasn’t able to come on Day 3 either, because he once again had to take care of his brother. Apparently when he told his family he had to go to Peer Educating Training they said, “It’s not like you’re learning anything that will get you 5,000 rand [the South African currency]. You can stay home.” Thandi told us Gift felt terribly about this. She also explained that, to many South Africans, volunteering is perceived as something only “losers” do who can’t get a job. Our Peer Educators therefore, are not only dealing with huge classes, skeptical students who are often hostile, a message that runs counter to the culture and the popular sentiments of the students, and no pay… they are also fighting a perception that they are losers for fighting to spread a message that South Africa desperately needs. How dedicated must these guys be?? No wonder we were so blown away by them.

Simphiwe once more rallied us together with a song, which meant we commenced once more about 45 minutes after our “official” start time. Andy and Sally had asked me if I would start the day with a reflection from the Bible, so I read from Isaiah 40. I told the PEs, “This chapter has been rocking my world lately. Do you have that expression? Rocking my world?” They nodded. “Yeah. It’s totally been rocking my world.”

After the reflection, we wanted to give them practice engaging in discussions. It sounds like most of our PEs teach in the manner they’ve been taught in: namely, the teacher talks AT them and the students minimally engage. We really wanted to give our PEs teaching techniques beyond just “sermonizing,” and they seemed to get into the discussion conversation. Many of them piped up with thoughts on the pros and cons of using the discussion method in class, and offered up ideas of how it might be received into their culture. We had a new attendee on Wednesday—Job—who has been a PE for several years and is clearly passionate about it. He talked confidently and quickly seemed to process the ideas we were giving him. Zimkhita, also—the mama with the baby-- had great things to say. In fact, at one point Sally offered to hold the baby so that Zimkhita could take notes. Colin got a great picture of Sally holding this baby in the sunshine streaming in through the window. “I have a grand-baby on the way so I need to practice,” she said. I think she was in heaven!

I got to lead this portion of our teaching, which I enjoyed; discussions are probably my favorite teaching method. We didn’t get through all the powerpoint slides Andy had assembled for me, which we’d been projecting on the painted concrete wall—but that was because we had so much to talk about as a group! Indicator #1 that the discussion has gone well. :)

After tea time (heart the tea time), Sally led a great lesson on small groups, which we then followed with a small group activity. There’s one Reach4Life lesson which highlights all the different reasons young people choose to have sex. We asked the Peer Educators to discuss which reasons they thought would be the most compelling to their students, and to talk with each other about how they would counsel a student wanting to have sex for those reasons. Once again, it was fascinating to hear the PEs discuss their culture. I was with three of the quietest PEs: Mandla, Bongoni, and the youngest girl there, Flozi, so it was great to hear them talk more. We found out later that Flozi is actually still in school—she’s in 11th grade, and leads a secret Reach4Life discussion group at her school. Apparently she asked her principal, an Indian man, if they could do Reach4Life in schools. He refused, because of the curriculum’s Christian components. Flozi explained, “He is a Hindu, so he doesn’t want Christianity in his schools.” She told us the group would get in trouble if the principal found them meeting, so the group tries to stay hidden during the breaks, when they meet. Flozi comes across as extremely shy, so to think of her leading a clandestine R4L group in her school, risking punishment from her principal for doing so, once again made me feel blown away by the determination of my South African peers.

Lunch outside, which was followed by an introduction to Learner Disabilities, led by Andy. I was surprised to realize what a new concept “visual and hearing disabilities” were to the Peer Educators—it seemed like they had never considered that many students in their classes might have difficulty reading the board. I’m not sure why this would be; perhaps, since students there are never tested for those conditions, teachers simply don’t consider that they should accommodate for them. Regardless, it was exciting to see many of the PEs realize there were simple indicators and simple ways to problem-solve something as basic as a vision problem.

End of Day 2.

Day 3 was a half day: Andy finished the talk on learning disabilities and then we spent an hour getting feedback on the training experience from the Peer Educators. Most fascinating point from the learning disabilities lesson: if a kid had an epileptic fit in the context our PEs are working in, the fit would always, always be credited as a spiritual possession—like, a demonic attack. Our PEs were shocked to hear Andy’s scientific explanation behind what causes a seizure, and many of them were curious as to how they should then handle those situations. Job said, “Many times, when a child is shaking like that, we are asked to pray for them because they know we Peer Educators are Christians. So what should I do? I don’t know if it would work to say it is just a medical condition, because everyone would think it is for spiritual reasons.”

We acknowledged that in some cases, it MIGHT be for spiritual reasons, but the vast majority of instances would be medical. I said, “Maybe pray for protection from both spiritual AND physical ailments. You know? Pray for the student in the moment, and then later, try to encourage one of the student’s family members to get him or her to a clinic.”

I also noticed during this lesson how quick the Peer Educators were to work around the simulated disabilities Andy was giving them. To simulate a learning disability, he had Tlhocks write his name on a board with his hands tied together; Tlhocks quickly made the adjustment, and wrote his name in perfect block letters. Then Andy had him write his name on the board with his hands tied behind his back; once again, Tlhocks worked it out. Though he took longer to write it, he once again got his name on the board in near perfect letters. Mandla, also, impressed Andy in another simulated disability task. Andy told Mandla, while marveling at his painstaking work, “Most people can’t do this at all!” Yet Mandla carefully, deliberately, determinedly guided his pen through the task Andy had assigned, ultimately completing the task without any mistakes.

Perhaps this is a generalization, but it made me think, “This is how these guys have LIVED. The odds are against them, but they figure out a way to succeed, regardless.” Mandla, for instance, is a self-taught electrician. Someone said on the first day, “If you want to hook up your computer to the TV, ask Mandla. Or if you need your house wired, or your phone fixed, or anything done with wires… He’s your guy.” Mandla—and others like him-- have just figured it out.

The feedback session was awesome— really, really encouraging. We had asked the PEs if they felt the training was effective, and, if so, to identify one way that they thought they might change their teaching methods as a result of the training. They almost all spoke up and identified something specific from the training that they would be taking away. In fact, when I saw Bongoni that morning, the first thing he said to me was, “Hey! Last night I met with my home cell group at church, and I tried the discussion method! We were talking about the money topic, and the discussion worked really well. Normally, you know, someone just gives a long talk but the discussion was good.”

How cool is that??!

Tomorrow (as in Tuesday), we’ll head into the schools WITH the Peer Educators to observe them and give them feedback. So I will actually get to SEE these schools tomorrow!! I believe we’ll be observing both Job and Mandla. I can’t wait!

We’re coming off of a weekend at Sun City, where Colin took us out on safari drives through a giant game park. We saw so many cool things!!! If you’re my facebook friend, be sure to check out the pictures. It was great to have a bit of a breather, since from here on out we’ll be working non-stop ‘til we fly out. Sally and I continue to feel conflicted as we enjoy the plush accommodations we’re in, and then witness the devastating poverty of Soweto. However, as Andy pointed out early on, “We’re not helping anyone by feeling guilty about where we’re staying. The important thing is that we remember how blessed we are to be here, be thankful, and then do our best to bless the people we’re working with.” Good advice I suppose-- especially since none of us had any part in planning where we’re staying. This is the ever-present conundrum of South Africa: luxury and poverty exist in such stark, radical opposition, I feel like I’m moving through a photo negative world. Where is the rich color of co-mingled diversity? Where is the gray of the in-between? Everything seems to come down to black and white, to blatant disparities, to deeply rifted dichotomies. Everything seems to be drifting towards Darkness and Despair.

But my team, and Colin’s crew, and the Peer Educators, and many others, I KNOW—are fighting darkness, and we’re fighting despair. The opposition is fierce, but we’ll come at them with everything we’ve got. At the end of the day, I remind myself, this holds true: “there in the ground, His body lay; light of the world by darkness slain. Then bursting forth, in glorious day, up from the grave He rose again!” My King is stronger than darkness; my King is stronger than despair. I’m on the victor’s side— and the warriors with me are bound and determined.