It is hard to capture and imagine the circumstances in which the majority of South Africans live in. The innumerable masses of people living and dying in poverty is an overwhelming and saddening reality which cannot fully be grasped until it is seen first hand.You can walk into Thandokhulu High School, where I work, and watch the learners sitting at their desks trying to concentrate. All of them fully dressed in blue uniforms, even in the hottest of days. They take care to make sure everything is clean and tucked correctly. They take pride in looking neat. Those who can afford it wear black stockings while others have on long white socks which are pulled up from their black school shoes. All of their notebooks must be carefully wrapped in order to protect them through-out the term. Many of them have a small pouch that holds their pens, pencils, Tipp-Ex (white out), and other tools. In their back-packs or purses they also have a calculator, a ruler, their textbooks, maybe a glue stick and other necessities. Many of these are used to make their notebooks look nice and orderly (i.e. gluing the worksheets into their notebook or creating a colorful border with a ruler and colorful pen for the cover page of an essay). Many of the girls’ hair is pulled back or braided nicely, while the boys’ hair is often trimmed short. During break some of them pull out their cell phones or headphones and chat and laugh like any teenager would. Some sell snacks to other learners or run to the back of the school to buy fruit or chips.
When they are “writing a test” they work silently and intently, using their white out when they make a mistake. I also heard their beautiful voices when I walked past the choir practicing. The way the sound flowed, rising and falling was unreal and astonishing. During their assemblies you see them standing – heads fixed to the front – hearing the teachers tell them about working hard and doing the right thing. They transform into a frenzy of excitement and cheers as their new school representatives are announced and called to the front.
Their faces are full of smiles and content seeing their class mates succeed. They close their eyes and bow their heads in unison when it is time for prayer. Then you can begin to wonder what unimaginable obstacle they could be praying to get through. Is it to win their next soccer match? Is it to get that car that they have always wanted? Is it to get home without being mugged or harassed? Is it for their mother to get through another day?
Witnessing these learners from 8am to 3pm it is difficult to picture them in their other environment, in the reality from which they come. But I try to because it helps me realize who they are in totality.
They all have different stories, live in different places but if I were to step into a learner’s shoes for a day it would begin at 5:30am. I would wake up to the noise of my alarm, if I had time to run to buy electricity after school the day before. Then I would fill up the basin of water in order to wash while making oatmeal for my sisters. I would rush to throw on my uniform, collect my books and leave to catch the taxi at 6:30am. I would see some other learners walking up to the taxi rank, and many others who are heading to work. The taxi rank would be busy now and I would have to wait aside while the man in charge organizes who goes in which taxi. Finally I get on and wait for all the others to be jammed in and we are on our way. I stare out of the window and see the house after house, shack after shack after shack pass me by. A woman carries a large container of water on her head, a man walks slowly, a huge line of older women and men stand outside waiting for something or other – maybe a government grant, maybe for disability or for old age. Then the shacks disappear in the distance and I am on the high way. I get dropped off at the bus rank and it is already 7:30 because the taxi took so long. If I get there past 8am I will be locked out of the school or punished so I walk fast to make it. School will be long and I will not buy lunch today so I can save the 5 Rands (50 cents) for dinner. When I leave school I will have to catch another taxi and will get back at about 5pm. Then I must wash my uniform, help cook, sweep the cement floor which will never look clean and try to finish my homework. The air is stiff and dusty. The tin corrugated roof does not quiet the rain drops when they fall and my cousins yelling cannot be avoided in this cramped room.
Many of the learners do not live with both parents. Their mother could have died of AIDS, their father stabbed in the streets. Their guardians are unemployed; the government grants allow them to live only at subsistence. They have to deal with death, abandonment, and lack of money. Every day they get older the temptation of leaving in order to make money tugs at them and the urge to support their relatives weighs down on them. Their families want them to continue school but only in principal because to them school means getting out of the township but practically if they are offered a job priorities will change. Truthfully even if they did get into a university the chances that they would be able to afford the whole ride or lift their entire family out of poverty is slim to none. The cheerful, bright eyed teens who meticulously scrub their uniforms each night look forward to unemployment, crime, disappointment, denial, disease and the early death of family and friends.Every day I wish I could do more for them. If only everyone who had the money could give $1 one less person would cry for their brother who does not have shoes to go to school, for their grandmother who has to sell fruit or vegetables outside even though she is old and weak, for their sister who dropped out of school because the older man who was giving her and her family money got her pregnant and left her. But I take it one day at a time and do the best I can.
