No school from Wednesday afternoon
after lunch until Monday, assuming that the country doesn’t implode over the
weekend. Supposedly, the school closed so that the teachers could go vote in
their respective areas. None of them actually live in the village permanently,
so they have to go back to their districts and vote there. I don’t even know if
any of them actually vote, though and probably neither will any of the students
who are old enough, so it’s just another excuse not to have school I guess,
which most everyone is always in favor of. The teachers were surprised that I
wasn’t planning on going anywhere, but first of all, I live in this village and
staying is the norm, and second of all, PC put us on “Standfast,” which is one
of the steps leading up to a potential emergency evacuation. This means that we
are sort of on lockdown, not supposed to leave our sites or go to towns in
order to avoid any rallies or anything that could potentially turn violent. I
have to, at this point, “prepare for consolidation” (the next step, which they
had to do in September after the coup) by packing a bag and labelling the stuff
in my house (to ship home, to give to ____) in case we don’t return, but I’m
not gonna do that. I’ve heard conflicting opinions about the outcome of the
election. Some people say they don’t even bother to vote because it’ll just be
the same shit, different day: politicians trying to get rich and not doing much
about the people and their issues The army and police are at odds and
corruption is rampant. One of my friend’s students was supposedly poisoned by
political opponents or something. Politics is such a messed up game pretty much
everywhere; it’s borderline idiotic. But the break from school is pretty nice,
considering everything that could go down.
In other news,
I’ve finished those oh so lovely phase 2 assignments, with a little help of my
form Cs in life skills class. I used two whole classes having them make a
men/women/children yearly tasks and daily tasks calendar/schedule. Then, under
the guise of getting to know potential role models, I told them to talk to old
people and ask them about village life in the past. Here’s what they helped me
come up with:
“According to some older people in the community, life here
in the past certainly had its differences. Several said that in the past, they
were much more respectful to their elders, always greeting them when they saw
them, and being taught primarily by their parents how to do things. Also,
people back then used to get married at an older age, and now they see young
people falling in love and getting married much younger. People used to pay
lebola [bride price] with animals only, and now they can pay it with cash. In
the past, people made all their own clothes and grew all their own food to eat,
and your money seemed to go further a long time ago. Another thing I found
interesting was that young children did not eat eggs, fish, or animal intestines,
or peanut butter, and now they do. Women used to only wear dresses, and now it
is acceptable to wear trousers. As for structural changes to the area, there
did not used to be electricity, roads, or schools, whereas these things have
all come into existence in the valley, most recently being electricity a few
years ago and the cell tower last year.”
On Wednesday, the
school decided to have a fun day fundraiser where the students wore crazy
clothes and the teachers wore uniforms. In order to wear these clothes, the
students paid like 2 rand and the teachers paid about 10. The two male teachers
borrowed some of the tall form C boys’ gray pants, I borrowed my ausi’s gray
uniform skirt and white button down shirt. I was the only female teacher to don
the uniform because none of the other women would have fit into any of those
girls’ skirts. So they either dressed as village men (gumboots, ratty tshirt,
blanket pinned around the shoulders, balaclava, and herding stick) or women in
the field (straw hat, long dress, apron thing). For the first five minutes of
my classes, I even pretended to teach Sesotho instead of math. I t was great.
It was super fun and funny for both the teachers and students, and a good
fundraiser to help buy some of the vulnerable students things they needed like
food, soap, etc.
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