One such distraction occurred a day later when we were invited to visit a preschool in Hole in the Wall village, funnily named for a giant cave in the side of its mountainous shore. There, we met one of the best educators I have ever observed. With over 30 tiny students, aged 1 – 4, Dawn Vergat ran her class to virtual perfection. The way she enthused the kids, counting and singing, while keeping them in line was awesome. Doing this all in a tiny rondeval (a round hut with a thatched roof) with scarce resources was even more amazing. And the kids returned her energy, all smiling and laughing. They also quickly gravitated toward us, many stroking Charlotte’s long hair and examining Luke’s arms like foreign relics. Many of them stunted by malnutrition, they were half the size they should have been. But that did not keep them from enjoying our visit, pulling us toward a pile of wooden blocks or jumping on our backs outside for a ride around the school. In general, they were delightful, due in large part to the positive, fun environment that Dawn fostered. As we left, we noticed that there was only one toilet outside, contained in an undersized tin shack with a shoe string for a lock. When we asked Dawn about this, she said she had repeatedly asked the government for help over the past two years, but no reply. We promised to help out with fundraising. After high-fiving all the little ones, we reluctantly departed.
The next day, we drove roughly 50 km to Bulungula, an even more rural village with about 300 thatched huts and a few small schools, one of them established in January called Bulungala College, or BC (college = high school). Funded entirely by a social impact organization with which we connected a couple of months ago, BC opened with 80 students and 3 full-time teachers. To put it mildly, this school is a crisis-management work in progress, trying desperately to provide rudimentary education to as many underprivileged teens as possible. Making matters even more precarious, the students have to walk to get there, some for miles, as cars are virtually non-existent throughout the community. What’s more, from what we were told, the majority of the fathers in the area flock to cities to find employment, leaving mothers and grandmothers responsible for raising the kids. This paternal absence clearly weighs heavily on everyone, especially young boys who lose essential role modeling. When I arrived to help teach, I was immediately struck by the immensity of these challenges. In fact, when I introduced myself as a teacher from America and asked who had heard of my country, only one young woman raised her hand. That stunned me. For most of the classes with which I worked, I decided to talk mostly about culture, mine and theirs. In the end, I learned so much about the many names that Xhosa youth are given - some up to six in the first several years of life, the longstanding circumcision ritual that all young men must endure at sixteen, and the fact that the entire community still revolves around a chief who governs the community. I, in turn, answered many questions regarding America’s teenage experience, what government looked like, and what students did once they graduated from high school. Again, to express my thanks, I spent the last few minutes of each class encouraging students to visit other places, even nearby villages, to gain a clearer view of who they were and where possibilities might exist. They seemed genuinely appreciative, many initiating high fives with me on their way to the next class.
These were just two of many eye-popping experiences. Throughout the Wild Coast, most roads are endless stretches of dirt and mud, with thousands of animals – goats, sheep, cattle, and horses – roaming the hillsides and fields. Dodging their droppings is no joke, like a constant obstacle course that keeps distant visitors on their toes. For the locals, it’s just part of the territory, a mild inconvenience in a brutal world where survival is far more pressing. But no matter how hard life appeared to us, the families did just that, survive. In fact, as I had heard from many before arriving, the kids, though occasionally hungry and/ or cold, are happy, frequently playing in puddles or trying to catch piglets with their bare hands. Yet another reminder that life is very different for people, and that my list of expectations clearly doesn’t apply to them. On our way back to the airport in our decadent Nissan 4 x 4, as we struggled through several pools of deep mud from a night of torrential rain, both Carolyn and I realized the value of this trip: Our kids are so much more cognizant of the world, sensitive to human struggles they did not know existed last year, but equally aware that such people don’t want or need our pity. The best we can do is remain aware of the world beyond ourselves and resistant to taking simple things like fresh water and medicine for granted. As the incomparable Cheryl Crowe points out in one of her many great tunes, “it’s not wanting what you don’t have; it’s wanting what you’ve got.”
