Teaching here for the past 3 weeks at Elkanah High School has been an enlightening blast!  The students are great - fun, funny, and incessantly curious.  They simply have to get the lowdown on the U.S. – What is McDonald’s like there?  Have you hung out with any BIG celebrities?  And, predictably, WHY Trump?  Great questions, all deserving respect, but after a full day of introducing myself and painting a choppy picture of my world, I had to forcibly yank my classes out of this growing whirlpool of fascination - the second day shift back to learning was a bit bumpy.  And though Elkanah students are buttoned up in uniforms and refined in speech, beneath their outward appearance lies a typical AHS student, eager for a good laugh and excited to learn in different ways.  So that is a small service that I can potentially provide here, offering novel delivery methods from which students might further appreciate the subject matter.  When I first afforded a couple of sophomore classes opportunities to move around the room from group to group, they enjoyed the musical-chairs piece immensely.  Allowing them to answer their own questions, furthermore, or deflecting them back to the entire class was equally interesting.  After just a few moments at the start, in which they noticeably adjusted to my personal style, they ran with it.  The energy they brought to analyzing To Kill A Mockingbird was truly awesome.  I simply hung back and enjoyed their take on America’s past, asking them to consider how Lee’s famous text mirrors their own history under apartheid law.  And that is where I learned!  The students were quick to connect racism with racism, with one astutely pointing out that “America seems as confused as us.”  With that, I asked if Harper Lee’s suggestion to “try to see things from the other person’s eyes” made sense, to which they all agreed.  And, in the end, we discussed ways to turn Lee’s encouragement into reality, an issue that lies at the heart of South African culture.  And the best part came when one of the quieter students identified, “if we can’t literally walk in the shoes of others, learning about them in books is probably the next best thing.”  With comments like that, how can I not look forward to teaching here, especially if I can help to bridge cultures through literature?

Having just cracked into our fourth week, we finally feel semi-settled.  Unlike the first two weeks, which were mission-impossible hectic, the last week has thankfully been slower, enabling us to take in this mesmerizing place.  At the risk of sounding repetitive, I can’t say enough about the endless beauty here.  The hills are everywhere, covered with an abundance of fantastic hiking trails, some traveling up steep, rocky inclines; others weaving through thick groves and alongside exotic streams/ waterfalls.  Alongside this natural wonderland, however, is a complex and sometimes unsettling past.  A profound dichotomy exists that, in certain respects, mirrors our own - one of extreme wealth and privilege on one hand and shattering poverty on the other.  The opulent villages in the Cape Town suburbs are decorated with gorgeous Dutch homes, adorned with sprawling gardens and lavish pools.  Directly beside which, townships suddenly surface, claustrophobic communities gorged with hundreds of tin huts, all serving to highlight apartheid’s prior precision in isolating and depriving eighty percent of the population.  Paradoxically, while traveling through a village last weekend, a stretch of Gucci stores and Pilates gyms lined one side of the road and an ominous wall encircling ramshackle homes the other.  And though apartheid is a thing of the past, a lingering resentment permeates the air, with many wondering how to heal the wounds (which President Zuma greatly exacerbated as President).  The foolish optimist in me believes education is the way, but, as I’m told by the locals, education can’t work if children don’t see the value in it.  Which begs the question of how to break through this chronic sense of disillusionment.  What’s more, as the principal of my kids’ school pointed out, “if all the nice homes are guarded by walls and electrical wire, how does South Africa become a closer, more inclusive country?”  Great question.  Nevertheless, many others with whom we’ve spoken are extremely positive, pointing to the new President, Cyril Ramaphosa, as a “burst of sunshine” and referring to a number of his recent initiatives.  According to them, we have come at a perfect time, one which will see a much stronger South Africa in the near future.

Hello from Africa!  This past week has been amazing, both for the spectacular people we have befriended and the magnificent natural world we’ve explored.  The kids continue to thrive at the American international school, meeting students from around the world and diving into sports they’ve never even seen before (cricket and rugby).  The Headmaster is a terrific guy, born and raised in Chicago, but a secret Red Sox fan on the side.  As for Elkanah, where I’m teaching, it is unique and enlightening on every level.  The students are very polite, calling teachers ‘sir’ or ‘mum’ in classrooms and hallways.  At first, I couldn’t help but turn around to see who they were referring to, but now I appreciate it as a cool trademark of their culture.  In the classroom, the learning is certainly rigorous.  In English, the juniors are working on their 600-word research paper aimed at defining consciousness.  So many were challenged by this task that the department pulled me in front of all 70 students to share my American perspective on expository writing – most finding my accent more valuable than my ideas.  And though the first several minutes of the conversation were devoted to making sense of MacDonald’s food and Donald Trump (an exercise in futility), the next ten amounted to a fascinating brainstorm on writing and speaking.  By the end, the students and I had established a friendly rapport, and I came away with a much clearer sense of their collective learning style.  Just hearing their view on what effective communication meant was invaluable.  Clearly, Elkanah and AHS seek similar learning objectives, merely from different angles, which makes the next weeks all the more exciting.  That’s it for now.  My very best to AHS.  Here’s to a great first week for all of you!