A Teacher's Travels & Search for Math/Science Theorems that aren't Named after White Men |
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A Teacher's Travels & Search for Math/Science Theorems that aren't Named after White Men |
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I take baths here-not by choice-but because there isn't a shower in my apartment. I've gotten used to it and even enjoy it. Some days it's like jumping into a pool, refreshing and seemingly necessary after long walks in 99 degree weather. But most days it reminds me of when I was a little one. The other day, I noticed how the water drained thru the tub, resembling a tornado. As a kid, this used to be my favorite—I was mesmerized by the neat and precise tornado in my tub.
At that age, I never could’ve imagined this life of travel, inquiry, deep meaning, and adventure. I traveled thru the nearby forest preserve, up trees and thru books. I would sift thru the pages of my mother’s beautiful coffee table book, “Africa Adorned,”— a treasure chest of photos of adorned people throughout the Continent, their jewels, fabrics and make up. I am beyond grateful to be where I am and to be the person I am. Transitions This week in Gabs was another of work and writing, reminiscent of the previous week. I tried to focus on my project and getting a couple of last trips to primary schools in before their spring break. One of the reasons I’ve focused so much on my project is because a lot of people—advisers, family, former Fulbright scholars, have been freaking me out about my transition home. “What you’re going back to work right away?” “Do you have a therapist?” “You know going back to America sucks, right?” I suppose I didn’t really think through all this when I was doing last minute planning and negotiating with my district. After all, I only got my travel dates about a week before I left. But you know I miss teaching. I miss my kids and did what Fulbrighters told me not to do---I stayed connected to them, made promises to them, listened to their complaints and anecdotes, monitored what they were doing. My thinking was, “In seeking Pan-Africanism, I must also be thinking of my black kids, children of institutionalized slavery, simultaneously as experiencing children of those who were colonized.” No regrets. However,I am nervous about returning to America’s violence---my street’s gunshots, my students foul language and petty fights, the violence of police sirens, the violence of living in a city where some people drive Teslas home to their penthouses overlooking the river on Upper Wacker and others push all their possessions in a broken shopping cart home to their tents on Lower Wacker. I’ve scheduled things I’m looking forward to, and one of my best friends will be visiting me as soon as I get back. Any other transition tips will be welcomed in the coming two weeks. “The Games Have Also Changed” This week I had an interesting meeting with a Motswana named Kenneth, the founder of an organization that preserves, researches and promotes traditional games from Botswana and the surrounding region. I loved the thought Kenneth puts into understanding and knowing the traditions, whilst also noting and uplifting their evolution. In investigating indigenous knowledge systems, I’ve come across many who are obsessed with purity and preservation of systems as things were. To me this is a bit unfair. How can we think of European civilizations and innovations evolving with time and yet we don’t expect the same to have occurred with those who we deem to be indigenous? We know that British have changed their fashions from powdered wigs, but we still expect to see San people in loin cloths. Why? I think the tension comes in when we think of what is a natural evolution of a technology or system as opposed to a change coming because of a western influence. This is complicated, and I’m not sure how to asses this, but if I don’t question the fact that a new iPhone comes out every 6 months, then i shouldn’t critique or see things as less pure when an indigenous person adapts their ways or practices. “Batswana Are Good People” I was very generously invited to a friend’s family wedding—-Tswana weddings can go on for days, and we went to the wedding hosted by the bride’s family. There will be another hosted by the groom’s. I stuffed my face with heaps of rice and meat. Watched others dance and reflected on how kind it was to be included in intimate moments such as this one. My friend’s great uncle at one point turned and said to me, “Batswana has some very good people. Don’t you think?” I really do think so despite any difference I’ve noted and experienced. After the wedding, I was brought to an open mic, which interesting to me was the use of English—American, black English—by the almost all Tswana group. I kept excellent company and met some new wonderful people, I hope to see in my short time left. I laughed when one asked if I knew of “O-Block” in Chicago—the block I taught on for years, whose children I love and whose infrastructure, abandoned by the city, I hate. I immediately texted my daughter/student Mariyah about this. She thought it was hilarious that her block, notorious for violence and poverty in Chicago, was known across the world. The exchanges across the diaspora are happening. Our connections to each other are possible beyond just Trap and Afro beats, although it’s a promising start. These moments actually make me feel pretty excited about my project, for we yearn for and are seeking meaningful bonds with each other, so that we can collectively begin to understand how our struggles differ, are alike and how we collectively move forward. Much of the week was spent with West Africans—first with my Sierra Leonian tailor, a Ghanaian woman who works for an NGO called Young Love, which does a tutoring program for kids (she brought me all the way to the village of Machudi to see the program) and with my Nigerian AirBnb host in JoBurg. They all talked to me about how southern Africa is hard for them because of the huge mix between Europeans, Indians and African culture. They find that it’s too mixed up, which eliminates, “distinct culture.” An interesting perspective coming from a part of the Continent affected very differently by colonialism. Their colonizers, for the most part, left unlike in the southern region. “Aren’t you tired?” In Africa only 2 countries were not colonized. Today I arrived in one of them—one with a rich and vibrant culture, beloved by me forever, Ethiopia. I typed this all on a Kindle because my laptop is in Gabs, so you’ll hear from me again after April 10. Teteneqeqe! Special shout out to Dawit. ❤️
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A dear friend who I’ve known since college reached out to me this week to tell me, that she loved my blog and was inspired by my adventures and how much I was learning. She told me she was excited to read about my next adventure. Others have reached out with similar sentiments, and I really appreciate you all for that. However, this week was one of adventure recovery----you know, even Frodo took time to rest in Rivendell, Odysseus spent 7 years with Calypso, maybe 3 with Nausicaa, and Simba spent his entire adolescence just eating grubs with a pig and a rodent. Adventurers need time to refuel. Aside from that, this week was one filled with contemplation, catching up on work, mild frustrations and a bit of homesickness. I’m an introvert, and if you’re not a close person in my life, you might think from following my journey that that wasn’t the case. But, unfortunately, a thing that can happen when I’m not immersing myself in adventures, strange encounters and dealing with children, is that I’ll crawl back into myself, my thoughts, my books, my night runs, and be completely content. This week I allowed for some of that to happen despite my largest attempts to remain social and active.
I spent most of the week in my quiet office at the University of Botswana, building my project website, exploring future possibilities and looking ahead to my last month here. The office is hot and small and sometimes while in it, my mind bounces anxiously between everywhere and nowhere. When I’m there, I might sit and think, “Wait I shouldn’t be here at this computer and with these books. I should be out there talking to people, exploring more.” Other times it goes here, “I’m behind on my project, my email follow-ups, my lesson plans for my return to the US.” My mind didn’t yoyo anxiously like this when I was absorbed in new cultures, languages, and deep human connections. Alas, luckily, I still was able to find those moments as well. “I don’t want to be seen thru my boyfriend. I’m my own person.” When I started living out of my suitcase, just over a month ago now, I was invited to move in with my running buddy, Rati. Rati is a very chic, spunky accountant, who is my age, and said she’d be happy to have the company in her 2 bedroom apartment. This past week we switched from being morning running people, as it’s dark now since winter is apparently coming, (although it’s about 98 degrees daily, to night running people.) This week I saw homes and parks I had never seen before here in Gaborone all during our runs. I also learned more about how Rati sees the world. She is wise and progressive in her views about womanhood and relationships. She is fiercely committed to living on her own and in being seen as her own person, separate of her boyfriend, who I have never even met, or of whom, I never seen a picture. I respect her and these runs soothed my soul and restless legs. I’m happier when I’m physically active and eating lots of fruits and veggies---something one must pay more for here near the Kalahari Desert, where most things are imported from South Africa. So, this week I also splurged on some raspberries, and just like when I was 6 years old in the back of my mom’s car, I ate the whole box before I even got home from the grocery store. “In India our experience was different” I also got back into another at home hobby--yoga---but not the western, trendy, skinny women bowing “Namaste” in $90 Lululemon pants type, but at an older Indian woman’s house. I’m in session along with two other Indian women. Jita, the teacher, sits on her couch in her beautiful, adorned home while she carefully describes the ways in which she wants us to bend our bodies. Frequently she’ll come over and push our bodies and limbs into these uncomfortable positions. My back hasn’t stopped being sore, but I enjoy the practice and my time with members of a very prominent group in southern Africa. One of the women tells me that she came to Africa---first to Zambia---in 1979 and considers herself more African than Indian, although she dresses in Indian clothing, and the women speak mostly in Bengali together. The women, unsolicited, tell me about what they perceive to be the differences in colonialism in India and in Africa. They don’t seem to make note of the huge differences in how the British treated the two groups, but instead focus on the colonized as individual agents. The older of the three women tells me that, “In India we already had established civilization and religion, so they couldn’t make us practice their religion and ways as easily.” Of course this suggests that African peoples lacked civilization, whatever is meant by that term, and religious practices. I just listen because it’s always interesting to hear other people’s perspective. Again, like with Lloyd, while sometimes I disagree, I do like these women, and I feel comfortable around them, mostly because I grew up spending so much time with Indian people, but also because they’re warm and kind. Indians as a whole, are however, granted many more economic and societal privileges than the Batswana, who they both feel sorry for and critique. Yesterday one of the women, Mansi, brought me to a Holi celebration organized by the Botswana Hindu Society. My Motswana friend, Mpho, joined us and together we were greeted with slaps of fluorescent colored powders, and a, “Happy Holi!” We then were served heaping portions of biryani, chickpeas, raita and sweets before we headed back to Mansi’s to change for yoga. I met some of Mansi’s neighbors (or cleaning lady’s children--I wasn’t sure)---three small Zimbabwean children. I asked the oldest, maybe 7 or 8 years old, which school he goes to. He tells me he doesn’t go to school, and has never been because his father cannot pay school fees. I then remember that in Botswana, Zimbabwean children--who may have even come to Bots at age 1, whose country borders this one, whose country has had a very bleak past few years of economic crisis, dictatorship, government suppression, food shortage and now flooding--have to pay school fees while their “Batswana” peers do not. This reminder, sent a sharp pain to my stomach. Mansi heard this exchange too, but to her it was normal, and she rushed us out the door to yoga. Bellies full, mine pained, we went to Jita’s for yoga, which was in equal parts, challenging and relaxing. I was told my shoulders, still tinted purple from Holi, were nice and manly. We then had traditional chai tea before heading home to our showers and beds. N!ow came in two forms, good n!ow and bad n!ow” This week I spent a lot of time missing Tsumkwe. I talked to Steve a bit, and finished that beautiful, beautiful, I wish I lived it and wrote it, book Affluence Without Abundance. I think I book marked every other page of the book, and it was actually just by fate that I had downloaded that book onto my Kindle before I left Chicago. I didn’t even know it took place in Tsumkwe, and I just happened to buy it because it came out recently and was on the San. I began reading it when I came back from Tsumkwe, only to find that it is an authentic, empathetic, living history and ethnography of Tsumkwe and Ju/’hoansi in Namibia. James Suzman traces the history of the San in Namibia, their horrific experiences on the Afrikaans farms, and their understanding of nature and spirituality, their relationships, their shifts to what we perceive to be modernity and in the ways in which they hunt. I find myself highlighting passages on every other page. I find the passages about hunting and tracking animals to be particularly breathtaking. The Ju/’hoansi carefully study the tracks of animals and from those tracks can tell the size of the animal and the amount of fat on it. Then, when they find the animal, after tracking it in almost complete silence, they shoot a poison arrow at it. They’ll then need to wait several hours and even days for the poison to set in, and during that time, they empathetically feel the pain in their own bodies in the exact position the arrow struck the animal. While they wait, the hunters do not eat meat, or lay with women, they feel the poison, they feel the animal. Ju/’hoansi see animals as people, but not as humans, and not as a beings that should be doted on like teacup-dogs in affluent neighborhoods. However, this idea of oneness with nature, this complete connection to the land as being essential to the human experience and not rooted in hierarchy, brings many tears to my eyes. I emailed Suzman, the author, because I had to share my love of this book and my newfound knowledge of Tsumkwe, which is abundant. He wrote back, and told me he was happy I met Steve, (it turns out he also knows him) he connected me to another scholar, asked to read my blog and welcomed me to visit in Cambridge. Perhaps that if you connect with the Ju/’hoansi and with Tsumkwe, there is something special that bonds you to the next person that finds herself in deep conversation, under the trees at the General Dealer Shop. I also connected to San Research Center at University of Botswana this week. The center is really just a small office, manned by a generous and knowledgeable Bakgalagadi man named Leema. He grew up in Kang among San people and took an interest in their struggles in Botswana. The Center primarily is interested in providing scholarships for San students. The scholarships are funded from the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). The organization is South African. The Botswana government does not provide any scholarships for San students, whose families they have of course displaced and prevented from living in the ways they have always lived. Leema suggested I reach out to Dineo, a San graduate student, who I believe is !Xoo. I sent her a WhatsApp message that day, and she responded within 5 minutes and asked to meet up with me right then. Dineo is a graduate student and is finishing her dissertation on the importance of multilingualism in schools, and she focused her research on schools in Ghanzi. Dineo and I meet up in front of the library, the day is particularly hot, and so she brings me to her dorm. She’s clearly a girly girl---There are colored heels neatly stacked in a shoe rack and other feminine accessories throughout her dorm. I sit down, and she hands me her dissertation, marked with edits and comments. I think she’s happy that I’ve been to Ghanzi and observed the same prejudices in Ghanzi primary schools, as she has both experienced as a former pupil and observed as a researcher. She doesn’t often tell people at UB that she is San because in her experience, they respond with ignorance---ask her to speak in her language, sometimes even start clicking, ask her about living in “the bush.” Dineo teaches me what the word “basura” means and why she disdains it so much. It means. “one without land.” Thus the original inhabitants of this land are “named” in Setswana, “people without land.” Suzman writes: “Like with the other Ju/’hoansi at Skoonheid, the fact that !A/ae was considered a “Settler” in a land that his ancestors had lived for tens of thousands of years often filled him with despair.” Dineo let me know that she’d be going back to Ghanzi, her people’s land, just for a day this weekend--an 8 hour journey she makes regularly to stay connected to her family and her home. Our meeting is brief, and she lets me know to let her know if I need anything else at all. “But did you bring me sweets?” My week ended with a promised trip back to Ben Thema Primary School, a school I hadn’t been to in about month. I was there to deliver cookies for the standard 6 class, I partnered with as pen pals for my own class, as they were in the midst of testing. I spent time in standard 1 being hugged by 6 year olds, while the 10 years olds finished their exams. That day they were writing their agricultural studies exam, which was 1 of 9 written exams, including a composition. The poor teacher is expected to, on her own, grade these exams, of her 47 students within a week. The children were happy to see me, and of course I was ecstatic to see them. In-between exam completion and cookie eating, the children broke off into study groups and prepared for their next tests in the following week, while their loving teacher began her grading. As I walked around the room, I noticed that all students were on task, going thru their study guides, referring to notes, asking each other questions. This would never be the case in my classroom. As I’ve written before, my students have been a mess in my absence. In fact, they’re a mess in my presence. If they aren’t watched, monitored and their time isn’t structured, they really struggle with working on tasks independently. In the past few days, of course I’ve had students from my former school, Dulles, write to me about how much they miss me, and how this year has been a struggle without me for them and their peers, and then from my current students telling me about all the fights, rule breaking and constant struggle. How did we get to a point in the US, especially in urban education, at which, the teacher is seen as the only change agent in the lives of children both by her society and by her children? My students blame my absence for their struggles without looking at any other factors that are present and in front of them. Yet here I am, in a classroom of 40+ students, all of whom are on task, doing a very boring task, without much supervision. On the other end of the spectrum, this society typically puts sole blame on the students when they fail. Both are inaccurate. I part ways with Ben Thema at about lunch time, and let the students know I’d try to come back one more time before I leave next month, but that if I didn’t, I was proud and inspired to know them. “Open a Multicultural Center!” After leaving Ben Thema, I headed to meet with Jobe, the head of social studies curriculum development for the Ministry of Education. He was warm, kind and very intelligent. He discussed the ways in which he wants to help me, and then asked if I would present my findings to the Ministry before I leave. He was especially interested in multilingualism, so I asked him if I could bring Dineo to speak with me on the issue. I would actually feel fraudulent speaking with authority on this topic to that particular audience and think that Dineo and voices like hers should be the ones invited to the Ministry, so I’m glad he agreed that she could present with me. Jobe flatters me when he tells me that he doesn’t think I should be in the classroom and a teacher, but should instead, think of using “my amazing language and cultural skills” to build some sort of multicultural center in Botswana. I’m flattered, but the more I miss home, my family and other places in the world, some of them even nearby, I realize that Botswana will never be my home. I also resent the idea that capable people should leave the classroom, as if the classroom is purgatory. Plus, I’m still conflicted about what it is I offer. Scencia, my unofficial mentor, a former Fulbright DAT Botswana teacher, and CPS teacher, told me to look at this program as an exchange. I haven’t honestly felt that I’ve had much to offer teachers and schools here besides a listening ear and perhaps validation in their practices. “Look at my beautiful feet!” I talk about this a lot with my DAT colleague, Sara. Sara is the only other Fulbright-er here with me, and she’s a delight--a fellow Midwesterner, with roots in Door County and a shared fear of impostor syndrome. It has been refreshing having this “adventure break” in Gabs this week, mainly because I’ve had the company of Sara. Sara has been teaching, I believe, over 25 or even 30 years. She’s an exceptional human geography high school teacher and is studying population studies here. It was her birthday this week, and we had to deal with some pretty problematic lack of professionalism from the US Embassy, so we vented together about our mistreatment, drank coffee milkshakes and got expensive pedicures. Birthdays shouldn’t include being scolded for lack of knowledge. We also met up with Moabi at a night market at the No. 1 Ladies Detective Cafe, and dear, Moabi, even surprised Sara with a cake. We made new friends, danced to new songs, and Moabi, as usual, connected me to a dozen new people, with whom I have appointments, observations and coffee dates spread out through this upcoming week. For those of you looking for an adventure, sorry if I didn’t deliver. For those of you, recuperating from your own adventures, hard work weeks, illness, the cold, the heat, vacation or just because, I feel for you and hope that you’re enjoying your stays in Rivendell. All my love, Tess “Don’t forget to get canned meat” I woke up early Monday morning ready for our drive thru the bush and over the border into Namibia. The rental 4x4 car, the only type of car that could access Tsumkwe, was to arrive at 7:30am. Of course that didn’t happen. The car arrived hours late, with the hatch locked. Lloyd, Veronica’s son, and his daughter Nicky, age 8, and I spent a couple of hours in Maun going locksmith to locksmith trying to get the back of the truck open so we could store our coolers and tents. That wasn’t a success, so we instead figured out a way to pry the back open with a crowbar, filled up the tank, grabbed some meat pies and rushed out of Maun to get to the Dobe border gate before it’s closure at 5pm. Lloyd was kind enough to bring me here, his mother Veronica pushed him to because it was important to me, and I covered the expenses. We have huge ideological differences, but we were successfully able to talk to each other about pretty much everything on the 6 hour journey. For example, Lloyd, a Motswana, tells me that he thinks Botswana and South Africa need Afrikaners because black people are lazy. I obviously disagree and have a more complex view of “work ethic,” but I listen, and we learn about the other. We listened to highlife, Afropop, house and Sia thru small villages, dirt roads, passed heaps of elephant poop and around termite mounds. The white sand turned to red upon crossing into Namibia at the small border gate, which is manned just by two people in a small shed. Lloyd tells me that in Tswana folklore, they say that red sand means that blood was shed in a place. I can’t help but think of the Herero people who had fled Namibia to escape the Germans only a century before our own trek. Namibian roads are better maintained than the Botswana side, so our rollercoaster ride comes to an end, as we entered the Nyae Nyae Conservancy area, and then 10 minutes later, arrive in Tsumkwe. The village is quiet, and there are mainly San people walking by on the gravel road, specifically they are Ju|’Hoansi. I have come to Tsumkwe to learn from them, after being invited by |UI Steve Kunta, a native of the area, guide, school founder and teacher. After finding the campsite at Tsumkwe lodge, Lloyd, Nicky and I set up our homes for the next few days and Steve calls me asking to meet up. “You look tall in your WhatsApp picture, but you’re short” I first meet Steve in person, after months of talking via WhatsApp and email, at the general store/filling station in the center of the village. As soon as we pull up to the store, which acts as sort of a piazza, I get out of the truck and look around. There are Herero women walking around, and a few San men sitting under a tree. I turn my head, and realize that someone is walking toward me with a huge grin---it’s Steve. One thing I’ve learned from traveling in places where I’m not fluent in the language, is that one can usually tell if she’ll be connected to a person in the first initial moments of eye contact. I know the moment that Steve and my eyes meet, and we shake hands, that we’ll be close friends. We both had assumed that the other looked tall in their pictures, and we are both in fact pretty short. Most Ju|’Hoansi are my height or shorter with small frames, with lighter skin than their Bantu neighbors. Steve gave me a breakdown for our next couple of days, and we part ways. For whatever reason, that night at the campsite was tense. Lloyd complained a lot, and I was personally nervous because I didn’t have enough Namibian dollars to pay for gas and to compensate Steve, and the town’s only ATM had been broken for about a week. The next nearest ATM is in Grootfontein, which is a 3 hour drive away if there is no traffic---traffic in this area would be cows, elephants or other animals. It was in these tense moments that I was thankful Nicky was there. Like all 8 year olds, she was so excited to be missing school and on an adventure. Nicky is a charming little girl, but she watches a lot of Nickelodeon, and so she talks like pre-teens on Nickelodeon shows---exaggerated, dramatic and sarcastic. She stayed in my tent with me, and when she climbs into her sleeping bag for the first time she says, “Oh my god! Can you believe it? This is my first time sleeping in a sleeping bag. SoOoOo cool!” It’s special experiencing camping with Nicky. “The Original Affluent Society”
The title of this section was a Time magazine article titled published in 1969 about “Bushmen” and anthropological revelations during the time that contrary to prior research and beliefs, ethnographers were finding that hunter gatherers, particularly San groups, worked less and were content without yearning for material possessions and conquest. The article, inspired a surge in researchers heading across the globe and to the Kalahari to “study” hunter gatherer societies. The Ju|’Hoansi were frequently the focus of these studies, mainly because they lived in a harsh environment, had for millennia, and thrived. I’m currently reading an excellent book about the Ju|’Hoansi called, "Affluence Without Abundance", written by James Suzman, an anthropologist who had followed a similar path as me. He attempted to start his work in Botswana, and found the bleak realities of Botswana’s treatment of their San groups, and then stumbled into Tsumkwe to find a completely different, much less bleak reality. He writes about the history of Homo Sapiens and their roots here in Southern Africa. Ju means people and |hoan means truth. Together, they mean real person. Steve had shared this with me too when we first met. Most Ju|’Hoansi are in Namibia, near the Botswana border. These specific Ju|’Hoansi in Nyae Nyae were the most isolated of all San communities until the mid 1900s, and have uniquely retained control of their lands and traditional ways. They are some of the few on the continent that still hunt and gather, which doesn’t mean they all do and even the ones that do, do not hunt and gather all the time. Unlike the former Botswana president Mogae describing the San or Basura, as is derogatorily said in Tswana, as “Stone Age creatures who must change,” the Namibian government was battling apartheid South Africa until their independence in 1990. Many San in Namibia lived in serfdom or as sharecroppers on white farms, like in Botswana, as they do in places like New Xade or among Herero and other pastoralists, but the Ju|’Hoansi in Nyae Nyae have always lived there independently. The ones who lived on white farms, were victims of repulsive abuse. The Kalahari used to have a series of rivers and lakes, evidence of this is seen in salt pans and in the Okavango Delta wetlands area. According to Suzman the first people to have seen these lakes and their remnants were the genetic ancestors of all modern Khoisan, and perhaps of us all. A hundred fifty thousand years ago, he says, our human family tree branched out---those who remained in southern Africa became the ancestors of the modern San, and the others who moved north, became the ancestors of everyone else. Geneticists have found this to be true in that the contemporary San still carry really distinct and diverse DNA sequences. Also, interestingly, the Khoisan have been relatively successful compared to the other branch of humans. They’re a tiny minority in Africa, but they’ve been relatively very stable throughout their history whilst other non-Khoisan humans have had instability and declines, evident in the lack of genetic diversity in non-Khoisan humans. Fascinating! Right?! While most of the world, specifically the Global North, has been preoccupied with conquest, expansion and colonization, the San had been mastering making a simple living where they still are, in the harsh Kalahari Desert region. Many also believe this to be why Africa’s megafauna and large animal species has endured, while mass extinction, yes due to climate changes, but also due to the presence of humans, has occurred in the rest of the world. There are not many places other than southern Africa that have large mammal species and one has to wonder why, but many believe it’s because of the San. The decline of large mammals in Africa has only been recently with the arrival of white men and guns. They have been satisfied with their way of living, the environment around them and have not asked for much in return. This way of life is so contrary to most of life in Botswana, which is at an interesting point in its “development” and obsession with modernity. It’s worth noting though, that they have been attacked viciously by German, Dutch, Afrikaner, British colonizers as well as be other Bantu groups, for centuries. I’ve shared what their experience has been in Botswana, and their numbers are quite small compared to what they used to be in South Africa---most all Khoisan in southern South Africa, near the Cape Colony, were killed off and enslaved, and exist in only small numbers in South Africa. They found no need for trading, had no interest in colonial life, nor were they easy to enslave, which made them targets of Dutch colonial violence. “Mi sin jan” After peanut butter and banana sandwiches, my American camping breakfast of choice, we meet up with Steve. He brought me to a research permit office, and I explain what I’m doing in Tsumkwe. Everyone smiles and doesn’t ask anything of me, except a copy of my Fulbright letter. Steve and I then go to meet the head of all village schools, Cwisa Cwi. Cwisa is warm and kind. He proudly shows me a picture of the time he met the Queen in London. I also meet Gabriel, a Herero, from a different part of Namibia, who gives me Namibian dollars, and just tells me he knows I’ll wire him the money once I get wifi. Steve and Cwisa tell me that we’ll be going to Nhoma, a tiny village in the bush. Because of climate change, there is a bit of a food shortage in Nyae Nyae so the Namibian government sends food to this area. However, the food gets stuck in Tsumkwe because it’s hard to reach the other villages. Steve and Cwisa take advantage of our 4x4, and we load up the truck with maize porridge, soya vegetable packets and other canned foods. Along the way, we stop to pick up a teacher who would have otherwise walked 12 hours to get to the school, and then stay there. Along the way, Steve and the teacher, tell me about how to hunt porcupines, one of their favorite foods, and Oryx. I asked if the porcupines shoot their quills out at them but am assured that porcupine hunting is very easy, and they’ll even use their quills for jewelry and to make other tools. Nhoma Village School is deep in the bush. We unload the food into the teacher hostels and to the women who cook food for the children. There is a woman breastfeeding her baby underneath a tree, and two women squatted near her, with their bottoms on the ground and knees up, in the way I’ve seen most women sitting here. Some of the older women have tattooed lines in the space between their eyes and ears. It’s good luck. I sit in on a class in the two room schoolhouse. To my surprise the class is small---maybe about 23 children--and they’re not in uniform. Most are barefoot, and their skin is caked with dirt and grime. Instruction is in Ju|’hoansi as are their textbooks. Namibia has 13 official languages, and all textbooks are translated for at least grades 1-3, unlike Botswana, which only uses Setswana and English. The children are unphased by my presence and don’t stare at me, and are more interested by the car, something they rarely see. The two teachers are both Ju|’Hoansi, as I hear, all teachers at the village schools are. It’s important to them that San teachers are teaching San children. The teachers told me they teach Namibian core subjects in addition to teaching traditional cultural practices. Boys learn to make traps, bow and arrows and spears, and they learn to hunt. Girls learn about plants, berries and how to gather. All children learn traditional songs and dances, and there is a traditional healer in the village from whom people can also learn. At this point I’m proud of myself because I’m able to say, clicks and all, “Hello how are you? My name is ||Asa (my Ju|’hoans name),” and greet the women sitting outside before meeting Steve at another one of his projects. One of the two teachers leads me there thru the tall grass, and advises me to watch out for snakes and scorpions. We find Steve standing above a large pink hide. Steve helps a group of people make traditional sandals from animal hide, which they then import to somewhere in Europe. The shoes are cleverly called, “San-dals.” We share apples and dried mangoes on the drive back and agree to meet up again after lunch. After lunch, Cwisa and Steve, take us first to Gabe’s house, where we find his children high up in a tree picking yellow berries, among other small children, and we then head to a shebeen called Rockstar. Together, we laughed and drank Namibian beers. Nicky drinks a grape Fanta. A Kavango man tried to sell me fried fish from an old ice cream box, and a passing man tried to trade Lloyd a goat for a 40 ounce of beer. I never feel uncomfortable as the only woman in this group, besides little Nicky, and it makes me smile to be sharing beers at a concrete outdoor table with San people. In that moment, I think back to my time in an Intro to Anthro required class, I took my freshman year, 10 years ago. We had to read Nisa, an ethnography about a !Kung woman and watch N!ai. I never imagined I’d be here experiencing the Ju|’Hoansi in such a different way than those early ethnographers. While they seemed so intent on finding difference, I was looking for commonalities. Cwisa explained to me how to hunt giraffe over beers---you have to crawl quietly thru the grass, before the assigned shooter, shoots a poison arrow into the animal---which is an experience I cannot relate to, but there was something inexplicable that connected me to Cwisa and Steve. When Nicky became hungry, as the only woman in the group, I was of course the one asked to take her home and feed her, even though her father was there. I left Lloyd to drink with the men, and Nicky and I had a nice dinner of canned vegetables, rice cakes and meet. The next morning we broke down our campsite before scooping up Steve and heading to another school--//Xa/Oba Village School. It was as isolated as Nhoma but a bit smaller. The school had 15 children and one teacher. They were doing physical education when we arrived, and Nicky joined them. I talked to the teacher who told me a huge issue was transport for children to Tsumkwe after they were old enough to leave the village school (4th grade). They are hundreds of kilometers away and have to walk, which isn’t safe. We passed one large elephant just on the way to school, and elephants are very common on the road to Tsumkwe, which as much as I love these animals, am accepting that they aren’t always safe for people to be around. Just like in Botswana, San children, here in Namibia, are relatively shy. They attach themselves to their parents, who communicate with them like adults, but who keep them close. The children smile but are timid around new people, especially funny looking ones like me. One brave student befriends me, and we play badminton together. I then spend most of the rest of the morning in the cooking area with an older woman heating up a cauldron to cook in. We gently place sticks underneath the hot, black pot, while two women talk to me in broken English and Ju|’hoans. We communicate with smiles and hand gestures. They ask if I have any sugar. I don’t, but I give them the rest of the food we have---some canned goods, fruit and bread. Throughout the morning, Steve will embrace me, and say, “||Asa, you must come back and stay with us for 6 or 10 months. You’ll learn our language fast. You’ll teach our children.” The thought floats around the front of my mind. Finally, Steve takes us to a giant Baobab, in fact it looks like two that have morphed into each other. Lloyd jokes that it seems an elephant had died near it because the tree resembles an elephant’s skin and body shape, and perhaps it had taken the spirit of the fallen elephant. We climbed the tree for a bit, and then we say goodbye to Steve. Well, we attempt to. We say goodbye, and then Lloyd says, “Well let’s just have lunch together.” We have lunch together, and Steve says, “I want to stay with you all, but I don’t know what else we can do with this short amount of time.” We all agree that we’ll all see each other again because Tsumkwe not only has left an impression on me, but on Lloyd and Nicky as well. Cwisa sees us off too, and before we know it, we’re back at the Dobe border, cleaning our shoes and tires to prevent foot and mouth, and we’re back on the bumpy road, Botswana side. Along the way, we pick up a hitchhiker, very cool older guy, with a feathered, brimmed hat, wayfarer sunglasses and a wooden walking stick. He’s traveling hundreds of kilometers to pick up money his son sent him hours and hours away. The ride was quiet, so I thought of Steve’s new village school, which will soon open. The school’s interior will resemble the outdoors, and teachers will have their hostels setup inside the classroom, to replicate how schooling once looked like for children in Tsumkwe before the white man came and built cement buildings. The goal is to preserve culture and to continue to teach from their indigenous perspective. Steve is not religious but believes in a power that comes from the natural world, much like his ancestors believed, as is documented on their wall carvings and paintings throughout the Kalahari, including on the Tsodilo Hills in Botswana. I look forward to following this school, learning from it and supporting it from wherever I am. Back to Gabs After so much traveling, I can’t stomach the idea of getting on a 12 hour bus ride, plus I’ve been battling a cold, so I purchase a plane ticket from Maun to Gabs. Early the next morning, I went to a Educational Technology coffee session at the Botswana Innovation Hub, which is an odd and jarring transition from over a week with San people both in Botswana and Namibia. I’m fascinated with how the word “technology” is being used to only describe digital gadgets. Sure, I love my iPhone, but how amazing that the Ju|’Hoansi engineered a bow and arrow, with a poisonous arrow (poison found in a plant), that could take down a giraffe. How remarkable are their tools that break down ostrich egg shells into beautifully, tiny beads. Most people at the talk are interested in capitol, privatization and enterprise, while there is very little talk about cultural preservation. The talk was an odd start to a day, which ended in me not feeling completely content in Gabs. In all honesty, Gaborone is not a city I would ever live in again, and I have deep ideological differences with the people who live here, which come up frequently when I talk about my work. Someone joked with me about these differences and said, “This is because you’re in the self-actualization phase of your development, while we are still trying to thrive.” There is some truth in this, but I also feel that the Ju|’Hoansi are “self-actualized,” and that poverty is something I and most of us only understand thru a western lens or in comparing people and situations to the western elite. The children in Tsumkwe had tattered clothing and no cellphones. By our standards, they are impoverished. However, they appear healthy and happy. Keneliwe told me that San groups in Botswana, although marginalized, are not nearly as affected by HIV/AIDs as non-San groups are. Globalization, colonialism, imperialism, capitalism, greed and homogenization has changed the world maybe forever, and I don’t know if there is any going back. These past two weeks with San people, has given me a new set of things to think about. We can’t go back, and we don’t want to falsely romanticize and exoticize people. As we distributed government food to villages in Tsumkwe, I became frustrated thinking of people in America and probably in Europe, who follow a “Paleo” or similar diet, with the goal of living like hunter-gatherer “early humans.” I thought, “these humans still exist, are not living fossils and cannot even live as they once did with that nutritious diet, in large part because of climate change caused by America and Europe. Yet, here gym Becky is spending $100s a week on a paleo diet.” I’m thinking of ways that we can go forward, honoring people like San groups (again there are numerous, with different languages and cultural practices) and giving them autonomy in a world obsessed with a singular definition of modernity. I felt more comfortable in my Tsumkwe tent than I do here in Gabs, and I miss a home a bit, annoyingly always miss South Africa, and even have Sicily on the mind. Yesterday evening I went to a lovely yoga class at an older Indian woman’s house. I look forward to catching up on work this week on campus and am excited to greet Professor Batibo and Professor Gabanamotse-Mogara in Ju|’Hoansi. I hope you’re getting warmer temps at home, and I’ll see you all in 5 weeks! Mi are a (I love you).
Ghanzi: Home of Quality Cattle
5:30 am Wednesday morning I board a bus, uncertain of whether or not it’s the correct bus, to Ghanzi. Ghanzi is in the western region of Botswana, not too far from Namibia. I was heading there because I wanted to learn more about the San many of whom have settled there because of government enforced removal. More on that later. The bus wasn’t the worst I had been on, and it wasn’t crowded. The velvet seats were warm but manageable. We stopped in many villages along the way, even picking up large groups of school children, as young as 4, headed to school a village over. An older couple got in carrying traditional things like giant wooden mortar and pestle, and a basket filled with chicken, they snacked on. I was impressed that the woman didn’t get any chicken grease on her turquoise shweshwe skirt. After stopping in Kang, a bakgalagadi man came and sat next to me who was heading to Ghanzi for his mother’s funeral. Soon after, an old man on the side of the road began yelling at the bus about something he was selling. The bus stopped, and he boarded it, adorned in that oversized, raggedy gray blazer, seasoned men like him, wear across the globe. He was carrying a potato sack and a small tin cup. He used the cup to scoop out dried berries that made people quickly pull out pula and thebe to pay the man for a cup full of his treats. My seatmate offered me some after the old man poured a heaping portion into his hands. The berries, moretlwa, were sweet and had a huge seed in the middle I was told would “back me up” if I ate it. Eventually, we reached Ghanzi. Immediately upon disembarking from the bus, I started to see people that looked very different than anyone I had seen in Botswana, and really different than anyone I had seen in my life---San people. Generally, their complexion is light, their eyes, seemingly east Asian, their faces, elongated. Striking people who I had only ever read about in problematic anthropology classes up to this point. My seatmate offered to carry my bag to my destination, down the street from the bus rank, even after I turned down his request for my number, which I thought was admirable. I grabbed a bite at an Indian restaurant, as I waited for the Peace Corps volunteer who graciously hosted me in Ghanzi. While I was there, a man in a wide brimmed, Khaki hat approached me and tested to see how far I could get in a Tswana conversation to determine whether or not I was a Motswana. Obviously not too many minutes later, he switched to English and asked where I was from and what I was doing in Maun. After explaining, he went on to tell me about his work. He works with cattle. The heading of this section is actually on the Ghanzi welcome sign, just as you start to see large commercial beef farms, something rare to see in Botswana. These farms are owned, I believe exclusively, by Afrikaners from South Africa who came to Botswana during apartheid, although people call them boers here. They are known for being incredibly racist, segregated (they send their children to their own tiny private school) and well, boerish--big, loud, heavy drinkers. Many of their “employees” although they’re unpaid, so perhaps slaves is a better word, are San--specifically Naro. More on that later. Anyways, this cattle farmer, after telling me about the Boers and his dislike of their blatant racism and bigotry, and after hearing of my project, tells me that he’ll be going to New Xade--a San settlement. He invited me to go with him, while he barters horses for cattle, and while I considered the offer, in the end was unable to go because of a commitment at a primary school. Ghanzi---dry, hot, home of cattle, incredibly diverse (I mean ethnically not nationally or racially in the way I found Peace Corps volunteers use the term)---there are San, mainly Naro, bakgalagadi, Baherero, Nama, probably more. I first learn this when I head to the Junior Secondary School after my lunch and after my 9 hour bus ride from Gabs. School has ended for the day, but the guidance counselor invited me to stay for after school programming. I’m immediately followed and greeted by children, gawked at, something that doesn’t bother me at all after years of traveling. One of the first students who greets me is a poor Afrikaans student, very, very tan, and his cousin, who is half German Namibian and half Motswana. I go with them to their polka club, a dance that comes from Afrikaner culture as well as German Namibian. All the students are black at the club, as the Afrikaner boy is the only white student in the school. An odd thing to observe, as I’ve been reading the history of Afrikaners and Germans in southern Africa. I then hear some more singing, so head outside to an open area where mainly San children/teens are dancing. The young men are dancing in squatted slow and elegant motions with sticks and feathers, and shells around their ankles. The young ladies are clapping in a circle, singing and taking turns dancing in the circle. I notice that the students are drawn to an English teacher, and so I begin talking to her, and she invites me to the school the next day to learn how to dance. I also learned that mostly all the San students are boarders at the school. They come from villages and settlements outside of Ghanzi and are generally at school, but some will leave during hunting season, as their people are traditionally hunter gathers. After a brief battle at the Ministry of Education office, I am able to gain access into primary schools and am kindly given a ride to a school. The principal is sweet and silly. She reminds me of Veronica. We joked around a bit, she’s impressed that I can greet in Setswana, Sikglagadi and Siherero. 15 minutes in, she told me, “I already love you.” I already loved her too. She told me she’d get organized and that I could come back and observe classrooms the next day. Tony, as she’s called, then drove me to the bus rank, and I sat in the grass with a woman selling clothing as I waited for the combi bus going to D’Kar. D’Kar is a Naro, “Bushmen,” village, although I will soon learn that it’s on private land, about 30 kilometers outside of Ghanzi. I eventually got on the combi to eat my snacks, and I begin to hear Naro---a San language, defined by clicks. It’s gorgeous. The driver, who had taken an interest in me, invited me to sit up in front with him. Again, male attention is often annoying, but I didn’t want to be squished in the combi on this 97 degree day, so I move up in front. I let the driver know that I’m going to the D’kar Primary School for the first time, and so he agreed to drop me off in front of the school when we get to D’Kar. The ride felt safe, as far as Combis go. I’m shocked to see so many orange butterflies along the road in the surrounding fields. The school head of D’kar Primary School rejected my request, permission and all, to enter her school. At first, it frustrated me because I haven’t heard many nos, this one seemed unreasonable, and I’ve been just exhausted from so much traveling and sleeping in random places (I had to fight off grasshoppers, scorpions, mosquitos and other random bugs nightly in Ghanzi, so not my best sleep). I kept my head up and wander into the Kuru Art Center, which is conveniently next door to the primary school. I’m warmly greeted by a group of older people sitting on the steps of one of the buildings in the boma and am brought to the woman who runs Kuru---she’s Afrikaans, and is semi-helpful but never smiles. Kuru is an ngo, in which elders from the community create art, with both traditional and non-traditional mediums. The art is colorful and mainly depicts animal life. They have a San museum, which I go to and learn the sad history of the “Bushmen” and their struggles during colonialism and with the dominant Tswana and other Bantu groups. The guide, Xukuri, was very helpful and gave me a lot of his time, as did another older fellow. I was sad to hear him tell me he doesn’t practice some traditions because they clash with his Christian faith. Ghanzi is very religious as is most of Botswana, but you have to remember, that Christianity only arrived with white missionaries, roughly 250 years ago. So even though people have ancestral history, knowledge and traditions, many of those histories are seen as “backwards” because they clash with Christianity. In fact the only written book being translated into Naro, is the Bible. The longer I’m here, the more I disdain Christianity and the gross harms, I believe, it has done to the world---particularly where white people felt they were superior to the people living in the places they established missionaries. A South African friend told me that Afrikaners (really remind me of rural American evangelicals) believe that God promised them southern Africa because they were superior to the people living there and deserving of their land. Back to Kuru, I spent the rest of the afternoon there waiting for the combi driver, Veron, who promised me he’d be back for me at 2pm. Meanwhile, I purchased a traditional bracelet made from smashed ostrich eggshells, believed to have healing powers, and hung out with some children leaving school who took an interest in gawking at the mural on the Kuru building and at me. I was just as equally gawking at them, again they look different than people I too have seen, and we joke around with each other and play. There is a ringleader in their group, a very light complexioned girl, her skin is almost white, in fact I’ve seen many San with this complexion, and her hair is dark and kinky. She reminded me of Annie---very precocious and bold, and she knows I’m waiting for the combi. At one point, before anyone sees the combi, she points her finger up, tilts her head, and say, “bus.” One of the old men I spent the day listening to begins to run down the road and waves his stick at me, urging me to come down the road. At this point it’s 3pm. I get in the front of the combi, and Veron says, “I told you I’d come back for you.” The ride is one yet again filled with butterflies, and Veron tells me all the land we’re passing between D’Kar and Ghanzi---about 30km---is all owned by one Boer who barely pays his employees. The land is used as a gathering place for San from all over Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, in July. I imagine the gathering to be like a Pow Wow. After disembarking from the combi, I’m sweaty and thirsty, pick up a pineapple Fanta on the side of the road, and I head to the junior secondary school for my dance appointment. The dancing and singing is breathtaking. I try and try to learn the moves, the girls patiently attempt to teach me, but it doesn’t go well. I laugh. Let them laugh at me too, and I enjoyed the afternoon and early evening joking around with students, dancing, chatting and always laughing. I walk silently home with a few students just as sun is setting. Desert sunsets are spectacular, even after seeing them almost daily for several months.
“Tell N|kabe and ||xaiga, me and my wife N!hunkxa and |UI greet them.”
Prior to my visit to Ghanzi, I had read and studied extensively about the San and issues related to ethnic diversity in Botswana. I actually have found it reckless that so many people come here, have given me information about this place, without having had done research because as I read, I’m finding their generalizations they narrated to me as certainties, are generally wrong or missing information. Actually, the Peace Corps volunteers, although some well-intentioned, I find to be problematic---they’ve been here a long time, so feel that they have an authority to talk about Botswana, but they’ve not really made friends with Batswana, learned the culture or looked at the culture as something that can give them value. Instead, they tend to see themselves as the saviors, experts and contributors to a culture about which they know very little. I digress. In 1885, Botswana, then Bechuanaland, became a British protectorate, and in 1933 the British recognized 8 tribes in the Chieftainship (or Kgosi), which still exist today. All 8 tribes are all Tswana---they all speak Setswana dialects---Barolong, Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Balete, Bakgatla, Batlokwa, Bangwato and Batawana. I’ve learned only recently that when someone tells me they are, for example, Bangwato, they are Tswana. This would make one believe that the Tswana are the ethnic majority, but most studies find that they are not. They just hold power, and infiltrate their culture on the many, many other groups in Botswana---everyone is a Batswana, one person is a Motswana, these words derived from Tswana. However, as I’ve said before, Botswana is definitely not monoethnic. There are Kalanga, Tshua, Naro, Wayeyi, Babirwa, I’ve written about other groups. The chiefs are really important, and the absence of the inclusion of chiefs from other groups that aren’t Tswana in the Kgosi system is very problematic. If one were to only spend her time in Gaborone, she would think most Batswana are Tswana. This is because Gaborone is a center of wealth, governance and business. But, when one travels to the northern regions, western, and eastern regions of Botswana, she would learn that residing, in these economically and socially depressed areas, are other groups who speak different languages and practice different cultures. I’ve said before that only English and Setswana are spoken in everyday life, mainly Setswana. None of the other 26, or even more, languages are permitted in public life, like in schools. It’s an explicitly assimilationist policy. I could go on all day, so let me just focus on the San. San is an umbrella term. So far I’ve met the Naro. There are also !Xoo, Ju|’Hoansi, Tshua, Khwe, Khoekhoem, ||Gana, !Xun, etc. Their treatment is very reminiscent of the US treatment of Indigenous folks in the Americas--forced removal from historical lands, forcefully changed hunter gatherer lifestyle, which in turn lead to an altered less healthy diet. They are boarded at schools, forced to learn Setswana and English, and they have high rates of alcoholism. Since the 1980s, San groups have been forcefully removed from their traditional lands. The government claims that they are hurting conservation efforts because they hunt game (i.e. impala, Kudo, maybe giraffe). When actually, at least this is the perspective of Naro groups with whom I’ve spoken, tourists don’t want to see them, and they want to pay lots of money to see lots of impala. They hunt with spears, not guns, and meat is not a huge part of their traditional diet. I’ve also heard of the government removing San people from places where they’re mining diamonds. Their interests are economic and have nothing to do with the well-being of San people. Sadly, many were “given” to Boer farmers as cattle ranchers and were told they could now hunt cattle. Cows are very different than game animals. But, this has also created a very eerie scenario---many San settlements are on Boer lands. They farm there, raise the cattle, but are not paid. Only permitted to live there. Sharecropping was just an extension of slavery, so call it what you will. Afrikaners have an odd relationship with the Khoisan and San, dating back to Rhodes and his goons arriving in what is now Cape Town. They claimed, or perpetuated the idea, that the Khoisan were the original inhabitants of Africa. Perhaps this has some truth, I don’t know, nor do I always trust those histories, but many will tell you they used that idea, to validate their claims to land in southern Africa over that of the Bantu people (Zulu, Xhosa, Swati, Sotho, Tswana, etc.) , who arrived over 1000 years ago. They claim that Khoisan and San are not black Africans and somehow different. This is of course ludicrous, and one can easily even see facial similarities between Xhosa people in the Western and Eastern Cape and Khoisan people. The Boers are not benevolent to the San people, and something else is going on when they appear to be acting benevolently. Now, sadly, from my perspective, a lot of cultural practices have been lost not only because of Christianity but because, Professor Batibo argues, simply because of Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs. He examined the !Xoo in the Kgalagadi District, western Botswana, and found that while they have maintained their language, they’ve lost much of their cultural autonomy and taken on a Bantu cultural identity, Bantu languages are all the non-click lingual groups in the area. Thus, it is out of a need for safety, that cultural is lost. I noticed the same with the Naro in D’kar and Ghanzi. I saw this mostly in schools.
Student “Performance”
I spent two days at schools in Ghanzi. No teacher was from a San group, despite many students being San. I would say many held negative views about San students, or basura as they call them, and their abilities. Students are beaten more for small things, like mistakes, in Ghanzi, more than anywhere else I’ve seen in Botswana, and when I asked about, the teacher responded, “These African children will only obey if you beat them. Don’t you read the Bible?” A student can be beaten for speaking Naro though. I focused my observations on the San students themselves, and less on instruction, which honestly was just ok, and not adaptive to the needs of the students at all. Teachers complained that while they were doing their jobs, the students were not doing theirs hence why they were failing. When the child fails, they blame her. When the child succeeds, they praise themselves. So, I focused on the students. The teacher will only ever speak in Setswana and English. If you’re a Naro student and grew up in a settlement, Naro is your first language. Perhaps you lived on a Boer farm, and so you might know some Afrikaans. Setswana at this point is a third language, English a fourth. In a Standard 7 classroom, the teacher had left for the day, one who even I feared, as he always held up his stick at eye level, as if to strike. I go and observe in his classroom. The students are answering questions about world religions for social studies. I decide to read the questions to the students, and I ask clarifying questions. Almost out of fear, they always respond, “Yes I understand,” but when I ask them what a word means, they don’t know. They don’t understand. They say they do because a) either the explanation will be confusing or b) they’re worried about a consequence. I noticed that the Naro students are especially focused, they’re always copiously and frantically writing down notes, they are first to say, “Yes, sir.” “Yes, maadam.” It’s almost as if they know the stereotypes against them, the disdain their Tswana teachers have for them, and thus they work twice as hard and never ask questions because honestly where would they start? They’re learning about Sikhism in English from a teacher mixing English and Setswana, when their language, belongs to a totally different language group. They are also very timid. When I first went to the JSS and smiled at them, they would hide behind their friends, and these were students who were at least 12 or 13 years old. In a Standard 2 classroom, 8 year olds, under a tree, the teacher asks me to help him mark their work. He has 50 students. I draw them smiley faces or hearts on their papers when they get 100%, and they smile, glow and then hug their papers like I have just given them buried treasure. They are thirsty for adoration, and I definitely adore them. Testing is intense, and I don’t entirely fault teachers for putting their children through stress because of performance expectations. Just yesterday, I talked to my grade team partner about my Chicago school, and I learn that our grade tested the lowest in the whole school during the mid year assessments. I learned that our principal is upset, and this is after a week of my students emailing me non-stop that the substitute isn’t giving them work except reading packets (I teach math and science) and that there are still fights everyday. Immediately, I feel anxiety---what did I do wrong that they tested so poorly? Why isn’t she following my plans I worked on for months prior to leaving? And the biggest---Do I want to come back? Why would I come back to students constantly fighting, to a toxic school system that values testing? Would my work here even be of value in America? “Can you bring me Illy coffee?” I don’t focus on my anxiety. Instead I go out and stare up at the stars. You forget that you actually don’t need to look up at the stars, but that they’re right in front of you and all around you. Rural Botswana reminds me of this. The San and Khoisan studied the stars extensively. But of course they did---no one could ever stand in these exact spots, where I have now stood, and not ask questions about this glimmering sea of glitter dust, flying objects and twinkling. I’m off to learn more about their star studies this week. For now, I can focus on this. Monday Morning I’m headed to Namibia to meet with a translator and cultural preservationist, |UI “Steve” Kunta, who will take me thru his Ju|’hoansi community. There is no tar road to the village, Tsumkwe, so Veronica’s son and granddaughter will drive me in a 4x4 truck I rented, and we’ll then camp there with the Ju|’hoansi at their settlement. Yesterday, I took a small sprinter bus, sitting next to two beautifully dressed up Herero women back to Maun, which is closer to where I need to go in Namibia. I spent the day gardening with Veronica, prepping for our trip and picking guavas with Veronica’s 8 year old niece, Nicky. Tonight, we’re having a sleepover party with movies, popcorn and face masks. I’m very excited to go on a bumpy car ride into the bush. Steve asked that I bring him Illy coffee and cigarettes. They’re packed alongside my sleeping bag and mosquito repellant. Lots of love! -Tess Moments
There are moments that are so vivid that you remember your exact outfit,how your clothes felt on your skin. You remember every smell and sound. I have had so many of those small and beautiful and subtle moments here. I often wish I could go back and actually replay them over and over again. I even do, in my imagination, on long bus rides, or during my long quiet walks in Gabs Then, I arrive somewhere, live another new invigorating real life moment, and spend the next leg of my journey, replaying this new moment. While I live very presently, I also am constantly experiencing the past in my imagination--both my lived past and what I feel was the past that predates the one I know. This past week wasn’t as action packed as previous weeks---students were on midterm break, I rested in Gabs, and then spent some time with friends in JoBurg. It was a needed break and time to catch up on writing and reading---Professor Batibo, the Tanzanian linguist, handed me a stack of articles on the Khoisan !Xoo language, the state of vitality of Tshwa and Ikalanga in Bots, among other topics before I heded to JoBurg. “How do I get more free books?” For the past fews days in JoBurg, I’ve been so lucky to spend time and befriend so many brilliant black intellectuals, and young black professors. The famously bubbly and brilliant, Mandisa, was in town and introduced me to her friends who include----an author of a beautiful poetry collection, Red Cotton, an incredible visual artist/dj, an anthropologist who specializes in black boyhood, a Kenyan professor who focuses on childhood on the African continent, a literature scholar who studies diasporic literature. I loved just listening to them discuss their projects and their perspectives. I saw a play based on the poetry collection, Surviving Loss. Of course Mandisa knew the publisher of the collection. I enjoyed listening to a group of Xhosa intellectuals joke about and discuss their ancestral lineage, while eating chicken legs and fat cakes. I feel very lucky to be learning and laughing among these brilliant people, despite being, from a US context, “just a teacher.” I connected with one of my newer friends, Lethlogonolo, who hosts an excellent, excellent literary podcast called Cheeky Natives. Of course I was happy to stroll through Neighborgoods Market with my dear friends from Soweto, while joking about relationships, accents and food, and stopping for an occasional dance to an extra “vibey” song like “Iskhathi.” I’ll be heading back to Gabs with three new books, knowing four new words in Venda, and warmed by at least ten new hugs. “You look like you’re mixed with every tribe from this continent.” When I travel, people assume me to be different ethnicities. They speak different languages to me, usually not English first, as they’re trying to figure out “what I am.” This isn’t new. When I was younger, when people, usually from immigrant backgrounds, would ask what I was, I would lie--I’d make up crazy mixtures, of ethnicities I knew nothing about, and I would generally leave out any Black identity. As I got older, people caught on to my deceit, and luckily I became prouder of my blackness. I’m not offended by people beginning conversations with me in Setswana, IsiZulu, Afrikaans, Portuguese or English. Race is situational. The world was once Pangea. But over the past few days, I’ve felt a bit withdrawn because I think I’m envious of well my South African and Batswana friends can trace their lineage. They have native tongues other than what has become the universal world language, my mother tongue. They have traditions. They know who their ancestors are. Remember that little Motswana boy who proudly told his class, “She doesn’t worship ancestors because there are no ancestors in America.”? I’m thinking thru, even struggling thru my thinking, in what Pan-Africanism means when the experiences of those descending from the colonized really differs from the experiences of those descending from the enslaved. Luckily, I randomly met an Ndebele man from Zim, on the JoBurg streets, who has lived all over the continent. He took an interest in my project and on the Maboneng sidewalks, taught me about Matobo National Park--which is an Ndeble area in Zim. There are rock paintings at the Matobo Park that show indigenous maps of the stars. There is a mountain top important for dancing for rain----every time someone does a rain dance atop the mountain---it rains. He reminded me of my bigger picture goals. I might not quite understand what exactly it is that bonds across the diaspora, but I still believe there is definitely something. I’m also trying to figure out where us wandering, nomadic global citizens should ever settle, if such a place exists. So, alas, what I hope my project will turn into---- Project Plan-ish I hope to create a way to connect teachers across the diaspora teaching from an Afrocentric lens and/or using indigenous knowledge systems. I hope for a creation of a membership based platform, primarily web based but that will be made accessible for those without web access. The format will have a clickable map in which diasporic educators of all sorts can click into a region or country, and explore indigenous ways of teaching, lesson plans, in indigenous languages, stories from the area, created by people from those groups. The format will be similar to teachers pay teachers as well, so that teachers may sell and purchase lesson plans/curriculum that fit a certain afro-centric criteria.
Moments I had a replay moment yesterday. I heard Italian music so asked if the shopkeeper was Italian. He corrected me, “sono Siciliano.” “I am Sicilian.” We begin to speak in Italian, and a tall, brightly adorned man walks over, and greets the Sicilian in French. I said to him, “Ca va bien,” and he tells me he’s from Senegal. A Zimbabwean joins us, I greet him in Shona, and after I talk about Bots, he shared his experience living there. We are soon joined by a young man who grew up in Milan, back to Italian, but who is half Egyptian and half Tunisian. He asks if I knew many Tunisians in Sicily. I assured him that I do from my work there. I cannot trace my ancestral lineage too far, nor can I trace family traditions centuries back, but I can replay moments like these, coming into contact with the world, learning, listening and loving. Happy March to you all! Off to dance to Black Coffee on a Jozie street. |
AuthorFulbright Distinguished Award in Teaching Archives
April 2019
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