Being an Education Volunteer in the Peace Corps means you can only leave your village when school is out of session. This is gravy because you don't have many reasons to leave your village other than catching up with other volunteers or going on an adventure in a foreign country. So if the majority of the other volunteers are doing something not so cool, your choices are slim. Yet I found a way to have my cake and eat it too this past break.
My fellow volunteers decided to be good people and raise funds for the KLM Foundation (http://www.klm-foundation.org/) by running in the Longtom (http://www.longtominfo.co.za/). I joined the club (Thank you for your support, Eddie, Zack, and Robin). I genuinely enjoy going to the rec and spending the entire day playing basketball, lifting, and swimming, but running 22km for 2 hours seems silly. Friends assured me it would be fun, I made sure I inserted some cool stuff before and after the run to be safe.
The race was on a Saturday, so I headed out of my village early on Wednesday to visit a private school and a fellow volunteer who lives closer to the race site about 4 hours South. The private school was called LEAP (leapschool.org.za) and their website led me to believe I was going to walk into school that just drills Math and Science into young learners in English in order to raise their scores to get into university. This they did but so much more.
In a country ravaged with high crime rates, post-Apartheid tensions, and one of the world's highest HIV rate, LEAP approaches it's mandated Life Orientation course in a way that I have only seen at high functioning summer camps or religious groups. LEAP has an Life Orientation teacher that spends time teaching the currciculum of sexual health, physical health, good decisions, etc. but the main focus of the class is a daily, one hour community meeting (students go to school 2 hours longer than mandated and have a half day of Saturday school). Here the teacher steps back and the students talk about issues facing them and provide support to one another in a safe environment.
Talking with these students, I could see the benefits of this environment. Yes, they were more proficient in Math, Science, and English than students in my village, but their ability to converse, work together, and face adversity rivaled that of high performing students in the States. It reminded me of how important emotional balance through positive conversation is to success in the classroom.
After talking with cool kids all day, a debrief between volunteers, and a good nights rest we prepared for our journey to the race. We arose early, headed out, and arrived in Sabie, Mpumulanga on Friday during the mid afternoon after getting trapped in a crazy rainstorm. The planning committee for the race found a solid backpackers (hostel) for us to stay at, gave us our race information, and we headed to bed early for the race. At 5am, we needed to be at the bus stop to head up the Sabie mountains to the point of the half marathon starting line.
At the top of the hill there was an absurd amount of people jumping up and down, huddling together, rubbing their arms, and doing whatever to keep warm in this foggy, cold environment. They assembled us to the starting line. We were still huddled when this massive gun fired a shot and the mob of half motivated half marathoners started trotting down the hill to the city 22km away.
We trotted a bit, stretched a bit, toileted a bit, and talked a lot. They gave us Bar One bars, Powerade, and jelly beans. Racing is cool! I finished in 2 hours 2 minutes, got a massage, ate some voers, and cheered in the 56km runners. Yay!
After a night of hanging out and recovering, I headed to Johannesburg to visit schools and see the city a bit. I traveled by taxi and met a guy on the bus that was heading my way. We got off the taxi early and walked to a connecting taxi to avoid having to pay a large amount from going into the city.
The plan for the remainder of the trip was to CouchSurf with someone for 2 days and another for 2 more days and then head back to Venda. Well I got into the town where my first CouchSurf host lived just to find out they forgot to tell me they worked until 11pm. After dark in Johannesburg isn't a great idea. I called a few friends and wound up taking the high speed Gautrain to a different part of town, getting picked up, and staying with my Peace Corps friend Mardy who was staying with a family to celebrate Passover. I went from relying on public transit and sleeping on couches to having a private driver and sleeping in my own bed. Only in South Africa.
This worked out in more than just a comfort way. I got to spend time with a much different South African family that I interact with daily in Ha-Lambani my village. I learned a ton about crime and why every house looks like a castle with electric fences guarded by fully automatic armed guards. I also picked up a partner in crime.
We checked out another LEAP school, this time in one of Johannesburg's most impoverished neighborhoods, Alexandria. Same awesomeness as Jane Furse, but the school was mostly led by former students. Got to love efforts to stop brain drain! The following days visit to Sci Bono Science Museum was what stole the cake on the week.
I heard about Sci Bono through an email correspondence with someone from USAid. They recommended it because of the awesome opportunities it provided to low income students in the area. Before we arrived, they had a whole day mapped out for us visiting each different department and learning about the whole operation.
Now in the States, I always thought Science centers were lame. I just never got into them. Now that I have taught for a few years, I see how fun they can be. Sci Bono was fun in all the familiar ways of cool exhibits that challenge the five senses, explore technology, and give students a hands on experience with science. Yet Sci Bono went a few extra miles that I had not heard of before.
At Sci Bono, they had a computer research center, a chemical lab, a Department of Education school improvement team, and a whole building dedicated to career counseling. The research center and lab were filled with high school students participating in a competitive holiday science camp. We had conversations with the school improvement team on their teacher coaching program and weeklong immersion program to get teachers up to speed on skills. In the career counseling building, we talked about how the science center promotes trade schools for students that aren't benefiting from the college preparatory route and were given a stack of materials on careers to fill our community library (In the works. Want to help me raise $330 for books to fill a library? Give at https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=donate.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=674-072)
I ended my visit playing with all the exhibits then having lunch with 3 of the employees all of different ethnic backgrounds - one Venda, one Zulu, and one Setswana. It was wild sitting there talking about South African history with 3 very different experiences. We talked about the positives and negatives of the homelands, how the townships work today, and funny memories. I have been trying to learn as much as possible on South African history, but to sit down with guys that have lived and are it, was icing on an already sweet day. Plus I had ostrich for the first time. Delicious.
Umm, then I went back to Venda.
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