Where do I begin? I have been working for the last several days trying to collect my thoughts onto paper about my experiences in South Africa. It’s actually rather daunting. For one thing, how do I put down in words something that is so beyond words? Emotions, feelings, this is where language fails us. First, I have to find the “right” words that capture what is going on inside my head as close as possible. But then, once these thoughts have words assigned to them, it is somehow unfulfilling, inadequate. What I see is not what I feel. Not what I have. I have put my experiences into boxes that don’t quite fit. They are like photographs. The picture may be worth 1000 words, but the memory, the picture in our heads is worth an infinity of words. My hope is that, though my words fail to satisfy me, they serve the purpose of photographs for others. That these words give a glimpse of what I saw.

I think that the first thing that I feel when I look back at being in South Africa is an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. I am grateful to Yunus Peer for having the foresight, the courage, the ambition to have put this project together. I am grateful to Yunus’s family and friends for being the most wonderful hosts we could have ever asked for. I am grateful that both times I went, I spent 5 weeks with the best group of guys, teachers, comrades possible. I have never been so proud to work with anybody as I am to have worked with Mike, Jim, Steve, Will, Mike, John, and Yunus. I am grateful for all of the officials in South Africa who supported the project and organized the gathering of the teachers. I am grateful for Teachers Without Borders, Punahou School, Rotary, my family and friends, the doctor who gave me free vaccinations, the counter lady at the airport for shuffling our overweight bags through. There are countless people who contributed in some way, and I am grateful because everybody made this project as successful as it was. And I am grateful to the South African teachers with whom we worked for two weeks. They gave up their short and hard-earned vacations to spend a week trying to be better teachers. They were humble, devoted, motivated. I am humbled and in awe of them. I am grateful for their support, their enthusiasm, and for their dedication. They are an inspiration to me. I may be a mathematician, but I am no teacher. I aspire to be the teacher that I witnessed in South Africa.

To talk about the conditions that these teachers had to work with sounds like a horror story for us American teachers. For most of them, it is third-world through and through. Even in the poorest of American school districts, students typically have textbooks (albeit outdated), paper, the teachers have books, the schools have electricity. From conversations I have had with people in the public school system, they typically have classes with 35 students in them, maybe sometimes up to 40. The teachers that participated in the workshops averaged over 50 students. Amazing. One of the images that will forever stick with me is sitting in the classroom of the school that sounds like Shlong-gauze-wa. This school had just recently gotten electricity. In this classroom, the blackboard did not even have a metal tray on which to rest the chalk. We as Americans are blessed. No, lucky. As teachers, we complain when our classes get too big. When our whiteboard pens run dry. When our computer crashes or when the air-conditioning is not working. We complain because we do not have enough money to get this or buy that or go here or there. I will never complain about any of the conditions of where I teach, or live, or work, again. Because of what I saw at Shlong-gauze-wa. And because of the feedback that we received from our fellow teachers. In college, one of the more common hippie bumper stickers that you would see in the parking lot was Live Simply So Others May Simply Live. It’s one thing to hear that and believe it, and another to go see it with your own eyes. In terms of material wealth, I will never know the level of poverty that many of the people in South Africa know. Seeing that has had a profound impact on me that I will hold on to for the rest of my life.

Much is made of the good of traveling abroad can do for a person. It gives you the opportunity to feel, see, taste new people and cultures and ideas and scenery and religions and ways of life. I fully agree with that. That is why I have spent a significant amount of my free time over the last several years traveling. And going to South Africa, you might think that this is going to be a whole new world. Like Marco Polo going east. It was, in a lot of ways. But one thing you can’t help but get when you travel, especially if you spend a long time in one place and really try to involve yourself with the people, is that people are people. They do different things. They have different value systems, but they are people. They love their families. They want to eat. They like to laugh. They want the best for their children. Their country. The world.

So it is neat to think that many of the issues as teachers that keep us up at night, motivating students, getting them interested, keeping them engaged, relating to them and being their mentor or friend or confidant, our colleagues in South Africa are getting little sleep too. Or anywhere, I can imagine. That was special to me, that once we were there in South Africa, everything that made us different disappeared. There was no America or South Africa. There was no white or black. No me or you. Just a bunch of us teachers getting together to share what we have, what we know, and trying to be better. And all this work, all this effort, for the sake of our learners. There are going to be a lot of very fortunate students, American and South African, who are lucky enough to have any of the teachers present at these workshops.

For having been a part of this project these last two years, I am a better person. I have grown as a person. I have new insights, new ideas that I can contribute to a classroom that I did not have before. I have an understanding about a whole new culture that I can share with colleagues, friends, and students. I worked very hard preparing for these workshops, and as oftentimes happens in teaching, I had to do a lot of thinking and adjusting on my feet. I have gained more confidence in myself as a teacher through these interactions. And I have more desire to become a better teacher. I am confident in myself now, and I am even more confident in the person and teacher I am becoming. There are so many people out there that we can learn from. I have learned so much from my South African colleagues. I want to learn more.
I am a changed man because of what I have experienced in South Africa. I do not want to sit in a comfortable chair in front of a computer all day. I do not want to serve people with SUV’s and cable internet access. That is the world in America that we have come to take for granted. South Africa is alive. It is growing in its new identity as a nation, and I want to be a part of it. It is exciting. People are poor, and are trying to provide for themselves. The nation has rifts, scars from centuries of racial conflict, and they are trying to mend them. The horror stories we hear about South Africa would keep anybody away. But, when you go there, and you see people like any of us trying to make right a lot of what was made wrong, you cannot help but feel inspired. And I hope with all my heart that I get the opportunity to lend a hand.