“Under Southern African Skies”

I didn’t write one of these last year. I’m not sure why. Maybe I felt like just an

intern, not meant for the tedious tasks I took on. I was new at this and this was all

new to me. I wasn’t prepared. I never am. I don’t think I’m supposed to be. How

do you gear up for a transformative experience such as this? This has no plan,

no formula. It was one step after the other. I let my life (well our Director Yunus,

nicknamed “the driver”) take me where it (he) may.

I left the states yearning for this, though terrified of the confusion and chaos. This

is what usually happens with anything unknown. I was anxious in the best and

worst of ways. But I was committed, and once en route there was no turning

back. Time doesn’t allow for us to go backwards, only move forwards. So I left

the past behind and set my sights on new skies.

Returning here was like an old friend, all the bit familiar but completely changed.

It is such a diverse landscape in all senses here that even a different province

seems like a new world.

I often asked myself why I returned to the project. Was it more than just my

wanderlust? I saw the impact our team had made. I saw the profound change in

them, time and time again. To see our director light up when he knows the vast

number of people benefiting is not something I could find elsewhere. The

community here makes this a different type of home. It is not ordinary in the least

bit. In Swaziland, seeing a flyer for the ‘oddball olympics’ seemed like a perfect fit

for our team. We were this rag tag group of people on this movement to help

simple individuals create change in their own lives. We hoped a ripple effect

would occur in the process.

While my classmates in graduate school where off moving into fancy new

apartments and starting their seemingly prolific careers, I was here, in Southern

Africa. They are just following through with the path their life has been on. I took

a sharp left turn and found myself elsewhere.

I wasn’t the only one taking my summer to trek another land instead of stay the

course. We had an entire team imparting the knowledge they have on teachers.

It was educators to educators for the sake of furthering the future of education.

Our director has been doing this for fourteen years. I’m not sure how I didn’t

come sooner. After my introduction last summer, I’ve become an expert at

managing a team, all over the place at times but just as cohesive.

Our Assistant Director Thokozane is the “people person” of our group. He is

good with making sure easily forgettable things get done such as lunch orders

and continuous supply runs. He is the best dressed of the group, with or without

his many hats (figuratively and literally). Laurie, our always-poised assistant

administrator, wasn’t able to be here until the last week but she brought the calm

we had needed at that point. Some of the tension seemed to ease up, all raised

from various things out of our control.

Carl came back to advise the math team. He is wildly brave and dares to do even

the most challenging of math. Brad returned, enthusiastic as always, ready to

involve every teacher possible, and with the ability to make even math seem

exciting. For someone like myself who has an aversion to math, that is

something. John and Aviva, both new members, brought different dynamics to

the team. John knew how to engage teachers who may not have understood the

subject, but aside from his math skills was able to able to retell stories from our

director’s early teaching days. Aviva made sure that every teacher had a chance

to not only understand the content but learn how to teach it as well. She got

teachers to think critically about the subjects they were teaching.

Science felt like a fanfare of familiar faces, despite not being so. Veronica, who i

had the pleasure of couch surfing at her place before this trip, is constantly

finding some new and creative way to teach science. Andy is always willing to

make sure teachers take something away from their experience at the

workshops, even if that is literal materials. She really wants them to understand

how science works. Paul, who I didn’t know but only heard good things about,

seemed to revel in the simple things such as a teacher understanding basic

concepts or being able to sit back while a teacher led a lesson, even educating

him.

Everyone was eclectic. There was an electricity in the air throughout the team.

We all felt it from our drives down long roads and early mornings heading to

schools. The adrenaline kicked in from our extensive shopping trips to the

workshops picking up speed as each week went on.

It was nothing short of energising. The teachers attending the workshops helped

with that. I didn’t get to know them on the level our math and science team did

but their dedication not only to their work but their learners was evident in the

numbers and the retention rate. They, like our team, each brought something

different; a new way to show a topic, a way to express something to far more

learners than a classroom should hold, and even a spirit uninhibited and unfazed

by the challenged they faced. They are the heart of all of this. They are why we

do this.

Our team are just people, humans hoping to do something more. They have their

own classrooms and teaching styles. Here they have new obstacles, but they

also have new insight, experience, and learning. The teachers we met, they are

making the most change, as they are in the classrooms here with the vast

expanse of learners. They are expanding these children’s minds. What are we

than the knowledge for the vessels in which learning is emitted.

I’ve seen this before, last year, but it’s still always different. I remember it fondly,

but have taken hold of new memories. Watching change happen is like watching

the sun set on the horizon as if you had one last glimpse to give. It comes and

goes in an instant but the impact is lasting. It is like water retreating as it reaches

the shore. It is always moving. You can’t gage that in numbers or expect mere

words to capture it all. A photograph can hardly say enough. You can only grasp

it while it’s here, hoping the opportunity presents itself again.