Introduction to my service learning placement

It’s Thursday afternoon and I just got back from the Sustainability Institute / Lynedoch Primary School where I’ll be completing my 9 service learning credits. There are 14 AIFS students and 10 other internationals that will be working together at this school, which serves one of the poorest communities in the country. It’s a primary school so there are kids from kindergarten up to 8th grade, but all of them are physically much smaller than you would expect because of malnutrition. We got a chance to play with them during their 15 minute recess today and it was incredible. They were so eager to talk to us and to have us take an interest in them. Our teacher, who I’ll talk more about later, explained to us that they have very little exposure to white people and love the attention we give them. For most of them, the only white people they know are their parents’ bosses and they live in much nicer houses in wealthier parts of town. Because of this, I expected them to shy away from us and be weary of our role at their school, but they were so excited to entertain us and to have us simply recognize their presence. I spent my time watching a dance off between several young boys and posing for pictures with many children. They loved taking pictures with our cameras as well as having their own picture taken. They also enjoyed writing their names on our hands and arms and having us do the same to them. The primary language used in the school is Afrikaans but most of the older kids can speak enough English to converse with us, and even thought the younger kids can’t say much they understand most of what we say.

Our teacher and supervisor for this course is a man named Grant, who seems to be nothing short of brilliant. Our resident director had told us ahead of time that Grant has a very unique style of teaching and that he’s incredible at it, but to experience it was really something else. It seems like his life is one continuous motivational speech. Hopefully I’ll become better at describing him over the course of the semester so that this makes more sense. But to put it simply, I feel as though there are so many valuable skills and important pieces of knowledge that I can learn from him, and I’m very eager for all of it. His life has been an amazing journey and he’s so eager to share himself with us. Today Grant spent part of the morning helping us develop a mental picture of the fabric of South Africa. He showed us a video of the Drakensburg Boys Choir singing what he termed “the unofficial national anthem.” We were so struck by the boys’ enthusiasm, energy, and pride, so Grant had about 10 young students come into our class in order to bring some more energy to the room. Two of the boys sat down to drum on the desks and as soon as they saw the video projected on the wall they began tapping to the beat. Grant then told a few of the kids that they could get up on the table and dance for us. It was amazing to see their faces light up when they heard the song and to see them smile and laugh, especially since we all knew that each one of them has plenty of obstacles in their life that could keep them from being happy. And it was obvious right away that these students have a great amount of respect for Grant and vice versa. Grant’s mini-lessons today definitely reinforced my notion that South Africans are among the proudest and most resilient people in the world.

As for the format of the course, we’ll be taking to a train to the school two days a week. Every Monday from 9am to 3pm we’ll be teaching lessons in the classroom, leading PE exercises, reading books to the students, helping to maintain an organic garden, and constructing a small library in the school. On Fridays we go back to the school from 9am to 3pm for our theory class (here they call it lecture). After today’s orientation I’m very excited about all of this and I know that this is the perfect program for me. The 23 other internationals are great and getting to know them more closely is going to be a lot of fun. And this will provide all of us with an experience vastly different from the one we’ll get at the university. We’ll witness one of the biggest contradictions of South Africa by taking two courses at Stellenbosch University with other privileged, white students and by working fifteen minutes down the road with an extremely impoverished group of black children. Grant warned us that it will become mentally and emotionally draining, but we’re all really excited about the course.

Check back next week for an update on my weekend!
Sarah