Today was an absolutely amazing day at work. To give you some back story, I have been feeling kind of restless about my work lately. Initially I was having a lot of trouble with the school because the sports coaches kept pulling my kids out for practices during drama class time. After weeks and weeks of trying to reach a fair compromise with Mr. Maquina (the head of sports) it came to a point where I had to make the children choose between sports and drama. I didn’t want to do that because it meant so much to the school administration that the students could do both, but having class became impossible. Every day it was something different. I was always missing at least half of my class because of some sports practice or event. So after a week of what felt like pulling teeth I finally got everyone together for a meeting. One Friday afternoon the 2 women that help me (Nonyomeko and Natalie), Mr. Maquina, myself and all the sports coaches had a meeting in which we reached a compromise: the children would have drama class on Mondays, Tuesday s and Saturday s and they would have sports activities the other four days of the week. Although I was sad to lose so much time with them I understood that it was only fair because drama and sports are equally beneficial and important.
As I expected, even the first day of the new schedule my class time was infringed upon for an impromptu soccer event. The next day was the same thing. So I put my foot down and in front of Mr. Maquina and the principal of the school explained to the children that they had to choose one or the other because of scheduling conflicts. I explained to them the importance of both drama and sports and made sure they understood that they should choose based on their own passion for each subject and not based on the teachers or pressure given from either side. After this tearful explanation and what I thought would be my final class because all of my students would leave drama where I’m so hard on them and expectations are so high for sports where they get to run and jump around and be carefree children. But to my surprise only one child left drama for sports and after being away for maybe twenty minutes he came back and said he’d made a mistake and he wanted to stay in drama class. He said he’d only chosen sports so that Mr. Maquina wouldn’t be angry with him. Because of all if this Mr. Maquina was extremely angry with me and told me never to ask him for anything ever again. But, if I didn’t make this executive decision the coaches would have just continued walking all over me and disrespecting my time and my class so I’d rather just bite the bullet and endure his anger.
But coincidentally the week after all of this occurred the teachers decided to go on strike. They’ve been on strike for two and a half weeks and its going to last an additional three weeks after which is spring break. In a nutshell my students are unfairly missing out on two whole months of seventh grade which is going to hinder them so greatly next year when they enter into high school (which begins with 8th grade here). I don’t understand how no one else here sees how huge of a problem this is… I think it’s absolutely absurd. Since the schools are closed we once again had to begin having class outside which is really difficult with the stuff we’re working on now. Also we only have a very small portion of our students because we have no way of communicating with the kids (except squeezing our huge car through the tiny roads in the township looking for kids to shout information to out of our car window that only works when it feels like it) to tell them that we are not striking like the rest of the teachers. So after a couple weeks of feeling really discouraged and almost getting to the point where I’d decided to just prematurely end the project before it began to fizzle away I talked to the Lord about it and He told me to persevere, which I did! And today I received my reward!
I have officially rented out a hall to hold our class in! It’s beautiful and so affordable- only R43 (about $6) per hour. I love it soooo much! It’s like a theatre with a stage and everything! It’s literally exactly what I envisioned when I thought this project up. It’s pretty much exactly like Lang Carson which is the hall we used to have YEA rehearsals in. The kids’ faces when they walked in were priceless! It made all the stress and money absolutely worth it! They were so pumped! We were in there for the first time today. My class has dwindled from the original 60 down to 42 this semester which is a much more manageable and enjoyable number. But because of the strike and lack of communication over the next few weeks its just 10 kids, Natalie, Nonyameko and myself so it’s very intimate.
Today was so amazing because we had what Freddie used to call a “round table” session. We sat our chairs in a circle and we had a deep conversation which is the seed for our next project. We base the play off of things that come out during the round table session. We interviewed each child about him/her self and the things that came out of their mouths were amazing/awful/inspirational/unbelievable/detestable/artistic/raw/beautiful/unmentionable- the perfect ingredients for one hell of a play! We only had time for eight interviews but here are the highlights from a few:
Masixole- 14 year old boy:
He said that the two things he loves most in this world are God and people. That was so beautiful to me because Jesus commands us to firstly love God with all of our hearts, souls and minds and secondly love our neighbor as ourselves (Matt 22:37-39). Therefore Masixole at the age of 14 just naturally has the heart of Jesus. He went on to tell me about how he wants to be a preacher. But it doesn’t stop there. He has started his own church branch with some youth from his home church and he is the pastor! This child really loves the Lord, its amazing! He talked about how his mother whom he loves very much is not a Christian. He prays for her to come to God everyday and he really believes that God is going to answer that prayer someday soon. His mother is a widow of two years. His father died from an “unknown disease” two years ago. He misses his father very much, but his mother is a great stand in. He says, “When I need a father she is a father to me. When I need a mother she is my mother.” His ultimate goal in life is to please God and become a great man.
Esethu-12 year old girl:
She began by saying, “I am who I am and I am what I am”. I’m not really sure what she meant by that, but I found it intriguing. She wants to be a judge so that she can stop sexual abuse of children. She told us the story of a young girl in her family that was raped at a very young age by a neighbor. She talked about how the girl totally changed after that. She was such a sad and closed child, her innocence was totally gone. It really affected Esethu and gave her a heart for young girls who are raped. She said that when she is a judge she will put all the abusers in jail. When I asked her if she had any final comments she wanted to make to the world she said she wanted to tell her country that they must be strong. That’s Esethu for you- my little activist.
Elihle- 13 year old girl
Elihle is stunningly beautiful. It’s the first and most noticeable thing about her. She is outwardly beautiful and she also has this inner beauty that radiates from inside her. It’s so huge, inescapable really. I asked her if she knows how beautiful she is and she replied with the most humble but confident and adorable “yes”. She said she is beautiful because she tells herself that she’s beautiful and her mother tells her that she is beautiful then she smiled that sunshine smile of hers. When I asked her to describe her house she described a little orange house with one bedroom, a kitchen, a toilet, and a dining room that sits in the middle of a huge crime zone but according to her is a little abode of safety. She said that when she is at home she feels absolutely happy and safe but when she steps outdoors is when she starts to feel afraid. Afraid of what? “The many people that are raping us and the criminals and the guns”. Elihle’s favorite memory is her grandmother’s 60th birthday. She loved it so much because her gogo looked so happy and was smiling a lot and because her family was all around. She ended with her signature smile that pulls a bit to the right and only shows her teeth at the very end.
Thandile- 14 year old girl
Thandile’s story was very inspirational. It’s really a story of faith. She told us about her parents’ divorce which happened years and years ago. They divorced because her mother got pregnant by a white man that lives in the town. They are now in a relationship and Thandile says the man is very nice, but her deepest yearning is for her parents to love each other again. Her father told her that because of the white man he doesn’t love her mother anymore, but Thandile prays every night for them to get back together. She lives in Cape Town with her father, and her mother and the other children live in a rural area in the Eastern Cape. Because her father is a single parent Thandile is frequently left home alone. One day she was awakened by the sound of an intruder and she was alone in the house. She tried to hide, but the man found her. She said in that moment she was very scared so she prayed. She asked God to come down and wrap her up in his wings and told him that if it was his will for her to be raped at this time then let his will be done, but if it wasn’t then may he rescue her which thank God he did. “Not my will, but thy will be done”(Matt 26:39): another child with the heart of Jesus. Wow.
Linda- 14 year old girl:
Linda began by telling us how much of a positive impact drama class is having on her life. She is staying off the streets and focused on what she’s learning. She is no longer getting into fights or hanging with the wrong crowd. Her family is very proud of her. But the story she told us after that was absolutely heart breaking. Linda has a problem with food. Everyone knows it; it what she’s known for. She’s overweight and she’s a bully, loves punking smaller children into giving her their food. But Linda’s food problem is not one simply of malice. She finds something in food that she can’t find anywhere else: love. Linda’s first time having sex was last year. She went with some of her older friends to a man’s house who gave them beer, meat, and candy in exchange for her virginity which she felt was a fair trade. He also offered them R200 (about $28) for each “round”, but Linda explained that she didn’t care about the money she just wanted the food. As she told the story she giggled to try and cover up the pain, but it wasn’t long before the tears she was desperately trying to hold back began to gloss over her eyes. For the first time since I’ve known her I was able to see through Linda’s tough-girl façade to the softer her, the hurting her, the ruined her. Thankfully her HIV test came out negative and her “sugar daddy” was put in jail, but it’s not long before that hunger she tries to satisfy with food becomes uncontrollable again. How low will she stoop next time? When will someone step in and address the actual problem instead of the effects of the problem? Where will Linda be five years from now?
These are only a few of the stories, but as you can see there is so much there. There is no need for me to have them make up stories when their own are so interesting! I must say that many of the stories made me very sad, but more than that they made me happy because the kids are opening their mouths and saying telling them; that’s the first step. I feel like these stories are the beginning of the end of child rape, child prostitution, HIV, crime and much more. I’m so happy these few pre-teens after less than a year of drama class are beginning to tear down the walls of fear and use their voices as their weapons. It’s very inspiring. After class I treated them to dinner at Spur which is like the Applebee’s of South Africa. We had a really wonderful time, lots of smiles and laughter and love. And love is the ultimate goal after all isn’t it? <3
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