Lessons in Communication

I mentioned before that I'm volunteering every Thursday to tutor at a township called Khayelitsha.  I volunteer through a UCT program called SHAWCO.  We are bussed to a learning center in the township where we teach a lesson in English and/or Life Skills for about an hour and a half with an 8th grade student.  My student is a 13 year old girl.   

I could not have asked for a better student - this girl is incredible.  She is motivated, smart, driven, and wise beyond her years.  She tells me how she stays in the classroom during lunch at school so she can read and study.  Like I said, very driven.  Apparently, the kids who go to this after school program are chosen by their teachers because they show the most promise as students in the class.

Within the first five minutes of talking to her, she was already telling me how she is working hard in school so she can attend a university and become a social worker.  She wants to help others living in her community.  I feel like I'm talking to a 50 year old when I'm talking to her.  She is incredibly introspective and deep thinking.  I feel like I could have a legitimate, adult conversation about "real life" issues with her for hours.  To be honest, I can't tell if that's a good thing that she's so mature or a bad thing that she has been forced to grow up way too young.

During the past two weeks, we've worked on punctuation marks, apostrophes, contractions, and comparisons.  Along with the English section, there is also a Life Skills component to the tutoring.  Yesterday's life skills lessons were on children's rights and gangsterism.  I can't begin to describe what I experienced while talking to her and it really frustrates me.  As part of the children's rights section, her and I switched off reading the UN list of rights for all children.  They were all pretty logical - children have rights to safety, security, free education, etc.  At the end of the lesson there were a list of questions to help spark conversation and reflection from the reading.  The first question was: "Have your rights ever been violated."  She responded by saying that yes hers had.  At the age of five, her uncle raped her.  She continued by saying that she knows this was wrong and in the future she will stand up for herself and not let something like this happen again.  She told me how she has a right to privacy and for her body not to be violated.  She followed this by saying she knows her uncle was drunk and "he didn't know what he was doing."  When I asked her what she meant by that, she told me that the Bible has told her to forgive him for he does not know that he has sinned.  She said she would never try to get revenge and because he is her elder, she still respects him.  I asked her if she has been able to forgive him and she said she has, but she will never forget what he did.

The whole situation/conversation really left me speechless, frustrated, and full of questions.   This was something I was in no way prepared for and did not know how to react to.  Because she had brought it up, I decided to ask my questions.  I've found that people here are very open about things that are considered "taboo topics" in the US - drugs, gangsterism, rape, etc.  She continued to talk and although I could tell this is an incident that has really scarred her and severely changed her life, I could also tell that it is something she wanted to talk about.

We talked for a while and she told me how she tells her friends that they have rights too.  It is something that she doesn’t want to happen to any of her friends. 

The afternoon ended with me being in a strange mood.  There were so many things that I wanted to talk about but I just didn’t know where or how.  First of all, I don’t understand how is it fair that this happened to her.  There’s no justification whatsoever and it just doesn’t make any sense.  It also frustrated me that she was saying how she still respects her uncle.  I don’t understand how that is possible.  It’s clear that she’s more mature than I am about this, but is it wrong to respect someone who’s done something like that to you?  Her composure and confidence blew my mind.  On the other hand, maybe it’s wrong of me to assume that she should disrespect her uncle.  I really don’t know. 

I contemplated whether or not this was something I wanted to include on my blog.  It bothered me a lot and I felt like I didn't want to subject anyone else to the frustration I experienced in hearing this.  I realized, however, that it would by an inaccurate representation of my abroad experience if I didn't include it.  Realistically, this blog can’t give a perfectly accurate representation of what I’m doing here because there is only so much I can write.  I’m trying to write as much as I can though so I hope it can be as “unbiased” as possible.   I also realized that it would be the more “American” approach if I did not include it.  Here’s why:

I’ve noticed while being here that in the US we have a habit of "sugar coating" things.  It's like this need to create who you are and what you've been through.  There are certain things that we are ashamed of or would never talk about to others – many of them not even to our closest friends.  But here I’ve been experiencing something completely different.  I've experienced what it is like to be somewhere where there is no limit to socially acceptable or unacceptable conversation topics and I'm beginning to think that we may have it wrong at home.

This past weekend while at the homestay, I talked with one of the family members who had gotten caught up in gangsterism in his past.  He was telling us (myself and the other American who stayed with me) about how he’s turned his life around and has changed.  He was so open about it – almost in a way that made me feel uncomfortable - and I asked him why it was that he just talked about it so openly.  His response was that the only way to change things is by acknowledging them and talking about them.  If you don’t talk about it, how is anyone to even know it is an issue?  It’s a pretty logical thought process and makes a lot of sense.  Granted, it’s not easy to do, but I do think that it must have more positive outcomes than saying nothing at all.

Although my time with SHAWCO yesterday really shook me, I am still excited to go back next week.  I enjoy working with my student (I don’t want to use her name for her own privacy) and she is really receptive to what we’ve gone over so far.  Whenever I teach her something new or correct a mistake, you can tell she is making a mental note so she does not do it again.   I also feel like I’m learning a lot from her and I really look forward to seeing her every week.  This was not the only conversation we had besides grammar – we also talked a lot about gangsterism in her community.  Yet another serious and uncomfortable topic.  My goal for her (academically) is to finish the 8^th grade book and move on to the 9^th grade book before this semester is over.  I also think I’m going to start bringing her extra homework in case she wants to review during the week.