Madam, you'll cry when you go?

World Cup Fever
Sunday, 4 July, 2010

This afternoon, Nicky came over. We hadn’t seen each other since last Monday, since I’d had to take some time alone, away. She wasn’t so accepting of my need for space, especially when we talked about limiting the number of days she comes over each week. I need to know that she’ll still be friends with her classmates when I leave in December so I know she’s not completely alone. So instead of alienating herself by spending all of her time with me, I’m going to force her to visit her other friends and spend more time with them in the coming months than she has in the past weeks. This decision is also for the selfish reason of needing to be alone so that I can function at all here, instead of having to run away to town in tears and my principal wondering if I’ll come back because I’m just stretched too thin.

So Nicky and I are quietly sitting outside, when Siyanga and Bweanie find us. They start playing soccer – just shooting on each other in the goal that is my gate. Then Siyanga, in grade 3, takes some cement bricks and creates two goals, each 3 of his feet wide, at either end of my yard, dangerously close to my failing garden and putting Nicky and me right in the middle of the field.

They start playing and Nicky and I continue to watch, not having much to say to each other because she’s still seemingly mad at me for leaving her for a week. Bweanie scores first, the grade 1 learner beating the grade 3 learner. They stay even until Siyanga makes the score 4-3, and Bweanie never recovers. Their victories are never longer than a single loud cheer, and their defeats are never more than a simple, “OK.” They play hard and have to take off their shirts, their bony growing bodies a mass of muscle from surviving in an African village.

I quickly go inside to get a book of word searches, hoping to draw Nicky out of her shell of silence.

She finds the first word, but shuts down as I find the second. We start doing our own puzzles instead of sharing a single one, but still sharing one pen. Siyanga and Bweanie take a short break from their soccer to come over and see what I’ve managed to capture Nicky’s attention with.

Ziggy has made his way back into my yard, happy to have me home, and climbs into my lap after he decides Nicky’s is too small for him.

The boys run away looking for more active entertainment and are soon back with a sling shot in Siyanga’s hands and a screaming Bweanie trying to hide behind one of my mudhika trees.

Nicky has finally found her confidence with them gone and demands to see my phone. She starts looking through all of my notes and some of my messages, a harmless act.

When she gets quiet, she first opens up in Thimbukushu. We go on facebook and I show her my profile picture of us sharing pizza, then I show her some of Sophia’s photos with Miles.

In Thimbukushu she asks about my friend (I don’t know which, she wouldn’t elaborate) and my sister. She asks where they are. Home. Then she uses a word I don’t know – thirothoye. It takes a long time to get the definition out of her – cousins. She asks, “What are names their?” and we both fall into hysterics. I name all of my cousins but she’s lost interest.

Finally we’re lying on our backs outside my house, laughing about nothing. The boys have found something else to do farther away and we enjoy their absence. Her company will be one I miss.

(I’ve done my best to put a positive spin on this story, but these are some of the reasons I missed a week of school to get some alone time in town where there would be at least fewer interruptions for some days. The fact that I can’t go a day without someone knocking on my door – even if it’s someone I love – that I can’t do anything outside because I’ll have up to 6 kids trying to help me when all they do is get in the way, that if I choose to eat outside all those same kids will be asking what it is and eyeing it with envy have been wearing on my daily for the last month, or more, until I got to the point that I couldn’t even teach anymore. I hope that I’ve recovered and can get through the next 7 weeks until my holiday disaster free, and with the last shreds of my sanity in tact.)

Alone time
Tuesday, 6 July, 2010

Oh, how I love being alone! Nicky is mad at me for leaving her for a week and then telling her she has to spend more time with her other friends (at least that’s what I think she’s not happy about) so I’ve been able to come home after study yesterday and today and be alone for a few hours! It’s great!

Yesterday, after almost a week away, it felt like I’d never left. My frustrations and lack of patience were back with a vengeance, which was a frustration in and of itself. But I somehow got through Monday without calling anyone to tell them I quit. I don’t quit things.

I sat in the office with my book during period 8, which was my only free period until Thursday, and read. Other teachers started meandering in once it got close to the end of the day (I’m not really sure why it’s OK to skip out on part of a period, but somehow it is). Three of them were discussing text books covers and I couldn’t help but put my book down to listen and laugh.

Mr Shangara: Ms Liswaniso, now all of these books are stamped, they have to find their way to their owners.
Ms Liswaniso: The learners have to bring a cover before the books can find their way to their owner.
Mr Sihope: You have an advantage, at least you read a newspaper, you can buy for them. [Many kids cover their books with newspaper, it drives me crazy.]
Ms Liswaniso: Where can I buy them?
Mr Sihope: In the shop.
Ms Liswaniso: I will never buy something for someone else’s kid! You want me to buy covers for the whole school?
Mr Sihope: It’s not the whole school.
Ms Liswaniso: Grades 8, 9 and 10, is that not the whole school?
Mr Sihope: No, it’s not the whole school. Just buy for them.
Ms Liswaniso: Good samaratin. I know I’m good.
Mr Sihope: The things you’re saying make you not good! Lori, is she good?
Me: I’m not part of this conversation. [I get up and leave, finding no break from my frustrations away from kids.]

Today I fell back into my groove, at least for parts of the day – particularly with 7B, because one learner was back and makes me smile…

Kavindja Thimende. He’s so short! And just small! He was in my register class, 6B, last year. He never stuck out in math, or in any way really. In 7B this year, there are 3 boys who regularly make me smile – Kavindja Thimende, Muyenga Innocent and Muyevu Pascalius. But it’s Kavindja who made me happy to be here today. Yesterday he was absent, and I noticed immediately. I can usually figure out how many are absent based on the number of empty chairs, but I have a hard time figuring out quickly WHO is absent. But as soon as I started teaching yesterday, I noticed Kavindja wasn’t there, with all his positive energy. I asked him about it today – I was washing my clothes. What??? Didn’t you learn anything from me last year? That’s not an excuse to miss school! You do that on the weekend! But I went far this weekend. Whatever, as I throw my hands up. He didn’t stand out immediately this year as being bright. Muyevu is smart, but he misses a lot of school. And he and Kavindja are good friends. So Muyevu kind of overshadowed Kavindja’s smarts. When Kaitlin was recently visiting, it was cold. I was teaching 7B period 1 and we had to warm up. So we all stood up and I asked what they wanted to do to warm up. Kavindja, from the back, yelled, “BANANA!” There’s a silly banana song and dance we do – Peel banana, peel peel banana, peel banana, peel peel banana, eat banana, eat eat banana, eat banana, eat eat banana, GO BANANAS GO GO BANANAS GO BANANAS GO GO BANANAS! So he led the class with that for a couple minutes to get everyone smiling after the shock of having another white person in the classroom and warming up from the cold walk many of them had in the morning. Today he asked, “When is your friend visiting again?” He now wants to learn “American” English and wants to hang out with Kaitlin and me so we can all talk to each other fast. His physical size isn’t holding him back at all, he’s one of the biggest presences in the classroom, and he makes me happy to be teaching here.

Study is still a nightmare, but I had some energy left to work with kids one on one. I was sitting with a grade 10 learner, helping her with her math (how I wish I could teach kids who just get it at least once in a while!) and having my learners come one at a time to do flashcards with me. I don’t know why I suddenly thought about this, but I did – my whiteness.

In the summer, when I was a lot tanner than I am now, I thought maybe people would stop noticing I’m white. They didn’t. I have a mirror, after many months of not having one, I finally bought one. I don’t really use it. I don’t see my reflection very often. And all the people I see are black. Or brown if you ask them. So I don’t know if I forget I’m white and they’re not, or if I think I’m black. But sometimes I look at the sea of faces in a classroom and see a shared history. One that I know and they know. A common past. So I’m sitting there with these kids, and I wonder how they see me. I see myself as just another person living with them, teaching them, laughing with them, surviving with them. Do they still see me as a white person? Am I just another person to them? I know some see me as a sister or a friend rather than a teacher. But beyond that? I guess they must still see the color of my skin, but I wonder what it means to them, after having me here for a year and a half now, and having white teachers for a fourth year in a row now.

Salesmen
Thursday, 8 July, 2010

After study, I walked outside, just to be outside, looked at my neighbor’s house where 5 teachers stay and saw 2 boys – Kolo and Kaura – with a wheelbarrow. I stood and watched. The teachers came out with plastic bags and bought meat from that wheelbarrow.

Nicky came over after school. She was not happy with me Monday or Wednesday, and kind of indifferent on Tuesday. During study she came to my classroom and we were our old joking selves. I asked if we had to go for a walk. She said she can’t tell me the thing that’s on her mind. So she came over and watched her favorite parts of The Lion King. When I walked her home, we were joking and talking about anything again. When we parted, I told her, “I missed you.” When? “Even yesterday at school because you were so angry. I thought, this is not the Nicky I know.” She was all smiles again.

Preparing to Say Goodbye
Friday, 9 July, 2010

I try to not think about the end of this as much as possible. Sometimes I don’t think about it because I want the end to be here sooner than it’s coming, and sometimes I don’t think about it because I never want it to come. But I try to just experience it as it happens and live in the moment instead of 5 months from now.

Nicky and I are back to our old best friend selves after spending some days not really knowing what to do with the news I dropped on her on Sunday. She came over after study today and I just needed to go for a walk, so I invited her. She accepted, of course. So we walked up the tarred road.

I asked her if we could have a serious conversation. She wasn’t so happy about the idea, but I pushed anyway, maybe more carefully than I did last Sunday when she closed down. I brought up our conversation about me going to America. I explained again that I think it’s best we talk about it now and for the next months so we can come up with ideas for her to still be happy and have people she can visit, when she won’t be visiting me anymore. She was smiling and seemed to understand that I wasn’t trying to push her away, but was looking out for her future. Most of our hour long walk consisted of talking about what would happen when I went to America, for both of us.

Madam, you’ll leave in December and I’ll die in January.
Whaaaat??? You can’t die in January!!! Why will you die?
[No answer]
Remember how I told you I want to write a book? Well, you have to live long enough so I can send you the book.
OK.
And I’ll call you from America, so you can’t die because then I’ll call and someone will have to tell me you died.
OK.
And I have other things I want to send you when I get home, so you’ll have to stay alive so I can send you those things.
OK. But how will you send them to me?
I’ll ask maybe Siyanga if I can send them to her. Or Ritha. And then she can give the box to you.
Not Ritha.
OK, Siyanga? Or another teacher?
Maybe Shishanda.
OK, I’ll talk to her before I leave. So I can send her a package and then all she has to do is give it to you.

Madam, will you teach me how to send an email before you go?
[Long pause to think about the logistics of this.]
But where will you get the internet? Who’s having the internet?
Oh. Yeah.
But I’ll leave you with envelopes with my address and a stamp on them so you can write me letters and then ask someone to bring them to the post office for you. And if you write in January, maybe I’ll get it in March.
Heeeeyy.
Yeah, it takes a long time.

Madam, what do you want to send me from America?
It’s a surprise, I can’t tell you. What do you need from America? You have a lot of clothes now, you don’t need clothes.
Ghiii, I don’t need clothes…stickers. Why do you have stickers, but no one in Namibia has stickers?
Well, in America, there are more people who work. Like at your home, how many people work?
Ummm…4 keho. That’s all.
OK, and how many people live at your home? Maybe 15 or 20?
Ghiii.
OK, but in my family, my mom and my dad both work, and then there’s just my sister and my brother and me who they have to pay for. So they only buy food for 5 people. So maybe they just make a little money, but they don’t have to buy food for a lot of people. So then there’s extra money to buy stickers. So you want stickers, what else? Maybe I’ll send you some nail polish. And some books. And some earrings. But there are some things that you don’t even know you need yet, I’ll send those and tell you what they’re for.
And pictures.
Yes, and pictures.
Of Miles. [That made me smile too much!]
Yes, pictures of Miles. And I’ll have to write about each picture, so you’ll have a lot of reading to do. It’ll be like reading a book. And I’ll send you The Lion King.
The Lion King? What is that?
The movie you always are watching on my computer.
Ohhh…Mufasa!
Hehehe, do it again!
Mufasa!
Hehehehehe.
Mufasa Mufasa Mufasa!!!
Hehehehehehehehehehehehe.

Actually, Nicky, when I finish my book ,then I’ll come back to Namibia so I can give it to you in person. So I don’t have to send it to you. So you have to stay alive so I can give you that book.
[Big smiles.]

Madam, when I go in the holiday on the tour, you’ll give me a notebook and I can write down all the good things and bad things that happen so I can remember and tell you after?
Yes, that’s a good idea.

Nicky, you have to promise me you’ll stay in school. No matter what. Even if there’s no money, you have to stay in school.
I promise.
And Nicky, no matter how hungry you are, or if there’s no money for school, NEVER let someone give you money to have sex with you.
OK.
And Nicky, when you do have sex, before you do, go to New Start and get tested and look at his test! If it’s positive, don’t have sex with him!
OK.
And Nicky, when you have sex, use a condom, you know how now, so use it.
OK.

Madam, you’ll cry when you leave?
Yes.
Why?
Because I know I’ll miss it here. I’ll miss everyone and everything, even the things I don’t like very much. When I left America I cried a little. But I knew that I’d go back there in December 2010. But I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back here. When I leave, you’ll cry?
Yes.
Why?
[No answer again.]