5/19/10
Shug: More than anything God love admiration.
Celie: You saying God is vain?
Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.
Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the bible?
Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance, and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention... except walk?
Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" depicts the life for an African American woman in the early 1900's. The story focuses on a young woman named Celie. Celie, like many African American women of this time, endures abuse from both races and both sexes. She is unloved until she meets a woman named Shug Avery. Shug, a muse and beauty, shows Celie what it means to be loved. She empowers her. And then one day Celie stands up to her abusers and fights back.
SWAGAA (Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse) calls me again. I take a seat. Sviso sits behind his desk waiting for me to begin. Even though it is I who has been asked to come, I begin the conversation. "So. What can I help you with?"
Sviso tells me his plan to empower the young men as well as the women. He hopes to hold an event in the city and to talk to young men and their fathers about abuse. He stares at me waiting for a response. I have none. It's a ridiculous plan. Who's going to pay transport fees. Who's going to feed them once they arrive? Who's going to do the children's chores while they're away? Even if you can empower the child, what's going to happen when the empowered finally find their voice and begin to use it? When they finally tell the crooked cop or the tired teacher who does nothing. The "piplines" are all cracked here. Shouldn't we focus on getting the support teams together THEN giving the kids a voice. I've experienced first hand what happens when a scared child finally speaks out. And I watch as they fall and no one is there to catch them.
I nod my head and pretend to play along.
AIDS has quickly taken a back seat to abuse. Abuse and AIDS:
It's all connected.
It's all out of control.
I teach Form 4 and Form 5 every Friday (the juniors and seniors of Siphofaneni High). Both forms are broken up into two classes with around 50 students each. I reach 200 students in two and a half hours. I ATTEMPT to reach them as a foreign, young, single, white woman teaching them in their second language in a hot hot crammed classroom. The boys in the back yell, the girls in the front snicker. I struggle to hold their attention. I more importantly, struggle to gain their respect. They demand candy. They demand games. They don't care about a course they don't get a grade in. They don't care to discuss a topic they've had crammed down their throats since birth. Who is this outsider, this child in our world, to tell us how it is HERE in OUR world? In OUR home. My hands are empty- no stick to beat them like the rest of the teachers. And they know it. I try hard to show fear does not equal respect.
You have to remain calm no matter what they throw at you. A joke with a joke. Sarcasm doesn't fly in a second language unfortunately. But I was a teenager once, and an even better smart ass.
End of class, tired.. .. Exhausted. Did I reach anyone? Or have I just been dancing for the past two hours.. only entertainment. I grab my bags, my flip chart, and markers, and go. A young girl runs after me. "Simphiwe! Simphiwe!"
I recognize her. She is one of my students from form 5. 50 shaved heads, 50 pale blue skirts- it's hard to tell any of them apart. This one is different. Bushy eyebrows, gap between her two front teeth, dark in complextion... the awkward look that grows into grace. Only an outsider would notice her beauty. "Simphiwe, may I accompany you?" She follows me off school grounds and towards town. "You can call me Nicoleson." (The volunteer who worked in this school before me was Nicole) "Did you get that name from the volunteer before me?" I ask. "Who? No. I did not. I just like the sound of Nicoleson." She smiles.
"Simphiwe may I ask you something? Why are YOU here?"
"What do you mean?" I ask as I stop walking- a bad habit of mine when a conversation turns serious.
"I mean, we've had others. Like you. Volunteers. Trying to "help". Nothing changed."
I'm not sure how to react to this slap of reality.
She continues, "I have this friend. She liked sex with men. I warned her. I told her just as you tell us. She didn't listen. She got pregnant anyway. But I remained by her side. She got sick. Her baby got sick. AIDS. But still I remained by her side. She tells me, 'You're just jealous. You're ugly and nobody wants you.' I'm angry Simphiwe. What's the point anymore? No on listens. They didn't listen to the first volunteer. So this is why I ask you, Why are you here? They say the white people come to take pictures of our black babies and show the whites back home. To give us money and things. My mother abandoned me when I was young, my father left for South Africa when I was born. I work hard to pay my OWN school fees. To pay for food. I am a servant to a family. I don't ask for donations. I do it on my own. But these girls. They sleep around for money for hair extensions and clothes. These girls don't deserve your help. They are just as stubborn and stupid as the men."
We're walking again. She looks around as she speaks. Afraid other students will notice her with me. She'll quickly be called teachers pet- showing off how well she knows English. "Simphiwe. I watch you teach. God has blessed me with the gift of seeing and feeling people’s emotions. Other volunteers, when they teach I can see their anger, their frustrations. They want to give up. In you, I don't see. I only see what you show us. I don't see the frustration. You don't judge us." She looks down ashamed. "Jesus, he didn't judge and this is why I keep alone. When I am around all this ignorance- I judge. I keep alone so I don't hate, so I don't blame. What's the way out? How do I get out of all of this?"
A fork in the road, before we part she stands in front of me and says. "I think I was meant to help you. I think this is my purpose. Together maybe we can give them a message. To the girls. I don't want to blame anymore. I am so alone inside. I don't want to be alone anymore."
My message this week in girls club is simple. We sit and watch "The Color Purple". I translate the southern accent and we discuss the story every thirty minutes. My message IS the color purple. You are beautiful. You deserve respect. "All of us can be Shug. We must hold up a mirror for our friends. Show them that they too are beautiful. Show them their color." Sometimes when I speak I can see tears collect in these girls’ eyes. Sometimes I hit a cord that pains them. All of them long to connect but are afraid to try.
I open up clubs in three different schools. Children peer in through the windows, rooms are crammed. It's hard to turn them away but I know to be effective I have to cut back the numbers. But I cannot empower the African girl alone; she has to find power with others. So when she finally finds her voice, when she seeks out help from the crooked cop or the tired teacher who turns her away, she will have her friends to lean on.
Today I bring a friend, another volunteer, to visit my high school and watch me teach the Form 4 and 5's. Two classes finished. We debate the topic "HIV Affects Women More Than Men". People are pointing fingers, voices are being thrown around, minds are thinking.. QUESTIONING.. today was a success. I'm constantly trying to show them the bigger picture. You have a culture of people locked inside a room. You go to unlock the door. You leave the key inside the lock- hoping someone, just one person, will come and unlock the it. Unfortunatley, these children, these people, don't even notice the door is even locked. You can't open it for them. They've got to notice and do it on their own. It's a slow process.
Two more classes to go. As I'm leaving the second class, one of my male students grabs my hand. He begins to kiss it. He pulls me forward and tries to kiss me on the mouth. I pull away. This would never happen to a Swazi teacher. We had just spoken about sexual harassment in class. I use this as an example and pretend to knee him in the balls. "And this is how you defend yourself ladies." My friend and I make our way to the staff room to find there is no staff in the staff room. I ask the only two teachers around sitting doing nothing,
"Where are all the teachers today?"
"Today is pay day." They laugh. "The teachers go to town to get things that they need. They don't have to come into school today."
However, the students are still required to come. Come to school to sit in a classroom and stare at a wall. My head teacher asks how my day is. I joke, "Oh just dodging kisses from students." A look of horror and shock on his face. "This will not do! This is sexual harassment!" He grabs his large wooden stick and pulls me outside. "He MUST be punished!" The bell rings and students lazily make their way back to the empty classrooms after break. Without teachers, what's the rush? The head teacher yells at them to run to class. He lets go of my hand to pick up large rocks. This overweight man begins to chase the laughing children, throwing rocks in their direction. They laugh as he trips and falls. I stand in the middle of this circus. Watching the herder herd his flock. As I stand alone in the middle of the fied- chaos tumbling all around, my friend stands amazed inside the staff room. She is sandwiched between two teachers trying to convince her that the entire world is controlled by two men.
"They work on wall street you see. This whole 'recession' thing is made up. It's all a conspiracy theory. We saw it in a movie once."
I run in to grab her. "Lets get out of here."
We grab our bags and walk the road back to town; trying to piece together what just happened. Searching for even one piece of logic within this crazy hour's events. A truck pulls up behind us and honks. It is my sweating head teacher. He rolls down his window, "Simphiwe, get in. I am taking you back to school. I found the boy. I want you to watch me give him four strong strokes on the back."
I respectfully decline and we continue to walk in silence.
We're on a bus going south. Tonight: Girls Night. Bottles of red wine, mature cheddar cheese, dark chocolate filled with almonds. We sit in our sleeping bags looking through an old Cosmo magazine. "Red Wine Helps Fight Tummy Flab" "Shoes Suck Out Toxins From Your Body!" "FIT FLOPS Tone Your Body!" Shinning shimmering lips, little white skinny bodies, Pantene pro-v hair, and creative sex positions for your pleasure. What is this world? I turn each glossy page and feel comfort in something that used to trick me into thinking I wasn't good enough. For now, I want to escape in this pristine plastic world. So much color- and we're all trying to remember.
We share our frustrations. I complain about the Swazi male students. "I'm spreading myself too thin. I need to focus on the audience I can reach. The girls. I need to quit teaching in the classroom and just work with the girls."
I ask them, "If Peace Corps didn't further your future career or education..would you stay?" Bodies shift.. an uncomfortable question. No one wants to think like that. Most say no. "Maybe if I were on a different continent. If I were in Jamaica or Eastern Europe. That'd be fun."
Tears collect in my eyes, "I guess I struggle with that. I can't be here if I'm not reaching anyone. It's not worth leaving those back home. I can't be in this for ME. Why should I stay if it helps no one?"
The best part about girls night is when someone hits this moment. Your girlfriend grabs your knee. She looks deep into your eyes with such determination to convince you and possibly even herself. And she says to you, "You ARE making a difference Meredith. You ARE."
"Don't give up on the boys Simphiwe." Another girl says. "They need your help too."
I return home and flip through my student’s homework. I had asked my class, boys and girls, "Why am I here teaching you about HIV?" The students wrote, "To teach us. We want to learn."
I had given up on teaching. I was ready to tell the Head Teacher on Monday, I can no longer work in the classroom.
Nicoleson had asked me, "Why are you here?" And it's a question we all struggle with everyday.
As Celie put it, "I may be black, I might even be ugly but dear God I'm here, I'm here."
I see what girls night can do for a volunteer. This is what I want to bring to the Swazi girl, a hand to hold. Someone to push you forward. A Sisterhood.
So I say to them, "I'm white, I'm a woman, and dear God.. I'm American. But I'm here, I'm Here."
