Recycling champs attend World Cup game

These learners from Fezeka Secondary School (the high school in Guguletu that I visited frequently) got to attend a World Cup game as a reward for placing third in a recycling contest (see pictures in February 20th post) A brief story is on the Education without Borders website.

Education without Borders (EwB) is a Canadian non-profit that "aims to provide improved educational opportunities and facilities in disadvantaged regions of the world." The EwB website has lots of information about Fezeka, including a video about the school and a link to a blog written by a Canadian teacher who spent 2 and a half years teaching there.

Part of EwB's work at Fezeka has included providing personnel to support the school's programs, including the woman who helped coordinate the recycling effort (while also doing her main job of running a maths tutoring program). The recycling contest was sponsored by Coca Cola and inspired Fezeka learners to gather over 42,000 cans and bottles from their community. Unfortunately, once the contest was over, the school was on its own to sustain the collection program - and this proved too difficult given resource limitations. Hopefully, some other source of help and support can be marshalled to support such efforts at schools throughout the city and province...

SIFF weekend

At the beginning of the summer, Seattle has its annual international film festival (known by its acronym SIFF). It's a pretty big deal, and every few years I carve out the time to make it to a bunch of films. Although this year the incentive was a long weekend visit by Kristina (who chose the great selection of films), often I attend the festival thanks to a friend and former teaching colleague who makes the trip out for it from Pennsylvania whenever he can. He's a big film buff who often sends me his reviews and recommendations. Since he didn't make it this year, I wanted to return the favor. So, here's the report I sent to him on the seven movies we saw (in three days!):

"Mugabe and the White African" - a bleak but important documentary that follows a white Zimbabwean family's efforts to keep their farm in the face of heinous pressure. Complex because we resist the easy default of identifying with the white people in this context, except... they deserve it in many ways.

"Life During Wartime" - billed as quirky independent film with Alison Janney and Allie Sheedy... betrays all promise with a pointless - and tastelessly comedic - romp through the world of pedophilia with some infidelity included. What was anyone involved thinking!? - or what did I/we miss? I'd investigate/seek positive reviews if it were worth it.

"Winter's Bone" - almost brilliantly shot and near-perfectly acted exploration of a young woman struggling to hold on through crisis in a meth-tainted, impoverished community in rural Missouri (about a far from Seattle as I can imagine, and yet it's still America; go figure). Worth watching for.

"Son of Babylon" - we achingly follow a Kurdish woman and her grandson as they travel occupied post-Saddam Iraq trying to confirm the death of the boy's father, just one of the many victims of Saddam's wars. No revelations, but served effectively and without any heavy-handed politics or emotional appeals. Just a raw, real story. A good reminder that we are an occupying nation at war in places populated with other human beings.

"Turn it Loose" - 2009's world break dancing championships in S Africa. Engaging stories and some great dancing footage, but felt at times like a Red Bull (the sponsors) production.

"Cairo Time" - complex story of a Western woman waiting for her husband (working for the UN in the region) to join her for a vacation. Alone in an unfamiliar and not always welcoming city and with only her husband's Syrian colleague to hang out with, introspection and "before sunrise"-esque intimacy ensue - and with the pyramids as a back drop! Acted with terrific realism and depth, and refreshingly shot on site without sterilized locations and trained extras. This one should come to a theatre near you (well, maybe not that near to you...).

"Mao's Last Dancer" - Communist China sends a ballet prodigy to Houston in the 1980's... this could go in many directions, not all of which are good. However, with flashbacks and enthralling dance scenes, the strong cast tells this story with effective sincerity. Although it's a bit "Hollywood" and is sure to get a theatrical release, it deserves it - and it's a true story! This may have been my favorite of the batch; I think Kristina's vote goes to "Cairo Time."

All in all, a wonderful cinematic experience!

Brazen daylight robberies!

Over the Memorial Holiday weekend, I was struck to read about a spree of daylight robberies, all in northern neighborhoods near my Seattle home. According to the article in the Seattle Times, in three separate incidents (it would later grow to five related attacks), individual women were attacked in their driveways, perhaps after being followed home from stores. In each case the women had their shopping bags and/or purses stolen, and at least two of the victims were stun-gunned during the robbery.

Part of what struck me was how relatively minor the reaction to this news story was, especially in comparison to how accounts of a similar incident during my time in Cape Town affected the neighborhood where it occurred. The story that was related to me at a dinner party told of a resident of one of the nicer northern suburbs being followed home from the store and then robbed in her driveway. As a result, families all over the neighborhood had changed their routines; they were diligently watching their rear view mirrors, planning errands for daylight hours, and implementing other precautionary measures. This story had instilled a definite fear of victimization, and the threat seemed quite real. We, a gathering of expatriates, all shook our heads, tsk-tsked, and added another entry to our ever-growing list of "ways one can be a crime victim in Cape Town." A very different response than I feel myself having to this considerably dangerous crime spree happening literally mere blocks from my house.

In hindsight, I realize that if my dinner host had the details of where and when this crime had occurred, I did not get them, nor did I see then (or could I find now) a news story about this particular incident. That is not to say that the crime did not happen or that the story is apocryphal, for driveway attacks certainly have and do occur in Cape Town and elsewhere in South Africa (a quick search yielded two accounts of such crimes, from May and September of 2008; I also found an announcement for an ADT "Anti-hijacking/driveway robbery workshop," also from 2008 - "Snacks will be served"!). Rather, I recognize - even more now than before when I was living in the midst of it - just how influential the narrative of vulnerability to an omnipresent and escalating crime threat is in Cape Town, and perhaps throughout South Africa. It is a powerful psychological force that has a disturbing effect on people's daily lives, and, in a place where nearly everyone who can afford to lives in an alarm-equipped home behind walls, gates, and barred windows, shows in our response to the driveway robbery story.

Crime rates in South Africa are certainly high, but I am struck by how important of a role our perceptions and expectations play in how relatively vulnerable or safe we feel in particular places and situations.

Three weeks back, feels like I never left

So, I've heard from a few people in now about failing to update the blog. Sorry about that, and thanks for letting me know that you've been checking! It certainly hasn't been for lack of material, but it turns out that a weekend between getting home and starting back to school was not enough time to...well, to do anything much more than try to get my body adjusted to the 9 hour time shift. It's been great to be back at Northwest. The school community has been wonderfully warm and enthusiastic in welcoming me back into its comforting and familiar fold. At the same time, it has felt jarring to just abandon all of the routines and relationships that I established in Cape Town. For example, I have to admit (sheepishly) that I've hardly checked the news sources that were my daily diet during my stay. Did the ANC discipline Jacob Zuma beyond a slap on the wrist? Have there been more school protests? Has the World Cup squad been announced? Who made the team? Clearly, I need to spend some time on the Cape Times and Mail & Guardian websites!

As far as processing and synthesizing my South African experience, I have submitted an article to the Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa's Bulletin on the multi-school work party model, and a fellow Fulbright awardee and I have proposed a session on our experiences for the regional private school association conference in October. Beyond that, I still have a lot of notes and impressions to sort through. I may get a chance to present at a global education conference in July. If so, that will be a good target for organizing a coherent summary of my research.

For now, however, a very patient group of students deserves to have their exams graded!

Updates (in progress)

Based on subsequent events, and on looking through the newspaper clippings I've saved and the notes I've written, here are a few updates to previous posts:

On corruption in the ANC and its effect on the current conflict between Malema and the party leadership (President Zuma et al): "The extent to which the ANC has lost its hold over its own core principles is astonishing... If corruption, verbal or monetary, is not dealt with the moment it manifests itself, the corrosion will spread. The more it spreads the harder it becomes to stop... It all on boils down to a question of leadership. Good leaders lead by example. Uphold your principles and the rest will follow. Condone and cover-up and things fall apart." (Cape Times editorial column by Allister Sparks - journalist, author, and political analyst; 14 April 2010)

Amid letters on... (uh oh! can't find the rest of this file...)

to be continued

One word...

Eyafjallajokull !

(Saturday, April 24th: Actually, my flight from Cape Town through Amsterdam went off as if the aforementioned Icelandic volcano were still dormant. There weren't even masses of stranded travellers in the Schiphol Airport. Duped by media hype again! The only jarring part of the trip home was the superfluous stopover in Minneapolis. With all due respect - and one branch of my family has roots in the region, it felt like I'd been dropped onto the set of the movie Fargo. I won't elaborate except to say that I clearly was NOT in Cape Town anymore.)

Wrapping up my stay (draft)

I am trying to take full advantage of my final days here. That has meant fitting in some excursions, such as a summit of 1000m Devil's Peak (got there this morning on the second try! The first one ended with driving my hiking partner to the ER, but that's another story...) and a great mountain bike ride (followed by a dip in a reservoir!) on the backside of Table Mountain. On the work front, I have been quite busy getting in my last visits to schools - mostly by bicycle (after getting the car collision damage repaired, but that too is another story). I did join the photography intern here from Seattle U for an epic pilgrimage by mini-taxi back out to Hector Peterson School for a last visit there.

A huge highlight was organizing what turned out to be a quite successful multi-school environmental service project yesterday. Thirty learners from seven different schools turned out to do some invasive plant clearing at a conservation area (co-located with an active horse racing track! We would pause to watch the races go by.). I was thrilled with the turn-out!

tbc