The buck stops here, Part 2

As I sat down in The Principal’s office…

(Sidebar: I refer to her as “The Principal,” capitalized, because that’s how everyone refers to her. It’s like how you would refer to God. Or Madonna.)

…I tried to summon up the courage to tell her everything I had told Selena a couple of days before. It is true that her silly new hairstyle helped matters. So after a few moments of pausing and stalling, I finally opened up and told her everything.

Well, almost everything. (She’s really scary.)

After I finished I took a breath and waited for her response.

“So, Dineo” she began, “you want the school to re-decorate?”

Sigh.

I guess that is a logical summary of my ten-minute rant of my 4-month experience at the school. Sure. Whatever. I want to redecorate. I came all the way to freakin’ South Africa with a very expensive college degree to redecorate your school. Gee, don’t you feel special?

As I tried to re-explain the issues I felt were plaguing the school, I tried to emphasize that the suggestions I had for the school wouldn’t come overnight and they wouldn’t/couldn’t be done by only me. I could be an outside perspective and maybe bring some knowledge to the table, but the real work would be in the hands of management.

We talked for what seemed like forever and as time went by, I became less nervous (aka scared shitless of her) and she finally began treating me like an equal not as a child. We came up with a plan for the next couple of weeks before I would go to visit the U.S. and she would go on leave for the rest of the year.

And then, right before I thought we were done and everything was out in the open, she said two things:

1. “Dineo, I don’t know why you felt you couldn’t tell me this before now.” (In which my response was an innocent shrug when I was really thinking: Heeellllloooo, you’re SCARY!)

And…

2. “It’s all the educators’ fault.”

With the second one, I knew I really had my work cut out for me. The staff was going to blame the principal for the lack of progress and the principal was going to blame the staff.

Ay, my brain hurts.

So I knew what I was going to have to do. I was going to have to go back to middle school.

I listened to the principal complain about the educators. I listened to the educators complain about the principal. To everyone, I was a giant walking ear and cheerleader. I didn’t entice any fights but I encouraged everyone to do the job that they’ve been hired to do. I wasn’t taking sides in the great duel. I realized that as corny and Miss America pageant-y it sounds, I really just wanted the kids to actually start benefiting from their days at school.

During all this, I tried to find a way to cope through the things that weren’t really site related. Sure, this assignment wouldn’t have been in my top 20 of placements. I have genuine issues with a lot of things relating to my Peace Corps experience beginning way before I ever stepped foot on South African soil and I needed to work that out separately from the school. I could try to make the best of a shitty situation and just do it.

So I took a couple of weeks off. From everything…now I’m back.

I’m not necessarily happier. The issues didn’t magically disappear nor did I get an “Aha” moment and realize that I’m just a whiny little girl that likes to be unhappy and cynical.

(Although…being unhappy and cynical does make for a more pleasurable writing experience. I’m just not the rainbows and smiles kind of writer…sorry.)

But I found a way to cope and make myself ok with my situation. I made a plan for the future that makes these days easier to deal with and took my emotions out of the things that my emotions didn’t need to be involved in, which was a lot of things I realize now.

Since that emotional Monday way back in August, I can say that things have started to change, slowly. I’ve learned through my travels that there are some cultures that are more resistant to change than others and South Africans are probably more resistant than most. But, I’m working with what I’ve got and I am starting to see little changes.

Just a dent, but it’s working…for now.

The buck stops here, Part 1

A couple of weeks ago, I almost quit Peace Corps. I had my phone in my bra (the one truly African thing I’ve picked up) and I was just planning on what exactly to say to staff when I called. I thought about who I should call. Would I call my program supervisor? Would I call the director? Wow, I thought, this is the kind of stuff that I should have been trained on. I was baffled.

I even went as far as visualizing how I would pack my belongings into my two bags. I thought about the things that I would leave behind. I thought about what I would say to my fellow volunteer friends. I tried to pick the best way to tell them. Text? Phone call? Should I whip up a few tears? Maybe a group email when I’m already gone. Poetic.

As I pondered this I analyzed my situation. I was in school. I was surrounded by eleven children that only understood me when I said one of three phrases: No, Stop, and Tsamaya (Go). It was barely 10 a.m. and already I’d almost cried twice. I had to entice myself to get out of bed by dreaming about adding cocoa to my morning instant coffee (not necessarily my first choice of coffee additive but, hey, you use what you have).

After breakfast I got spit on, wiped Paul’s nose every five minutes, got kung-fu kicked in the shin by the new kid that magically has just shown up in class, and got burned a little on the hand by a feisty child who has learned how to operate a lighter. Oh, and I counted to five about 50 million times for the kid who is really excited about learning how to count to five.

That’s when I decided to quit Peace Corps.

I…can’t…do…this…anymore. Ah, Oscar worthy.

Just when I was about to do it, take the chance and just do it, I get beckoned for a meeting with the principal.

It’s time.

On the way to the principal’s office, the educator, Selena, tells me that I have probably gained a few kilos (Ok, so I’ve been adding cocoa to a lot these days) and criticizes the way I chew my gum.

It’s 10:10 a.m. and I’ve almost cried three times. A new personal record.

I sit down and the principal asks me for The Report. I gulp and stall for time by pretending to think of the right thing to say but instead just try not to laugh at her silly new wig-like thing and purple mini-hat. Ah, well at least I don’t want to cry anymore. Progress.

So I tell her all about my magical trip to The Other Side, a.k.a. Vryheid, KwaZulu-Natal. I went there last week with the intention of finding my purpose but what I got instead was a look into what my Peace Corps experience could have been like. Showers, diversity, little orphans that get excited by just being picked up and danced with a little, and…best of all…pizza.

Like I said, magical.

I was truly in awe of Christi and everything that her Peace Corps experience has brought her. True, it hasn’t been easy for her. She deals with race issues everyday due to the diversity of races that still haven’t quite figured out how to co-exist with each other peacefully. But the opportunities that are available in her area are much more vast than anything my itty-bitty village has to offer.

But her school. Her school has resources. It’s full of color and materials to help the children. It doesn’t look like it’s on the brink of completely falling apart. The educators at least seem like they’re there for the benefit of the children, not just to receive a paycheck and drink free tea and eat free food. The children even looked happy. Sure, they have similar disabilities that the children at my school have, but they looked like children that were cared for at school and not treated like servants. In the two days that I was at the school, I didn’t see one child fetch tea for an educator.

It was so hard to watch and although I felt so completely and totally happy whilst there, the looming knowledge that I would eventually have to leave felt like a dark cloud looming over my head. I divulged everything to Christi in one long uninterrupted conversation where I talked about my four months at site and Christi listened. She understood me. A year and a half ago, she’d been dumped into the same situation as me and had no idea what to do. Peace Corps was no help. At the time, she was the only volunteer in South Africa to be put in a special school. Just like me, she was “trained” (if that’s what you can call those first two months in-country) on HIV/AIDS and non-government organizations and then got none of that in her actual assignment.

Christi’s advice? Get out. Get out now.

As I pondered her advice, I considered how I would feel moving to a new place, maybe a place like Vryheid. I could picture myself walking around downtown in the spring, getting pizza at Debonairs, actually buying the groceries that I wanted, not just the ones that I thought would last me two weeks till my next shopping trip or I could carry home on the taxi, and not feel like I have to keep my head down so I can pretend that nobody is staring at me as I walk down the road. Perhaps I pondered this too long, because before long, I almost started believing that this could be a reality for me.

But, alas, it is not to be.

Before I knew it, I was climbing back into the Van of Death (aka my school’s van driven by Selena who absolutely should not be allowed to have a driver’s license) and was heading back to Pankop.

As we got closer and closer to Pankop, I could feel the happy feelings from the week in KZN being left behind and the black cloud grow larger and larger until it completely consumed any optimism I had once felt. Near that point, I thought of my options:

1. Deal with it.

2. Go home.

So I had nothing to lose. I turned to Selena and word vomited everything that I’d been feeling in the last few months. I told her I wasn’t/didn’t want to be/couldn’t be a “educator assistant” (aka babysitter) and I honestly had no idea why Peace Corps placed me with Mantjedi (the school). I told her that despite all that, I had some ideas for the school and that it was fine if the school didn’t want to change, but that I wouldn’t sit around anymore. I couldn’t.

When I was done, I turned away and we sat in silence for awhile.

After a couple of minutes, Selena told me that I had to tell everything I just said to The Principal (my scary supervisor) on Monday. She said that The Principal was the one that was holding back the school. She said it several times:

It was the principal’s fault.

It was the principal’s fault.

It was the principal’s fault.

I figured that this was my bolder. Save the principal, save the school. I could do it. I’ve fought scarier people than her before and have come out triumphant. I could do it.

So here I am. On the verge of tears on a Monday morning being told I’m fat and chew my gum wrong.

What the hell was I thinking? I shoulda ET’d when I had the chance.