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Published: August 23rd 2006
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Ever so rarely, you just have one of those soul-shaking days. You go to bed full of excitement, yet you sleep like a rock. The next day, you wake up and you feel as light as a feather. Such days are few and far between, some people even go months or years without one…I was fortunate enough to have one this week.
Wednesday I started my tutoring at a school in the nearby township Kayamundi. As a handful of international students piled onto the bus, I was a bit anxious as to how the session would go. You know that feeling the first day of class or a new job, the nagging of the unknown that you ignore until you’re just about to head into it face on? Yeah. So, within minutes we traveled through time and space to another world far away from the oak-lined sidewalks and red brick edifices of Stellenbosh. IAccross the tracks, we found ourselves traveling a dirt road surrounded by tin shacks, cloths hanging in the breeze, and kids running around all over the place. Yeah, I was glad to be out of the stuffy, symmetrical, Afrikaans town and into an environment I could loosen
up in…
By the time I sat down with my group of only three thirteen year-old boys--Mobhuti, Silas and Sira--I was already feeling relaxed. The lesson was already prepared so the only thing I had to do was to keep my boys on task and not distract them myself. The second part was a bit harder. I found myself speaking the few words of Xhosa that I knew, excited to have some new teachers (and I think they were excited too). So we learned some vocabulary about animals (you know, every child should know that spay/neuter is “an operation that keeps animals from having babies”). It was a piece of cake, I mean seriously, this was nothing compared to the huge classes of 16 year-olds I handled in Bompata.
There was nothing especially touching about that short hour, but somehow it made something in me click. Even while I was riding back in the bus, I could feel it. For the past few weeks, it's what I had been missing. There’s something unique about just trying to know or understand or reach out to somebody you could have ignored. Really living is about crossing lines, being willing to
take risks to connect with other human beings, to be able to give something of yourself. Just spending that little bit of time getting to know a few kids, and suddenly I had such a sense of perspective, of direction. Pulling back into the parking lot, I had little time to entertain these thoughts as I rushed back to the room to throw on a skirt (!) for the evening’s events…
Tyrone Savage, the Superhero Professor who knows all the right people (and was himself an important participant in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation process) made it possible for his students to attend the annual Justice and Reconciliation Award Ceremony. Present in the small crowd were members of Parliament, the Minister of Education, Commissioners of the Independent Elections Committee, and THE Archbishop Desmond Tutu. It was a modest event held within in the Sixth District Museum that stands where a multi-racial, multi-cultural community once bustled with interaction. In 1970, the apartheid government mandated that the area be leveled. Seeking to separate people by the color of their skin, this area of diversity in the heart of Cape Town was legally for whites only under the Group Areas Act of
Desmond Frickin Tutu (Also refered to as His Grace.)
Tutu gives Dr. Bam the annual Justice and Reconciliation award. Photo made possible by Miriam Mannak. 1950. This process of segregation involved the forced removal of the 60,000 residents of the district. Black citizens were the first to go, being relocated to the outskirts of the city into overcrowded townships. In order to create a white fantasy world many areas of the city were completely destroyed and rebuilt from the ground up. Relationships, memories, possessions, and lives all collapsed under the weight of the destruction and segregation. Entering the memorial museum, the messages on the walls and in the art tell the victim’s stories.
The Archbishop began his address to the audience with animated excitement explaining how he couldn’t enter the building without thinking back to the times of protest against the destruction of District Six. One night in particular when tensions were high he was arrested and taken to jail. From his cell, he requested that he speak to his lawyer. From the back of the cell, he heard a voice respond, “Hey, I’m back here!”
And this is the nature of Desmond Tutu, a man of laughter and grace. To think that his life has been characterized by struggles from without and within, it’s truly amazing to see him so utterly full of life and hope. His words were inspiring, but his person—that is what moved me.
The entire event was a testimony to the triumphant history of South Africa, and I have never in my life experienced such an air of reverence for the ideals of freedom and democracy. To the contrary, my encounters with notions of democracy back home have threatened to leave me entirely cynical; one of the most disempowering moments of my life was last November when I cast my vote for the President for the first time. I have become desensitized and deaf to message of America’s leaders, for whom precious words like freedom and democracy are little more than rhetoric used to manipulate uninformed constituents and to justify war. Here in South Africa, the leaders themselves have been imprisoned and tortured for their pursuit of democracy—Mandela himself spent 30 years in prison. They embody the principles they speak of. For the first time in my life the spirit of democracy was almost tangible, because for most of the people in that room, it really is a thing they grasp and hold on to for dear life. They are the mothers and fathers of democracy in this country.
For all you realists, don’t worry, the story doesn’t end there.
Alone in my room, I tried to settle the thoughts and emotions that swarmed in my mind, only to confront newly surfacing questions. How can I reconcile the poverty of Kayumundi with the words of Archbishop Tutu? Can freedom have any meaning for someone dying of AIDS? For a woman who is paralyzed by the fear of her husband’s wrath? For children who have to choose between eating and education? Is this the banner of democracy? As long as that spirit of hope and the access to a better life remain in the hands of the few, clearly the answer is no. At the same time, this struggle, this tension between the two worlds, it is real-life. It is the reality of an ongoing process that has yet to be fulfilled. The laws of freedom and democracy were not seized overnight, and neither will the material fruition of the principles. And the fruition depends on the ability of each story, each experience to be voiced for all to hear. As an artist once said, “Silence is violence.”
Even with these questions, as I lay down for bed, my mind was quiet, in awe of the fullness of the day. I knew that what I had seen and experienced would stay with me, that it would be revisited and relived, and that some part of it would become a part of me…
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G to the A
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wow
Hailey, you're writing is spot-on. I'm really impressed dude. You are a little jewel yes you aaare (in my best southern granny accent). What's the weather like there with those shacks do they keep warm?