Monday and Tuesday one of the groups of students was having a computer-literacy class, since many of the people here had never used a computer before in their lives, and they really needed these skills to survive the rest of the semester and to be an asset to their employers. There were nearly 30 students, however, and only one teacher, so Sunel and I both went to act as assistants in the computer class. A few students needed some really basic help and it would be detrimental to the rest of the class to hold them up by waiting for them to get up to speed, so we acted as roving personal tutors in the class. These people smell really bad, particularly the Zambians, and the Gambians, and at times I literally had to leave the room because I just couldn't take it. I don't think they know what soap is, nor deodorant. I understand that they come from a rural area, but that's not an excuse for stinking to high heavens. The people in the village don't have running water, and they still know how to bathe. The smell of this group of students was enough to make me glad that I'm not going to have to be here for the rest of the year.
Tuesday, maybe two hours before quitting time, the mail came, and in it, the first shipment of children's books in Tsonga! I decided to stay late that night, cataloging and processing the books. It gave me a real sense of accomplishment that my work really paid off. The books weren't in the hands of the children yet, but they were here. They existed. Books where there were none before. And hopefully soon my successor will have enough books and the proper organization to distribute them effectively. Wednesday I showed the books to Grace, one of the staff members who lives in the village and speaks Shangaan to come and see what she thought of the books, and she was all kinds of excited when she saw them and heard what they were intended for. So I feel affirmed that my efforts have not been wasted, and that soon, the rural children of Bushbusckridge will no longer be in need of reading materials.
My favorite book was called "Ndzhuti" which means "Shadow" and it's about a boy who is afraid of his shadow until he figures out that it's a part of him. It's such a cute book.
Tuesday night was another huge thunderstorm (there'd been big storms at night for almost a whole two weeks), and this one knocked the server out, thankfully after I'd finished putting the books on the system, but that meant I wasn't able to get online to finish any work or let people know I was coming home. By the time I left on Wednesday, I don't think it had been fixed yet. Wednesday morning, Thokozani saw a lioness walking just outside the fence, and he called Gawie to take me out on a last-minute game drive to try and find it, but we didn't see it. Par for the course. I've been just-missing campus lion sightings the whole time I was here, and both times I went to the Kruger they were nowhere to be found. Were it not for Moholoholo Wildlife Rehabilitation Center, I'd still be denying that they exist at all, but I don't think I was ever meant to see them in the wild. I did, however, have a close encounter with a puff adder two nights in a row this week. The first night, it was near the house, trying to find a way in, and Gawie came to remove it. The second night, I was taking a walk around the fence in the evening and nearly stepped on the thing. I think it might have been the same one, too. This thing was fucking huge. Not the deadliest snake in existence (you've got 24 hours before you die, rather than roughly 2 hours like with a cobra, boomslang, or vine snake, or +/- 20 minutes like with a black mamba), but you still don't want to get bitten by one. It's comforting to think that in about a day's time I'll be home-sweet-home in New England where nothing found in nature can immediately kill you.
No comments:
Post a Comment