Back to School

I am walking the long, wide stretch of sand from the teachers quarters to our whitewashed classroom full of primary school kids. Tall palm and other fruit trees line the edges with finger-thin trunks, swaying their leafy tops like the kids do during a song. Two high school kids in their white and maroon uniforms walk by, with a “hello Madam” as they pass. The usual stream of sweat passes down my back and the sun slices through the tree leaves, scattering any oasis of midday shade.   

Our kids are well behaved for the most part, which is suprising given that we don’t know much Kiswahili and have to teach in feeble English, most of which is lost on them. Giddy at the lack of sternness, structure and harsh discipline in our classes (as is often customary in African classes) the kids get distracted quite often, but in the event they can keep their seats they sincerely try hard, searching us with their big dark eyes. They are often quite shy when it comes to being called to answer a question they usually don’t understand in English, but after one gets called up to the board to try an exercise they all are up waving their hands anxious to be called, crying “Madam, teacha, teacha, pick me, teacha!” Some of them know so little English, most of our teaching is done by pointing and imitation. But they are smart, one of them so smart he ends up doing cartwheels and talking to himself in the back during most of the lessons because he finishes so early. Even we have a hard time keeping him busy and preventing him from yelling out the answers for all the other kids.

Their favorite game is duck duck goose. You should see the way they run and flop in the hot sand, grinning these big, garish grins when they get picked. We teachers get selected as goose more often than not, I think because the kids get a huge kick out of outrunning a figure of authority in total silliness. When we do, we always try to pick the silent little ones, heads down who don’t ever expect to get picked. Many of the kids wear the same clothes everyday, or alternate two outfits, and almost all of them look like they are straight out of a goodwill box - gaudy, lacey lime-green eighties dresses with broken zippers, oversized red turtlenecks in the blistering heat, old adidas T-shirts with stretched out necks. Its a reminder of how special an education can be in a little African town like this. The kids are completely and refreshingly unhindered by it and are too smart, energetic and generally joyous to evoke much pity or any other unproductive, well-manipulated first world responses. There is no toilet paper in the bathroom, which is customary in these areas (there is a reason it is polite to only eat with your right hand and rude to use your left). The food is beans and rice or ugali (refined corn flour mixed with water and fluffed) virtually every day of the week for the students. But as far as schools go, this is a luxurious one by local standards, particularly given the fact that there is a working library, a computer lab and mzungu management prohibits the teachers from hitting the children.

Almost a week deep, I knew I’d reach a few points of distinct panic and it seems I’ve hit a pretty good one. The heat in our bedroom soars at night without a cross breeze, augmented now that we are condemned to our bed nets after deciding to go off the malaria medication to save our livers some grief and also to seal off our beds from the nightly jaunt of the cockroaches. But we are paying for it in sweat (lots of it) and sleep, respectively.  The beans, rice and fried food that completely dominate the diet here go from novel to a total nutrient-deficient drag in no time at all. And with a house of 10 people sleeping in three rooms and a room full of primary kids, the pure lack of alone time has been enough to land me smack dap in my first silent breakdown.
And here is that voice in your head, the one you’ve been running from all your life. Telling you you’re way behind on your Kiswahili, you’re not a good teacher, you’re not flexible enough, you cant get comfortable walking in town, you don’t know your way home, you are too overwhelmed by the smells of the markets and the dust and the “mzungus!” shouted at you, if you can’t cool off you are going to scream, why did you come here, what were you trying to prove and why are you so bad at it?? Like a child, standing in the street with dust in her eyes.

The kids make the breakdowns worth having. Watching them try hard and having them run up to your legs and their “teacha, teacha!”s. They are so much work and sometimes you want to send them all home at noon and wash your hands of their shouts, and pushing and backtalk. But somewhere along the way I got bitten by the bug and I somehow look forward to seeing them every day. They make feeling so scared easier to forget.