Do Good Fences Really Make Good Neighbors?

            Robert Frost wrote many times in “Mending Wall” that “Good fences make good neighbors.”  But being surrounded by fences, looking at fences, and being separated by fences all the time here is making me think that he was way off.  Most properties here are surrounded by at least a fence; in most cases a wall encloses the properties with an electric fence lining the top.  I was struck by the fact that these walls surrounded individual residential homes, schools, businesses, and shopping centers.  When I think off walls and fences I initially wonder, “Who are they trying to keep out?” 

At school especially, fencing in the property makes some sense to me because it can help to regulate that all school visitors are being accounted for and that random strangers aren’t roaming through school grounds.  But the homes and businesses struck me as odd, I was told that during the time shortly after the fall of apartheid many people chose to raise them because they felt they needed protection from the desegregation.  I was also told that during the 2010 World Cup walls and fences were erected around the townships in order to ensure that no tourists would accidentally enter them.  When we spoke with the man who lead us through Addo Elephant Park, he said “Oh, so you all are seeing the real South Africa” when we mentioned that we were working in a township school.  That statement along with the knowledge that the townships had been intentionally hidden from World Cup concerned me.  If it is known among locals that there are great wealth disparities and many areas of extreme poverty which need some form of assistance, why then would the government go to such great lengths to conceal this from others?  The "'New South Africa' --mean[s] all shapes and colors" but in an inclusive society made for all shapes and colors why are people still barricading themselves behind walls and hiding parts of their country from the eyes of the rest of the world? (Coombes 73).It makes me think that the great strides towards equality that have been made on paper have really only been made on paper and not in practice.

Dear Diary,

25 June 2014

Yesterday I taught my class how to write diary entries.  We began by reading an example diary entry in one of their textbooks.  I then explained to the class that diaries are always written in the first person and the past tense.  I wrote examples of first person words on the board (i.e. I, me, my, we, our) and beginnings of phrases (ex. The last time I was in an argument…) to help the students write their own diary entries.  I asked them to write an entry about the last time that they were in a fight.   They wrote silently for a few minutes then I asked the class for volunteers to share what they had written with the class.  Nobody wanted to read his or her work aloud.  Students at home are also often reluctant to participate as well but I was surprised that they did not want to read their diary entries because there was no wrong answer. Because most of what I have seen in the classroom has been very heavily guided response that aligns with the prescribed state curriculum, I wonder if the students are expecting a prescribed response.  In class the students either read directly out of the book or recite something they have memorized, this helps their pronunciation skills and the comfort level verbally articulating some English.  But I worry that they are not being given the tools to confidently create original thoughts in English or if they do not have enough vocabulary of the language to articulate what they want to say.

“Read to me in my language”

          I saw this on a poster in the library of the second school we visited with today.  Seeing this surprised me because when were initially briefed on the workings of the school we were told that English was chosen as the official language of teaching and learning.  The Home Language options the students were offered were both isiXhosa and Afrikaans.  But because their were mixed populations of Home Languages English was chosen as the main language of instruction so both groups could be taught in one class.  Since English was the main language of instruction I am still unsure the depth of what the students are taught in their home language, especially about the reading and writing it. 

The cycle of language endangerment and death begins when a generation of speakers has fluency in two languages, typically one they use in their family settings and another that they use in their professional and educational settings.  Because of the split in usage, the language that is spoken in the professional and educational world is seen as the language of power and therefore given a preference over the other language.  When this bilingual generation then begins to choose the language that they prefer to instill as their child’s primary language, typically they choose to teach them the language with the perceived power and give them less education about the less powerful language.  Through the generations so little of the language that is perceived less powerful will have been transmitted to younger speakers that the language will become scarce and eventually die out.

Based on what I have observed about the attitudes towards language, it is clear that here English is the language with the perceived power and prestige.  Leaving the first primary school I was at I ran into a few district supervisors.  One of the supervisors quickly told me about how he was so excited to hear children in another township school, outside of the classroom setting, communicate strictly in English rather than their home language.  This shows that although the home languages are still being taught in the schools curriculum it is clear that many educators are pleased with their students’ preference towards English.  Giving a generation of speakers an affirmation that adopting the language of perceived power could help perpetuate the eventual and endangerment of many of the home languages South African students are currently fluent in.
The shift towards favoring English is also an interesting one to take place in a township school.  During the apartheid regime, Afrikaans was enforced as the language of instruction in many schools in Soweto.  Black South Africans rebelled against this institutionalization of language learning in the Soweto Uprising in 1976 (Worden 128).  The change now in a post-apartheid SA where black South Africans are favoring English, a traditionally white language, is an interesting one.

“For your own safety, laying on the floor is strictly prohibited”

During the longest plane journey of my life, I would have given absolutely anything to sprawl out comfortably across the floor and pass out.  But, as it was against the safety regulations, I had plenty of time in between awkward sleeping positions to notice the slight differences between what I had previously experienced on flights and what I was currently experiencing on South African Airways. I found the slight colloquial differences between words to describe places on the plane and facets of the flying experience fascinating.  I first noticed as the Commander (our version of Captain) asked for the attention of his passengers for “the sharing of the safety video.”  Sharing struck me as an interesting verb choice because it conveyed that the process of being reminded to wear my seatbelt and take the brace position was an experience that was being offered to me rather than one I had to sit through once again.  Other words took on a slight transformation that made the actions and objects seem more important and serious; our “overhead bin” became the “overhead stowage compartment” and our “frequent flyer” became a “voyager.” My absolute favorite change was the switch from “exiting the plane” to “disembarkement,” a phrase I had never heard before. 

These changes in language gave me the impression that the process of flying was something that was taken incredibly seriously, but during the few times that the fasten seatbelt sign was lit mid-flight, many of the standing passengers either ignored it or took their time returning to their seats.  Granted this was an international flight and not all its passengers were South African, but a fair bit of them were.  I wonder if this relaxed attitude to following rules is something that translates over into the rest of their lives and if it is something that I will be seeing quite a bit.  It reminded me of something that was discussed in our first online class meeting; the concept of “now” in South Africa and how “now” means more typically, “eventually” or “in a little while.”  Anyways, tomorrow is the first day in the school so hopefully, everything will go well!

Initial Thoughts

“I’m going to Africa!”  I’ve been saying this for months but the sentence still does not feel real.  Yet, on Sunday after 24 hours of travel I’ll be in Port Elizabeth, South Africa.  After reading Disgrace by J.M. Cotzee in a class on Post Colonial literature I was drawn to South Africa.  A story centered on a professor’s self exile following a sex scandal set in post apartheid South Africa.  He leaves his job in academia in Cape Town to live with his daughter who works as a farmer in the Eastern Cape.  What stood out during my reading of that book were the stark differences that the narrator took care to point out between his life in Cape Town and the life his daughter has in the Eastern Cape.  During our class discussions prior to departure, we have been repeatedly warned to prepare ourselves to witness extreme gaps in wealth disparity, even within the city of Port Elizabeth.  This warning echoes the contrasts that were highlighted throughout the book.  I have always been aware of apartheid, but until recently I was unaware of how deeply it affected and still affects the lives of South Africans. 

With the fall of apartheid and the creation of a new constitution, all South African are theoretically guaranteed the right to have equal educational opportunities in a language that they understand.  But the vast multilingualism also works as a tool to unintentionally continue segregation even after apartheid.  Realistically, it is difficult to offer instruction in multiple languages at one school; it would be hard to create a teaching staff that could accommodate a linguistically diverse population.  Because of this, the language that the students and the school’s teaching staff speak now separates the populations of each school.  Students, especially those who speak tribal languages, are still sent to schools made up of predominantly black South African students.  In another of our class discussions it was mentioned that we would most likely be the first white teacher that these students will ever have.  This, in addition to being shocking to me, slightly worries me.  I’m nervous about the ways the students will react to me and fear that they might regard my presence in their classroom, and life, with some apprehension.