Cape Town

I flew into Cape Town on one of Mango's (a South African budget airline) neon orange planes. In my imagination, the plane had a crew dressed as mangoes and an in-flight meal of mangoes and eventually ended by crashing into the Atlantic Ocean. My fears about flying in an aircraft that is the namesake of a fruit proved, thankfully, to be unfounded and I even got a free pack of gum upon disembarkation.

I spent my first day in Cape Town on a wine tour led by a professor whose second job is playing piano in lounges and third job is apparently this. Besides the two of us, there was an Irish family of four led by a cricket-obsessed matriarch. The drinking age in South Africa is 18, and still, when we arrived at the winery for our first tasting, I was asked if I intended to drink, I believe, their polite way of asking if I am old enough to drink. We visited four wineries, and the tastings were surprisingly unpretentious and they didn’t make us spit. I wished there was somewhere spit out the brandy though; it was vile and turned the gentle alcohol-in-the-morning pulsing behind the eyebrows into a pounding headache which I quelled later with an enormous bowl of pea soup. Brandy should not be in the same sentence at 10 am. Ever. In between wineries, we had time to walk around Franschhoek, a vineyard town. It was there I stumbled upon a locally famous chocolate shop run by two coloured (not to be confused with the outdated American term for African Americans, these South Africans would perhaps be defined in America as bi or multi-racial of African and European descent) chocolatiers who were sponsored to learn the art of chocolate making in Belgium and now run their own very successful business. I sampled their creations in the form of truffles of the amarula, peppermint, coffee and honey and anise varieties.

The following day, which happened to be Easter, I spent in around the Cape of Good Hope. I watched seals frolic from a glass-bottom boat and penguins waddle in the most fantastic way on the beach in Simon’s Town. And I saw one penguin sitting on eggs! I get that’s what they are supposed to do, but I was still surprised somehow. Similarly, when the water splashed over the rails of the glass bottom boat and I tasted salt on my lips, I thought “weird” and then had to remind myself that I was on the ocean. I guess I’ve gotten used to being landlocked.

I was surprised and a little disappointed to find little open on Easter Monday, but I did get the opportunity to laze and sweat in the Long Street Baths. There was only one other person using the sauna, steam bath and plunge pool, and shortly after she left, when I thought I had maybe sweat out a little too much (my hair was dripping and plastered to my face although I hadn’t submerged my head under water), I decided to get out myself before I passed out alone. I showered and fell asleep in the bed provided in my changing stall. Then following the sage advice of the cleaner and various posters, I stumbled to a corner store to rehydrate with orange juice. I walked in slow motion (with the sidewalk seeming to swing up toward my face with every step) to a shopping mall at the waterfront to buy a book to take with me to the Botanical Gardens. After purchasing two books, I was on my way out the door when I was tempted by a movie theatre showing Slumdog Millionaire, and a restaurant with a glass case featuring several varieties of chocolate cake. I never did make it to the gardens but it was a blissful day.

I visited various museums while in Cape Town, and was most enamored with the National Gallery. The last time I was in an art museum, I was performing with a pan-African dance and music ensemble at a fundraiser at the Fogg in Cambridge, MA. The last time I was in a museum to look at art? I have a vague and fuzzy memory of wandering a Karen Walker exhibit with my friend Josh. I remember sitting outside and talking about what we saw and him telling me “good eye,” like a kind-hearted T-ball coach. I can’t really tell you about any of the exhibits I saw in the National Gallery; I was simply satisfied walking through rooms of art to the sound of my echoing footsteps. I also loved the District 6 Museum, a small but powerful museum documenting the black and coloured families who were displaced from the area of Cape Town known as District 6 during apartheid when the neighborhood was designated a whites only area.

I spent one morning on Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela and others were imprisoned during apartheid. Although the tour guides are all former inmates, I found the experience oddly stark and unemotional, and I couldn’t tell if I found the experience so compelling despite or because of that. Perhaps the moment that I most appreciated was when our guide said, “I didn’t decide to come back to the island and give tours because I want to talk about happened to me here everyday. I came because I needed a job.” Taking a taxi back to the hostel from the ferry, the driver, upon hearing that I live in Lesotho said he would never live there because “there are too many black people there.” That comment juxtaposed against a morning spent on Robben Island left me feeling strange all day and I was already in my room before I realized I was still thinking about how to respond to the driver and hadn’t said anything.

The next day I moved from my hostel to stay with friends. Zoey is in South Africa from NYU law school for a semester of study and an internship and Shingi, who assisted my pre-Soweto Marathon carbo-loading, temporarily relocated from Johannesburg to Cape Town to be with her. Although Zoey and I grew up minutes from each other in New Jersey and both went to NYU, we didn’t meet until we both studied in Ghana, so it seemed particularly fitting to meet up in Africa. She took me to a little specialty foods store to stock up on tofu, nuts and tahini, and a craft store that made me manic with the overwhelming variety of glues. Zoey made me stir fry and pancakes and introduced me to bunny chow, a South African specialty (from Durban in particular) that consists of a hollowed loaf of bread filled with curry. We bought some around the corner from her house, and ate it outside along with fancy chocolate leftover from Easter. Cheap curry followed by expensive chocolate- I love eating with Zoey! Mostly, I read on Zoey’s couch while she did schoolwork, or went through my Sesotho flashcards while Shingi studied his Zulu beside me and we compared languages. We went out one night to a movie theatre. Ok, not just any movie theatre, the Labia Movie Theatre, and the unintentional crude comments that emerged as we planned our outing to the Labia were far more entertaining than the movie itself, as was the fact that wine was on sale at the concession stand and the ticket-takers thought nothing of the fact that we brought a huge chocolate bunny with us.

My last night in Cape Town, the three of us went to see a performance of Cinderella by the Cape Town City ballet at my reqeust. Given a variety of dance performance options, I normally wouldn’t choose a ballet, especially a classical ballet, especially Cinderella. But, there weren’t choices, and like art museums, a dance performance is something I haven’t experienced in awhile. The sets were beautiful as were the costumes, and the diversity of the cast and the fact that the women weren’t emaciated was very refreshing. But the dancing was awful. The women wobbled in their pointe shoes, and I held my breath on every lift waiting for the men to drop their partners. By the first pas de deux, I was telepathically and profusely apologizing to my companions. At intermission, Zoey and I exchanged a look of mutual disappointment, while Shingi tried to keep an open mind about his first ballet experience and commented on the strength of the women’s toes, the prominence of the male genitalia in tights and wondered whether or not the ballerina playing “Winter,” was actually a man. I was wondering the same thing myself but, sadly, we never found out because the theatre charged for programs, a fact we found more ridiculous than the dance-off between the ugly stepsisters.

The morning my flight took off, I had a great run in a downpour. Running at sea level was a treat after all these months in the mountains. I ran once or twice very day I was in Cape Town, and I had to move my legs so fast to get out of breath I thought I was going to trip over my own feet. All week, despite enjoying the clear skies, I thought the only thing that would make for a more perfect run was a mile or two of teeming rain. Well, I got it, and one moment, I was wringing out my sopping wet t-shirt so I could pack it and the next I was waiting in line to get stamped at the border with my neighbor commiserating that school holidays are never, ever long enough.

Nursery University. . .

I recently heard about a documentary entitled Nursery University about the crazy and competitive process of enrolling a child in preschool in New York City, an ordeal exacerbated by the post- 9/11 baby boom.

When I first heard of the premise of the film, I spent a good hour trying to download a trailer of it, certain that I would see a parent or school I knew from my time living in New York City and working in two preschools there. Sure enough, I saw two shots of the first teacher I worked for. Also named Sarah, she was a burnt-out and flighty hippie who filled my closet with patchwork skirts and guazy blouses that no longer fit her. When I joined her class, she became Big Sarah and I became Little Sara and she was a wonderful person to have as a mentor.

I don't know if I would have found the trailer so amusing if I was not thousands of miles away from any place where this situation could possibly exist, but I laughed with tears running down my cheeks. And thankful to be here where the pressure and anxiety in this field is not nearly so high.

Check it out the website, go see the movie for me, and keep your eyes and ears open for the DVD.

www.nurseryuniversitythemovie.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aESkMeVksvs

A City Run

Oh. My.

The children went home four hours ago and I'm still here at school. I was immersed in a massive April cleaning when I had to stop to laugh for eight solid minutes after finding on my desk the following "current event" synopsis written by one a nine-year old student here.

"February 19, 2009

Shoe Thrown at George W. Bush

On Thursday at 14.00 pm someone threw a shoe at George bush because he killed the sandmen. That person is the sandmen's friend in Texas. The shoe was put up at the flags place.

By Thabo"

Still laughing. . .

How Did I Get Myself Into This? OR Four Events of Note OR Maybe It Was Just the Rickettsia

ONE
One evening recently, I found myself on my hands and knees in a sandbox wearing a strapless dress, the toes of my silver shoes sinking into the sand and windblown grains sticking to my freshly applied make-up (well freshly applied lip balm anyway). I had arrived a bit early to the annual school international celebration/fundraiser to search for a missing painting from the student art sale that I had organized (because somehow I am an art teacher in addition to a preschool teacher). Parents and school administrators insisted the painting was lost somewhere at the school, and after about a dozen frantic yet monotonous searches on my part, it was discovered the painting had been left at the framing shop. Earlier that day I had made a pie for this dinner, during the process of which, I burned a temporary rectangle onto my face from leaning against the oven and super-glued my hand to a barrette in the pursuit of multi-tasking. I made up the recipe which resulted in a fragrant pie that was less structurally sound than a house of cards. The smell of the pie, the fact that it seemed rather volcanic in its quivering and dripping, its heat which made me sweat profusely, and the bright red rectangle on my face attracted more than the usual amount of white-person attention I would normally get on public transportation. The day before was slightly less eventful, although it did involve me hauling all of the furniture and a good deal of teaching materials out of my classroom so it could house the buffet. I was not in the most pleasant mood to be collecting tickets at the gate at this point, but it was supposedly my last task in this consuming event. Then one of the parent organizers, Paul, sought me out to inform me that he was out of empty wine bottles in which to place candlesticks. He had some metal canisters he thought he could fill with sand to do the job. “Could you direct me to the sandpit?” he asked. I walked him across campus, lifted the tarp off for him, and turned to walk back to the gate. But Paul had an even better idea. This idea was namely that I should climb into the filthy sandbox, dig in the wet sand with my bare hands (no shovels were outside because it was a Saturday) and fill the cans myself. I should have punched him. At some point he said something like, “sorry it’s a bit messy.” And I responded with something like, “I teach preschool and art. I’m used to it.” I should have punched myself. I’m going to start saying “no” tomorrow.

TWO
I have been illegal for ten months now. After finally getting my work permit, I went on the requisite quests for this documentation and that, the chest x-ray, the passport photos, the certified photocopies of every piece of paper I possess to finally legalize my residency. After an hour of sitting and waiting, the person with the ability to make my life infinitely easier appeared in the dirty window. I had spent much of this hour removing purple tempera paint from underneath my fingernails with a pen cap, and contemplating how nice it will be to not have to leave the country every thirty days. Note: this woman was not going to actually give me the residence permit. She was merely going to toss all of my documents onto a pile and tell me to come back in a month. Yet for some reason, my presence is required in this red tape circus act. She flipped through the contents of my envelope, “uh huh, uh huh, uh huh, fifty maloti please.” Then she pushed the stack of papers and candy-colored money back through the window. This was an ominous moment of the transaction, I had not been informed of a step in which everything you were told to bring is cast out of the room where against all bureaucratic odds, little pieces of paper are awarded to frazzled foreigners. “The woman who takes the money isn’t here.” Yes, apparently only one person in the entire Office of Immigration can count money and make change. The face behind the window politely inquired as to whether or not I would like to wait for an indefinite period of time with my thoughts and dirty fingernails for the money lady to return, but I declined. Defeated, I asked when I should come back and after all that, she said, oh you don’t have to come back, just send someone with your papers. Apparently, one’s presence is required on the first attempt to submit your paperwork, yet most people are rejected because the typist is out, or the electricity is out or the receptionist’s pen ran out of ink. Then, without making any note that the applicant made an appearance during attempt number one, the Office of Immigration waives the requirement of appearing in person for all subsequent attempts. I contemplated whether this was some sort of test, like they want to know how cooperative you are or if you ask too many questions or if you have the waiting room equivalent of road rage before they grant you permission to stay in their country, but really, it’s just Lesotho.

THREE
This is also Lesotho. Last week, while riding home in the “taxi” (what in America would be something the size of a van with more seats squeezed in), I opened the little wicker container where I keep my change, and did probably the worst thing I could have done on crowded public transportation. I dropped nearly 100 coins on an otherwise silent taxi. Everyone turned to stare at me. I was squished against the window and I made a few graceless attempts to squeeze my arm between the seat and the wall, but accomplished nothing except to elbow the woman beside me. There was also no space between the rows to squat down in and retrieve the money. So people started poking me from all sides saying, “your money is there, your money is there.” And I shrugged and pointed at the spaces large enough for several dozen coins to fall through but not my arm. What did they expect me to do, when surely they could see that other than unloading the already-moving, entire taxi, there was no way I was getting my money back? All of the other passengers were turned to face me and they began an impassioned conversation in Sesotho that I could not follow. I was pretty sure they were saying, “These white people are so rich that they can just drop their money on the floor and are too lazy to bend down and pick it up.” After several minutes the conversation died down and I was nearing my neighborhood. I called out my stop and once I hopped off, with bright red face (neck, chest) probably glowing, I rushed to cross the street despite cars speeding in both directions. The woman who had been sitting beside me grabbed my arm when I was halfway across, and said “Wait, this abuti [brother] is helping you.” I turned and saw that the rest of the passengers had climbed off behind me and a teenager in a pristine school uniform was shimmying on the filthy, oily floor picking up my coins one by one. It took about five minutes passing painfully slowly, in which I added gratitude and awe to my current embarrassment. The young man finally handed me the change. Nearly all of the coins were 5 lisente ones, which, all added together, were about 50 cents in USD, barely more than the price of the ride (and they don’t even usually take such low value coins for fare). For my fellow passengers, office workers and students making their way home at rush hour, comfortable enough to afford to take public transportation, the loss of this amount of money would be an annoyance, but hardly dire. Yet they all prolonged their already long days even more and conspired to return every last coin to me.

FOUR
Last month during midterm break, my neighbor and colleague, Bob, and I decided to head in the same direction and went up to the lovely South African town of Clarens with a Florida missionary. Besides delicious restaurants, art galleries and homemade chocolates, Clarens has a spa. I’d never been to a spa before, but decided to try. Bob even decided to go along as well and we made consecutive appointments for hot stone massages. Claire, the missionary, headed to the spa with us to read in the lobby, while the receptionist informed Bob and I that the room for our “couples massage” would be ready in five minutes. I choked on my own saliva. It did happen to be Valentine’s Day but Bob is 55 years old. From our combined nervous laughter, and the fact that Claire was in hysterics, the receptionist gathered that we were not a couple, said “no problem,” and we were brought to the changing room. The massage therapist directed us to our respective robe and terrycloth tube dress and then to our rooms. No, make that room. We resumed with our nervous laughter and reiterated that we were not supposed to share a room, whereupon she apologized for the misunderstanding but told us that was all they had. She said, “I’ll cover your eyes with towels.” We looked at each other, shrugged and said, “why not?” We were already there, and Valentine’s weekend was a busy one so we knew we wouldn’t be able to make another booking. While we were having our massages, the receptionist went to Claire and apologized about the room situation again. They started chatting and Claire mentioned how Bob and I teach at the same school. “She’s a teacher,?!” the receptionist said shocked, “I thought she was 15 years old! I thought they were father and daughter!” Claire, said, “No, none of us are related or together in any way.” “So you’re not the wife?!” “Um, no.” They essentially thought that Bob and I were having a little Valentine’s Day father-daughter massage, and Claire was the mom/wife who just isn’t into spas. Or as I understand their version of the scenario, Bob was the pedophile, I was the abused adolescent and Claire was the enabler. Either way, Bob fell asleep during the massage and snored the ENTIRE time.

From Valentine’s Day up until now, the end of March, it seems like my life has been populated by one weird situation after the other. Two weeks ago, I got a high and prolonged fever and blinding headache and convinced myself that I not only had malaria, but that it’s been churning in my body since returning from Mali, and all of my odd daily encounters were actually quasi-hallucinations. I went to the best clinic in Maseru (where a month prior while getting the physical for my residence permit the doctor wrote down a number for my blood pressure I have since been told is impossible) to request a malaria test. The doctor said, “You know, there is not a high prevalence of malaria in Lesotho.” No shit. There is no malaria in Lesotho, but I calmly explained that I have traveled in several malarial areas. He proceeded to tell me my temperature was normal despite the fact that I was shaking, soaked with sweat and hot to the touch. Then he said he can’t give me a malaria test but he can give me the malaria treatment. He said if I don’t feel better in two days then we know it was not malaria. “So what will I do then?” I asked him. “Come back for a malaria test.” “But if this medication will make me better if I actually have malaria, and it doesn’t make me better, why would you test me for malaria?” “Well we can test you for other things.” “Like what?” “Bacterial infections and viral infections.” I gave him a piece of paper and said, “Write them down.” I couldn’t read a single thing he wrote. He gave me prescriptions for the malaria treatment, and two different medications for the fever I supposedly didn’t have, one for daytime and one for nighttime. I went back to school to make sure everything was arranged for the students for the rest of the day so I could go home. I also looked up the medications on-line and found that the malaria treatment isn’t even supposed to be given in areas where it is not endemic, and that it’s been banned in several countries for causing heart problems. And the “fever” medication for nighttime was actually Valium. Great.

After a few more days of delirious teaching, the headache that wouldn’t go away was starting to make me nervous. I used to have a roommate paranoid about getting meningitis and any time she got a symptom, would run through a checklist of all the other symptoms. So in addition to all of the neurosis I was born with and those I inherited from the family worrywarts, I had visions of Alexandra bending her neck to test for stiffness, and convinced myself my brain was swelling. So I did something I try never to do and that is cross the border because things are better on the other side. I made an appointment with a South African doctor, and as I rushed there from parent-teacher conferences I started to worry I’m going to be diagnosed with hypochondria or hysteria. But lo and behold, I’m diagnosed with a UTI and tick bite fever. You would think that in Africa, I’d manage something a little more exotic than one infection in my bladder and another from not tucking my pants into my socks, but I guess it’s a different Africa way up here in the sky.

A Little Fishy

After a three-week vacation, a new year, a new preschool room and three new students, mid-January, a new unit of study was in order. I thought my class might find an investigation of the animals of Lesotho a very engaging topic (think ponies, sheep, goats), plus there would be no problem finding field trip sites and opportunities for observation. But the Wednesday after the Christmas break, when I remembered, “crap! I didn’t plan anything for science today!” I hurriedly searched through what I had on hand, and found a book about starfish.

The children loved the book, particularly the photos of the starfish clinging to a rock and opening a clamshell. I made a hasty decision to skip the ponies for now, and stick with the fish. Being a land locked country, Lesotho wouldn’t offer many field trip opportunities or hands-on experiences related to the topic, but I figured these children love water almost as much as they love wearing their swimsuits, and any project in which I could incorporate those things would be a success. Unfortunately, it was later apparent that unseasonably chilly and very unpredictable weather made planning a swimming activity (of the real, not imagined, variety) impossible, but in spite of that drawback, our study of the ocean ended up working.

To start, I got out the chart paper and got a pretty good idea of our collective fish knowledge. We had the following conversation:

Me: What do you know about fish?
Justin: I like a purple sea star.
Lydia: Fish sleep in the water.
Justin: They swim in the water.
Thabo: A fish tastes like food.
Sushmita: A shark is going to eat fish . . . My grandmother gives me fish and rice.
Anna: Mom gives me my fish [to eat].
Esther: I eat a shark.

Me: Is there a sea creature in this shell?
Ibrahim: No in there.

Me: What color is a fish?
Sienna: Orange.
Janelle: Red.

Me: What does a fish eat?
Letsie: A fish eats water.
Justin: A fish eats a shell.
Sushmita: Small fish.

Despite the fact that my students’ apparent desire to eat fish is larger than their knowledge about fish, I decide we should just go with it. I got out some seashells which the children managed to crush like sand castles within seconds of touching them. I kept this in mind the following day when I brought in starfish borrowed from a colleague who had them imported from elderly Floridian parents, and introduced the “touch with one finger only” rule.

The next day, I began the nearly daily ritual of reading the Leo Lionni classic, Swimmy, one of my- and students’- favorite books of all time. Swimmy is a little black fish who explores the ocean after the rest of the fish in his school are eaten by a tuna. He is amazed by all of the creatures he meets, who are all described beautifully (“an eel whose tail was almost too far away to remember . . .”), until he finds a school of fish just like himself, hiding because they are afraid of being eaten. Swimmy, who wants the other little fish to see all of the wonders he has, teaches them to swim in a formation to appear as a larger fish to frighten their predators away. And fish actually do that! Who knew? (Not me.) This concept also appears in a 1960s bumper sticker: On the left, a picture of a school of little fish swimming away from a big fish, and on the right, the school of little fish chasing the big fish away. In the middle is emblazoned, “ORGANIZE!” Well, it just so happens, someone made me a skirt with that design embroidered on it, and I wore it the day I read Swimmy. I felt a bit like Miss Frizzle, the teacher in the Magic School Bus series, who always wears dresses patterned with a motif related to the science topic of the day. But if I ever start looking into the purchase of themed sweaters, the sort with a Christmas tree that really lights up, please do stop me.

Continuing to engage my students’ inclinations toward the imaginary, I populated our water play with plastic sea animals. So what if the shark has a dopey, sedated smile! So what if ducks swim with walruses! So what if the crab is twice as large as the humpback whale! We rigged up a boat out of a cardboard box and made the sail out of an old sheet. I herded the children in the boat and commanded them to row like a coxswain Nazi before realizing that you don’t row a sailboat. It was time to ground this study back into reality.

Well, I was again forced to face the fact that a school in a land-locked country does not lend itself to a study of the ocean very easily, and the fact that the local markets are devoid of fresh (or dried) fish led me to believe that the rivers and lakes are not all that populated with water life. The nearest aquarium was a five hours drive away at least, and scouting out dentist’s offices and Chinese restaurants for what I thought were obligatory fish tanks did not yield any more promising results. And finally I realized that although the aquariums might be too far away but pet shops could be reached in two hours. I sent my neighbor who makes weekly pilgrimages to Bloemfontein to buy us some scaly little friends.

Two days later, the goldfish arrive in all their glory, in a water and air filled plastic bag, held in the passenger side seat safely with a seat belt. The children were immediately enamored and christened the newest additions to our classroom, So and Razyfish. While voting for names, other suggestions included Swimmy, Shark and other names that actually made sense, but when it came time to vote, democracy spoke and until the day comes when they are flushed down the toilet, I am forced to say to parents, “So and Razyfish. . . . No, SO and RAZYFISH. . . . So as in “So What” Razyfish as in, well, ya know, Razyfish . . . No, not Crazy Fish, RAZYFISH . . . I don’t KNOW why.” And so So and Razyfish began their preschool existence, swimming, eating and pooping in their bowl (which used to be my mixing bowl) on the science table, to be observed and drawn by children whose primary concern was probably what they tasted like.

After many more books about the ocean and many hours of staring into the fishbowl, my friends Zoey and Shingi were passing through Maseru, and as certified SCUBA divers, got manipulated into taking my preschoolers on an imaginary diving expedition. They explained all the gear we would need and while the children suited up in their invisible outfits, I dressed Thabo in an absurd makeshift diving suit (Power Ranger costume, pink plastic goggles, rubber gloves on his feet as flippers and my water bottle strapped to his back with a silk scarf as an oxygen tank). We swam around the school (after sailing and rowing our cardboard boat to the middle of the ocean) spotting (pretend) ocean life and manhandling (real) seashells. When we surfaced we turned into fishermen and Hassan caught a box of frozen hake fillets. Finally! We get to eat our topic of study. The fishcakes didn’t . . . “cake” as planned, but it was evidently delicious as a mush, or more accurately papa and fish (papa being the local maize staple, ranging from a porridge like to hard lump of dough consistency).

After the highly stimulating SCUBA dive and fish cooking, we reconvened in an ocean-knowledge-sharing session. And as I returned the shockingly intact starfish to their owner, and the crushed shells to the science cabinet and relocated So and Razyfish from the science table to my desk, the children authored the following book:

Preschool loves the ocean.
The ocean is made of water and salt and fish.

Little fish hide from big fish who eat them. Little fish swim together like a big tuna to scare the big fish so big fish can’t eat them.

We can have fish and our classroom too. So and Razyfish. They swim and eat.

Eel stays in the ocean and looks like a snake.

Jellyfish! They have a mouth!

Sea Star live in the ocean. A sea star can have five arms to open food. A sea star eats with a mouth. A sea star is slow. A sea star is bumpy.

Lobster! He pinch! Lobster is like a crab. Crab has 10 legs. Shells on the beach go in the sand so a big bird can’t eat them.

Our favorite whale is beluga. It’s white and swimming. See the water squirting out of his head.

Scuba Divers! A people! They have science in the ocean. Flippers are for swimming in the water. Goggles are to keep water out of the eyes. Children can have goggles at home. Maybe we can be a SCUBA diver too.

Preschool loves the ocean. (The End).

And they do!

Officially Delinquent

Last week I opened an e-mail from Federal Student Loan Services with a seemingly benign subject heading only to find in all caps, bold face, and red font of at least size 26, that I am officially DELINQUENT in my student loan repayments. I have only been required to start repaying my loans as of last month. And I did. Or at least I thought I did. Twice. Before you start freaking out (dad, mom, credit bureau fearing friends), I have 28 more days before I am reported to the credit bureau and charged late fees. That means 28 more days of clicking the hell out of the Submit Payment button on the website, and sending ever more desperate e-mailed pleas to the faceless correspondent in charge of dealing with delinquents, confused persons and general idiots. That is also 28 more days of re-typing my bank details and squinting at the routing and account numbers in my checkbook wondering where in the name of Stafford I have gone wrong. That means 28 more days of cursing Commerce Bank and the migraines they have given me, asking what did I ever do to you besides deposit loyally in my account and pour my coins in the counting machine with the encouragement of Penny, the squeaky-voiced blond pig-tailed cartoon character bouncing around the screen complimenting me on all the change I’ve collected. I hope she chokes.

Being labeled delinquent has come at a bad (or maybe fitting) time, when I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my Sesotho language skills will never advance beyond the level of a rude two-year old. That goes for my grammar and vocabulary, anyway. As for my accent, I am on par with a stroke victim. Beyond the compulsory greetings, please and thank you, my language skills subsist of giving commands to toddlers and shouting out names of nouns at random. It’s a cruel joke that my tongue trips over itself whenever I try to pronounce the key word in the phrase “I don’t understand,” so I can’t even indicate my ignorance sufficiently- not that the Basotho have any trouble figuring that out.

In the Sesotho book I ordered from Barnes and Noble, I learned such useful phrases as “Where might I send a cablegram?,” “I’ll have the lobster,” and “What time does the [non-existent] train to Buthe Buthe leave?” Finding it fairly useless, I bought a twenty-year old Peace Corps Language Manual off of my Zambian co-teacher, and I can engage in the following conversation:

Volunteer: Peace be with you mother?
Nurse: Yes, greetings brother.
Volunteer: How are you?
Nurse: We are fine. How are you?
Volunteer: We are fine, there is no mistake.
Nurse: That is alright father.
Volunteer: Is the hospital full?
Nurse: Very much.
Volunteer: Are all these people sick.
Nurse: They are patients as you see them.
Volunteer: What is wrong with this man?
Nurse: He was struck by lightening in the mountains.
Volunteer: He is weak.
Nurse: Too much.
Volunteer: What is wrong with that woman?
Nurse: She has a severe stomach ache.
Volunteer: What did she eat?
Nurse: She drank poison.
Volunteer: But why?
Nurse: Because her husband ill treats her.
Volunteer: This is bad!
Nurse: It is truly bad.
Volunteer: What is wrong with that child?
Nurse: He has hiccups.
Volunteer: Such a small child.
Nurse: Yes, father.
Volunteer: What is wrong with these young men?
Nurse: That one was bitten by a snake, this one was beaten by a stick, that one was stabbed by a knife on the buttocks.
Volunteer: On the buttocks?
Nurse: Just there father.
Volunteer: What was wrong?
Nurse: He was fighting with his girlfriend and had pinned her down. His girlfriend’s sister came and stabbed on the buttocks with a knife.

So really, if you come to Lesotho and wish to send a cablegram, eat a lobster, or ride a pretend train, I can arrange things for you. If you are struck by lightening, plagued with a spastic diaphragm or receive an unfortunate wound to the buttocks, I can describe your ailments to a medical professional. Additionally, if you are attacked by a pack of small, hyper children I can tell them to “Hey you! Listen!: Stop! Quiet! Sit down! Sit nicely! Go away! Don’t touch! I don’t have any combs!” If I knew the word for sweets or money, that last phrase might be more useful, but alas, I know how to say combs, (chairs, diapers, doors . . . lobster) and other items the average child wouldn’t demand.

When looking around for a tutor, I couldn’t find a Sesotho-speaking teacher at the school with the time or patience to deal with me, and I didn’t really feel like searching the big wide world for a stranger either. So I ended up arranging for the Head Custodian at the school to tutor me. I asked a teacher what she is paid to tutor students, and she said 50 rand, about 5 dollars. I asked M’é Lineo, my tutor-to-be, if that would be acceptable and she said, “No, anything less that 20 rand” (about $2). That felt like a ridiculous price to pay someone for an hour’s worth of one-on-one teaching, but while trying to convey that to M’é Lineo, she insisted that she would teach me from her heart and not for money, and I insisted equally forcefully that her time is very valuable to me. In the end, she accepted the 20 rand, and didn’t say anything when I changed it to 30.

And from then on out, our lessons have been convoluted threads composed of a few major activities. One is having M’é Lineo translate random words and phrases to use at the orphanage. Thus, I can ask if the baby bawling into my hair is hungry, tired or ill, but I can’t understand a response beyond “yes” or “no.” (Those responses, by the way, are, respectively, “E”- like the Canadian eh, and “Ae,” like the American Uh-Uh.) I can ask for Rose’s bottle, when I have her in the crook of one arm, because, “E, she is hungry” while Lesole is in the other arm, puking on my neck, but I can’t say that her bottle is the one with the green top. I can only request, “Please bring the bottle of Rose,” and say, “green!” “up!” and nod vigorously. And while I can only understand the slowest, simplest Sesotho, I cannot understand baby Sesotho. When I see a child in distress, I invariably ask “ke mang?” “Who is it?” I mean, implicitly, “Who hit you/took your toy?” I could ask “keng?” “What is it?/What’s the matter?” but the more comprehensive (and gurgled) response would be far to over my head to offer any insight. When you ask “Ke mang?” at least the children can point.

Our Sesotho lessons are also largely composed of me explaining to M’é Lineo how I want her to teach me. She is perfectly happy to answer questions and to translate whatever I desire, but she won’t correct my pitiful pronunciation, most especially my cheap replacement of the clicked “q” with a regular “k” sound. She doesn’t understand the purpose of engaging in pretend conversations in which she is a shop owner and I am a customer. And if she doesn’t have answers for all of my nagging whys about grammar, she starts to sweat. I’ve told her a dozen times, if there is no reason why the “L” in “Lipoqo” actually sounds like an “L,” rather than a “D” like the “L” in her own name, she should just tell me there is no reason. It’s like she is a linguistic fatalist; in her mind, every phoneme and grapheme happens for a reason and we, as mere vehicles for language, have no business questioning or even trying to understand it.

Regardless, this tirade is meant to be directed at myself and not at my amazing tutor who is beyond patient and who I am lucky to be able to spend any time with her at all when the normal school dictates that we do not cross paths. But the fact remains, the number of months I’ve spent in Lesotho is not reflected in my language skills, and if anything, my conversations are more charades- reliant than ever.

Writer David Sedaris relates the following about his efforts to learn French:
“I’d hoped the language might come on its own, the way it comes to babies, but people don’t talk to foreigners the way they talk to babies. They don’t hypnotize you with bright objects and repeat the same words over and over, handing out little treats when you finally say ‘potty’ or ‘wawa.’ It got to the point where I’d see a baby in the bakery or grocery store and instinctively ball up my fists, jealous over how easy he had it. I wanted to lie in a French crib and start from scratch, learning the language from ground floor up. I wanted to be a baby, but instead, I was an adult who talked like one, a spooky man-child demanding more than his fair share of attention . . . On my fifth trip to France . . . things began to come together, and I went from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly. ‘Is thems the thoughts of cows?’ I’d ask the butcher, pointing to the calves’ brains displayed in the front window. ‘I want me some lamb chop with handles on ‘em’”

If I ever make it to the hillbilly phase of my Sesotho language acquisition, I’ll throw myself a party and let you all know.