The poor always get screwed!

Yesterday’s post was semi uplifting, so I think that entitles me to a morning vent.  It has been one of those, pull your hair out/shave your eyeballs/scream non sense kind of weeks in South Africa.  Let me explain why.

As I am sure you have picked up on by 95% of my other posts, township education is a complete joke, so if a learner meets the requirements for university, that means this kid has got it going on!  Like really a dynamic, dedicated individual to rise up over the adversity and all the odds against them!  No proper resources, little preparation, no funding, often hungry, and ZERO teaching. 

So one of the pillars of Masinyusane is seeking out all of the top learners from the location and help them get into college.  A few months back, I was involved with our top learner program, where we went to each of these schools, identified the one, or maybe two student per school who received marks to qualify for registration.  So in the southern location, (about 7 townships with 40 or so schools), there were just over 150 students who met the basic, basic, basic requirements for university.  Like I’m talking if you show up once a week at a rich town school, you would be at a significant advantage to my hood kids.  The poor always get screwed.  Any who, we held a big conference for these students. Cream of the crop!  Probably the top 1% of the location students all together in one room, getting fired up for the future.  Jim worked very hard to get funding from ABSA (a bank) to help cover the costs of aptitude tests; Masinyusane covered the application fees.  I helped fill out hundreds of bureaucratic nonsense just to make our hood kids look as eligible as the rich town kids on paper.

Ok, so holiday came, applications were processed and 53 of our kids got in to NMMU.  Ok cool, those 53 got it made, right! They are in!  And the other kids will go to another college, or try again next year.  We thought we won! WRONG.  All of this leads up to this week’s eyeball shaving.

NSFAS (similar to the American FAFSA) is the national department in charge of allocating loans. NOT GRANTS, LOANS.  People, that means higher than 15% interest rate LOANS! Ok, so NSFAS gets a list of students from the universities of students who qualify for financial assistance.  Then NSFAS deposits money into the university bank account for these students.  BUT this is South Africa, so the money never shows up.  Now last Monday was registration for university, but the students (namely my 53 hood students) can’t register because the government hasn’t pitched. So NSFAS released a statement saying they are busy processing and sorry but my hood kids will have to wait.  School starts next week, and here we are, still waiting.  If the funding doesn’t come through, that means all who don’t qualify don’t come to university.  And it isn’t just NMMU that NSFAS hasn’t pitched to.  It’s a national debacle, only other universities are picketing! Thousands and thousands of kids who should be eligible for an education are left waiting for that phone call, or have been pitched up by the financial office across this country this week.  And here it is, Friday, and still no news.  And the hardest part for us at Masinyusane is there is absolutely nothing we can do.  The poor really do get screwed.

 

I will keep you posted.

 

On a side note, I was speaking to a reader of my blog yesterday and she asked if I am having a terrible experience here.  I was blown away.  I am having the most incredible, life changing time.  I would change absolutely nothing about this opportunity.  She said that according to my blog, she wouldn't get that.  So sorry, readers.  I blog to you about my joys and my frustrations, and sometime the latter is easier to verbalize when doops from NSFAS happen.

 

Life is good.  I'm working hard.  Things will work out, but not without my share of moaning.

My PE Duality

Sorry for the delay in posting; I have no excuse other than sheer laze.  But I am feeling reminiscent this afternoon, so please eat at my back in the day buffet!

It has been 8 months since I have moved back to South Africa, and it wasn’t until this morning that I made a trip to Langerry.  As much as I hate to admit it, this was by design.  I say that im not a sentimental person, but I was very worried about missing all of my Langerry family, and realizing that I’m on my own!  Any who, I helped Maddie move in this morning.  She is in the flat right next to where I was.  She chose the same bed that I did!  She will wake up to “Big Man” bouncing at Sea Side Liquor just like I did!  She will walk Beach Road every day, and if she is anything like me (which she isn’t) she will stop at the liquor store to get a Redbull before class, and she will stop again after class for something a titch stronger.

I think that I was nervous to go back because I have wanted to keep my two PE experiences separate.  I have some incredible memories from this place 2 years ago.  (It was exactly 2 years ago today that I got on a plane to come here!!)  And similarly, I have had a live changing 8 months here this year.  But as I have alluded to in the last 32 blogs, the experiences have been vastly different.  I didn’t want to taint my Langerry memory with my Newton Park/New Brighton experience, and likewise, I don’t want to continue to say “Well, when I was here two years ago……”

ALL of that sentimental crap aside, the new group arrives tomorrow, and I want to be a resource for them.  Anybody who has spent 5 minutes talking to me about my study abroad experience knows that I was hungry to meet more PE locals, and make PE my home, rather than CSBSJU PE to meet other CSBSJUers. Well, just so happens that I have now met PE locals, and PE has become my home.  There is now more than Beach Road and Nandos.  And even better, I have more than two friends (last time I counted, I think I’m up to 5)!

I think now what I must do is seek out those study abroaders who, like me, wanted more than CSBSJU, and force my friendship on them (maybe I can boost my number to 7 or 8).  And where 8 months ago I wasn’t ready to go back to Langerry, this morning I realized that, yip that was pretty brilliant, but yip this is pretty brilliant in a very different, a very Danika way.  And I needed that validation. 

 

There are also four bits of exciting news to report:

1.       I finally bought a new camera after my artsy camera was redistributed; so prepare yourselves for some photography.

2.       I’m getting a new car tomorrow! Peace out little blue Tupperware matchbox.

3.       I’m looking for somebody to replace me, so if you know anybody who wants a yearlong adventure of a lifetime, send them my way

4.       I’m officially coming stateside August 2014.

PEACE AND BLESSINGS

an SA take on authenticity

Prepare yourself, readers.  It’s been a pessimistic morning.

 

So I have been thinking, what does the word authentic mean, in my life and in this world.  So, naturally, I googled it.  Merriam-Webster made me laugh.  Like I really LOLed.  Get this:

1: real or genuine: not copied or false

2: made to be or look just like an original

So if something is real or genuine, not copied, it is made to look just like the original?  Interesting?

How about authentic tourism?  All these backpackers and hotels on the beach, offering “the real South Africa.”  What is this real South Africa of which they market?  They offer surf lessons!  That’s pretty cool.  They offer shuttles to all the fancy restaurants on the boardwalk.  Sweet!  They offer township tours, equipped with a real life tour guide from the township himself, ready to take you to see the “real south Africa.”  They have these big busses that barely make it down the unpaved, rubble roads, and all the tourists sit in the AC buses, snapping the artsy photos of the authentic life.  But HEY, its real or genuine, right?  Not copied or false?  I’ve been on that bus, eating my tomato and cheese sammy.  I had the artsy camera, and I saw this spectacle through the tinted glass.  I saw the real; the authentic! LOLOLOLOLZ

Well here I am the other day, minding my own business, picking up one of my kids to solve some life ending catastrophe of the week, and one of these busses rolls through MY hood!  Now I see the flashes going and I’m now part of these artsy pictures of the “authentic tour.”  Me and my little blue car that my kids tell me looks like a piece of Tupperware.  We are part of authenticity!  Now I am not saying that I’m fully acculturated, fully integrated into being a true New Brighti-ian (or whatever one would be called), because that’s certainly not even remotely the case.  I’m just saying wow, does it seem like quite the façade, quite the spectacle from this side of the looking glass.

Once again I have posed this narcissistic, pessimistic view of an industry that is just trying to enlighten people (oh and make money), but what is the solution.  I certainly don’t have one?  Now with this Maddie chick here, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how I can open doors for other people who are interested in an authentic experience, (whatever the heck that means).  How do I do that from my blue Tupperware car, you ask?  Well, that indeed, is the question of the week.  Maddie, and two of her friends from her Namibia adventure have been living my (authentic) life this week. 

Wyatt and Ema (and Maddie of course) are some incredible people.  And funny enough, I would absolutely use the word authentic to describe them!  They are real, genuine, and not interested in the copied or false.  The lives that they lead are not trivialized with mundane things like shopping malls, or clubs (as mine sometimes has been:/).  They were far more interested in meeting people, seeing the real, and experiencing the genuine.  Oh and they live outta their tent, so that’s pretty ballsy. 

We parted yesterday, and being the artistic souls that they are, this is what they crafted:

 

Here, Wyatt impeccably captured my life:  My home (Newton Park) and my hood (New Brighton), and at risk of sounding very very corny, I'm pleased to say that I have come to know an authentic love for each.

And just a bit of a shout out to a certain 651 reader who I know is reading this: I think it is important for us all to analyze what is authentic in our lives, and certainly decipher what authentic love means. Ask for the serenity to accept the things we cannot change; courage to change the things we can; and wisdom to know the difference. For me, Wyatt crushed it with this simple line drawing, and for that, I am forever thankful. 

And my parting thoughts, I hope that whoever took a picture of me from that tour bus is able to look back at it someday and know that they too could be on this side.  Its pretty great.