Trevor's Photo Journal

Today's school is Barberton Secondary School (BSS). It's located in what used to be called the Indian area, and is the first school so far who's student population isn't entirely black. This school to goes back along way and parts of it are very old and warn.
A generalization of the Heisenberg principal: by observing an event we modify the event. I walked into a grade 8 classroom with no teacher and as soon as I got out out my camera chaos broke out.
The grade 10's were a little better behaved.
The court yard of the school.

The smell in these bathrooms was the worst so far. The toilet is a miniature one even though the school goes from grade 8 - 12.  I'd definitly learn to control my bladder if I went to school here.

Today's school is Kahmola Secondary. It's an eight minute walk in the opposite direction as Emjindini and there are students that will walk passed Emjindini to go to Kahmola. The logistics of school planning in the township are beyond me - less than three blocks from Emjindini is a primary school that has up to grade 9 while Emjdinidni has from grade 8 - 12. Kamhola was build in 1993 as South Africa was preparing for its first free democratic elections with the anticipation of large growth in the township. That growth has exceeded all expectations as all five high schools are operating at or above capacity. Morning assembly at Kahmola. This must be about 75% of the student population, since it was Thursday morning before break and many students were still streaming into the school.
I'm so used to overhead projectors and dry erase boards that I never knew how annoying getting chalk out of an eraser could be. Many a kid has built up arm strength on these bricks.
A well ordered class room while the students are at assembly.
Some classrooms didn't get so cleaned up.

School water fountains.  I've seen very few actual water fountains in this country, most people are used to just using a spicket.

Today's school is Emjindini Secondary. About an 8 min walk from my house it's the oldest high school in the location and was built back in the 60's. The condition of the school has deteriorated over the years and many classrooms have broken windows, desks, and chalk boards. At this school I mostly focus on grade 10,11,12 maths. I've been assisting teachers with lesson plans and working after school with students to reinforce there basic math skills.
The student body gathers for end of the week assembly in the main yard. The school has two grade 8 and 9 classes, six grade 10, five grade 11 and four grade 12. Each class has around 40 students in each the spend most the day in the same classroom while the teachers move around.
Here's the entrance to the guys bathroom. One of the jobs of the two general works at the schools is to burn all the trash and if I'm downwind from the school in the late afternoons I have to walk through a cloud of smoke.

This was the first time I'd ever been in these bathrooms. There's hardly a space on the walls that isn't covered in graffiti. If the smell wasn't so bad I would have spent a little more time reading it since I found it fascinating. A little window in to the minds of the students I've been working with for the last two years.

A side look at one of the grade 10 classes.

Today begins a special five part series I'm calling "A Tale of Five Schools".  Each day this week I'll be posting five pictures of the five high schools in my area.  I figured that now is a great time to do this since I'm at a workshop most the week and who wants to see pictures of us sitting in training sessions all day.  All these pictures were taken on the same day - Thursday September 23 - right before I left site.

The first school on the list is Chief Funwako and also the furthest from my house.  It's located in a small village about 16km outside of Barberton, so going there is great exercises on my bike.  It's a relatively new school and still in quite good condition.  Since it's so far removed from the township classes sizes here are pretty decent, less than 35, and I find working with the students to be quite enjoyable.  It's unfortunate I can't get out here more often.
Satellite dishes on schools for internet service are quite common throughout the country; however, I've yet to actually see a functioning one.  My understanding is that it was a government initiative to get the dishes on the schools, but the schools responsibility to pay for the recurring data service.  So they all worked at one time, but probably not for more than a month or two.  To my 21st century mind this almost seems like sacrilege: the internet equals knowledge is a fundamental tenant of my educational philosophy.  But to a school that has never seen the internet and not been trained in how to use it the R500 a month required to keep the data connection going seems better spent on cleaning supplies for the windows.  The 4GB offline Wikipedia I've put at every school gets more use since it's free and always there.  Maybe onces educators begin depending on it for lessons they would see the point of paying for a real time version; and from there you could introduce more and more of the internet.
The school kitchen.  Always fun to talk to the cooking ladies, I've yet to meet a non-friendly one.  They'll cook food on a fires for over 500 students each day and get less $60 per month for it.
The bathrooms.  I'd much rather use one of these then the flush toilets at most other high schools.  A clean pit toilet is much much better than a flush toilet that never has any running water.

Grade 11 classroom.  The next day was a holiday which is why some of the students aren't in uniform.  About 38 kids in this class and since the teachers rotate and not the kids they'll spend all day in here.

Peace Corps trainings are notorious for the copious amounts of food served. I've always been a fan of buffet style meals and take advantage of them as much as I can in Peace Corps. Though by the end of a training I can usually skip one meal a day an be fine. I also bought this awesome Madiba shirt in Pretoria today and it's been quite fun to wear around. Will be a great souvenir of my time in Africa.

Walking around Pretoria today I happened past a community swimming pool with a swim meet going on. I was looking for a nice spot to stop and eat lunch so went inside to watch. It was almost surreal - liked I'd somehow been transported back to Virginia and was watching a swim meet at the local pool. A subtle reminder that the South Africa I live and work in is only a small part of this culturally and economically diverse country. If the kids in this picture and the kids on my street where to meet they would first both need an intense course on how to cross cultures and assimilate such as the pre-service training Peace Corps provides - but I guess that can be said for different regions and areas of the United States as well. It's almost scary how despite the fact, or maybe because, of all our communication technology how little we actually know about everyone else.

I also happened to pass the Pretoria East bowling club, or what I'd call bocce; I stopped at watched for a while as well. I'm pretty sure that beach and playground bocce are ten times better than the real thing. I was mesmerized by how about 40 people dressed from head to two could all be so silent and serrious on this immaculate piece of grass in the middle of Pretoria.

Today was a another travel day. I went out to Pretoria and the Peace Corps offices to prepare for for SA20's Life Skills Training which I'll be helping to facilitate next week. Today also happened to be a national holiday, which didn't make traveling by taxi very fun. Since most people weren't traveling but staying home with family it took me 2.5 hours just to go to Nelspruit - a 46km trip that normally takes 1 hour. The one nice thing about traveling via public taxi through South Africa is that there's plenty of time to read and listen to podcasts. Above is a picture of the new Neslpruit taxi rank. Two years ago the Nelspruit taxi rank was in a run down dark covered shelter, but now it's in this nice airy enclosure with amazing big signs letting you know where each taxi is going. Next to the rank are long rows of small shops selling everything from fresh produce and boiled peanuts to toilet-paper and airtime. Its always amazing to watch the informal economy of hawkers surrounding a taxi rank - capitalized at its most raw and unobstructed. Though every person basically sells the same thing and there's very little improvisation and expansion into different markets.

Tomorrow is Heritage Day, a national holiday. In celebration kids at Chief Fanwako Seconday School were allowed to where traditional clothing instead of school uniforms. Personally, I highly doubt this is traditional clothing - and in fact you'll see some dancing groups in animal skins - but here's two learners in Swaizi garb. The man on the prints is Mswati III, the King of Swaziland. The Nike swish on the shoes isn't part of the traditional dress, but does illustrate mixing of culture globalization creates. Last week there was a picture in the paper of a Gogo in Sawzi dress leading a group of girls for the reed festival and she held a cellphone in her hand - but then that's what Heritage Day is all about: remembering the past while living in the present.

The view from my house into my neighbors yard this morning. You can't see them there, but some of the oldest mountains in world are hiding there in the background. As the dry season finishes up we've had so many fires recently that you can't even a 1600m mountain less than 5km away. Below you see what the view would look like on a clear day.

I try to hike to the top of the closest mountain at least once every two months. It's not only great exercise, but the view is amazing and it's a wonderful place to go and read for the afternoon or write a few letters home. The rocks in these mountains compete with some in Greenland and Australia for the title of oldest rocks in the world and the oldest evidence of multicellular life (large mats of algae) have been found in these mountains.  Pretty cool place to be living for two years, but the number of school kids in my township that know these facts is limited.

My bike is not a toy, well at least most the time. I set a bad precedent early on by giving the kids on my street rides on my bike and letting a few ride it. Since I ride about 15km a day I'm putting much more ware and tare on this bike then I've ever put on one. I quickly wore through my first cheap bike, and although this one is of a higher caliber parts of it are starting to ware down as well. The handle grips have just about worn right through as well as the back tire (I recently had to switch the back and front tires since the ware wasn't uniform). So as much as I love giving the kids rides I've forced my self to stop in the hope that avoiding 2km rides through the township with 40kg extra weight will make my bike last longer. However, Mafera is persistent in always asking to ride my bike and sometimes I give in. The rule is he can't go out of my site - a while ago he broke the rule, but after not allowing him to ride it for the next few weeks because of that its almost always followed. The bike is a little to big for him, which really doesn't stop him at all and he'll treat it more like a skateboard balancing on one peddle if I don't help him get on.