We had at least six volunteers (three Babson, three Stellenbosch) down with food poisoning today, although one of the Babson students insisted on teaching anyway. I had a very mild form, just bad enough that I didn’t want to eat anything all day. At this point we’re pretty sure it is caused by the lunches they have been feeding us, which are delivered lukewarm at 8am and are not eaten until noon; the USDA would be absolutely horrified (2 hours at room temperature is considered the limit).
Back to Hector Peterson today; my learners were all very happy to see me and wanted me to take all of their pictures, which we did at the lunch break. Aren’t my girls beautiful? Today they filled out their business plans and it was amazing; they were having so much fun and were so excited that they did not want to break for lunch! One pair is writing a plan to sell necklaces and bracelets, one is selling sandwiches, one is selling Russians (which are sausages), and one is selling t-shirts with printed images on them to tourists. As with yesterday at Stellenzicht, the biggest challenge was the sheet where we figured out the cost and gross profit for one unit of sales. In several cases there was negative profit, so the learners had to raise the price or figure out a way to lower the cost of the materials and labor involved. I was struck by how much faster these learners understood the concepts than the learners yesterday – it is just so surprising to me that the students from a poorer school would have such better grasp of math and unit cost. Or maybe we just did a really good job teaching them with the peanut butter & syrup exercise!
We did have one new learner today. Archie spent the morning tutoring her and then she teamed up with one of the other students to work on a joint business plan.
After class we gave two learners a ride to the train station and a conversation that started off by wondering why there were no boys in the class (and so few in the other schools) led pretty quickly to a discussion of gender roles. Tshepo who is one of the project managers for this program was saying that women should not have a problem being more successful than the men but one of our learners was very strong in her opinion that she should make less than her husband because if she made more money than there would be no respect in the relationship. Later Tshepo was saying this says a lot about how she was raised but also how she would need to live her life – if she wants to be married she can’t be an over-achiever at this point in her life.
We picked up another set of volunteers at Musibambane, and we were taking one of their learners with us back to Kayamundi and so Tshepo asked her the same question and got the same answer. But it’s interesting – later one of the people on the trip was talking about the similarities between the U.S. and South Africa in that here there are townships but back home there are the projects, and here people who did not experience apartheid themselves do not really learn about it, and we do not really learn about the civil rights movement in the U.S. This was what I was thinking as these girls were talking, that even in American culture you most definitely see some form of this. Some gap is OK but I think in general people are uncomfortable if there is a big success gap (or the potential for a future big success gap) between husband and wife where it is the wife who is more successful, but the other way around is more accepted.
In the early evening we had a class meeting at the professor’s lovely B&B, followed by a curry dinner at the Black Rose. That was quite good, what of it I could manage to eat…
The internet is apparently no longer working inside the room so I have to go out to the balcony which is cold, so out I go to upload this post and follow up with my Capstone team who I have abandoned this whole week. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll feel better – the plan is to go to a winery that has a cheetah reserve on the way to Cape Town. I could hardly be more excited … for the cheetahs, yes, but also to have our own shower. Having to run around from room to room in the morning to see who is awake and willing to let me use their shower isn’t the most fun in the world. Only 6 more mornings of this…
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