On The Road

Thursday, September 16, 2010

I found my new favorite stretch of road.  For about 130 km, the R61 snakes across the mountainous terrain of the Wild Coast on its way to the beach village of Port St. Johns from Nelson Mandela’s hometown of Mthatha.  While rain was the biggest challenge for me and the maroon VW microbus on the first leg from Cape Town to Port Elizabeth yesterday, today I fought the wind and avoided scores of cattle, sheep, and uniformed schoolchildren, most of whom paid little attention to passing traffic.

Tonight I’m staying at a backpackers’ called Jungle Monkey, which also serves as a watering hole for an interesting local crowd.  I met one of the owners, Papa G, who told me about the shark problem in Port St. Johns.  Apparently, 3 people have been killed and many more injured by sharks over the past year in the small town.  Potential explanations range from sharks mistaking surfers for seals to swimmers failing to heed extensive but undetected warnings from the great whites to bloody animal sacrifices on the beach.  Serious Jaws 5 potential.

On Wednesday night I was lucky enough to enjoy a home cooked meal and spend time with the Port Elizabeth interns.  We shared stories of our experiences working for GRS thus far in South Africa; many of ours were similar, but some were unique.  The PE site, like Cape Town, was hurt by the government workers strike, but a new challenge emerged when many of the students at one school staged an aggressive protest in response to having to take final exams despite having been teacherless for the preceding few weeks.

Last week, I got to be part of a fascinating, eye-opening experience: the very first coaches training for GRS’ brand new curriculum, Generation Skillz, which caters towards 15-18 year olds and is designed to get kids to discuss and contemplate pertinent gender issues such as domestic violence and rape.  One out of every four South African men admit to having raped at least once.  These issues are very present here, including among the coaches who were participating in the training.  Alarmingly, some of the male coaches were not at all on the same page in terms of gender violence, and some of the female coaches were reluctant, perhaps too intimidated, to be heard.  In listening to the coaches, I began to understand the culture of violence, with Xhosa men making large bridewealth payments to their brides’ families and thus often viewing their wives as possessions or with children growing up seeing their fathers abuse their mothers without resistance and concluding that such behavior was acceptable.

Despite it being a training of coaches, we got to see the GRS teaching philosophy applied firsthand; behavior change results from intense, interactive discussion, rather than simply importing ideas through lecture, and children take after their role models.  While there is still a long, long way to go, including for many of the coaches themselves, I believe that they will be able to positively influence their students and generate very necessary conversation.  I think all of the staff and intern participants felt very good to be part of GRS this week and the broader fight for gender equality and respect.

On a lighter note, we’ve continued to take full advantage of our weekends, from camping at an outdoor electronic music festival to relaxing and surfing at Cape Town’s pristine beaches.

Last but not least, a big thanks to all of the Cape Town interns for putting up with me over the past month.