Student Protest
“Now, that’s a strange sound,” I thought, lying in my bed at 10 PM on a Thursday night.
“By now I’ve become accustomed to almost all of them, the footsteps, goats, chickens scratching. The loud whine of nails against iron as the roof expands and contracts under sunlight and shade. But this sounds almost like charcoal burning. Yes, that’s it, charcoal popping.”
Eyes open staring at the ceiling I focused all energy on listening. Failing to distinguish and audible signs of motion through my wall, I reasoned, “Well, if nobody has entered my compound, the hell with it, I’m sleeping.”
Was the darkness through my window a degree lighter? An optical illusion? The shrill pierce of our school guard’s whistle rocked me bolt upright and already moving. Previous reflection aside, I immediately what to expect. Out my front door and around the side of my house, our school goat herd ran past me, bleating as their ropes trailed, freed from their flaming enclosure. One guard was running full tilt up the hill to the village, the other impotently running back and forth between a hut the size of a small house, our goat shed, and a small toilet. Their grass roofs blazed with such audible fury that it was already clear their destruction would be near total. The flames leapt hungrily across the dry grass of these drafty enclosures. Flinging open the door to my courtyard, I cast the first two buckets of water before any students had arrived, and then stopped, merely watching as the inevitable outcome unfolded as predicted at first glance.
My attitude then, as now, 1 day later, is of resigned depression. I was confused. Who had done wrong? Was this directed at me (given the building’s proximity to my own) or the school? Regardless, had some injustice so deep been done that it could not have been rectified in another way? I had heard of “riots”, “vandalism”, and yes, even fires at other schools. But was it really necessary to burn 3 of my school’s buildings? Beyond passive reflection, I also regret not immediately jumping up and catching the offender in the act.
The following day, it was revealed in meeting that students had also entered the school’s coffee farm and cut the most promising trees, a full year’s investment of student time and energy. Those responsible gave and left no reason for such destruction. Perhaps most disturbing, no concensus or even real idea came up at the staff meeting. Entering the Senior classrooms, each student was asked to write a letter summarizing their knowledge of the event- no leads.
“The reasons will come to light, no doubt, do not worry. This is how community works here.” I was reassured.
I only praise fate that my own roof is of metal (who knows what might have happened), and conclude:
“Build your roof of metal, not of grass, it burns too quickly.”
Student Protest 2
The second fire was much less dramatic. Five days after the first, the scrubland surrounding our school was set ablaze, dry grass quickly scorched as the flames were spread by a strong wind. Again, it was night. Again, I was the first on the scene.
Cooking dinner, my neighbors raised their voices high enough to intrude on my solitude. “Kuna ajali shuleni!” (There’s an accident at the school). I sprinted, seeing flickering light and smoke rising from the school. Gaining the parade ground, I saw that the fire was not among the buildings, but the ferocity of flames, proximity of buildings, and the absence of anyone doing anything prompted me to beat the school bell (a tire rim on a log) until the head of my homemade club fell off. Students came from surrounding quarters, quickly extinguishing the fire.
Clearly the problem was not resolved, despite my Headmaster’s emergency return (a single day) to discuss the matter with students. The staff remain quiet. The students remain quiet.
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Crazy Wizards
A day much like any other, I expected. Though this morning the student who knocks on my door 30 minutes prior to school to receive the key to our staff room had an additional request, mumbling softly, “I want you to send her away. I think she will disturb our classes, that woman.” Still groggy from just waking, I paused to rub the sleep from my face, inwardly moaned, “Oh God, what now.” He continued in a volume and tone which did not suggest the content of his message was any more remarkable than every day, “She wants to get firewood to cook here.” Inquisitive creases standing out on my forehead, I stepped over the door’s threshold and saw a dusty, shoeless woman methodically patting her feet on the ground. Wrapped in kanga cloth as most women, her dress underneath was stained and pulled up to unseemly height. Her bare legs were coated in the dry season’s dust, lightening her thighs as she paced, clutching the front of the dirty dress and bunching it to even more offensive heights.
“This is an African issue,” I pronounced. “I’m not ready to step in here. Not my place. Nope, sorry,” closing the door. Introductory courses in anthropology and sociology had made me wary of the unknown issues wrapped up in this culture’s approach to its mentally abnormal members, and I was leery of taking any actions. Heading to class, she remained pacing in front of my house. On that particular day of finals week, testing proceeded much as usual until 4th period when she entered the parade grounds. Invigilating a test, I saw excited students streaming in her direction through the window. Forming a circle with a diameter of about 15 feet to enjoy her enigmatic motions. Among them, lying on the ground on her side in the fetal position, scooping sand with a thermos top cup while sitting on her haunches, and dancing in what seemed a perverse rendition of the popular women’s dance, chioda.
Chaos rained as students gawked, gleefully scream and running to enlarge the circle whenever she got too near to one of its edges. Other teachers stood at a distance. Similarly watching, holding their sticks as though they might be used to drive her off. I immediately began ordering students back to their classrooms. Attempts to systematically establish order were successful on my part, as I drove each class like cattle back into their classrooms. Students continued to cluster at doors and spill out of classrooms to watch her antics, however. The two other teachers seemed content to permit her to continue dancing until she left of her own.
I then continued about my business, as she danced inside the deserted parade ground, all doors closed, without audience. Entering the one classroom without a door, I went about my business of attendance. My task half completed, she meekly entered the classroom, back hunched and moving with a strange, jerky, chameleon-like motion. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I gently pushed her out of the classroom, and just as I finished roll call she entered again. Taking her firmly by the elbow, I succeeded in leading her out of the parade grounds and to the edge of the school grounds. Whether my physical touch (no others had touched her), white skin, or loud, rambling Kiswahili (I assured her it would be better when she reached her home in a nearby village and could see her family, intimating how even I wished I could go home to see my family.) Her gibberish response seemed to be those of agreement. Trying to continue to lead her away from school, up the hill, she decided she would not be led, but instead began her curious dance again, pausing to enter the underbrush and break twigs off bushes. She gripped my hand and blew on it from a distance of inches in loud, audible exhalations. I instructed several trustworthy students not to force her to leave, but to prevent her from entering (taking one step closer to) the school by forming a human wall until she went away of her own accord.
Ninth period, a group of older Seniors assembled to “catch her and give her an injection.” Apparently she had caught wind of the plan and took flight into the bush.
“You know who sent her there,” I was asked the following night.
“No.”
“Wizards,” the reply.
In class that very day, the roof vibrated with abrupt suddenness. At first I thought a singularly violent gust of wind was the cause. But when the timber supporting iron sheets began dancing, dangerously unstable, before my very eyes, I couldn’t doubt it was an earthquake. Immediately following this, a student in the classroom ventured a comment, and, by way of reply I attributed the quake to, “Uchawi. (Wizardry)”
In the light of day, this drew outbursts of laughter, but as day turned to night, darkness softly settling over our school, the word took on new meaning. Quickly, pitch blackness found me crouching next to the fire, our only source of light, as a student and I cooked dinner. “Hey!,” a short, loud cry pierced the darkness. Sitting in the open air courtyard, it came again from the direction of the nearby forest. Again and again, thirty second intervals.
“Do you know what it is?” my friend queeried.
Naturally, I did not.
“He want to kill someone.”
The reader will forgive me for thinking of my own hide first. The thought of a “very tall, sooooo tall” man lurking in the darkness in the forest outside my house (a good distance from the village and other houses) with a “face you cannot see” and desire to kill seemed to implicate me. Listening, still in the eerie quiet of my home, I was somewhat grateful when Mendrad told me with conviction, “I will never return tonight.”
Thus commenced a brief primer on the wizards of the area. Mendrad himself has only heard such calls once in his life, and educated me that they might also mean, “Somebody had died, or maybe they hadn’t,” a curious statement when left standing alone, as it was. Only once had he himself seen a vampire, one of the unfortunate undead souls forced back into life after burial by potent magic.
At 10PM he had went to market to buy fish with his two sisters. His sisters trailing, Mendrad encountered what might once have been a woman crouching on the path, feet and hands missing. Whatever he saw was unseen by his sisters, but gave him such fright that he bellowed at loudest volume and took flight, easily outpacing his sisters (who similarly began screaming and running), without pausing until he reached his home.
“Don’t play with this magic, Mr. Greg,” he said, face absent of humor, with reverential sobriety. “You go there, you will see many people, so many where they practice that. You might eve nee a lion… or a pig…” A strange juxtaposition to be sure, but he vouched that our school guard had seen such a lion at night on the ground, taking flight and remaining in his office, fearfully awaiting daybreak.
If I “truly” wanted to know, I ought ask my witch doctor friend. He could pass among these creatures unharmed, even watch at their ceremonies. If he agreed to guide me, I would be similarly unharmed due to my “different culture.” “ Maybe they smell. SNIFF SNIFF. You are not attractive as meat.” The man had himself used his power to take the wizard’s car. Unseen by humans, only a special medicine could permit one to see this car, which currently resided in his compound. Through this man, I might gain access to the dark world.
A day much like any other, I expected. Though this morning the student who knocks on my door 30 minutes prior to school to receive the key to our staff room had an additional request, mumbling softly, “I want you to send her away. I think she will disturb our classes, that woman.” Still groggy from just waking, I paused to rub the sleep from my face, inwardly moaned, “Oh God, what now.” He continued in a volume and tone which did not suggest the content of his message was any more remarkable than every day, “She wants to get firewood to cook here.” Inquisitive creases standing out on my forehead, I stepped over the door’s threshold and saw a dusty, shoeless woman methodically patting her feet on the ground. Wrapped in kanga cloth as most women, her dress underneath was stained and pulled up to unseemly height. Her bare legs were coated in the dry season’s dust, lightening her thighs as she paced, clutching the front of the dirty dress and bunching it to even more offensive heights.
“This is an African issue,” I pronounced. “I’m not ready to step in here. Not my place. Nope, sorry,” closing the door. Introductory courses in anthropology and sociology had made me wary of the unknown issues wrapped up in this culture’s approach to its mentally abnormal members, and I was leery of taking any actions. Heading to class, she remained pacing in front of my house. On that particular day of finals week, testing proceeded much as usual until 4th period when she entered the parade grounds. Invigilating a test, I saw excited students streaming in her direction through the window. Forming a circle with a diameter of about 15 feet to enjoy her enigmatic motions. Among them, lying on the ground on her side in the fetal position, scooping sand with a thermos top cup while sitting on her haunches, and dancing in what seemed a perverse rendition of the popular women’s dance, chioda.
Chaos rained as students gawked, gleefully scream and running to enlarge the circle whenever she got too near to one of its edges. Other teachers stood at a distance. Similarly watching, holding their sticks as though they might be used to drive her off. I immediately began ordering students back to their classrooms. Attempts to systematically establish order were successful on my part, as I drove each class like cattle back into their classrooms. Students continued to cluster at doors and spill out of classrooms to watch her antics, however. The two other teachers seemed content to permit her to continue dancing until she left of her own.
I then continued about my business, as she danced inside the deserted parade ground, all doors closed, without audience. Entering the one classroom without a door, I went about my business of attendance. My task half completed, she meekly entered the classroom, back hunched and moving with a strange, jerky, chameleon-like motion. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. I gently pushed her out of the classroom, and just as I finished roll call she entered again. Taking her firmly by the elbow, I succeeded in leading her out of the parade grounds and to the edge of the school grounds. Whether my physical touch (no others had touched her), white skin, or loud, rambling Kiswahili (I assured her it would be better when she reached her home in a nearby village and could see her family, intimating how even I wished I could go home to see my family.) Her gibberish response seemed to be those of agreement. Trying to continue to lead her away from school, up the hill, she decided she would not be led, but instead began her curious dance again, pausing to enter the underbrush and break twigs off bushes. She gripped my hand and blew on it from a distance of inches in loud, audible exhalations. I instructed several trustworthy students not to force her to leave, but to prevent her from entering (taking one step closer to) the school by forming a human wall until she went away of her own accord.
Ninth period, a group of older Seniors assembled to “catch her and give her an injection.” Apparently she had caught wind of the plan and took flight into the bush.
“You know who sent her there,” I was asked the following night.
“No.”
“Wizards,” the reply.
In class that very day, the roof vibrated with abrupt suddenness. At first I thought a singularly violent gust of wind was the cause. But when the timber supporting iron sheets began dancing, dangerously unstable, before my very eyes, I couldn’t doubt it was an earthquake. Immediately following this, a student in the classroom ventured a comment, and, by way of reply I attributed the quake to, “Uchawi. (Wizardry)”
In the light of day, this drew outbursts of laughter, but as day turned to night, darkness softly settling over our school, the word took on new meaning. Quickly, pitch blackness found me crouching next to the fire, our only source of light, as a student and I cooked dinner. “Hey!,” a short, loud cry pierced the darkness. Sitting in the open air courtyard, it came again from the direction of the nearby forest. Again and again, thirty second intervals.
“Do you know what it is?” my friend queeried.
Naturally, I did not.
“He want to kill someone.”
The reader will forgive me for thinking of my own hide first. The thought of a “very tall, sooooo tall” man lurking in the darkness in the forest outside my house (a good distance from the village and other houses) with a “face you cannot see” and desire to kill seemed to implicate me. Listening, still in the eerie quiet of my home, I was somewhat grateful when Mendrad told me with conviction, “I will never return tonight.”
Thus commenced a brief primer on the wizards of the area. Mendrad himself has only heard such calls once in his life, and educated me that they might also mean, “Somebody had died, or maybe they hadn’t,” a curious statement when left standing alone, as it was. Only once had he himself seen a vampire, one of the unfortunate undead souls forced back into life after burial by potent magic.
At 10PM he had went to market to buy fish with his two sisters. His sisters trailing, Mendrad encountered what might once have been a woman crouching on the path, feet and hands missing. Whatever he saw was unseen by his sisters, but gave him such fright that he bellowed at loudest volume and took flight, easily outpacing his sisters (who similarly began screaming and running), without pausing until he reached his home.
“Don’t play with this magic, Mr. Greg,” he said, face absent of humor, with reverential sobriety. “You go there, you will see many people, so many where they practice that. You might eve nee a lion… or a pig…” A strange juxtaposition to be sure, but he vouched that our school guard had seen such a lion at night on the ground, taking flight and remaining in his office, fearfully awaiting daybreak.
If I “truly” wanted to know, I ought ask my witch doctor friend. He could pass among these creatures unharmed, even watch at their ceremonies. If he agreed to guide me, I would be similarly unharmed due to my “different culture.” “ Maybe they smell. SNIFF SNIFF. You are not attractive as meat.” The man had himself used his power to take the wizard’s car. Unseen by humans, only a special medicine could permit one to see this car, which currently resided in his compound. Through this man, I might gain access to the dark world.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)