We have spirit yes we do we have spirit how about you...

Nosipho winning award. First in grade.

So we had prize-giving at KwaDinabakubo High School yesterday. For the many who do not know, this school holds the sixteen children that have become precious to me, so precious in fact, that I have learnt all their names. Lorina and I were invited as the masterminds of the much appreciated Nyusa Project. Well, let's say it was nothing short of surreal. It started really with the emcee; actually no, it started 2 hours late with the emcee. When planning our attendance, the headmaster - a softly spoken, gentle, sophisticated man who, it must be mentioned, was ultimately absent from the event - quietly encouraged us not to stick too strictly to the  9am start. So we pitched a magnificent one and a half hours late expecting a dramatic entrance to ensue. We were still a half hour early. Music was a big part of these festivities - this was not choral, not classic, not polite elevator music to fill the space while waiting participants stared meaninglessly around. No, this was club music, or as the older generation calls it (and alarmingly, me too) doof-doof music; it was loud, it encouraged darkness, a queue outside and a stamp on the wrist, ear-bleeding music that causes one to scream at the person next to you as if they're not in fact next to you but separated from you by five hills and a canyon. And then there was the emcee - every time I write that I have to resist the urge to choose a similar, more appropriate word, deejay, for quite simply that is what he was, and magnificent at that. I mean, he bossed it! (And this is coming from a showboater.) Ever seen a guy emceeing an awards ceremony in the middle of the day with Roy Orbison sunglasses? This guy did. Ever see an emcee offer a solo dance routine two minutes long prior to awarding grade certificates between each grade and show-casing new moves every time? This guy did. And when I say dance I'm not talking that shuffle where you groove slowly to the beat hoping people simultaneously appreciate your groove while not actually looking at you. No, I'm talking bump and grind, I'm talking moonwalk, I'm talking Miley Cyrus without the rubber finger. You think the VMAs are avant garde? Try again, come to a Molweni prize-giving. And he was not some hired help to gee up the kids. No, this maverick is a teacher and get this, the kids greeted him like Michael Jackson performing in Moscow for the first time - programs were thrown into the air, kids got up to dance, other teachers got up to dance, it was electrifying! After each stirring 'dancing with the stars' display he grabbed the mic and sternly called for order. A more self-defeating set of actions I have never seen. In my culture we would pay top dollar to get this kind of response, all emcee/deejay had to do was grab the lapels of his jacket with his thumb and forefinger and shuffle backwards and the place went nuts. That was all precursor to the awards themselves. 

Mohli. A true leader and well worth his second place.

We stuck around for the grade 8-10 (for that is the category our students fall into) and the enthusiasm did not abate. One kid was carried forward on the shoulders of his classmates like a emperor in triumph, to screaming and wild acclaim, and he only placed fifth. My ears hurt afterward and my voice was hoarse, after all you can't be in that environment and not start yelling yourself. In fact I too would have made a paper plane of the program except that I was sitting next to the deputy head and that might have been a step too far, although probably not. When all was said and done, five of our children finished in top ten positions. We celebrated, we hugged, we extended congratulatory slaps on the back and felt warmth of heart. Although we've only been working with these young people for 8 months, the success felt like ours. 

Nokubonga with her certificate. Also a top ten finish.

 
I tell you this because we take a beating in this country. We're struggling. We have a president who is demanding I grow a third hand to count his number of wives. Violence, crime... I get tired just typing this stuff. Other countries look down on us, people from other countries speak down to us, cluck-clucking. Trust me, I know this from a first hand encounter just this week as a First World Foreigner (a FWOF, if you will) thought it appropriate to lecture me on how to run my circuit and church - her two days in this country had apparently afforded her unparalleled insight. (There are also only so many times you can utter 'it's complicated' before you fall to the temptation of leaping across the dining room and ripping off limbs.) But this one thing we have, spirit. And I mean all of us. Even us whites who sheepishly try to hide it away, even we've got it. I turned to my friend in the midst of this wild awards show and said to her that I felt a little out of place. Her reply was along the lines of, rubbish, you're loving it. True, I was. I felt very much at home in that high school in Molweni. This is the thing you see, sure, I was the only umlungu but I knew some of these kids. There they stood sheepishly waving from the back hoping we would notice them, there was Mr. Mdimiso who we first met, trying to get into the school, looking as nonchalant as if this happened everyday, or Mrs. Ngwengwe who has since left the school but greeted us so warmly and her new substitute Gugu. And then there was Wonder, he's not officially in our program but so stellar, he is coming Friday, he's about to be adopted. So yes, I never felt out of place. You don't have to have the same skin colour you just have to know a few names, care about a few lives and the belonging comes in it's wake.

A past headmaster of another school once told me that he saw a smartly dressed young black man cross three lanes of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Resplendent in a three piece suit and black leather briefcase, he darted through to the other side. Once there he put down the briefcase, pumped his fist in self-congratulation, straightened his tie, picked up his briefcase and smartly went on his way. That is what I mean when I say spirit. I wanted to stay longer. There was an item on the program called 'top 3 students' and I was seriously tempted to see how this gathering celebrated top student. Short of shooting the deputy out of a human cannon, it couldn't possibly get any more energetic or theatrical, could it? As I got up to leave the deputy head pulled me in and screamed in my ear (first place was being danced forward by his Maths teacher) saying, 'we're trying very hard.' I felt like saying, 'Mr. Mdimiso, don't try too hard, don't try too hard.'