Worse than muzak (and bologna) 5/10/08

So, I’m not sure if I’ve yet expanded on the sensual horrors that this country, in conjunction with South Africa, has wrought, so let me do so now. Yep, they’ve come up with music worse that that of muzak and a processed meat even grosser than bologna; actually, it’s called polony. So, concerning the music; it uses accordions. And crying babies sometimes. And the singers, all of whom are men, aren’t actually singing, they’re talking to the music. I think this musical style originated in the mines, and that’s something, but it’s incredibly offensive to my Western ears. And what’s worse, it’s played on most of the public transportation here. And not played gently, as background music, but cranked to the full capacity of the vehicles speakers. The people here love it, though, so I guess it’s good that they’re proud of their own music. I mention this because I was forced to listen to such music on my way to Mohale’s Hoek this morning. Half way through my ride, though, the music switched to some horrible pop song that’s sung in English and is probably American. This change brought me relief. And, realizing that, I became depressed. Seriously, I’m happy to hear the Backstreet Boys now. Yep, really. At least they’re better than accordions and screaming babies. They’re also better than the “changes in my life” and “my dream is to fly over the rainbow so high” songs that are popular here. Though it’s much more amusing to watch my students dance to those songs.
And yep, this country (actually it was probably South Africa) invented polony, bologna’s even grosser cousin. It has the same processed appearance as bologna, but is redder, and it comes in tubes. Bologna is at least cut into circular slices so that the senses are bombarded with only a small piece of grossness. Here, it comes in much larger sizes. And you can see people on the streets opening up the plastic covering and just eating it straight up. Restaurants here sell it on buttered bread. Another popular culinary method is to use a grater on the tube, like you would with cheese. Then add butter, or maybe a small amount of processed cheese between a couple of large slices of bread. Yum. Or, more appropriately, Bleah. This is what my kids eat whenever they go on school field trips or competitions. I’m trying to convince my teachers to opt for peanut butter: it’s cheaper, healthier, and less icky. My principal said that the kids might like peanut butter because it was a “sexy” option. Not sure exactly what they means, but maybe it’s wiser not to delve to deeply into the issue.
As might be guessed from the topics of this blog to now, not too much of interest has happened in my life this week. I have been finishing up a proposal to the National AIDS Commission (NAC) to get funding to paint HIV and AIDS messages on the 80 trash cans that the Community Council has placed around Mohale’s Hoek Camp town. That went to Maseru yesterday, and I should hear back within the month, hopefully. I got a local hardware store to agree to provide materials, but I still need money to pay someone to paint the messages, and for all 80 trash cans, it’s going to run around R3000.
I’m also trying to get funding to buy soccer uniforms for my school’s boys and girls teams. I’m going to Bloemfontein next week hopefully to talk with a sports store there because no stores in the area sell uniforms of good quality. I’m hoping I can talk the store into giving us a discount in return for screen-printing their logo on the jerseys. Then I’ll have to figure out a way to front the rest of the cost. And, unfortunately I have to buy a set of uniforms for my girls’ team and a set of uniforms for my boys team. I was hoping they could share, but no, the boys refuse to wear the shorts after the girls have worn them because, and shhhh, this is a secret, girls menstruate!!! And, OMG, what if they had their period while wearing the shorts?! I could understand if this was a fear of HIV, and might even be happy that they were thinking of such things. Then I could explain that they can’t contract HIV from dried blood. But no, this is simply a fear of femininity. I can’t wait until I get to teach my biology class about reproduction.
And I collected homework in my English classes. I had them write sentences using vocabulary words. 50% of them had the same sentences, or maybe almost the same sentences with slight alterations (i.e. changing the subject from “grandmother” to “grandfather”). This is how homework is done here: cheating. Sometimes I even sympathize with it. I caught a couple of my better students copying someone’s homework during break a couple days ago and asked why they hadn’t done it sooner. “Madam, we don’t have books” was the response. Books are not free to secondary and high school students – they have to pay for them. I really felt bad yelling at them about it because it would be like yelling at them because they were too poor to afford books. I asked if they could, in the future, maybe go to a friend’s house to do the homework together, but even that’s difficult if they are at school until it gets dark, which they are. We take for granted the beauty of electricity and street lights in the States, but when it gets dark here (and it gets dark at about 5:45 now), it’s really dark. And there is a very real danger, for the girls at least, of being assaulted, if not actually raped, if they are out late. I try not to give homework from books so that I know that everyone can do their work, and if they are cheating it’s because they are lazy. Then I feel okay about yelling at them.
I have to go to a meeting now, so I’ll finish up.
Hope everyone is well.