Once a week I volunteer at a private school about 15 minutes away from where I live in Cape Town. The school is entirely black, almost 70% of them only have one parent, and many of them are HIV positive. Each Tuesday morning, I go to the school with my friend Jenna and sit in on their "Life Orientation" class. Life orientation essentially is an open space where the students can talk about anything they want: problems with each other, problems with their teachers, and (what I found out this past week to be the most important of all) problems with themselves. There is always at least one teacher or faculty person in the room, and it is shocking to see how open the students are in front of their teachers. They will talk about anything from problems with classmates making fun of them to instances of being raped, held at knife-point, or their experiences with drugs. For the past five weeks, I have sat in on two different classes once a week and observed, saying little but taking in a lot - shocked at how unbelievably candid the students are.
Then two weeks ago I became really uncomfortable. Two teachers who usually don't sit in on these L.O. (this is what they call the Life Orientation class) classes were there, and I felt that they were pushing the students too much, accusing them of things they weren't doing. Jenna and I sat there occasionally making eye contact exemplifying our severe discomfort in the situation, and I was counting down the seconds until the sessions were over. Later that night I emailed Nigel, the head of this program (he is American), expressing my concerns with the program and explaining that I wasn't sure if I wanted to continue to volunteer at the LEAP School. Nigel promptly responded suggesting that we meet on Tuesday morning at the usual time we come in. I was apprehensive, as I didn't foresee this being an easy conversation.
Jenna and I sat with Nigel for nearly an hour discussing the program. We told him our concerns, and after some disagreements he said to me, "Ok, Talia, now where are you at?" To this I responded by telling him how I felt about the program, to which he responded, "Ok...but where are you at?" This back and forth went on for a few more rounds until Nigel challenged me, just as he does with the kids, to look inward and try to express why I was having such a hard time dealing with all of this openness and confrontation. Nigel, in essence, could see right through me - something which, at this moment I realized, I have been trying to block people from doing for quite a while.
While I may not have shared with Nigel where I was at, he was definitely a big part of the reason I have been doing so much introspection this week. When he kept trying to get me to recognize where I was at, he explained to me that the L.O. circle is a place that brings out a lot of feelings, mainly having to do with ourselves. Nigel was definitely right, and induced in me a week of hardcore feelings and recognition of where I am at.
Those who know me are quite familiar with the fact that this past year and a half has not been an easy one for me. It was one of many transitions and change, and deciding to come to Cape Town this semester did not make things any easier on the settling-down-in-one-place-with-few-challenges front. But after my conversation with Nigel last week, my subsequent time sitting in on another L.O. session, and a lot of discussion with friends, I am finally feeling settled - even being thousands of miles from anything I really know. After understanding that the South African way is one of dealing with emotions, feelings, and opinions, I was able to appreciate the kids' participation and left LEAP that day wishing people in my life were more like that. If 9th graders who had a life tougher than anything I could ever imagine could be so unabashedly open, why couldn't I?
In our discussion, Nigel accused me of being dishonest, a comment to which I took huge offense and Jenna even agreed that I am one of the most honest people out there. But after reflecting on all of this (the conversation with Nigel, my experience at LEAP, my time in South Africa, the past year), I realized that I may be open with others but I haven't been so honest with me. This epiphany forced me to look inside myself and figure out why it was so hard for me to be honest with me? The block I had been putting up between me and others in order to protect myself was apparently manifesting in a break in the lines of communication with myself.
So that's what this week has been all about: communicating with me and being unapologetically real with me. I am so lucky and blessed to have the strongest support network possible, as well as a serious desire to figure all o this out. No matter how much love I am showered with, none of this has been easy at all. Yet, I've recognized that Cape Town and all of the challenges that have come with it were exactly what I needed in order to start over this relationship with myself, and I couldn't be more grateful to be here, with all of the amazing people surrounding me, cheering me on, doing it.
love it, tals
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