Thursday afternoon, 2pm. It is the end of the week and the school day stretches on for another hour. The AC in my classroom is not belting out its usual cold air and it is HOT, really hot, 44oC hot. Here, in Conakry the humidity factor adds to the heat. The AC is my life line right now. There is no other way to exist here, to work with young teenagers, teaching those long hours, end of the day, end of the year….April seems to stretch forever. June is too far away.
I need to find my own energy to motivate my students at this time of the day and this time of the year. Fortunately, we are studying Africa in our social studies program and the kids are very motivated, interested and positive. Each time one of them reads about one of the students country of origin, their eyes light up and they soon babble endlessly about traditions, foods they enjoyed or activities they did. The motivation is high as the subject of Africa is pertinent to all of them. We are sitting around the rectangular table at the back of the class all of us wedged together, these seven 12 year olds and myself. We,ve been sitting around this table as we have since last August, sometimes goofiness sets in and we digress from the subject at hand. At other times, there have been heavy silences as one shared the loss of mom’s unborn babies. Then there was the lesson where they all wanted to share the terror of experiencing the coup d’etat of September 28 2009. I had let them talk, knowing from a counselor’s point of view that they needed to speak about their personal experience of fear.
I glance at the clock and notice there are only 5 minutes left, not enough time to start another chapter, not enough time to answer written questions so I decide to just sit and continue talking. Teenagers LOOOOOVE to just talk and hang out. I tell them about our Yaakaar project in Senegal, how we visited local schools, helped at orphanages and how I also have a village. “What do you mean you have a village…you slept in a hut?” Fredrein asks ”it can’t be your village if you don’t sleep there!” I explain that I did not sleep in the hut but I did spend two full days with the women of the village of Ndoundoch. I explained that spending time with the women has more meaning to me than anything else right now.
I don’t know exactly how we got on to what happened next, but I heard myself saying “Sometimes I wish I was black ….” I continued…”I think that I would fit in more. I would understand Africans more……”. My voice trailed. Then out of nowhere, Lebo, my 13 year old rebel, fashion queen spoke. “Mme Mulaire, you can be black inside.” I said nothing, just looking at her quiet demeanour, noticing her sincere tone, and serious dark eyes. I let her words sink in. My students left for their PE class and I stayed behind, contemplating those words….”you can be black inside” she had said. Wisdom from a teenagers heart. Wisdom to touch my heart today.
