Last Class

The Form Ones start their week of final exams tomorrow, which made walking out of their classroom today feel a bit strange. I thought to myself, ‘That could be the last class I ever teach,’ but then I remembered I’m teaching one more “extra” class to the Form Twos on Thursday. It’s an “extra” class because the Form Twos have been done with normal classes for some time since the beginning of November. But aside from this “extra” class, I may never teach another formal English class again. It’s a bit hard to believe – teaching has been something I’ve returned to at different stages of my life – but it could be. Did I feel anything monumental? A feeling of loss perhaps? Not really. I almost didn’t realize it. I just kept walking off to wherever I was going and brushed the thought away.

Through all the grammar lessons and notes on the board and homework assignments and silly English activities, I’ll always wonder what I really taught the students in my life. What will they remember of me? What did they take away, if anything?

There are teachers of my past who I’d love to run into and apologize to for all the horrible things I did. It’s funny because that was something so common in Bhutan. In almost every farewell or thank you speech I heard while there (and I heard a lot), the person often apologizes for any wrongdoings they may committed or for any stress they may have caused someone. And in listening to those speeches, I also heavily doubted that that person had done anything slightly wrong. It was such a common practice though that I found myself doing it as well when I said goodbye to my staff in Bhutan – I apologized for any cultural norms I may have broken, for all the times I may have said or done the wrong thing, or if I just wasn’t as respectful as I could’ve been. Of course, my principal assured me that I had done none of those things, but I was glad that I had covered my bases.

I only wish I had done that as a young student. On the first day of school, I could’ve said to a teacher, “Forgive me for any disrespect I show you this coming school year. I’m sorry in advance for being rude, for being petty, for being selfish.”

 

This is not to say that the students at Orkeeswa have acted in this way. On the contrary, Orkeeswa students are some of the most polite and respectful students on the planet; I’ve been blessed in this way. It’s just that being a teacher really makes you think of what kind of student you were. I’d like to think that I was mostly a good student, but I know there were times when I was just plain mean.

Nyangulu Season

At a circumcision ceremony.

 

I was originally going to call this post ‘Circumcision Season’ as that’s what Scott and I found ourselves in the midst of when we arrived back to Maasai country in July. It had started about a year before we arrived and will continue until seven years have passed. That’s the schedule for this rite of passage – seven years of circumcisions and seven years without.

 

Even though a seven-year period seems like a long time, there were Maasai boys who came into their own during the previous seven years and were anxiously waiting for their turn to uphold honor and pride by becoming a Maasai warrior. Anxiously waiting does not merely mean excitement and anticipation. There are cultural pressures associated with every age group and for boys who haven’t been circumcised but are at the age to, there are not only pressures but dangers.
 

Beatings occur between age groups and for both the times that Scott and I have been here, it’s usually fiercely directed at the Nyangulu group. Back in 2010, they weren’t called Nyangulu yet. That name came later once the circumcisions started. Back then, there was a period of beatings so bad that several of our younger male students lived at the school. While there aren’t many lines a Morani – or Maasai warrior – won’t cross (we’ve heard stories of them going into bomas and dragging boys out to beat), the borders of a school are some of them. As long as our male students remained there 24 hours a day, they were protected for 24 hours a day.

 

The same measures had to be taken last night. The school drove many of the boys home and several remained at the school. On the ride that I was in, we drove by a couple groups of beating Morani and as we were about to drop off two of our smaller Nyangulu boys, Isaack and Isaya, three Morani were approaching. Instead of letting the boys out, we drove a little further. In order to avoid getting beat, Isaack and Isaya cut through a plot of farm land instead of walking down their normal dirt road.

 

 Periods of beating occur at different times for varying lengths of time for an assortment of reasons or seemingly non-reasons. This group of boys was getting beat as uncircumcised males and they’re still getting beat as circumcised Nyangulu. Jonace, a student in the age group above Nyangulu, told me the present bout of beatings is a form of punishment for a specific incident – one member of the Nyangulu group raped a girl who had just finished standard seven, her last year of primary school (we just found out that this girl is the sister-in-law of one of our students). Because one boy committed a crime, the whole age group will have to pay, and it doesn’t just apply to the local area; the punishment for this crime will spread to surrounding areas as well.

 

Jonace is one of the top students of our first class who just graduated. When he speaks, he’s quiet and thoughtful. Instead of telling me about beating, Jonace could be out there with the other Morani doing the beating. As a teacher, it’s impossible to grasp the double lives of our students – what they show us in school and how they must be outside of school. School is a culture all its own, while their other culture – that of being a Maasai – tends to be the stronger of the two. With or without school, it’s hard to imagine Jonace beating anything besides a herded goat. He says his fellow age group members beat because “they have nothing to do.” It’s a choice whether to beat or not and while there is severe peer pressure associated with joining in (there’s always the option of going along with the group but not actually performing the beating), Jonace says they never call on him anymore. “They think we’re lost, so they don’t bother with us,” he says. By choosing school, his other schoolmates and him have been deemed as “turning their backs” on their Maasai culture. Their whole lives must be a delicate balance.

  

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 Every age group has a name – both a nickname and an official name – and these names extend beyond district lines, beyond region lines; they are widespread throughout Maasai country. We were recently given the rundown of the age group names by one of our students, Lais. I’m pretty sure the names he gave us are the so-called nicknames and not the official names. The age group above the Nyangulu are the Coreanga, above them are the Landis, above them are the Maca, and there are two or more age groups above that but I cannot remember what they are. Over time, as generations live and die, these names get recycled.

 

Within our school, between the Maasai males, there are two generations – Coreanga and the Nyangulu. There are younger boys who have not been circumcised yet but when they are, they will fall into the Nyangulu group. When we first came to Tanzania, we were surprised to hear that some of our older male students were in the same age group as the headmaster and one of the teachers. At school, of course, we try not to recognize age groups. The headmaster is the headmaster; the student is the student.

 

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Just by writing about this, I feel like a bit of a fake, as if what I write bears any resemblance to the truth. I know I’m barely scratching the surface by writing what I’ve observed and heard. Last time we were here, for the year 2010, there were no circumcisions going on. By the time we returned in July of this year, just about all the male students at the school were circumcised. Boys had missed up to a month of school at one time to prepare and go through circumcision. There were incidences of boys literally running away from school during lunch and not returning for weeks. Students were missing exams and getting zeros for marks.

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During his time, Seuri would rush home after school, change from his red and blue uniform into his black clothes so that by the time the teachers were driving home, we'd often see Seuri running around the village with other black boys.

 

Boys who have just been circumcised run around wearing all black. They smear their face with shoe shiner to make their faces darker than they are. This is their dress code for a couple of months until they are allowed to officially wear Morani shukas. Sometimes, over the painted black face, the boys will paint annother pattern in white. Sometimes they wear tall black feathers on their heads. The boys in black tend to travel in groups. For someone unaccustomed to seeing them, these boys can appear a bit frightening. But the more you see them, the more you realize they are still just boys who want to watch the football match that’s going on, who want their picture taken (unless there are other Nyangulus with them pressuring them to not let me take pictures), who still feel fear.  

During the circumcision ceremony, a group of Nyangulus parade into the boma of the boy getting circumcised, circle around the boy, and chant verbally abusive songs at him for hours. This is to mentally prepare him for the physical pain that is to come. New songs are created by the Nyangulus. At the ceremony that Scott and I attended, there were several of our students among the chanting boys; it just took us some time to recognize them through the paint.

Supposedly, after all the abusive singing, the circumcised-boy-to-be gets taken into the woods for further preparation for the next day’s early morning operation. By this time, the boy’s boma is filled with people who’ve come for the celebration. The people will oftentimes spend the night at the boma to be there for all the festivities – meat and food and soda and homemade alcohol. A boy can only get circumcised if his family has raised enough money to afford such a grand celebration.

 

A boy cannot cry, he cannot flinch, he cannot show any emotion while the circumcision is happening. This is the true test of a Maasai male.

Block

Sometimes when I have a double period with my students, I have them write for 15 minutes in their journals. Back in 2010, I worked with the teacher at Orkeeswa who created the idea of ‘free writing’ journals for our students. Of course, it’s not a novel idea, but for regimented, rote learners, like those who enter Orkeeswa, the concept of writing ‘whatever you want’ is unique, crazy, perhaps even a bit strange. Some students took to it more easily than others. They actually used the empty page space to write about their feelings.

Now that the idea has been around for a couple of years, there are students who use journal writing time to challenge the norms; the writing itself is nothing groundbreaking, but they may use a pink-colored pen or write diagonally across horizontal lines. Even that, though, is a success; to give them any amount of freedom is a gift.

I remember, back in 2010, being furious one day when I found two students writing memorized class notes in their ‘free writing’ journals. In hindsight, there was no reason to be furious; the students just didn’t see value in writing about anything else.

I know better now. When it’s journal writing time, I give them two or three topics to write about or questions to answer. On Monday, when Form Ones got to write in their journals, I wrote on the whiteboard these topics:

- Graduation
- ISM Track Meet
- Who do you respect the most in your life? Why?
- Anything you want

There’s been a lot going on at the school recently and I figured our students were brimming over with thoughts and news. I wanted to give them an opportunity to let it all out. But within five minutes, I had some students say they were done. I saw one student writing about all three topics; another student wrote a generic paragraph about Orkeeswa, which she’s probably written several times. There were, of course, some students who wrote quietly the whole time.

I’ll have to collect the journals this week and see what’s going on in their heads, or rather, see how what’s going on in their heads gets translated into written English.

Recently, I find myself in the same shoes as my students regarding journal writing. I should follow the advice I give to students whose pens stop after only a short time – “Just keep writing.”