World Cup circumcision school fever

I sit back and enjoy them laughing around me. We are talking in English, an unfortunate inability on my part. But I’m learning about their language. Castro sits beside me, he is in 7th grade, and lives across the street from me. He has sharp English, straight to the point, but he will sit next to me while I am talking and try to translate everything I am saying into Xitsonga, one hell of an English teacher for a12 year old. I’m still struggling with the language. No clicks, but very difficult pronunciation of letters that makes hearing the language very difficult. I need to keep working on it to start understanding the nuances.

We begin to talk about a business plan for Marula Business, a school assignment given to Honored, a 12th grader at the smaller secondary school in my village, written in English, from his business class. He has to work out a business plan for a startup company to run during the world cup, including an income statement, management breakdown, marketing plan and a SWOT analysis. There are definitely times when I wish I was working full time in the schools. English is not his home language, he speaks Xitsonga naa. His English is alright, but not good enough to come up with the words to write a business plan.

Miklatzi sits across from Castro, an 11th grader at the same school as Honored. Last weekend we worked through a 100 point worksheet that was definitely worth all 100 points. I hope to work with a teacher from his high school to start a math club and tutoring session on the weekends. It would be very beneficial to the students to get all the help that they can get when it comes to math, science, and English. I think I have a calling to Math, and having a name like Matthew in this country seems to continue my thoughts towards continuing my career studying and teaching math. They call me Matewu in my village, some call me Matthew, but the W seems to get dragged out where many people call me Matthews. Unfortunately for me, the word math in Xistonga basically sounds like “mats” which sounds very similar to Matt, so my attention is grabbed when anyone talks about Math.

We work out his business plan; I give him some ideas on running his Marurla Beer selling business during the world cup games. We agree he will sell to the stadium in the closets shopping town to my village, and if he wanted to expand he would go to the game reserves. We put together an income statement from his price per bottle and estimated number sold, put together a list of capital assets and startup capital, and started a SWOT analysis before the sun went down. I agreed to work with his group tomorrow.

The boys continue to talk as we are still able to look up words from the dictionary that would be often confusing to us both. A great conversation to say the least ensued. I find out that the initiation ceremony for the boys in my community will occur next month. It’s pretty manly to be a 10-12year old sent out into the bush for 3 months, especially during the winter months and the world cup. I think the tribal authority would make an exception if bafana bafana made a run for the Pashaba. World Cup fever is definitely heavy on this country, and it’s an incredible time to be in Africa, and a more incredible time to be in South Africa.

The boys love soccer, Miklatzi is usually opposite of me during street soccer, he is bigger but too lengthy to be a great soccer player. Castro has the moves and the skills and the enthusiasm to be a great athlete. He loves to dance and the house he lives in always blasts music and dancing is never far behind.

Nine people live in the house across the street from me, two orphans with six all together under the age of 17. I love the children from this house, they have the enthusiasm and happiness that makes my day better every day. Maber and Shane were orphaned when Maber was only 6 weeks old. Their grandmother took them in and brought this energetic duo to complete the bustling house they live in now. Maber is 6 years old, they call him “Hochi” (pig), “Zebra”, and “Kwirih kunkulu” (big stomach) and if his eating habits and basic need to be covered in dirt didn’t give him all his nicknames, it would definitely be his dancing skills. The kid can break it down like the best and learned best from his bhuti (brother) Castro in my rambunctious neighbor’s house.

For the longest time I thought Shane was a boy. Her short hair and the way that she ran with the boys made her look like an 8 year old boy in frilled jeans and pink skirts, not to mention a name like Shane didn’t help. I now see her as one of the toughest girls I have ever met in my life. I couldn’t imagine the life she has lived, and the time I have spent including her with the boys and taking a timeout from the rugby game to spin her around with her arms will always be fun to me. The boys all want to learn about computers, and need help with English. It’s pretty easy for the boys to know who to ask, and I am happy to oblige. It’s the least I can do for the neighborhood I live in.

The more children I talk to, the more I realize that they don’t have much to do outside of school. With the World Cup set to give a full month without school, the winter months will be cold and boring for all of the children outside of school, not just those waiting for circumcision.

I got the world cup fever pretty bad too. I will be attending two games and I can’t wait to cheer on bafanna bafanna and Team USA in the cup. It should be a great opportunity to get closer with the community and also get a very exciting break. I probably should have spent the time I spent writing this working on language, but I’m continuing to learn, and keep reminding myself that I have only been here for 2 months. I’m living very well, and loving every second I have here. If anyone you know is going to the World Cup please have them email me, and anyone that wants to visit me is always welcome! Stay well.