Culturally Illiterate

By Beth

I set my notebook down on the table in front of the teachers. Today is our day to review the computer program that we have developed, to look at basic computer troubleshooting, and to think about the classes that will pick up after Christmas break. It is Friday, which is when we usually meet up and plan our lessons. It is also my last week in São Tomé e Príncipe and I am trying to leave my teachers self-sufficient, so that they don't need me during the eight months that I will be gone. It is a difficult task and certainly not the best situation- I wish I could stay and lend a hand. But this program is theirs to develop. On their own. If they can do that, I know the future of the One Laptop per Child program here in São Tomé will be in good hands.

“Now,” I say, looking at the five of them. “Before we talk about tomorrow's class, I wanted to go over this guidebook I made for you that will help you troubleshoot any computer problems that you may come across.”

“What class tomorrow?????” The teachers ask me, all five of them. “Don't you remember? We're going on a field trip!”

After about ten minutes of back-and-forth, I realize that we have, once again, hit a cultural speedbump. Last week the teachers and I agreed to take the kids to the beach the following Saturday to celebrate our last day together. I stood beside Miguel as we told the students to bring their computers to class Saturday morning, as we would be leaving for the field trip shortly after.

However, it seems as though my words did not resonate in Miguel. And what I didn't realize is that, it just doesn't work like that here. You either have class, or you go on a class trip. You don't- you can't- do both. So no matter how much you may tell someone otherwise, it's so different to them that it's not even remotely possible that it's true.

Years of culture were acting against me on this Friday in São Tomé. I see some of the teachers getting frustrated with me. Language has bitten me in the butt once again.

Here in São Tomé, I am very happy and have some great friends, but at the same time, I tend to get frustrated and/or offend other people regularly. My Portuguese is solid enough that I really get to know people for their personalities and not as much as a visitor or a foreigner. Yet it's a different world when you're nearly fluent in a language but completely illiterate in the culture. I wonder if it's a double-edged sword to be like this- able to relate to another person perfectly on a linguistic level without knowing their culture. Because when you are able to communicate easily with another person, it is also that much easier to assume they are just like you, culturally. It makes it easier to bicker and fight or to get frustrated.

When you don't speak a language, I think you are often extremely open to different cultures and experiences. You treat it like a game, in a sense. The voice of adventure in you says “go!” But when you speak the language, when you can connect with these people on a different level, not only do you forge deeper relationships, but you also put other relationships at risk. If someone says something that you don't agree with, it hits you square in the eyes and you react relative to your own culture. But if you don't speak the language, you smile because you don't understand anyway.

It's a funny situation when you understand a language but not a culture. I find myself defending my actions often by saying “I'm sorry, I'm just not used to the way you guys do it here because it's not like that in the States!” Sometimes the boys ask me if I want them to give me a ride into town, if I want them to go buy me gas for my motorcycle, or other little tasks. I am used to saying “Sure, but I don't want to impose, so if you don't want to, that's ok.”

And when I say that here, people get angry with me. “Do you want to or not?????” They snap. I don't mean to offend. I try to tell them that in the States, people don't necessarily mean what they say, and you always have to give them a chance to back out of it. But to São Tomeans that's the craziest idea, and something they may never fully understand.

If I didn't speak Portuguese, would there be so many mix-ups, so many misunderstandings? Probably not, because I would go with the flow, a smile on my face. But on the other hand, how well can you know someone without understanding their words? But in an age of not always saying what you mean, is body language enough?

The Blessing and Curse of Light

By Beth

Miguel motions me over to him, just steps into the school's courtyard. I look behind me into the classroom. It is rustling with the activity of maybe 60 kids today, finding their seats, opening up their computers, blessed with energy for at least a solid hour and a half (though its existence is perhaps more jeering than helpful, as we have forgotten to get the power strips out of the Director's locked office, but no matter).

I leave the classroom for a moment. One of my students is outside. She is one of the most beautiful little girls I have ever known; long eyelashes and a really peaceful, friendly demeanor. Braided hair that stops at the top of her neck, bouncing with her steps as she walks or runs. When I see her outside of class I often wave to her. I love watching her face light up in recognition.

Today her mother accompanies her. She carries a baby in her arm. They are both dressed in clothing that is old. It falls off their shoulders; it doesn't really fit. It's dirty. It's not rags, per se, but it's not Armani. My student's clothing is always clean and fits her well. I had no idea that it was perhaps for a special occasion that she dressed like that. Her mother's face is young but worn. There is abundant poverty in São Tomé but there is still a difference between poor and really, really poor. And this family is somewhere in the middle.

When I come to this level of consciousness I then look at my student's face. There is some sort of white pus between her nose and mouth today. I hadn't noticed it because I had just assumed it was dirty little kid snot. But then I realize that it's an infection. An infection that can they can only hope will just go away on its own.

Her mother is here today to show us her computer. She was walking home from school and other kids started to rough around with her. They struck the screen of her computer, rendering it completely out of use. You turn the computer on and the screen lights up in what looks like a virtual bullet hole with shrapnel in streaming bits of color. It is unable to display anything else but these bright lights. The mother apologizes profusely, and the way Miguel looks at her I know that their story is true. They ask me what we should do.

I tell the girl to go inside; she can share a computer with her friend today. Miguel says that we will find the student that did this and deal him his consequences. But my heart still breaks. Our program is already short on computers, and there is no one on this island even vaguely able to fix the few that are broken. Which means, if a computer breaks, so does that child's chance to learn.

It's such a sick system. It's like telling starving children that break their plastic forks at a banquet that they can no longer eat. It's a cruel punishment for a child that had nothing to begin with. So close to Thanksgiving, I am thankful and also slightly embarrassed for all that I have. All that I wish I could give.

I think about my student, her long eyelashes absorbed in the haze of her small computer screen while sitting in some noisy shantyhouse in a still, energy-less night in the city. And then I think about how from now on all she can do is sit in the dark with everyone else.

When WHITE Penetrates Mother Afrika

But perhaps I have jumped into things too quickly. I haven't really had much of a chance to explain that yes, I successfully made

Airport in São Miguel. Sort of classy for an airport, eh?

it though a wonderful week in the Azores (which I'm sure you all will hear plenty about, especially when I'm sitting in my lonesome back home in DC, whenever that is), arrived in São Tomé, learned how to type accents on my new computer, and, well, have just been having a heck of a time.
I took a plane from Ponta Delgada on the island of São Miguel in the Azores to Lisbon, then stayed with my cousins Marina and Sérgio and their adorable new bundle of baby, Santiago, for a couple of days. After getting a small preview of the awesome effects of Doxycycline if not swallowed under its very specific and rigid guidelines (I say "preview" because there was much more to come but two weeks later), I hit the airport again, bags ready to go, toting a spartan number of tank tops and shorts, a disproportionate weight of candy and books, and a really nice bottle of Azorean wine to give to my gracious host, Ned.

All this was in the forefront of my mind when we traveled from the little mini airport shuttle at nearly midnight towards our plane, an odd time for a flight and a totally disorganized system of boarding that even seemed a little out of the ordinary for Portugal, a country I once lambasted for its own lack of efficiency and charm. I couldn't help but wonder if Portugal and São Tomé were still on hesitant (if not hostile) terms.

My wondering was quickly floored by awe as we approached our plane, a once-a-week luxury of TAP Portugal, and, clear as anything else I'd ever read in my life, in letters the size of people, the name of the plane reads:

WHITE

No, this is not a joke. But you might think the following is: Below it reads:

Coloured by You

White, Coloured by You, courtesy of the White website- http://www.flywhite.eu

Good Lord, how I wish I could make this stuff up.

I could hardly keep myself from laughing. I'm sure people thought I was crazy. The plane is called WHITE? And it's colored by...what...a rainbow of singing, dumb Africans that somehow, at the right time, just showed up for the plane trip of their lives??

Well, what do you do?

You say, okay! We're getting on this huge, phallic machine called WHITE, and we're going to penetrate virgin Mother Afrika at 400 miles per hour.

My life in São Tomé has been peppered with little bits that make me laugh like this. What else CAN you do when a country's history of European control is so recent (they only became independent in the mid-1970s)? Not only this, but their whole home, their entire history began as an overflow zone for starving Cape Verdeans in an overpopulated island to contract into honest work, only to be deceived and thrown into slavery. How do you come to terms with that when it's something the Santomenses deal with every day of their life?

The STeP UP office

Among a few English classes, some translations, some great friend-making (I love standing out; I feel like people in the USA never remember my face but here everyone knows who I am) and other things, the thing that keeps me busy here (and what I originally arrived for) was to help an incredible NGO called STeP UP (São Tomé e Príncipe Union for Promotion) coordinate and work out the kinks of a very generous donation by the One Laptop Per Child Program to a local middle school in the capital. About 90 very excited twelve year olds were handed an amazingly efficient, durable, and inexpensive laptop computer that is complete with photo/video camera, microphone, a swivel frame, multiple USB ports and wireless internet access (you can buy one for yourself or any child for $250, and included in this $250 is the donation of a laptop to a child in a poor country as well- how about that!). I'm here to learn the OLPC platform and teach it to teachers and students alike, then facilitate a way for them to incorporate these computers in their everyday learning environment (both in school and at home).

Yesterday was my first day of class with the kids themselves. While we waited in hopes that the energy would turn back on

The kids wait for the energy to come back on in class. And go camera-happy while we wait :)

(something that is horribly unreliable and inconsistent, and often just doesn't work at all), the poor kids waited, say 75 of them, crowded into one classroom, for hours. I couldn't leave them there so I thought I would at least get their attention and play some games- whatever I could think of on my feet, really- 7 Up, red light green light (outside), and, my favorite, Hangman.

At least it was my favorite, until I suddenly wanted to simultaneously laugh and cry. Here I am, a white woman, of Portuguese descent nonetheless, teaching these African children a really great spelling game that incorporates lynching. I am certainly going to Hell.

Either the kids never picked up the reference, or someone Up There was on my side yesterday, because the kids actually loved the game and it occupied a solid 30 minutes of our time. But good grief, what a trip. I had played my own race card, and it was a wild card, and here I am in Africa, and, from now on, Hangman is going to be something much, much less violent.