Soweto

So I'm in South Africa to visit my brother. He's a Fulbright exchange teacher and teaches high school level Math.
He teaches at Mandisa Shiceka High School. Mandisa Shiceka is a Xhosa name....Meaning it has a click in it! Click language! It's pronounced Mandeesuh Shi-CLICK!-eh-ka. It's not the poorest school in Jo'burg, nor the richest. The school surrounded by a tall barbed wire fence. It even has a proper gate keeper. The soil is red and dusty. The students are constantly shining their shoes. My brother's shoes look reddish brown these days because he can't be bothered to shine his shoes anymore. There's a large mural on the wall of the school with a giant condom, and a red ribbon, reading "AIDS IS A MONSTER". The students are all tardy. The teachers are tardy as well. There's not much discipline here. At my brother's school there's a problem with stabbings, and dripped blood. On the week that we visited, a student stabbed another student with the sharp edge of his compass, right in the face. The teachers will ditch their classes as well as students. They go to the local mall, or play soccer right on the school grounds.

My eyes are constantly tearing up. The people burn trash and burn the fields next to the school. The school neighbours a township. Something is always burning in Jo'burg. Burning tires is supposed to be a symbol of public anger and protest. Burning the fields is supposed to bring rain. My eyes and my skin hate it.

My brother teaching his class.

We visited one of my brother's classes. The entire student body was pretty much Black, mostly Zulu. This was the first place where I wasn't greeted with catcalls or whistles (mainly because my brother told them it was rude to do so). South Africa is quite chauvinistic and patriarchal. Many of the men act like a bad stereotype of construction workers. (All of the commercials for cleaning products contain females, I didn't see a single man.) After finishing their review of Completing the square, the students were filled with questions for Tiffany and I. They were concerned with matriculating into Uni. The questions weren't all typical. One boy asked how he could avoid drugs. This is a problem in the townships, even within the family. A girl asked if she could go to university in America, etc. My brother later pointed out an inyanga sitting in the back. An inyanga is a zulu word for traditional healer. Apparently ill people of many religions come to this inyanga. Muslims, Christians, and other Zulus. The inyanga is wearing a green sweater in the photo below. Oh by the way, the Muslim neighbourhood in Jo'burg is one of the nicest in the city. They have their own security force. You'll likely be approached if you get lost there. They know everyone in the neighbourhood, and the area is impeccably clean.

Anyways the students asked if they could have a photo with us. One student asked if I'd marry him. I guess asian girls aren't common in this part of town (Chinatown in Joburg is more like China caldesac). We took a group picture, and then some of the male students proceeded to take cell phone photos of me.

Posing with the students. Can you find Tiffany?hehe