Visitation Day

The headmaster and the chaplain were suitably bemused
As I strode up the dais to collect my Divinity Prize
I guess it was the sight of the book I had chosen
With its cover of Fidel Castro and Ayatollah Khomeni
A touch incongruous, it would seem, for a fifteen year old
But they were consummate professionals and the mask didn't slip
They maintained typical English reserve, as they say, stiff upper lip

"Interesting cover." Mr Higginbottom harrumphed in his diplomatic way
The essay on Catholicism and African modernity that I had penned
Gave no indication about this curious direction of my reading
Modern Dictators, the bold red of the English edition, stared at me
Not your usual Visitation Day fare, it was creating quite a palaver
The chaplain was very intrigued, I think, by the sight of the Ayatollah
He couldn't but ask if I was trying to make some kind of statement
No sir, I'm simply fascinated by their brand of malevolence

On the right side, my crowd was making noise, disturbing tranquility
It seemed as if all of Ghana were attending, not just my family
Proper bright clothing, wax prints, boubous, that was my posse
Head wraps - gele, and loud whoops while gesticulating wildly
Mum had also invited her BBC African service folks, slightly more sober
But still enthusiastic, I could almost taste the feast we'd be having later

...

Afterwards, we gathered under the Eros statue, the replica of the original
They'd seen the Stanley Spencer painting earlier during their tour of the chapel
Grim viewing, truth be told, the scene set out the crucifixion
If you paused, you could almost hear Blake's sly intonation
Setting out at the sanctuary, the fair hills of our new Jerusalem
If this was our Babylon we could handle the ruler's burden
For visitation day at least, we could forget this blighted exile

...

So she works at the BBC, huh? That must be a blast
Indeed, it was rubbing off, the prestige quotient
Yeah, all this despite our previous precarity,
We were not your average desperate immigrant
Journalists remain firmly in the middle class
In my school blazer - black, double-breasted - I'd managed individuality
We all know our place, the sorting hat of this society.
Still, how very English to be so finely attuned to these hierarchies

...

Stu was also there, the first of his family to go to secondary school
His parents beaming at the thought of university looming
Stolid tradesmen of Hertfordshire still disbelieving
"Entrance exams for Oxford and Cambridge, imagine that
Instead of builder's hands, it'll be wine and port with the dons"
Stu gave a sharp look. "Next you'll be counting chickens"

...

This was a country entirely suffused with historical settings
Like this school, barely aspirational yet dating back to 1597
Boasting those courts where we'd play Eton Fives
Arcane traditions, bewildering to these young eyes

We made a joyful noise, turning the place into a slice of Africa
It struck me that any achievement on my part didn't really matter
It was about finding our way out of ourselves, this exuberant celebration
For a few moments at least, forgetting the journey and praising the destination

...

Some things are long gestating, simmering in the psyche, becoming a part of you
Thirty years later, I came across chapter 11 of that selfsame visitation day book
And realized I'd just published a poem with the same title: The Ruler's Rules

Soundtrack for this note

• Old School by Lucky Mensah

File under: humour, memory, culture, England, observation, perception, immigration, school, class, poetry, toli

Writing log: June 17, 2023

The $10 impossible dream: A year of school

The LA Times continues its series on 'living with pennies', focusing this time on education. it doesn't go into as much depth and tackles the issue of what happens when you can't afford to pay the fees.

The $10 impossible dream: A year of school

The note sent home with the 922 students of Silwanetshe Primary School was clear: Pay up or drop out.

The next morning, about 500 children whose parents couldn't afford the $10 annual fee were absent. When classes began, 11-year-old Mduduzi Mkhize and his sisters, Precious, 10, and Zinhle, 8, could only press against the wire fence that separates their mud hut from the school grounds.

"I wish I was there," Mduduzi, a third-grader with a love of arithmetic and penmanship, said as he watched his classmates begin their morning prayers.

Vast numbers of Africa's children stand with Mduduzi and his sisters — trapped on the other side of the fence. Many attend school sporadically. Others don't even start. Of an estimated 115 million children worldwide who have never been to school, nearly 40% live in Africa, according to the World Bank.

These children may have survived disease, war or famine to reach school age. But for want of a few dollars a year, they will never be educated.

Because most Africans get by on less than a dollar a day, school is a luxury they cannot afford. After feeding their children, parents must stretch their pennies to pay for clothes and other basic needs. Even if they manage to set aside some money for school, they may have to choose which of their children to educate.

Since the end of apartheid in 1994, South Africa has promoted education as an antidote to poverty and conflict. The government spends nearly 8% of the nation's gross domestic product on education — a higher percentage than the United States or Britain — and the nation is widely recognized as having the best school system on the continent.

Even so, public schools must charge fees to stay open, which excludes many thousands of children. A third of South Africa's children don't make it past fifth grade.

Mduduzi is too young to grasp that a lack of schooling will keep him on society's lowest rung. For him, it is much simpler. "I miss reading," he said. "I miss learning to write. But most of all, I miss my friends."

Louis Mndaweni, principal of the Silwanetshe school, understands. He was once as poor as these children.

"It breaks my heart to have to send the children home," he said. "But if we don't enforce the rules, we'll have no money to run the school. There will be no school to come to."

This is all too common unfortunately throughout the continent. For us living outside the continent, it is not uncommon to deal with the following scenario - send money home for nieces, nephews' school fees, parents can't manage and use the money for food or other necessities (worst case is it's wasted on other things), child doesn't have the $5 to give to teacher, stops attending school, starts work at home (in the best case). A couple of years go by and the child is off the track, lost to the system - then teenage pregnancy for the girls or the boys then a life essentially hustling, selling dog chains and chinese plastic goods at intersections in the road. Its a harsh, brutish and short life that looms.

Tertiary Education is my mum's current portfolio so this remit is part of our daily lives and worries. If one looks at it head on, it's almost too large a problem to confront. And yet the kids show up, proud in their uniforms if they have one, want to go to school, to learn. On that basis, these problems are not insurmountable.

File under: Africa, education, school, South Africa, youth, poverty, waste, hope, development