The Big Read: Reeds on Fire

May 16th, 2009 11:37 AM UTC
By Emily Stivers

We asked ONE members for submissions to The Big Read book — a collection of stories from people around the world supporting education for everyone. Although only one member story will be published in the book, the runner-up submissions, including the one below from Melissa Fraser of Camarillo, CA, were so good that we wanted to share them with you.

You can show your support for The Big Read and help ensure a pathway out of poverty for children around the world. Endorse the book by adding your signature here.

Thanks for reading!

-Emily Stivers

Reeds on Fire

By Melissa Fraser
Camarillo, CA

My body shoots upright before my mind focuses onto what is happening. Some instinct is warning me to react as if experiencing an emergency. Checking the clock, it’s 3 in the bitterly cold winter morning, and the normally still village is rustling a bit. The village school next door to my hut persistently ringing a deafening bell, and I sniff around expecting to smell burning thatch.

Grabbing a sitenge wrap, I emerge from the front door and fumble with the gate lock to peer out the courtyard’s reed fence. Strangely, there is no panic, no fire, but a group of teenage students stumbling through the dark to the single lantern-lit classroom at the school. With end of the year exams looming, these students are taking advantage of the school’s early morning study session.

Since candles and paraffin oil can exhaust the meager, if existent, income of a rural Caprivian family, sitting in a classroom around the free lighting is as alluring to ambitious students as blooming acacia trees to a giraffe. Borrowed and gratuitously used books sit on the desks in front of students who are bundled in what tattered clothing they may own. As I shiver myself back under three blankets for a couple more hours of sleep, the youth of Namibia’s forgotten region dedicate the dark hours to getting ahead in life through education.

Once daylight introduces life’s daily routine of survival, I prepare for another day of working with village youth as they learn about sustainable and conservation agriculture. In the early afternoon, thirty teenagers from the community are expected to come to the house for their twice weekly project meeting. For four months, these learners, handpicked by the community, have been participating in an after school project that focuses on agriculture and Life Skills. Most have become adults at an early age, having lost one or both parents. The added daily responsibilities in life make normal teenage challenges all the more significant. To their credit, most are faithful to attend the sessions that last about two hours in a garden – their outdoor classroom.

When the participants show up that afternoon, I notice that a few are among the pre-dawn study group at the school. They inform me that there are multiple sessions they hope to attend. Once finished with the normal school hours, they go home for lunch and chores, then return in the afternoon for a few hours. After, it’s dinner at home (if there is food) and another study session from 7:00-9:00. Then they walk home, dodging elephants, to sleep a few hours before that alarm bell summons them in the morning. Those in our project are grateful to have lunch nearby so that they can avoid the long walks back home in between the study sessions.

This is the way school works in rural Caprivi, and most of these students are well aware that they are incredibly fortunate to have the school fee money to attend. While the annual US$15 prohibits many from accessing education, spending the majority of the day in the classroom poring over agriculture, math, or social studies textbooks is almost a given. And with a foreigner living among them, they are eager to learn about what opportunities exist outside in the world, not that they are raised to believe they have much potential of ever seeing that outside world.

As the local oddity, what could I teach them that would be of any value in their life? Should I mention that the Jennifer Lopez t-shirts a couple girls wore actually referred to a real person? Or answer their curious stares, explaining why I had so much hair on my arms and legs compared to them? I had already offered to tutor some of the kids for their exams, and handed over magazines sent from the US as an entertaining way to improve their English.

To impart some more pearls of American culture on the children with a little fun, I bought a bag of marshmallows while in the regional capitol of Katima. One day we built a small fire in my courtyard and broke off pieces of reeds from my courtyard fence. About eight kids huddled around the fire, looking desperately confused and suspicious. Slipping the marshmallows onto a reed, I demonstrated my roasting technique as well as my brother’s “burn it all to hell” method and let the kids try the mallows. In the excitement of teaching them a favorite pastime, I forgot to remember what giving pure sugar to children with little sugar in their diet can do. They freaked out in a “happy, happy, joy, joy” sort of way. And one 500 gram bag of marshmallows was gone in a flash.

No matter what I did, the youth were always eager to see what I could come up with next. At this point it became clear that they had an appetite as voracious for education as they did for roasted marshmallows. No matter what the subject, if it was taught in a book or in the fire pit of a stranger, they wanted to learn it.

While nutritional sustenance isn’t always something they can control, they continually look to seek nourishment for their minds. Once they learn to read, they can fight for access to information about growing plants more effectively in the face of changing rain patterns, or discover how their culture can function in the face of globalization. And most of all, they can learn to participate in the established world system and not be a casualty of their circumstance. A child’s future is our emergency, causing us to shoot out of bed to meet the needs of their starving little minds.

TAGS: Big Read