Kwenxurha High School in Mooiplaas, 40kms east of East London, is an ugly hodgepodge of brick buildings and wooden shacks. You could say it’s a typical rural school – except that this one hasn’t given up just yet. We’re here to help them set up a media club.
This is an account of our visit to Mooiplaas.
Thursday 11.30am
‘Where am I?” is the question on everyone’s mind as we gaze upon mud huts and the neatly divided slopes of the valley through the mist of the neighbouring villages.
No signboard, no welcome mat – just a sharp bend and, there, Mooiplaas. We have arrived.
12pm
Learners are hanging around, looking on curiously. The room is a refuge from the wind and the chaos outside and seems to be from another era altogether, with neatly bundled papers and a handwritten register of the entire school on a pin-up board. The head of the debating society, Lulama Kenene, a mild-mannered man, is anxious to hear what we think of the place so far. ‘Have you ever seen a school as bad as ours?” he asks.
He tells of how the school was started by the community and their decade-long campaign to replace the corrugated iron classrooms with a solid structure. With a R5 contribution from each parent, the building began in earnest in 1975. Kwayiyo Bonani was among Kwenxurha’s first bunch of learners during its early, tumultuous years. He is now a teacher at Kwenxurha but says, ‘We have been petitioning the government for over 10 years to improve the buildings. The people here are always being promised a new building and then nothing happens.”
1pm
‘Some parents send their children to school because they know that it means there’s one less mouth to feed at lunchtime,” says Kenene in a cold prefab staff room. There are 18 teachers at Kwenxurha Secondary School responsible for the over 500 learners. Having chalk to write on the blackboard and a door for the classroom is a luxury. Little wonder that just 7% of its matrics passed last year.
Absenteeism, poverty and lack of facilities are the teacher’s main concerns. ‘Many of these children are brought up by their grandparents because their parents left to go to look for work and never returned,” says one.
‘Their guardians never went to school and there is no one at home that pushes them to do their schoolwork and check that they have done it”, explains another.
But is there anything good about this school?
A long silence, and then someone says, ‘Since I can remember, this school has been the best at rugby and netball.” And then another, ‘The students love gospel and kwaito music, and even make their own bands. They love to sing and dance.” Another remembers a few learners who made it to the University of Fort Hare.
2pm
We meet the 12 members of a society, formed in 2001 with the aim to improve learners’ verbal and written communication skills.
We ask what the learners want for themselves. ‘We want the confidence to grab attention,” says Lubabalo. ‘We don’t want to be afraid to talk to strangers.” Confidence to speak your mind, express your own thoughts and say how you feel – this is what they want.
But while confidence rates high on their list of essentials, electricity and better resources are not far behind.
Friday 9am
A group of eight elderly men and women are poring over a problem on the board in the school hall, looking somewhat uncomfortable in the tiny orange chairs meant for Grade 1 pupils. The class is part of the Sizonke project aimed at giving farmers managerial and technical skills. Many of the students are well over 60 years old and are illiterate.
All eight farmers are responsible for paying their grandchildren’s school fees. ‘Their parents are not working so we have to take care of them,” says one farmer. The most pressing needs for this generation are new buildings at Kwenxurha, the development of proper roads, and the provision of a dip for cows.
Saturday 10am
Extra lessons for Grade 12 learners are being held at Ngxixolo Primary School. None of them have a parent who is employed; they all rely on their grandparent’s pension.
But despite the lack of what seems to be essential learning tools, they say their educators are actively involved in teaching.
But enthusiastic teachers can only take them so far. Besides financial issues, none of them have any idea of how to apply for a bursary or how to request a university application form.
12pm
We go over the plans for getting the media part of the club underway. The debating society has put together a handwritten collection of stories, a sports column, letters, trivia and an advice column collected over the past few months – all neatly handwritten in an exercise book.
Since there are no facilities to have their ‘newsletter’ published, they decide to send stories and letters to other media like Drum magazine and Bona. It is also decided that the Rhodes media team will compile an information board with essential details like how to apply to university, find bursaries and prepare for exams. The board will double up as a space to express their own thoughts through poetry, letters or any other writing form.
2pm
The weekend brings a new pace to village life as kwaito reverberates through the muddy pathways. But it’s time to leave, the same way we arrived, navigating around grazing goats, pigs and potholes – but with new insights into the lives of the youth and ordinary people of rural Eastern Cape, and in anticipation of the next Kwenxurha newsletter.