Crazy

From the dry grasslands of South Africa’s North West province, I headed to the moist mountains of Limpopo. My host was Stanford Lake College, a lovely Round Square school of 250 students in grades 8-12.

The student body is roughly 60% white, 35% black and coloured, and 5% Indian. The faculty is overwhelming white, mostly Africaans, with a handful of black faculty. It is an English-medium school, but I heard a lot of Africaans spoken between the Africaans teachers and between Africaans faculty and students.

Jacob Zuma, the president of South Africa, resigned two nights ago. How fun to be in a nation where the corrupt President just resigned. Students stayed up late to watch his resignation speech, reminding me of when I watched Nixon resign as a teenager.

The new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, is expected to cut back on corruption. The father of a Stanford Lake student who came on exchange to Athenian refused to participate in the corruption and an attempt was made to kill him with poison. He moved away to live in another region for fear of his life. I wonder if perhaps he’ll get to come home.

Stanford Lake will probably have a more difficult time finding black students who can afford the tuition because of the reduced corruption.

For the last three days, I accompanied the Stanford Lake year 8 students on a three-day trek. We hiked from campus, past lakes and pine farms, to a base camp on the Letaba River. The next day it was 20 kilometers and 2,700 meters in elevation up to the summit of the Iron Crown, the highest point in the Limpopo province. On the final day, we hiked back to campus.

The students were carrying all their own gear, but the adults only had day packs. Our gear and food was driven into the campsite. At dinner time, the students pulled out new cannister stoves and pots. Mostly they ate freeze-dried backpacking food where you add hot water, stir and wait. The teachers started a wood fire and we had a braai. The first night we each got a steak chop and chicken wrapped with bacon. The first morning we had boerewors (derived from the Africaans words for farmer and sausage) on a bun. The second night we had steak and kebabs. Breakfast the last day? Ribs!

The students and teachers refilled their water bottles from the rivers and streams we crossed. As long as the water was moving, every body of water was considered safe. What was remarkable to me was that the water was drunk straight from the river or creek, untreated. I put this off as long as possible, but eventually had to give in and drink the untreated water. No indications yet that I have caught some obscure African water-borne disease.

Some people think I’m crazy as an educator on sabbatical to choose to go on a school trip like this. And perhaps I am. But it was a treat to be on a trip where I wasn’t in charge, didn’t have to patch up any injuries, or make any major decisions. I got to know some of the students, do some great hiking, and the weather was perfect.

On the day we went to the summit, I returned to camp with the last group. I put on my bathing suit and lingered for 30 minutes. I thought about how normal it felt to be swimming in a remote South African river on this beautiful afternoon–and about how the Stanford Lake teachers leading the trip didn’t have the luxury of lingering by themselves in the cool clear water.