Who'd have thought, when I came to Lesotho, that I'd find MY Teacher's Dream? Yet here I have it: a group of wonderfully talented and PASSIONATE poets. In fact, back in October they were recruiting a teacher supervisor so I jumped on board and have spent most Thursdays since then in cramped, clammy Room 18--the infamous hangout of Machabeng Poets extraordinaire.
Here I found a group of young women and, YES, men who love poetry to the extent that some have literal books of poems they've composed. It's been inspiring and just plain fun to listen to them each week as they recite. They are more poet-dreamers than pragmatists and so it was no surprise that they dreamt up the idea of publishing a poetry anthology and doing a poetry evening to raise money for the purpose; then the long task of organizing the event began.
At some point in the midst of some frustration with the lack of focus that often reigns supreme in this lovely group, I suggested that they focus on one thing at a time and do the poetry evening FIRST. "Worry about the anthology later." That helped.
People floated in and out of Thursday after school sessions randomly. Poems to be printed and submitted by deadlines arrived even more randomly. Deadlines for poems memorized...Yes...well...Did I say deadline? It was all only a precursor of things to come with each rehearsal driving me a bit crazier. Then there was the practice where half the crew arrived at least two hours late and had not an inkling of why this might be a problem...I hate using the term, but 'African Time' applies.
Ticket sales sold out the day before the performance. My stomach was in knots: were they ready? But the show would go on.
Last night was the big performance and, now that it's past I can chuckle and find some humour in the absurd, but I was NOT even smiling last night. All day long I had faced the harassment of students, and worse yet, folks challenging and offended that they could not buy tickets. Full house. What does that mean? To be honest, I was as disorganized as the large majority since I had not purchased tickets for Benno or my housemates before they'd all sold out, so they did not get to see the show. By the end of the day I was frazzled and beginning to feel the pangs of aversion to the attitude of entitlement that I thought I'd escaped. People WERE very demanding for tickets.
Strangely, I never even realized what was going on in my psyche--just how much this was all BOTHERING me until I had time to come home, digest it all, shed a few tears and sleep on it. Yesterday, for the first time in any concentrated quantity, I experienced some of this attitude of entitlement that I'd grown to detest--that indeed I'd been running from in North American culture. How refreshing to come to Lesotho and find none of it. How naive of me. Human nature does not have such neatly defined geographical borders. There's just a lot less of it here, and it seems to concentrate itself in the echelons where nepotism often tends to reign.
Yes, there were the folks five minutes before performance time ready to hassle students who'd promised them tickets, and me sheltering these students who needed to focus on performance and did not need to get all upset just before show time. Yes, there were the folks who TOLD me that I should not have asked the parent and (silly me for not knowing) board member to pay. Yes, there were the colleagues who said I'd better find places for the parents who had not bothered to buy tickets in advance... Then there was the performance itself, starting half an hour late with me basically forcing the doors shut on a FULL, FULL house. Then there were the group of guys who arrived an hour late demanding that they be let in because THEY had tickets and me having to say, very slooowwly and deliberately, "You ARE an hour late. I cannot let you in..." I'm afraid I've offended more than a few. Whew! Then there were the four students who were being noisy and rude that I almost had to pick up and remove. Cultural Gap 101 on me!
But THE GOOD STUFF, truly is far more than the frustrations, and I can see this as I get perspective. There's the wonderful young man who is the leader of this band of poets. What fine leadership skills he has. It has never, even once, seemed to be about EGO for him. He's a servant/quiet kind of leader who does what it takes. Then there's the guy who's been on time for all the practices he's been at, whom I accuse of being more Canadian than African in his perspective of time. Then there's the young woman who has so cheerfully tackled ticket sales and so much more, who smiles and says to me, when she must be feeling a ton of stress, "Relax, Mrs. Fath... ;-) Then there are the heart-to-heart chats with some and the hugs. Then there is the email from a student whom I don't even know who writes to say how much I am appreciated for all I'm doing and for just being a "mom" to so many :-)
Then there's the performance which was fabulous. The students did such an amazing job! They ARE so talented and passionate and that came through in their performances, so much so that the audience was hooting, snapping like crazy, clapping and chanting for more, more, more by the end and I thought...Eish, they might riot. FOR POETRY!
The absurd humour of it all is that there were people UPSET and READY TO KNOCK DOWN THE DOOR to get into a poetry evening. Can you imagine? Gotta love that!
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