Getting ready to come home.

It’s almost time to come home now, and our first blog made some pretty lofty statements about trying to find a more genuine version of how to live. Our goal was to find that more genuine way by living in community in Africa. What we’ve discovered is a lot of humility and the realization that I cannot fix the problem of poverty—not that Jenna or I had the intent of “fixing” anything, but that was a major discovery just the same. So did we achieve our goal? Have we thrashed away the husk of a more distorted version of Jenna or a less sparkly version of Bryan? Have we achieved some magical evolution of soul to make life better?

Yes and no.

Our perspective on the world has most definitely developed since we left Sioux Falls, and we have conclusively decided that it is larger and more intense than we might have ever imagined. As for us individually, I think there needs to be a lot of reflection and time for it to really sink in: Bryan is no more sparkly than when he left (although Jenna has developed a glow we’re a little concerned about) and there have been no mystical moments of enlightenment, BUT the aim of this trip was never to force God to climb down from heaven and give us a seminar on how to “live it up” or buff away our scars. What has been the best part of this trip is getting to see the day to day lives of these people living in Katatura. Seeing not just the scars of a group of people, but how they exist. (I know it shouldn’t be shocking, but it was still surprising to go through the tin-shack village and see daily life carrying on.)

What has been the greatest part about this trip is getting to know the PEOPLE behind those scars, instead of just naming them “boy in squatter camp,” or “AIDS orphan who lives in fear and abuse.” Life goes on, despite what I might see as outrageous circumstances. What has been the hardest lesson of this trip is to learn that there is no balm to heal those scars that I can offer. We could come in and help out in the tutoring room, teach them lessons about math or history or even literature, and live with them for a time in unconditional love… but those scars will still be there.

Maybe another student’s story can better illustrate how you’d want to just “fix” the problem: Paul was one of the fist kids that really stuck to Jenna even the first day we were there. He loves soccer and he’s talented, especially for a bean-pole third grader who could be blown over by a mighty wind. His snaggle-toothed smile is a permanent fixture on his face. It’s like no trouble is weighing him down when he’s in that haggard, dusty play space where Community Hope takes their break.

We really loved playing soccer with him that first day, and he would be in his own little Paul-world when he was juggling that soccer ball, and then kick it back like a dog who spits out the ball with electric expectation that you’ll throw the ball again. The second day we were observing classes and didn’t get out to break-time. Paul caught us after school and asked us why we weren’t there to play soccer with him, which is a really easy question to answer, but impossible to justify to the snaggle-tooth bean-pole who really only needs someone to kick a ball around to set him back into his own little Paul-world. Day three, Jenna and I reminded each other that we need to go out for break because Paul will be waiting, and sure enough he was waiting for us with a half-inflated, totally tarnished soccer ball (if he had a tail, it would be wildly thrashing in anticipation).

Before we left for home on that third day, Paul ran up to us in the school hall with a card addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Aukermans saying he likes playing soccer and that he loves us. How can you do anything to respond to that but make for certain you can keep kicking around the tarnished, half-inflated soccer ball? At the end of the week, Suzanne was driving us home and asked how the first week had been and we bring up Paul.

Suzanne helped us better understand what life is like for Paul at home. Paul has a couple younger siblings and lived at home with his mom who was a severe alcoholic and consequently a negligent mother. Paul’s grandmother was an active part of her grandkids kids’ life with the encouragement of the school, Paul and his siblings lived with grandma for a while, but Paul’s love for his mom made it very difficult to keep them separated. According to Suzanne, Paul sees his mom as the salt of the earth and no matter how abusively neglectful she is, he still loves her. No matter how much she drinks and becomes a different person, he loves her. How do you explain to a third-grader he deserves better than his abusive, alcoholic mother?

That’s what I mean by we can teach these kids, we can love these kids, but we cannot be Paul’s mom—that is a scar that simply cannot be taken away—more importantly, it is one aspect of Paul’s life, and not his entire existence. Could I steal Paul away and take him in as my own and in that sense be Paul’s parent and play soccer with him until I only have nothing but nubs for feet? Yes. But can I fill that space that his mom occupies in the scars he has? No. Paul’s got a lot more heart than I do in that unconditional love for his mother and I think he’ll do a lot to bring his mom back to earth from wherever she is right now, today, but that’s one situation of the 89 kids at Community Hope that don’t need a foreign, unfamiliar, American face to swoop in and save the day. I’ve had a hard time coming to that conclusion, and I’m still not sure I’m comfortable with it or agree with it, but it’s one thing I feel more strongly about than I could have before I was there. Another school story might illustrate this better than I can put into words.

Theodore reminded me (Bryan) a lot of myself, a younger African version. Quick to make a joke out of whatever is going on, kind of lippy, and really had a hard time spelling. He was in tutoring every day because the sounds of words just did not make sense in how they were spelled, and it was clearly frustrating him. Because he was getting testy and bored, and he really just doesn’t care about spelling, he preferred to give his teacher a hard time.

“Say ancient, Theodore.” His teacher would try to coach him.
“Aunkshint, Teodoor.” He would respond, with a smirk that you can’t help but laugh about, even though, as a teacher, you know you shouldn’t.
“No no no, you’re not paying attention to the vowels, that’s why you’re having a hard time spelling. Now listen to the vowel sounds.” His tutoring instructor, David, is patient with him. “Ang-cee-ent.”
“Aunk-shee-eent” He truly was trying now. Theodore and David have a strong relationship, and when David wants him to get to it, Theodore wants to try to please David.
“No, you’re saying ‘eent’ not ‘ent.’ It’s with an ‘E’ not a double ‘E’.” Now David was getting frustrated. This was clearly a discussion they’d had before.
“No, I say eent, we say eent. You say it like America says it.” It just got real.
“Theodore, I’m trying to help you spell, and if you say it like you say it, you’ll keep spelling it wrong.” David handled at situation well, but even I could tell that David understood the weight of this little discussion.
“Why do I need to be like you, and speak like an American?”

As you read in Chris’s story, there’s a lot of shame in Damara culture and one nuance of Windhoek culture is “White is best, coloured is good, and black is… in Katatura.” With this in mind, Theodore’s question went deeper than a simple spelling lesson: Are we teaching these kids to speak with an American accent or are we taking away their Namibian accent? Yes, it really will help with some spelling issues… but the test that these kids take before they can get a Namibian certificate of graduation will be from a tape that has a heavy British English accent, which is familiar to neither Namblish (Namibian English) or American English ears. Speaking with American accents will bring a lot of ethnic baggage for these kids and brings them into a culture war that is currently being waged in Namibia.

So, is there absolutely no hope and only hardship that can come from outsider influence? Certainly not. Dave, Sandy, Adam, Sarah, and Maria love those kids in an amazing way that the students see every day, and it's clear that God has a plan for them there. But speaking for Jenna and I, we can only help the kids to an extent because those scars they have do not belong to us. We cannot share in the scars, we can only listen and love when it comes to that part of their lives. Those scars belong to a culture which is not ours.

As an outsider, it’s so easy to only see the hardships and differences, but the best thing that we can do is find the strengths of their own culture—namely their art and their extremely tightly knit social structure—and utilize that IN teaching them how to escape that cycle of poverty. The culture is not evil, the culture is actually quite beautiful in many aspects, but there is a very real danger of siphoning off that Namibian culture.

Theodore needs an educated Namibian role model to remove that hurdle of, “You are just a white person trying to change me.” That is a real feeling amongst many of the students (now, do keep in mind that this feeling is from angsty 5th and 6th graders who are just developmentally at a stage where SOMETHING has to be wrong with the people in authority). These kids need to visually see and emotionally be invested in positive role models who are living representatives of a healthy, educated Namibian with dignity otherwise the education is a foreign concept from a foreign person.

For this reason, Jenna and I are more wary of how we can best affect Community Hope. As much fun as it was fun to be Mr. and Mrs. Aukermans in Africa for a while, we feel like the greatest contribution we can make is to be sure that teachers like the Bandas and Mr. Gumbo can make it to school every day and have the resources they need to continue to be the face of a positive Namibian (or surrounding countries') culture. Those teachers will be the anchor that the kids can rely on, and they can be the bridge of information for them that I could never fill.

Jenna has brought up, a number of times, how funny it is that we were really ready to uproot and move to Namibia if it felt like that’s where we needed to be, and BOTH of us really feel like we could make a more lasting impact by being a support back in the states. We’re not confused or unsure about this decision, but it has taken us a few days to let that decision settle. It’s easy to feel like you’re running away from such a great opportunity. We’re looking forward to how we can continue to share these kids’ stories back at home, and how we can re-enter our community back at in Sioux Falls.

We’ll be home in two days, and can’t wait to land and be back! See you all very soon.