Mpho the shark-hunter

Showers are underrated – they are fabulous things. In the last 5 days, I have had two of the most satisfying showers of my life.

For a couple of weeks until last Friday, I was visiting the twin school of the school I used to teach at in London – Luzie Drift. It’s in the mountains, in one of the most rural and remote areas of the Eastern Cape, which is the poorest province of South Africa. As you can imagine it was quite an experience – so this is going to be a longish post but I’m going to try not to ramble too much.
I stayed in 3 different villages (the school serves lots of small villages, some over 30km away). Two places I stayed at for a few days only had electricity from solar panels (obviously only when it’s sunny – it’s spring here which means brilliant sunshine turning into thunder and hailstorms in minutes), and the place I stayed at for most of the time has no electricity at all – lots of people here can’t afford solar panels. There’s no running water either – rainwater is collected from the roof gutters into tanks. Those who can’t afford rainwater tanks use the rivers (in winter – the dry season – they have to get up early to queue for the river). The toilets are little corrugated iron outhouses with wooden seats over holes in the ground, and there’s a bucket in your bedroom for peeing at night. Showers consist of a kettle, a basin, a flannel and a bar of soap.

I saw and learnt so much about Xhosa and Sotho cultures (they are the two dominant ethnic groups in the area), and I can even just about manage the three main clicks in the Xhosa language! The people in the villages were really welcoming; they were genuinely keen to show me their culture and have me take part in their traditions, sending invitations to my hosts. A clue to why they were so keen was when one villager said that me being here “shows the greatness of Mandela” – i.e. the fact that a white person would want to visit and experience deepest black South Africa. I was probably the only white person for about 20 miles. When I went to the nearby town, kids would stare at me. One kid where I was staying reached up and felt my skin.

Although most of the people are quite devout Christians (gospel singing is huge there), lots still follow traditional religion and customs, including quite a few of the Christians. Their religion is based on worshiping their ancestors; on any significant occasion or if they have a request for the ancestors (e.g. if they’re going to the city to look for a job, which many people do) they’ll slaughter an animal – usually a goat – as a sacrifice for their ancestors. A highlight for me was when I was invited to an Intombo, which is a ceremony performed by witch doctors (although apparently some of them now prefer “traditional healers” – it seems political correctness gets everywhere!). They were holding the ceremony because one of them had had a dream where her ancestors had told her to hold an Intombo (good excuse for a party!).

At the ceremony was lots of chanting and dancing and drinking traditional Xhosa beer (ceremonially and culturally important). I was invited to be totally at home, and was told to feel free to take pictures etc. But after I took a few pictures, there was a bit of a debate between the witch doctors over whether the ancestors would mind (also, it was quite dark and I think the flash startled them). The ancestors don’t like anything too modern – including shoes (this didn’t stop some of the witch doctors from having mobiles on them. My host, who despite being a very devout Christian is a bit of a purist cos her mum was a witch doctor, was not pleased)! I was asked to refrain from taking pictures while they decided what to do. A bit later, I was asked to step outside where one of the witch doctors was talking to my host, who was also my translator. She seemed quite serious and I thought she was going to say I couldn’t take pictures, or even worse that maybe I shouldn’t be there at all. In fact, they decided I could take pictures on two conditions – that I warn them before using a flash (I didn’t bother using it any more), and more importantly that they’d really like copies of the photos so could I send them some! So I turned into a bit of an official photographer for the event, and they even started making requests of they wanted photos of.


One of their most important and interesting traditions is circumcision. All boys get circumcised at around 12 or 13, and it’s a major event. Sotho girls are circumcised at around 16, and Xhosa girls are circumcised if their parents want them to be. I don’t know so much about the female circumcision ceremony, but boys are taken by some of the men twice a year (Dec and July; when the people who work in the cities come home) to a remote area for the ceremony. If they cry out when it’s performed, they get a beating. There’s lots of singing and dancing, and the boys are taught how to be men: hunting barefoot, learning to carve and so on, for about 6 weeks. They are also given a bit of a beating by the men, to toughen them up, and so that “any problems later in life won’t seem so bad – you remember what you’ve been through and that you’re now a man”.

There are lots of random little customs. For example, some Xhosa clans cut off part of a finger from their babies to protect from evil spirits. Also, the other day there was a heavy thunderstorm so my host (the school’s deputy principal) put a special stick in the doorway, and held another in his hand, to protect from the lightning.


As far as food goes, almost everything is made from or accompanied by maize, which they call mealies (basically sweetcorn which is harvested later so it’s dried out). They make it into a pulp appropriately called ‘pap’ which goes with everything, and also into 2 kinds of porridge, a drink, bread, bean soup, and beer. Unfortunately, it’s pretty bland and tasteless!

The school itself has been an eye opener. There are about 700 kids, in Grades 10-12. These are roughly equivalent to Year 10-12 in England, with the major difference that if you fail a year here you retake, with the result in a school with poor results like this one that some ‘kids’ are older than I am! Although the South African constitution enshrines the right of free education for all, there are no free schools in SA, and the school fees are about £12.50 a year (not an insignificant amount here). Most of the kids walk – some of them 20km each way, over or around mountains. That’s the equivalent of a marathon. Every day. About 100 kids who live too far to walk rent accommodation in a village across the road for about £2.50 a month, and go home at weekends.

I spoke to a few of boys who stay in the village across the road. They all should have finished school already, being 18, 19 and 22 years old. The 22 year old started school late, as his parents hadn’t been able to afford it. The 19 year old has repeated years, because both his parents are dead so he’s balancing his school work with working for money to pay his accommodation, upkeep and school fees. The 18 year old repeated Grade 6, because at the age of 11 his parents were living in Johannesburg and he was looking after himself! Unsurprisingly he wasn’t very motivated, spending his time “chasing animals in the mountains instead of going to school”. None of the kids in the village has electricity or rainwater tanks (they use the rivers), they live about 5 to a room, and all they pretty much all they eat is pap. I went to visit other houses with the 3 guys, to find out more about how they live, but couldn't find much out as wherever I went about 30 kids followed me!

The school had a major building project funded by the government, which finished about a year ago (the original buildings were built with help from the local community. Here, that means the locals actually built the buildings with their own hands!). Now they have a staff room, 3 new classrooms, a science lab (with no science equipment so it’s not used), big rainwater tanks, and toilet blocks (the toilets just open into holes, but at least that’s better than going in the bushes like both staff and pupils used to!). There isn’t enough furniture in classrooms, so about half the class will be sitting on desks with their books on their laps. Their electricity is provided by a petrol generator, but they can’t always afford petrol (just found out the Compton has raised £1000 for them, which will pay for a new generator, powerful enough for the whole school. I got to give them this news on my last day, elevating my status to minor hero). I was really surprised to find a computer room, with 10 computers in it donated by a mobile network. But they’re pretty old, the printer didn’t work, and only a couple of the teachers had an idea even how to use a mouse. So I gave myself the task of training the staff how to use the computers (funny, that was pretty much my job in London too!).

The kids here are remarkably cheerful, considering the difficulties they have even getting to school, and the fact that most of them can’t afford to eat properly. There are about 40 orphans (presumably almost all from AIDS), and probably a few kids who are HIV positive. (A side point about AIDS: young people here seem to sleep around quite a bit, everyone having a few girlfriends or boyfriends. This is partly because marriage is not a realistic option for poor men who can’t afford the necessary 15 cows, and partly because there’s not much else to do around here.) A striking thing about the kids here is the difference in behaviour between here and England. Controlling a class of 50 or more here is easier than controlling a class of 25 in England (class sizes here start at around 35, and the biggest class is 82; in classrooms which usually have enough furniture for about 15)! The culture in the villages is that kids are constantly made to do errands – in fact, anyone older can ask anyone younger to do something for them and they’ll automatically oblige (even if they don’t know each other). The kids at school have an automatic respect for teachers – not because the teachers have earned it, or through fear; just because they’re in authority. Although it's now illegal in South Africa to use corporal punishment (since the ANC came to power), many schools in rural areas do. In Luzie Drift, only the deputy principal does – the principal is a lady, so for more serious offences other teachers send kids to the deputy as patriarch (they call him 'the General') to administer the 'swish'. One of the teachers was bemoaning to me the abolition of corporal punishment, saying that when the kids don't listen there's nothing they can do about it. I asked what 'don't listen' means, as I'd seen nothing on the same scale as London. She said that “when you've just explained something, then you ask them a question and they don't know the answer – so obviously they've not listened to you. And you can't hit them for it!”.

The teaching style here is very different to England. Most teachers just talk at the kids all lesson, with maybe a couple of short activities for the kids. Instead of getting hands up, they leave sentences unfinished and the class as a whole finishes the sentence. There’s a new national Curriculum which tries to make teaching more ‘pupil centred’, but it hasn’t made any impact out here in the sticks. So, as well as helping with the computers, I offered to help give tips, as it's the way I'm used to teaching. I got quite a mixed reception – they generally don't seem to like the idea of change.

Which brings me onto the most difficult aspect of my experience: culture shock. It took a few days to realise that people out there have totally different attitudes to life than 'Western' people, or even urban South Africans. The root of it is that a lot of them (especially the unemployed) spend a lot of their time doing very little, just sitting around outside, or sitting in bed. Or drinking: I stayed with the deputy head at the weekends, and he would start drinking (and driving) brandy and beer straight after breakfast, and would continue steadily all day. There's a serious problem with alcoholism here – although only in spare time, not while working or anything. But there's a lot of spare time, and nothing to do in it. As a result, people don't have much motivation or drive, and don't seem concerned with self improvement or making much of themselves. A blunt and simplistic way to put it would be that they're lazy. Obviously I'm generalising, and there are exceptions – and it's by meeting these few exceptions that I realised the differences. Interestingly, these people who were exceptions also agreed with my perspective on the people in general.

The clearest example of the difference was in teacher's attitudes. First thing I noticed was that all of them arrive and leave school at the same time as the kids – no staying behind to mark or plan etc, and if they need to have a meeting they just send the kids home early. Then I noticed that kids were often hanging about doing nothing when they should have had lessons – and when I spoke to a teacher, he explained that sometimes they were 'busy' with marking and other thing so didn't turn up to teach lessons! I got really angry (but didn't show it) when seeing teachers in the staff room, who weren't at their lessons because they were 'busy' eating and chatting. Obviously, it’s not all teachers that do that. Also, it’s not that they’re bad people or that they don’t care about their jobs. It just doesn’t seem a big deal to them if they don’t turn up to their lesson – they don’t think much of it. Some of the teachers, on going home at 3pm, get into bed pretty much straight away (although not to sleep yet)!

As you can imagine, trying to motivate these teachers to use new teaching methods was going to be an uphill struggle, so I concentrated on the computers, which they were more enthusiastic about (especially when I told them how much paperwork they could save). There were other frustrating things too; for example the Principal “doesn’t approve” of people missing lessons or of her Deputy using corporal punishment – yet she does and says nothing. And I was relying on other people for lifts etc and spent a lot of time waiting around not being able to do anything, as people are never on time in Africa.

My culture shock came as a combination of this frustration, having no-one around on my own wavelength to vent to, and having long evenings on my own from 3pm without much to do. But the experience overall was brilliant, the people were really warm and welcoming and I learnt and saw a lot. When I left they held a surprise ‘party’ for me. There were speeches, the choir sang some songs (including one which had the chorus – in Sotho – of “We love Simon”), and there was traditional Xhosa and Sotho dancing. They presented me with a traditional Sotho hat, and honoured me by giving me a Sotho name: Mpho, which means “Gift” (all names here have meanings). This is because I was “a Gift to the school”. They also stood up in front of all the kids and recited a long list of requests for things they would like my/the Compton’s help with sorting out – from lesson plans and science equipment, to a new generator and “the opportunity for one of our teachers to come to visit London”.

After Luzie Drift, I went for a day to a town called Shelley beach to scuba dive. The first thing I did was have my first real shower for almost 3 weeks – one of the most satisfying showers of my life. Shelley beach is a diving venue with a single purpose: seeing sharks. The dive master (like a guide) uses ‘acoustics’ to attract the sharks. He has a device that emits low frequency vibrations, imitating those given of by a struggling fish, which stimulates a line of dorsal calls on the shark and brings them in – if they’re hungry. This high tech sounding device was a plastic water bottle which he squeezed! So I was happily swimming along in shark infested waters, right behind a man pretending to be shark food. It worked – on our first dive I saw quite a few sharks, from a distance of about 5-10m, which was cool. Then, about halfway through our second dive I was looking down at my depth/air gauges, when beneath it I saw a Zambezi (bull shark) swimming about 2m below me! It was very exciting – Zambezis are mean looking sharks, and with more testosterone per body weight than any other living creature, are supposedly more dangerous than great whites!

After Shelly Beach I went to a place called Bulungula, which has a really interesting set up. It’s even more remote than Luzie Drift, all there is, is a beach, the hostel, and villagers’ homes. The hostel is really integrated into the community – the villagers own 40% of it, and they are setting the villagers up with independent businesses such as tour guides and a restaurant. After Bulungula I wanted to come back to Coffee Bay, just up the coast, where I am now. The hostel offered a guided hike where they drive your bags, so I thought ‘why not’. After eight and a half hours of hiking up and down hills, half the time through rain, I now know why not! My feet are absolutely killing me, but I did have a very satisfying shower when I arrived.