I exist in the slow quick agony of time passing, and yet I feel I cannot fully absorb it, this life of mine that is ending. I paint with the children most days; we’re working on one last project of my vision and their design and talent. There could be no greater immersion into the heart of Seronga than to sit amongst the kids who have been my greatest hope for this place and listen to them speak to each other in their tongues that still remain foreign to me.
As in any other situation where an adult is present amongst a group of teenagers, they have a language of their own, in this case literally. Being such a strange exception to their culture, as white, as a female with some strange endowment of prestige within their village I think they evaluate me as an adult of such a strange combination of oddness that they trust me. I’ve set a precedent in which I speak to them quite openly in the hope of them doing the same, and me perhaps helping to guide them to hitch their wagons to a brighter star than to follow the paths of so many who have come before them and are now suffering the ravages of HIV. We’ve spent enough time together that when I ask them questions, even quite personal questions, they will answer me more frankly than many of the adults I’ve come to encounter here.
They have for the most part let me into at least the front foyer their world, and appear to enjoy spending time with me, yet I am not privy to all the secrets that pass directly in front of my ears. Every so often I will be granted a key, and English word or a word that I know or a translation tossed out in their acknowledgement of the doors and walls that still stand between us. I can get some of the words, generally not a whole phrase, so I’m left with a pirate’s trove of unlockable doors into their world. By the general inflection I can tell that it’s mostly about universal human things, the continuing wonders of teenage life, of awakened awareness, of seeing oneself as an individual, the curiosities of love and sex and relationships. I am far away in their discourse despite being presently physically near.
And yet I can tell I am close, on their map I am an ally at least, as they keep coming back to paint this wall that I have shown them, and they do it for no reasons their culture recognizes as valid, they come.
Each day, we unlock the door to the building, we take out the paints, we discuss the meaning in what we are doing, and how we want the messages to be conveyed. They try to defer to me as the adult and I refuse, not only allowing them creative control but insisting on it. We clown around and we work hard, and to my greatest joy I overhear a man on a donkey cart explaining the painting we are creating on this wall to his child next to him. I excitedly point this out to the teenagers I’m working with, whom in typical teenage fashion pretend not to care.
On occasion we will lift small children over the fence surrounding us and Bokamoso (whose name literally means “future”) teaches the small kids to write their names with markers and paper. They run by on the sandy road with their make-shift toys, riding headless sticks they imagine to be horses or perhaps donkeys and scream to get our attention. I take their photos, they babble at me in Se-yai. I bring some water bottles and spray them, they giggle and run around.
These are the days I hope they are all remembering a few weeks later when I have come to their classrooms to tell them goodbye, and that I am leaving now. Like I quickly learned to say “my name is not lekgowa, my name is Lorato” in their language, I have now mastered “I’m leaving tomorrow, I’m going back to America” strictly from repetition. The tiniest ones just repeatedly scream my name and smile and wave bye bye, my words meaning nothing to them, even in their own language. The ones I have taught to write their names in the sand with sticks appear slightly more bewildered, and the oldest ones that I would teach during days when there were no teachers look very alarmed. Some matter-of-factly ask when I will return, their patient smiles breaking my heart, and I use my other famous Setswana word, ga kitse (I don’t know). Some of them glare at me, others happily shout “go well” and some cup their hands over their mouths and raise their eyebrows while they smile, which to Americans is a gesture that indicates embarrassment, but here tends to have more “I’m upset” or “I’m shocked” meaning.
The teachers wish me well, and prompt the children to say “goodbye, Auntie, see you” in English, which they obediently do, but each of their faces peels a layer off my heart. Classroom by classroom I’m forced to repeat this ritual until I can’t stand it, and am forced to again and again lower very dark aviator sunglasses over my eyes, and back away smiling and waving, the tears burning the back of my throat until I can make it out the door, recompose myself, and head to the next room.
When the time comes to say goodbye to the oldest ones, we exchange email addresses (not that I would imagine many of them will have much better luck with getting internet access than I have), and in their faces I see them struggle between the manners they’ve learned, to not ask difficult questions of adults, and the fact that I've always offered myself as someone they could actually ask their hard questions to and I would do my best to answer them. They are caught between what they've lived their whole lives in their culture and what I've briefly taught them of mine. I know that they want to demand that I answer for myself, and I am a coward and cannot do it. They are still thoroughly Batswana, and thus can generally accept their lot in life without question, yet I can tell that many of them are not happy with me. I want to scream I am so frustrated that all I can leave them with are words and hugs and the promise to send photos. Instead I get into the car and allow myself to be driven away; glad I don’t have to be the one to actively walk away one more time on this day.
As I arrive at the airstrip to fly out of Seronga, I am grateful that the pilot is a close friend, and that the plane is full only of my baggage and truly Southern African Afrikaner men. They cannot by nature deal with females crying and emotions and will thus leave me completely alone. There is no comfort they can provide me with and none that I want from them. I curl up against the side of the plane in a small ball, pull down my aviators one last time and let the tears fall freely now, the engine is loud enough that the soft sobs that occasionally escape me don’t require acknowledgement. I am right, although Paul glances back at me a few times; they ignore me completely, and upon arrival at the Maun airport take me across the street and offer me whisky, which appears to be the salve for the African heart.It warms something inside of me, but it's not my heart, as that remains feeling cold and empty, missing the life I've just left and will not return to ever again.
taking off in Seronga
Landing in Maun
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