A whiff of sustainability

Yesterday I went to the first Zithulele Pre-school parents’ meeting. It was awesome.

Now, I have been banging on for a good while about how we need a committee to run the school and a parents’ committee to talk to it, sending one representative to our meetings. A pre-school committee we have. Not a big one, but it is there. I never really thought the parents end would happen without me forcing it (pessimistic swine), but on Thursday, Thandeka said to me that there was to be a meeting at 1pm on Friday. I was like, “can I come”, she was like “yes, please come”. So I went. You cannot imagine the happiness that I experience when something like this surprises me out of the blue. Good old Thandeka and good old parents too.

The woman who led the 11 women in the meeting did so with crossed arms, an incredibly Sunday-best smart outfit and the look of a teacher near retirement in the prime of her authority. She speaks good English. I met her when we enrolled the kids and she introduced herself as having worked in the hospital (in the kitchen I think) since the 70s. “Seen a lot of change?”. “Yes”.

The meeting started the way meetings here generally do, in prayer. One person is asked by the chair to pray and they make it up on the spot. Quite organic and specific to the meeting. Not that I understood a word because it was in isiXhosa, as was the meeting. Thandeka did a good job of translating the bulk so I could understand and be understood.

The agenda was laid out in 5 points. They wanted to know: who I was, how the school was being run, what we were feeding the kids, if parents were paying the fees on time and how long the school would run for.

It was well chaired and allowed me to make the point that the school will run as long as we have money; everything costs money so we are trying to do things cheaply to help it last. This was me laying down a precursor for us discussing whether to give the kids lunch or not. That is a discussion for another day.

We started blithely providing lunch, but it is one of the big running costs and we are not sure that it can sustain. Is it our responsibility to provide lunch? There is a chance that we will cut the lunches at the end of this year and start next year by asking parents to send kids to school with a packed lunch. There are pros and cons to this. I like the idea of asking the parents to commit to provide lunch as a condition (this is what Mdumbi’s lot do). Ideally, though, I would like to keep the lunches and use them as a way to teach healthy eating. We hope to have a little veggie garden as well to teach kids and parents from the school and bolster the meals with greenery. There may be a middle way. All of this boils down to money and whether this can sustain after I/we leave.

Abenathi's mum got a roasting from Thandeka because her big kid had not been coming to pick up little Abenathi on time for a week. Mum said sorry and committed to doing it herself at 1pm. Bingo.

Near the end of the meeting I was asked if we would open a grade R class next year. Their kids will all be eligible for grade R next year and that means going to a local school to join a poorly stocked, over-populated class of differently aged children. I had to tell them that we couldn’t do it. Apart from the money and admin, we don’t have a volunteer to run the early childhood development project yet. Added to this, if you get into grade R you are competing with the other schools and that opens up several cans of political worms.

The parents were happy with the school and my answers and nominated a representative to come to our committee meetings. She is a very smiley woman, the mother of the equally cheerful Sibongakonke – surely the longest named child in all the Transkei.

At the end I was told that they suspected that I was touched by God. Far be it from me to argue with those who know more about these things than I do.