Final Dispatch by Dr. Haniff

Today I leave South Africa after having completed the Pedagogy of Action 2006. It seems that when I hugged each student as they left that it was a small anticlimactic act, a kind of silence – one could not speak one could only know what we shared. It was an intense four weeks with 10 remarkable young men and women. I have many things I can criticize about this year’s project but they are all small criticisms, I always want my students to be more. They were examples of what one would like a truly educated person to be. They were respectful, professional, generous and loving of all the people -the children the rural people, their colleagues at the University of Zululand and Witwatersrand, the bus drivers, the cleaners, and everyone that they met. I could never find a moment when they were not honorable people. I write the final dispatch this week. Apart from their work in the various communities, the students are required to write two five page papers while they are in South Africa. The first paper was on social capital and the second paper was on their using the readings from Freire in Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Desmond Tutu’s writings on Ubuntu as a frame for examining their role as intellectuals in the community. The papers were all very good but I use an excerpt from Sarah Ingersoll’s piece since it is in some ways a kind of summary of their time here.

Freire when discussing the role of the intellectual in the community says “those who authentically commit themselves to the people must re-examine themselves constantly” (p.62). As I reflect back upon my experience facilitating the Haniff HIV/AIDS module, I can see that this journey has been a life changing experience for me as an intellect going into the community. I show up holding a certain amount of knowledge and power. But there were moments in this journey when I have simple felt powerless. When a woman looks me straight in the eye and says there is no way to force my husband to wear a condom, when I hear the growing number of individuals infected and affected by HIV, when I see my fellow peers cry for the loss of a father to HIV, it is then I feel my power is silenced.

However, it is in the shining moments when a 7th grade  student that I had a hand in influencing teaches back the module in Zulu to an entire school, when a woman stands up to announce that she will go home to show love to her HIV positive family, or when I feel tears run down  my face while reading a letter how I “cera” have impacted their life  that I begin to grasp why my work is in fact so powerful!

Looking back when I first started teaching this module, I was nervous and would repeat back exactly the way I had been taught. Now I understand what it means to own the information that I teach. I can look beyond words spoken and envision the ways I am helping to develop a community to feel empowered, touched and to hold the skills to change the world around them.

As I picture our first day in South Africa when Ayana presented Professor Gumbi with the beautiful hand crafted quilt, I reflect upon her granny’s knowledge, talent and generosity to produce and share her work. I would not be here doing such meaningful work if professor Haniff, had not given me this chance, if my parents hadn’t encouraged me to see the world, or if this group hadn’t so openly accepted me regardless of my skin color. I am able to do this only because of the others who have given me so much.

Ubuntu: I am because you are.

Nesha Haniff