Zakiyah Sayyed

Diligentia Cresco

It is the evening of May 17th and our van from the University of Zululand arrives in Durban. For the first time on this trip I am homesick, even to the point of tears. I miss the environment, the scenery, the comfortable feeling of home and of course the people: my colleagues, my family. What is most interesting about this feeling is that it is not my home in the US that I am speaking of. It is my home at the University of Zululand that I am homesick for. In the short time spent on the University of Zululand’s campus I have grown so attached to the people and the place.

Our team of seventeen members, spent our first week of our month long trip to South Africa on the University of Zululand’s Campus, located in rural Kwa-Zulu Natal. We arrived at the University of Zululand on June 9th to a slew of open arms, welcoming words and open hearts. Three special women, played an immense role in caring for us, organizing the programs’ logistics and such. They were Gugu Gule (Mama Gugu), Dr. Zethu Mkhize (Mama Zethu) and their assistant Tapiso. These women treated us as if we were their children. For me our arrival at UniZul, as is it called, was a reunion. This was my second trip to South Africa with the Pedagogy of Action program and I am filled with joy to be reunited with the family here that I made last year.

My partner Jerry and I had thirteen of the selected 110 students to teach our HIV module. The HIV module is an oral module, developed by Dr. Haniff that explains ways to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and also addresses ways to deal with the stigma surrounding HIV. This module is one that empowered us, seventeen students from the University of Michigan, to come to South Africa to continue the work done by last year’s team. This module empowers people by turning its students into teachers of this methodology. This method of HIV education is unique because it requires no pamphlets, computers, literacy skills or formal education to use. This means that people from any socio-economic, or educational back ground can use it. It was particularly developed for low-literate communities who are usually neglected by beneficiaries of privilege and education like myself, my colleagues and my affiliates at U of M. My thirteen students were peers, students of the University of Zululand. We taught the module to our new colleagues who then taught it back to us in English, developed a translation in Zulu and then taught it back to members of the University and surrounding community. Through out this process we have all discovered times of transformation for ourselves and
our students. We reflect about these discoveries in our nightly meetings with our professor. In addition to meetings we also have class with our Professor, where we discuss the theory behind our work for which we use, The Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire.

I am now in Durban reflecting about our time there at UniZul teaching and building friendships, and lie here missing them, I exchange text messages with students back in Zululand, expressing our appreciation and  love for each other. We have grown attached to our students through teaching each other about HIV/AIDS. We grew so attached that we would proudly boast to one another about any student who had particularly “shone” from one day to the next. We concluded our program at the University of Zululand with a certificate ceremony where our group of over a hundred students were awarded t-shirts and certificates. This celebration also included a performance by many members of the Pedagogy of Action team. We sang, danced, stepped and played drums, all in an effort to express our gratitude to our students for all that they had given to us. It was very well received and was reciprocated by our colleagues through the impromptu performance of dance and song. This moment intensely portrayed the exchange that both students from the University of Michigan, and students from the University of Zululand shared. My time at UniZul is one that I hold dear to my heart and although I am still in South Africa I am already eagerly anticipating my reunion with my University of Zululand family.

I will end this dispatch with the words on the University of Zululand’s crest, “Diligentia Cresco” which means by diligence we grow. I and my teammates have now taken on this motto, for it explains what we as University of Michigan students have gained from this experience.  We will continue to grow through diligence and we are grateful.

Signing off, Zakiyah Sayyed, Co-assistant/teammate of Pedagogy of Action, 2007