My Time At Fezeka High School in Capetown

By: Brook Buesking

My journey to South Africa with my fellow sojourners has given me many firsts. It has not only been my first out of country experience, but also my first time encountering a different culture, the first time I’ve lived, worked and grown with twelve other women, and the first time I’ve been able to put into practice the lessons I’ve learned everyday from the classrooms back home into the classrooms I’m entering here. Since I have been working with Fezeka High School in Gugulethu Township, I have finally felt as if my true purpose here in Capetown is being realized to its fullest.

Fezeka High School, though lacking in resources, funds, programs and even staff, is still considered to be the best school within the Township. So much so, that some kids walk for nearly an hour, rain or shine, to get to Fezeka everyday. Students sit two and three to a desk, in overcrowded classrooms with broken windows, leaking roofs, and scarce materials. Fezeka’s enrollment is at about 11,000, which is twice as much as the neighboring Camps Bay High School outside of the Township. Camps Bay is a good example of a comparable school to those in America, with enrollment at around 560 students, all having access to the typical luxuries that kids in the States have: not just the things like computer labs and libraries, but also the things one might not expect to be absent: cafeterias, water fountains and bathrooms with toilet paper and soap.

Despite this, there is one area that Fezeka is not lacking in, and that is the incredible spirit that resides there. The kids I have encountered at Fezeka are not only creative and talented, but also passionate, eager and open. To demonstrate, today I met with Ms. Alex (the Education Without Borders teacher here at Fezeka) to witness the amazing voices within her newly established poetry club. The kids spent an hour sharing their poems with us about love, loss, fathers and mothers, community, and trust and then sat with us for an amazing dialogue about the meanings of not only the poems, but also of the space in which they are now able to share these words.

Many of the kids expressed great gratitude that we were simply there in that moment, taking time to listen to their words and give them inspiration to continue writing and expressing. They explained that there is no time for them to write poetry outside of the classroom, and that beyond this, that there is often no one to listen to these words otherwise. Lwondo, a 10th grade student there that I immediately connected with upon my arrival, explained it like this:

I feel almost “jipped”, because today
I was so inspired to write these things and perform
them for you; but tomorrow, once you are gone, and
your cameras are gone, what is left to inspire me,
to motivate me, to keep it going?

I explained to Lwondo that part of my mission while I am here in South Africa is to visually capture Capetown: the people, the culture and the landscape, so that I might expose what South Africa really is to those back in America. This desire to be accurately represented and understood is a common request from the students, lecturers and activists I have met here in Capetown. I look forward to brining the voices of these students to my magazine in the fall so that they have that opportunity to express ‘what needs to get out of the chest’ (Lwondo) in a way that honors their spirit, their creativity, and their country.