By JESSE SCACCIA
My boss came into work on Tuesday and asked if I could drive to the hospital that night.
“Why?” I asked.
“Thando was stabbed and shot,” she said, talking about one of the young men who had recently moved out of the home where I work in Cape Town, South Africa. “I need someone to take his brothers to visit him.”
At first I was outraged– who would shoot, skinny, self-effacing, light-hearted Thando? But as my boss told the story my outrage melted, leaving me simply feeling grateful.
Thando had been saving money to start his own fruit and vegetable stand. As of this weekend he had about 600 Rand, which is about $60, and just about enough start-up money to get going. A few guys from his township heard about this and knocked on his door late Saturday night. When Thando answered they kicked it in and proceeded to beat and stab him. They ransacked Thando’s shack (the homes are shacks here) until they found the money. Then they broke the light, shot Thando, and left him for dead.
“They told everyone in the neighborhood that he was dead,” Thando’s younger brother explained.
Luckily they missed Thando’s head and only got his finger. And who said God forgot about Africa? Anyway, the task fell on me to drive two of my students to the hospital to see their brother before he went into surgery.
Now, I’m not a trained social worker or a counselor. My educational psychology classes in ed school didn’t cover anything like this: What do you say to your students as they lean against the car window and pray their brother makes it through this surgery, and then the next few weeks when he’ll be a marked man in the townships?
I have to be honest. I didn’t know what to say. I tried to joke with them about nothing, this and that. I gave them opportunities to express their feelings. I tried not to say anything stupid.
When we got to the hospital we were directed to the burn unit.
The first thing we saw was a man, arms and face wrapped completely in gauze, looking like a mummy in a backless hospital gown, wandering the halls. When he turned around we saw his bare ass, which at least gave us an opportunity to smile. We found Thando (eventually) two floors up. He had gotten even more lucky than we knew. He had been stabbed in the butt, and the swelling from the beating was almost gone. To my releif, he looked like Thando.
As a teacher, you’re never just a master of your subject. You are what your students need you to be at that moment, even if you have no idea how to be that thing.
As teachers, sometimes the best you can do is try not to screw up, and that’s okay, because you’re still a good, stable adult standing in front of that young person, not going anywhere, in their time of need. I have to believe that’s enough sometimes.
