African Laughter - Doris May Lessing [100]
There were some formidable tomes donated by an American Foundation, so heavy you could hardly lift them, compendiums of literature, history, and so on, designed, you would think, to put people off for good. The books here that are actually read are by African writers, and a few American ones. A survey of what books the teachers read revealed that the only one who read for pleasure liked Chinua Achebe and Frederick Forsyth. The distinction between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ literature is not one that means much when it is a question of getting people to read at all. This pathetic, almost bare room, taught me that what is needed are simply written stories about different parts of the world, explaining ways of living, religions, other people’s ideas. These children (only many of them are grown up) labour through set books too difficult for them. Too difficult for most of them: there is always that rare spirit who, stuck in a village miles from anywhere, will read Tolstoy, Hardy, Steinbeck. Tolstoy, when he was running that wonderful village school of his, talked of the need for simply-told informative stories. Astonishing how often Russian experience is relevant to Africa.
Enid Blyton is liked by all the pupils.
Jack had taught the children how a library is run by means of these few books and an exercise book where borrowed books are listed: the pupils take it in turns to be librarian. The books may not be taken home. What would be the point? Homework is done here, in the school, before the walk home, which can be a long one. By the time the children get to their homes, it is dark, or soon will be. They are expected to help with the work–particularly the girls–cutting wood, fetching water, cooking. The huts are at best lit by a candle or an oil lamp but usually the whole family will sit in the hut in the light of the fire that burns in its centre. Not easy to do homework or even read a book. The adults are mostly illiterate or have done four or five years in a bush school. They passionately want their children to be educated, but do not know from their own experience how to help them.
The parents in such villages are still close to subsistence farming, and must find thirty pounds a year for a child to attend secondary school, to pay for uniforms and exercise books. If they have several children in school, the burden keeps them, often, short of food and clothing for themselves.
We ask Jack how many of these enthusiastic young people will pass their O-levels.
‘I don’t think many of this lot will pass them.’ He is embarrassed, and makes excuses for them. ‘I don’t think you understand…for instance, there was an exam paper set in Britain, one of the questions had the word “shutter”. These people don’t have shutters. One of the meanings of the word was a camera shutter. Most of them have never seen a camera, let alone used one.’
Ayrton and I are asked to address this year’s O-level class. Few visitors come to this school. Our visit is an event, and not because of the presence of this author, far from it. The star is Ayrton R. who is from the University of Zimbabwe, that abode of the fortunate. The teachers here, with their one or two O-levels each, the one teacher who has an A-level, dream of it…the further off, the more unattainable a place is, the more it seems subject, in the imagination, to fortunate chance. It is not easy to imagine oneself suddenly transported to the teachers’ training college one hundred and fifty miles away: one would need the requisite number of Certificates, but the University of Zimbabwe–who knows?–it might happen, somehow, some time, somewhere.
As for the children here, they have not yet had their results, and the University