Wednesday, June 3rd

Today started by visiting the Zakhe Agricultural College, founded by Joseph Baynes, an old colonialist who died without and children so he left his land to the government to start teaching youth about agriculture. A high school of a couple hundred boys was paired with a technical college of sorts with a handful of college-age students acquiring the skills to manage a commercial farm. Jon Tange lectured us at length about the importance of making a PROFIT! In his mind, the government has not handed to black folks because they don't have the skills to manage it. In his mind, white folks all over are ready to sell their land, but because there has been very minimal training, there are not qualified applicants in the post-apartheid era. The claim that there was lots of arable land available, that was simply not being used, was refuted by Sizani, who pointed out that the land 97% of the time cost too much for 90% of the people to buy, and that most of the recipients left were male. Jon also expounded on the difficulty Zakhe was having with evaluating the students who had completed the program. They had no sort of test, no list of questions despite the fact that until recently they were only given theoretical knowledge of their subjects with very little hands-on experience.
The emphasis on commercialism was reinforced at the high-school level, which appeared to be a quite wealthy school for boys aiming at Universities or management positions, although some did apparently go into farming directly after matriculating, (which apparently 100% of them did). The high matriculation rate was accredited to the strict discipline at the school, which was evidenced by their impeccable sport coat-uniforms, as well as the state mandated life-skills class, a malleable philosophical class that in many cases including this one takes on a very spiritual bent.
I don't understand what's wrong with subsistence farms on a family scale augmented by another income based on other skills a person may have. Perhaps I am too biased from my personal family situation.
Anyways, after visiting a very strange museum on the founder, who incidentally invented using cattle dipping tank "The Conquerer of the Tick", we moved on to a model orphanage. SOSA, an international orphanage organization, has 8 orphanages in SA, and I'm pretty sure we got to visit the best one. After walking through an impeccably manicured promenade, we lunched lightly in a lovely gazebo overlooking the houses and buildings that compromised the grounds. This SOSA site holds 160 children between the 2 and 18 years old that have been abandoned, abused, or orphaned through some other system. It also oversees 600 children in the surrounding community. It was unfortunately through this that I learned of the dismal state of their education system in regards to special needs. If you get labeled as "special education", you are sent to a different school where perhaps you are stimulated, but it's in no way a similar experience to the rest of the children. "Further Education Training" is a sort of tech-school program for children to "add value" in the job pool, whether as a farmer such as we saw before, or as welders or mechanics or teachers. The matriculation rate here is nothing like the Zakhe, it's very difficult for the director to find placements for them, especially in the current economic situation. Consequently, discipline and a "good work-ethic" are high commodities on this campus as well. The house mothers that oversee each house really do function as mothers. They must be single, over 35 years of age, and ready to work until they die if not by contract then by implication. Some of the students asked then about male role models for the children, and while the president of the school is male, (of course), and while they are very active in a big-brother big-sister program that provides role models for many of the boys, there is no one living with them, and very few men at all in the lives of the young girls outside of the boys alongside them. It's possible to be brought to SOSA when you are two, and essentially stay at the school until you are 18, and if all of your teachers at school are female, and your house mother only takes you to the spa and the grocery store once every other month, for the president of the school to be the only adult male in their life.
The orphanage gets sponsored by the FIFA world cup, which is how they have such beautiful facilities. They also get 2.500R every time the Sharks make a goal, which granted has not been that often this year, but sometimes it is. I also get the impression that there are many other sponsors that donate to this good cause.