I have now completed my first week in Junior High School. My upcoming weekends will be busy doing homework. I need to catch up and it will take multiple weekends to do this. But I am determined to return to a normal routine. I know that September will end quickly, and then it will be October. And then the November and December holiday months will quickly follow.
My friends are happy that I am now back in school and hanging out with them again. We are a tight group who have experienced incredible, and sometimes scary, adventures together. I knew they missed me, and I missed them. I felt normal again.
Starting my first week was interesting. On my first day I received my class schedule and which rooms to go to. I quickly discovered that me and my friends were in different classes throughout the day. We were not all together like in previous years. Changing rooms for my various classes was new to me, but I learned that this is the way school will be from the seventh grade onward.
In between classes we had hall monitors to make sure that everyone was doing what they were supposed to be doing and to help us get to where we were supposed to be going. In other words, to make sure that there were no sudden challenges between students which was not common during this time in the sixties. If there was going to be a fight, there were processes for that to occur that each student respected. It was known as a “call out.”
I learned that one of our hall monitors was a true African. Yes, she was from Africa. When we met her, she told us that her roots were in the Zulu Nation. She fascinated me and my friends with her stories growing up in Africa when she was around our age. She told us that she spoke Zulu and Swahili, and if we were interested, she could teach us a variety of words that we could greet her with. We encouraged her to do so. We were excited to learn her language.
So, for the first couple of months of school we would look for her when we were changing classes so we could learn these Zulu Nation words and then to say them to others to surprise them. And as the school year progressed, we began to greet her as she had taught us. Plus, my friends and I would also greet each other using this fascinating language. It became embedded into us. It also became our secrete communication code.
So, here are four words we learned from her. We would greet her with “Sawubona” when we wished to say “hello”. We would then ask her how she was by saying “Unjani”. When we wanted to say thank you, we said “Ngiyabonga”. This word was ridiculously hard to pronounce. And if we were responding with a yes, we simply said “Yebo.”
I used my Zulu words at home when my friends came over to play or to study, befuddling my mom and dad with what I was saying. It was like we had a special code to communicate by. It was fun because we knew what we were saying, and they did not. Eventually I shared what I had learned with my parents. My mom was unsure of the things we were learning from our hall monitor. Her Western North Carolina upbringing was still lurking inside her.
She also helped us learn more about the history and culture of the Zulu Nation and Africa. Our encounters with her between classes became an extra non-credit learning environment that on occasion made us late to our next class. How she explained the details in her stories painted for us an incredible picture of what life must be like in Africa where she came from. And what we were learning I am sure we would not be learning in class.
Most importantly, she helped our group interact with other boys in our school who were from African ancestry. Her stories and their stories joined together enriched our understanding more about world cultures and heritage. This learning would prove to be important later in the spring when our two ethnic worlds would collide and dramatically shaken. And they knew our friend group would be there for them.
Also, the timing of her being at our school was perfect. The movie “Born Free” had come out the year before. I remember going to the theater to see the movie and how impactful it was to me. The story of the little lions was so beautiful. And she was able to add to that story with her stories. I felt lucky to have met her and to learn from her. She was special to me.
My description of our special hall monitor from Africa was that she possessed this bubbling and spiritual essence that immediately captured me and my friend’s attention and respect. Her skin was a beautiful deep expresso color and had this shimmering glow that always radiated in her face which added to her allure.
When she left our school to go back home to Africa, we were all incredibly sad. She made our daytime routine of traversing the school halls a special time. To this day I am happy that she is a part of my teenage memories.
As the school year continued, I could feel that there were changes happening. Not just to me, but to the school atmosphere. It might have been my mind misreading what I was feeling. I felt tired all the time. And I was finding my classes to be extremely boring.
There were days when I would fall asleep during class, especially in English class. To my surprise I would wake up with my book and desk wet with drool. I felt bad when this happened. Especially when my classmates would laugh at me when this occurred. It was very embarrassing.
Something was brewing and I could not clearly describe it. I just felt it. My ability to focus was waning. I used to love school, but now it was becoming a challenge. So many classes and so many books. And the visits to my locker in between classes was chaotic on days when I was in a rush.
Also new to me was physical education where all the boys changed into shorts and t-shirts in the locker room. And we had to wear jockstraps. I was one oof the boys who tried hiding my body with a towel, but that did not work in the shower.
The December holidays were now here and for an unknown reason I did not feel happy. Something was making me anxious and uncomfortable. Even my friends were feeling it. It was like we were changing quickly. I felt like I was starting to get a little taller. There was more space between the bottom of my pant legs to the top of my shoes.
Was my puberty increasing in intensity?
Early April became a tension filled time in Las Vegas and at school. Martin Luther King was assassinated April 4th of this year and there was a sudden unrest with verbal attacks from the boys and girls of African ancestry in the hallways of my school. My friends and I were becoming really scared of being targets by roaming groups of angry boys in the halls because our ethnicity differences.
Even though we did not do anything wrong, we felt like we were now targets. But the friendships we developed with the boys of African ancestry who shared their stories with us made sure we insulated from the other groups. They were leaders and were listened too. We had coverage.
Our African hall monitor brought us together through our sharing of stories, and that proved to be especially important for all of us as our school years progressed, especially in sports. But for now, we had to learn about understanding and respect in these challenging times.
During this period of tension, I convinced my mom to let me stay home for a couple of days at the beginning of the school week. My friends did the same. A sizable portion of the student body at my school also stayed home. This was a tough time. From what we saw in the news coverage, the whole country was experiencing unrest including violence.
I will say that this experience helped me see the world from a distinct perspective. I am not sure how my mom viewed it. Her Western North Carolina roots were still with her. But I do believe that this is around the time she began to soften her ethnic views of people. And this was a good thing.
Slowly the tensions at school disappeared and mutual respect returned to our daily routine. I did not know that my experience with diversity would come back to bring a form of support to me in my later teen years. But I do know that at this time in my life I began to see people equally.
As the school year advanced towards the summer, I hoped for a good summer. And this is the summer I turn thirteen. Plus, I get to see my friend from Phoenix. He was turning thirteen too. And he was going to have a big celebration.
I cannot wait…
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