dealing with disappointment…

I can get very disappointed with myself – happens on a very regular basis actually, and at the moment I am deeply upset with myself for not having focused enough on getting that lawyer that I really need for setting up my business here…!

Often I also find certain situations disappointing – and there are many to choose from here in Africa to be fair. The most recent one is the disappointing fact that some of my female students will not actually get a job after finishing their course, even if they are brilliant, because their fathers or husbands will not allow them to work.

But the disappointment I find the hardest to deal with, is when someone breaks my trust or is dishonest with me. And last week Friday was one of those days…

My students had exam. The classroom is small, so they sit close. I always ask them to not cheat, not look at each other’s answers because they and I learn nothing from that. But they did not listen… I caught so many of them cheating – they didn’t know I saw them, but I saw them. And when confronting them with it, they lied to me – they did not admit their mistake.

Cue a loooooong speech from me about building and breaking trust. About how honesty is the foundation of a good life and a good career and by cheating they are only cheating themselves. The sentence that stirred them the most was probably “I don’t give a shit if you know what a champagne flute is, but I do give a shit if you lie to me!” That was the first time I swore in class… (Yes, really!). I gave them all the rest of the day to come to me to apologise if they cheated of if they helped someone cheat. Needless to say, not everybody owned up, but some did… (good for them!)

So the whole weekend I stewed over this… I was contemplating what to do. Punishment? Consequence? Ignorance? What would be the right action?

The fact of the matter is that the African culture is full of dishonest moments that the locals do not see as dishonest in the same way as we do in Europe. They don’t understand that being late for an appointment is breaking someone’s trust. It is common to ‘borrow’ money from each other (especially if borrowing from someone who has more than you) with no intention to ever pay it back. The culture here is ‘live day to day’, ‘survival of the fittest’ and it will take more than a speech from me to change this behaviour in my students.

In the end I decided to sort of ignore the whole thing and just decided that they will have no more written exams (even if it’s against the rules) – I’m here to make them ready for work, not for school and nobody is going to ask them to do an exam… Right thing to do? Maybe! Did they learn something from it? I hope so! And if they did, that is a more important learning moment than anything that was in that bloody exam. And of course I have forgiven and forgotten and we are learning together as usual. I’m back to being proud of them and being their cheerleader – I’m here to make successes of them after all.

The reality of life in Africa is, however, that I will get disappointed again and again… after a while I’m sure it will no longer surprise me, but I don’t want to lose the disappointment altogether, because that would mean that I don’t care any more…