Sheldon:

Welcome advocates to another episode of the Leading Equity Podcast, a podcast that focuses on supporting educators with the tools and resources necessary to ensure equity at their schools. I got a special guest today, Ms. Tiwana Merritt is here. Without further ado, thank you Tiwana for joining us.

Tiwana Merritt:

Thank you for having me, Sheldon.

Sheldon:

Well, the pleasure is mine. I appreciate you joining us. At 9:00, well, what is it? Now, it's like 9:35 p.m. in South Africa on a Saturday. Thank you so much for staying up late with me tonight.

Tiwana Merritt:

That's right. It's a wild Saturday night here in Johannesburg. You are disrupting my party scene here. No, there's not much going on. In self-isolation most of the time, I'm trying to be good about that. We have a curfew here, actually. I think it even just got extended on the weekends to like 10:00 or 11:00. I really could be out doing something but there's not much open and we also only just got alcohol back but I think that's only Monday to Thursday. You caught me at a good time, Sheldon. I am here-

Sheldon:

Stop acting like you don't know when the alcohol is available.

Tiwana Merritt:

I don't. I truly don't.

Sheldon:

Okay, okay. All right. Could you share a little bit about yourself and what you currently do? I think folks kind of have an idea that you're in South Africa but tell us a little bit more about yourself.

Tiwana Merritt:

I'm working at the American International School of Johannesburg as the Service Learning Coordinator. I'm also a teaching and learning coach. This year, for the first time ever, I am doing social studies with ninth graders. That's been a lot of fun. I've been here for, I think about 19 months now. I came here from another International School in Southern China and I was there for three years.

               Yeah, that is me in a nutshell. I would say I'm originally from the States. I think some people don't get that when they hear that I'm in Johannesburg but yeah, I'm from the States. My family's originally from Georgia. Then, as a kid, I moved to Alaska, hence, the lack of the Southern drawl. I've been living internationally for the last 15 years.

Sheldon:

Wow. One of these days, I'm going to get there when I want to move around internationally. Are you able... Have you learned languages? You say you were in China before?

Tiwana Merritt:

Yes, I was in China. I learned some very, very basic Mandarin and basically how to say thank you and hello in Cantonese. That was about the extent of it. It's a very... They're very hard languages to learn.

Sheldon:

Okay, I got you. All right. Now, you said that you do service learning at the current school that you're working at. If you don't mind, could you share with us a definition what is service learning?

Tiwana Merritt:

In a nutshell, service learning is community, generally speaking, a community-based program that reaches into the community and we try to address authentic and genuine needs through service partners. Part of our service learning also connects to the curriculum. You're trying to bring the real world into the classroom. That's service in a nutshell.

               What that looks like in each school in each situation is different. I work from pre-K all the way to 12th grade. Some examples just to give you a bit more information about service learning, for pre-K this year, I've worked with them in their classroom in their gardening project. They use their garden as a way of learning in different areas of their curriculum so they might use it for math, they use it for art.

               They also go out and have the responsibility of watering, weeding, planting new things. They got to design the garden. They got to tell me which plants they wanted in the garden. I had to go to the nursery and get them the things that they wanted. Then, we had a planting day where we invited the parents in and the students were able to showcase what they had been doing so far, what they learned about the different vegetables. Then, we got to work outside. It was just a really fun engaging activity. They will work in that all year.

               Then, the other key component of that is that they will have a conversation about well, what are we going to do with our produce? They decide, "Well, we think we should give it to people in our community who are in greater need than we are." They'll collect it all and then they'll maybe give it to some of the staff that are working at the school, some of our local staff. I think that's what they did last year. They'll have a day where they make some items for their parents and for the staff to come in and share with them. Service at that level is used just as an educational tool to kind of get the kids thinking outside of themselves and who in our community might we be able to help.

               Then, as I get a bit older, that theme continues but obviously, it gets a little bit more serious than we follow something that's called the five stages of service. They do an investigation. They do planning and preparation. Then, from that planning and preparation, they take action. Throughout this process, they're meant to be reflecting on how's it going, what can we do better, what needs do we need to think about or of our community partners, or it could be a project that's in the school.

               From there, at the end, they do a demonstration where they're showcasing their learning. For those little guys, it's cooking up at the end of their harvest season and showcasing that to their families or whoever else they've invited on that journey.

               Then, there's the piece where we go out into the community. Generally, in the elementary school, that's a little bit later on. One of our biggest partners for that is a place called Woodrock and it's an animal shelter. For example, our students just did a huge fundraiser a couple months ago where they we have house teams and in their house, they had to try to raise as much pet food as they can. Then, the winner gets kudos for trumping everybody else. Then, that food gets delivered out to Woodrock.

               We normally have like an annual Valentine's Day Woodrock, my boss likes to call it pet a puppy day and they come out with their puppies and students from the middle school do their big fundraiser leading up to the event and then they get to spend time with these puppies. Woodrock tries, of course, seduce you into adopting or sponsoring. That's one of our long standing partners that we had.

               This year, obviously, we can't do that. I've just made up a list of activities that they can do throughout the week in the elementary. It's like giving your puppy extra love, writing letters to our friends that Woodrock and telling them how special they are, asking your parents to maybe sponsor one of the animals there. That's kind of what service looks like in the elementary now.

               In the high school, we do tutoring with other local schools. We work with other NGOs who are working in those communities and where the equity piece comes in, is thinking about the dynamics between us and then my school is a pretty wealthy well-off school. Our kids have a lot of resources. Our families have a lot of resources, and we are generally trying to work with people who don't have access to those types of things.

Sheldon:

Okay, here's my question, I've seen situations in which the wealthier, more privileged schools, they reach out to help the less fortunate, if you will, schools, how do we keep or how do you teach your students not to feel sorry and develop this saviorism complex, this sympathetic type of mindset? How do you help them understand that because maybe you have this level of privilege, it doesn't mean that we look down on other communities that we're working with?

Tiwana Merritt:

Well, that's where the social justice piece comes in. I feel like our school is just entering into that phase. We got some pretty, I'm going to call it shocking feedback from our alumni students, who did feel there were, I shouldn't put everybody in a bucket but when you see even one or two comments of alumni students talking about how, you think that you're doing the work but really, are you just going into these communities and getting your picture with a little black baby and calling [inaudible 00:09:15] and saying that you've done service or you spent an hour there doing something and now you're patting yourself on the back."

               Those messages came through loud and clear. A lot of that was, I think, facilitated by the uprisings that happened this summer with Black Lives Matter. I thought it was great because it was a good opportunity for us as a school community to hear that and hear those voices. I think the school is paying attention and they listened to those students and I was listening to those students.

               For me it was a real big wake-up call and no way did I really take that personally because I've only just arrived but I was like, "Ah, this gives me a mission. This gives me purpose here." It really drives home a lot of the things that I was already feeling about my initial introduction to this work and being here and the special circumstances and dynamics that you see in South Africa. They could be pretty overwhelming. I feel like I have so much to learn about those dynamics and how does power and privilege play a role in that, and equity is a huge thing here.

               This country has, I think, one of the highest in the world wealth disparities. You see it daily here. With the post-apartheid, I guess, policies and socioeconomics and politics and all of that you see it here and you don't even have to be here for very long to see that. For me, it's been really educational and really transformative to see so much of a gap between people who have a lot and people who have very little and the resilience that's there and for those people to keep going and keep smiling.

               Then, in addition to that, which is a whole another, probably segment, is just about the aid organizations and what kind of impact they have had on this continent and how that really plays a role in service. As soon as people hear the word, American, what that does and I don't know that our community always understands that.

               When I'm engaging with partners, I'll give you a little story, right when this lockdown happened, way back in, what was it last March? I think this was about March when I had this. There's a school that we've been partnering with in trying to develop this partnership with them. They were they weren't in school. The local schools have been impacted heavily by this whole thing, whereas our school, we still have resources to keep going. Our kids can jump online. We can still participate and engage in learning. That's not the case for a lot of the people here.

               We wanted to help and we wanted to support and this is where I think the lack of understanding of community dynamics and you need to definitely understand power and privilege and you need to understand all the complex layers that go into communities, which, again, I'm still learning those things. It's been interesting to mess up sometimes and to learn and grow from that but I entered this community thinking I'm going to go there and we're going to just support our 25 learners that we knew were from the school that we've been supporting.

               We get to this community, and they're like, "Well, thank you so much for coming." We've got these little food vouchers that our PA had graciously helped us with because a lot of these places are informal settlements, which means they're basically shanty shack towns. They don't have water. They don't have electricity.

               Also, a lot of these people are migrants from other African countries. When this all happened, they don't have access to the food parcels that are getting handed out and they don't have access to any of the, there's a relief fund of 350 rands, which is about maybe $18 or less. Yeah, so it's not a whole lot of money but they don't have access to even that.

               We were thinking, "Oh, well, there's a lot of kids at this particular school that we've been trying to build this relationship with that are going to be struggling right now." We reached out to the principal and asked them what can we do right now to support and he said, "Quite frankly, our kids are starving. People are hungry. Their parents don't have work. They're not getting an income. They have no place to get food from. They're essentially just stranded here." We're like, "Okay, well, how many learners are in this particular community," because they're in several different communities.

               We get to this community and these people were really lovely, but they were like, "You bought 25 vouchers. We have 500 families here or 500 people, sorry, 500 people, and a lot of them have found out that you're bringing these 25 vouchers. How do you think the rest of the community is feeling?" We were like, "Whoa." It ended up being a really sticky situation where I had to call the police.

Sheldon:

I mean, tell me, I don't know how much you can share but what does sticky situation mean?

Tiwana Merritt:

Well, I mean, I also haven't shared this widely because my school is not really aware that this happened to me, but I was like, "Man, this is a good thing learning curve." I went out there with a local teacher, who was a teacher at that school, which was a good move but unfortunately, one woman was causing a bit of chaos because she was upset that we weren't just giving her the vouchers for her to distribute because she was self-appointing herself as the leader of this community. She didn't speak English, which is another barrier.

               Most people in South Africa speak relatively good English, but there are people who don't, right? There was a communication barrier between her and I and she was trying to speak up and the others are trying to calm her down and trying to tell me what she was saying but she caused a lot of havoc that day. She went back to the little community because I met them away from the community. She went back to the community, stirred some things up and there were these three women who were not South African. There's a bit of xenophobia that happens here. I don't know if you're familiar with that.

Sheldon:

Tell us more.

Tiwana Merritt:

These women were from Zimbabwe and they'd gone into the shop to spend their voucher to get their food and they come out and they're all talking and all agitated. This woman, the woman who was self-appointed, had already run us off. We gave the vouchers and we were like, "We got to get out of here," but then we thought we better go back. There was one learner whose family didn't get the voucher. We want to make sure that they got the voucher.

               We went back to them. We just wanted to check on everyone. We went back. The woman who was causing all the trouble had left and these three women came out of the store all agitated. I said, "What's going on? What are they talking about?" I'm asking the local teacher to translate and try to figure out what was going on and these women turned to me and they said, "Oh, that woman, that big woman. She's going to beat us when we get back to the village." I'm like, "What?" I said, "Hop in my car. I'll take you guys. I'll drive you to your place and I'll drop you off there. She's not going to mess with you."

               Anyway, by the time we got there, this woman had stirred up the whole community. There is a mob of people running after my car and the teacher's car behind me. I said, "They better get out of the way because I'm not stopping." I drove through, but the teacher she stopped and she thought she could reason with them and all this other stuff but I'm like calling her. By the time I finally got onto her, I was like, "Are you okay?" She's like, "No, I'm not okay. They're in my car." They were like throwing stones at her car. She left them in the car because she thought she could calm them down.

               Their comments to her, which really struck me was because there was another staff member with me, my white staff member and they said, "Tell those Americans to come back here and give us vouchers and to give us money. Make those Americans come back." They have this impression that we just had a wealth of money and vouchers to give them that we're withholding.

               It was an interesting situation. I really learned a lot from that situation. Yeah, I ended up having to call the police to come and get the teacher out and get her to safety. We had a good laugh about it at the end but we've talked about, "Okay, from now on, this is how we're going to proceed when we're working with them."

               I ended up giving them more aid because I recognized, yeah, you do need more than 25 vouchers. The story went on to be that they finally got some leaders in that community but then it got even more complex, because in the end, which I didn't realize until after I had given out, we got 184 more parcels of food for them months later through an aid organization because I just felt like I wanted to support them somehow.

               Out of that 184 parcels, they all went to only South Africans who were already receiving parcels from the government when they could get them because there's a whole lot of corruption here. There's issues around the parcel handouts. I went out to do the handouts personally with, this time I had police there. Then, they had organized volunteers. It was all very orderly. I thought it was really strange because the big, self-appointed woman, she was on her best behavior. I thought, "This is strange. Everybody's being so well behaved."

               Then, at the end, there was these people on the fringes and I withheld a few parcels to see what would happen. I withheld some things. I said, "Who are those people up there? Can we get them something?" "Oh, they're not South Africans." I'm like, "What?" The penny did not drop until I had left that maybe this is why they were so well behaved because they were all South Africans. When I went with the 25 vouchers, it was just these 25 students who might not necessarily be South African.

               I had words with the woman who organized it and I just said, "Why was everybody South African?" She said, "All those others," she said, "There's just too many of them. It was getting too hard to keep track of them and count them in. We just left them out." I was like, "What?" I said, "But a hungry person is a hungry person, right?" I mean, granted, they only gave the parcels to everybody who did not have permanent jobs.

               That was nice but it just goes to show you like how important it is to have clear communication to understand all the facts, to understand the workings of those communities because my suggestion to her, I said, "I don't know if I can support you, again, unless you decide to put some people on your council who are not South African and that way, you will have a number of who is in your community and who actually is in need because everybody's hungry right now. Everybody deserves equal opportunity to try to get some support and some food."

               I didn't feel completely good about that act, which I thought was an act of kindness. In that first instance, sometimes you're doing a lot more harm than good. I realized that very first time, I did a lot more harm than I probably did good. I did good for those 25 families, but I might have stirred up a whole lot of stuff in that community that I wasn't prepared for and for people to be getting threatened. I don't know what took place after I left.

Sheldon:

Well, I mean, that to me sounds, first of all, you said it was an interesting experience. It sounds like a traumatic experience. I think, me personally, if I'm coming from the States, I'm coming from a different environment and so I don't know the way of the land and I'm an outsider, I don't even know the language and I'm trying to support a community, because I have the resources available to help support a community but then you don't necessarily have, maybe you're not privy to all the intricacies within that community...

Tiwana Merritt:

Exactly.

Sheldon:

... you're thinking 25 vouchers should be good enough and then you realize, "Oh, shoot, I need way more than 25 vouchers." Here we are. What have you learned from that experience because I hope that that doesn't make you want to not ever support other communities?

Tiwana Merritt:

No, I've been, I mean...

Sheldon:

[crosstalk 00:22:18].

Tiwana Merritt:

... it's a part my role to support. I'm always... I learned from that that I definitely need to make sure I have all the facts and all the information. I had been communicating indirectly with that community through one of my coworkers, which I mean, it was a great learning experience for her.

               Yeah, there were so many bits of learning that I took from that. It was like the principal was supposed to show up and he didn't show up because he had an emergency meeting. It's like that should have tipped me off in the first place to not move forward with it. Then, meeting with their community leaders and sitting down, but it gets really tricky because again, you come in there with your privilege lens, you come in there with your Western lens, and all the things that go along with that and being able to ask the right questions and also being a woman. That's another aspect of this whole thing that I haven't even touched on and being a black woman.

               In my role, I am the coordinator for my program but if I bring one of my white colleagues with me, the conversation always naturally defers to them instead of me. They have to constantly keep looking at me and trying to direct the conversation back at me. I've noticed that a bit and it just shows you how entrenched for me like colonialism is here. That happens a lot, not just in my service role but just in general when I'm out with friends or doing stuff. I hadn't even noticed it at first. I didn't even notice it.

               I feel like there's so much I'm learning here. Every day, I'm learning something new and I still work with communities. I still enjoy. I mean, since doing that, I've done other food distributions within communities and it's super rewarding. It's heartbreaking. It's rewarding. It's overwhelming. There's just a whole bag of feelings that go with it. You just need to know the different pieces of the puzzle before you jump in.

Sheldon:

Bottom line, you need to know the different puzzles of the pieces for you come in and I think and I love that you said that. I've never been to Africa, anywhere in Africa. I know that there's history with South Africa, especially with apartheid. It sounds like you are learning as you go what post-apartheid looks like because when I think of Africa, I think of black people there.

               It's just, like you said, how colonialism has impacted that area and what that looks like to where you bring your colleagues, your white colleagues with you and people automatically assume that they're the ones in charge. Okay, how difficult is that for you as an administrator to be able to navigate as a black woman? I mean, you've given me some examples, I know there's got to be more there.

Tiwana Merritt:

I mean, on one hand, for me, because I am a person of color, I think that if it's not in a role of trying to assert any sort of authority or anything, you're just having a conversation or being there with them, I think I get a very warm reception from everybody. I think the whole colonialist piece, because black people do it to you and white people do it to you, which is the crazy part to me but at the same time, I also get a warm reception particularly from black people.

               They're just like, even today, they're like... A guy, I met a guy. We have a lot of parking attendants here, I'm going to call them. They help you bring your car out and put your car in the car park. It's another job that's been created here. You generally give them a little tip for helping you out.

               I started engaging in a conversation with a guy today who is coming to help me back out. I didn't have any change. I was like, "But I got these fresh figs that I just bought. Have you ever had a fig before?" He's like, "No, I've never had a fig." I said, "Try it." We started talking. He said, "Can I ask you a question?" This happens to me, "Can ask you a question? Where's your accent from? Your English doesn't sound... Are you American?" Then inevitably, they say, "Can you take me back to America next time you go?" I said, "I'm not going back there. It's probably not that much better for you there." They're like, "Oh."

               I mean, it leads to a lot of interesting conversations and a lot of a lot of interesting dialogue. It is so, for me, refreshing to be here in some ways because I've grown up most of my life in predominantly white spaces. In a way, this is like... I remember the first time I came to Africa. This is my second time coming here. I came and I got off the plane and I was trying to find the bus. I was going to Botswana. I met a guy in the airport who was like an airport attendant. I'm like, "I'm trying to figure out where..." He's like, "Sister, is this your first time in Africa?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Welcome home," and he just opened up his arms and gave me the biggest hug.

               I mean, there's that kind of reception. On the one hand, I feel this is the first time I fit in and a long time without being stared at or asked a ton of questions about my existence. In China, it was like, I got stared at a lot. Pictures taken of me, with me, recorded without my permission, all sorts of stuff. I travel a lot. I travel around to a lot of countries and I'm the only one who looks like me. I'm used to that. Being here, it's like finally, I can just blend in until I open my mouth. I didn't probably answer your question, Sheldon but-

Sheldon:

No, that was good. That's good. It reminds me, when I first started teaching, I shared the story before but I moved to the Virgin Islands. I blended in just like you did until I started talking and then folks were like, "Whoa, you Yankee." I had to try to, "Well, actually I'm from Texas. I'm not really Yankee." I try to give the whole explanation but they didn't care. They knew that I wasn't from there. I've learned a lot of lessons just from my first, just starting as a teacher from spending those years in the Virgin Islands.

Tiwana Merritt:

Where were you? Because that was actually my first experience of what I just told you too, of going back to a place where I thought, "Yes, I'm going back to my roots. I'm going to be around black people. This is going to be amazing. I'm going to connect to all these people." Then, I got there and they were like, "You're from the mainland?"

Sheldon:

Yup. Yeah, yeah.

Tiwana Merritt:

You know they do that whole sucking their teeth at you?

Sheldon:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tiwana Merritt:

[crosstalk 00:29:30].

Sheldon:

Yeah. Okay, you've been there. Okay. Yeah. St. Croix is where I was.

Tiwana Merritt:

Oh really? I was in St. Thomas but I wasn't [crosstalk 00:29:36].

Sheldon:

St. Thomas.

Tiwana Merritt:

This is before the [inaudible 00:29:39] the teaching years.

Sheldon:

I learned about the sucking the teeth. I learned about, there's some great people. I'm not bashing St. Croix, by the way. I loved it out there but I just learned a lot about the culture. That has been very helpful with understanding what cultural responsiveness means.

               I initially came over there thinking, I'm bringing my Yankeeness or stateside stuff. I realized, "No, man. You're a visitor. You cannot come in thinking that you know everything about a community and you really don't know anything." Being a history teacher, I was fortunate enough to be able to teach Virgin Island history...

Tiwana Merritt:

Oh wow.

Sheldon:

... which taught me a lot. It taught me a lot about the history of, I mean, again, colonialism and what that looks like, and slavery and all of that stuff that I wouldn't have, I probably wouldn't have gotten that information had I not had the experience of being able to teach the history. I'm surprised they allowed someone like me to teach Virgin Island history. I stayed, studied up. I was always trying to be at least two, three chapters ahead but it was fun. I definitely, like I enjoyed that. That was an experience that I had that I'll never forget.

Tiwana Merritt:

I would say, I guess the word when you were saying that what it makes me think of is it's humbling, right?

Sheldon:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Tiwana Merritt:

It humbles you. I feel that. Yeah, I had a lot of strong emotions about being here but that's definitely one of them. It's very humbling to be in someone else's space and to see things play out and to figure out how to navigate that. You say in the comments about teaching, they're like having this year in social studies, for me has been really rewarding and been a space where I can bring the social justice lens in and where I can talk about equity, and I can ask questions of my students to get them thinking about things.

               I constantly try to, I realized a lot too, that I center my Americanisms, my American heritage, my American lens, my American upbringing. I'm constantly aware of that now, more this year than last year. I try, even with the Black History Month, I'm like, "Well, who are people in our black history? What about the continent of Africa?" We had MLK Day a couple weeks ago. I had my MLK background on and I mentioned it in class, and we have a class discussion board, which is on a Padlet.

               I got them to, well, who are... Because our kids are pretty international, I haven't told you that part. As a school, we're probably representing around 80 different nationalities, if not a few more. My students are from all over the globe. I asked them to write in there who are some change makers, who are some freedom fighters, who are some people of note in your country that we could learn about or write about.

               I had them all listed them all down. I wrote them, okay. Then they all listed. I'm constantly trying to find just those little ways and those little avenues to bring that piece into the classroom. It's not just focusing on the American perspective.

Sheldon:

Is there a Mandela day?

Tiwana Merritt:

Yes, there is.

Sheldon:

Tell us a little... Tell me about that.

Tiwana Merritt:

I can't tell you much about it. I've only been here for one of them and unfortunately, it was during COVID because it was in June or July. We were in lockdown. I didn't get to experience that but I have got... They also have Heritage Day. We have, I think it's, is it Human Rights Day may be coming up that we celebrate? They have Freedom Day. They have a few days in here that are pretty nice and we celebrate them as a school. I really enjoyed that.

               Last year, I think, Heritage Day happened, I want to say in like September, and I was still fairly new and we had these performers come to our school and oh my gosh, I don't know if you've heard like an African performance before but amazing. We celebrated it. Our school celebrates International Day. Yeah, we've gotten to do a few little things but COVID has really put a stop to all of those fun times. I haven't got the fully engaged in a Mandela Day but there's definitely a Mandela day here.

Sheldon:

That's what's up. I assumed there would be but yeah, I didn't know so I just assumed.

Tiwana Merritt:

Hey, Sheldon, even Mandela is another divisive topic here, which I thought he was a hero to everybody but, he's not actually. There's several South Africans who've started to engage in a conversation with me or with a group of us and I keep saying, "Hey, I want to talk about that more. I'd like to explore that more." That was a piece that I didn't anticipate.

Sheldon:

Within the black community?

Tiwana Merritt:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Sheldon:

There's pushback?

Tiwana Merritt:

Yes.

Sheldon:

Okay. What did you... I'm curious, what did you learn?

Tiwana Merritt:

Well, I've only learned that some people see him as not having been hard enough. He was like, "Oh, let's bring peace to everybody." They felt like he conceded on a lot of things that they didn't feel that he should have. Like I said, I haven't gotten to engage in a lot of conversation but I did meet one of the freedom fighters who was a part of his group, an older man named Linda and I've been wanting to reconnect with him again.

               He runs a community center for kids and for the elderly. I got to go to his community and meet him and we handed them some food parcels. That's how I connected with him but again, it all happened during COVID. I haven't been able to go back and connect with him again. He's an older man, but he talked about how, at first, he wanted blood. He did not want to make peace with the colonizers. I mean, there's a whole group of people who just want them to leave, this kind of thing.

               There's some extreme thoughts here. He was like, "I wanted them gone." He said, "It wasn't until I sat down with Mandela and he really calmed me down and told me we have to make peace and we have to live together." He finally saw that, "Yes, you're right." He talked about like, I don't know, who they are but they tried to take him out.

               They bombed his house, which impacted the surrounding houses. Then, of course, he felt guilty and awful about that. He'd gotten tipped off that they were going to do this so he made sure he wasn't at home but a few other... He lives in a township called Alex. I don't know if you've heard of Alex, but it's a pretty famous one here.

               Alex and Soweto are two really large townships here, where black people were moved and it's where they got displaced to. It's very similar to our reservations at home. They got put there until this is where you're going to live and these are the parameters and boundaries in which you must adhere to. During apartheid, those communities were quite large. They've since spilled over into other communities because they got too big. Again, that's a whole another story but yeah.

               In Alex, Mr. Linda, he has dedicated himself to service and to serving his community. He was just phenomenal. He'd met Clinton. He had pictures of Clinton there. He met all sorts of noteworthy people who've come to Alex from other countries and other parts of Africa and just engaged with him. He was pretty amazing and just pretty power... It was like this powerful being in his presence. I'd love to connect with him more but yeah, we've been trying to self-isolate a lot here in South Africa because of the numbers going up and not having the capacity or the resources to deal with COVID on the level that maybe someplace like the US can.

Sheldon:

Tiwana-

Tiwana Merritt:

I didn't talk to you about service.

Sheldon:

We talked about service learning, but I appreciate having you on the show. I definitely consider you as a voice in leading equity. Before we even started recording, I said, I don't have any questions. We're just don't talk and I like to see where conversations go.

               I might have initially an idea as far as where this is going to go but then it just, it takes a natural and organic conversation. I have learned so much. Believe this or not, I'm excited. One of these days, I'm going to make it to Johannesburg.

Tiwana Merritt:

[crosstalk 00:39:15].

Sheldon:

Like you said, "Welcome home." I want to get one of them when I show up. I do plan to go to Africa one day. I'll take my kids and everything. That should be fun but I definitely consider you as providing a voice in equity. What is one final word of advice that you could share with our listeners?

Tiwana Merritt:

I would say, well, I'm assuming everybody's in the realm of education and I feel like they're already doing this work but from a service learning standpoint, get out in the community and serve and I feel like that's the best way right now to promote social justice, to promote equity, to promote community and just that sense of belonging to a place because we're all put here to serve, I feel.

               I would say that would be my one word of advice is just to look beyond self and get out and serve and you learn and grow in so many ways. That's why we do that work with our students is because we're hoping that we're producing young people with the attributes that we want all humans to have, right? Kindness, compassion, giving love, all of those things. That would be my advice.

Sheldon:

All right. Well, if we have some folks that want to connect with you, what's the best way to reach out online?

Tiwana Merritt:

I would say my email address, which is my first name. I'm old school, by the way, Sheldon, so do not laugh when I give you this email address. My first name-

Sheldon:

Okay, is this aol.com?

Tiwana Merritt:

Oh, close. T-I-W-A-N-A M like mary @hotmail.com.

Sheldon:

Hotmail.

Tiwana Merritt:

Hotmail, I've had it since 1997. People always know how to find me or my Facebook page, Tiwana Merritt or my Instagram page. They both have my first and last name. I'm not clever, creative. I like people to be able to find me. That's how you can find me.

Sheldon:

All right. Well, hopefully some folks will reach out. If they have some further questions about regarding service learning, they can reach out to you for that. Tiwana, it's definitely been a pleasure. Thank you for your time.

Tiwana Merritt:

Thank you, Sheldon. Nice to meet you.

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