"The Dainties that are bred in a Book"

“The Dainties that are bred in a Book”

Caro looked at her watch, she had twenty minutes to get to her meeting in town and would have to hurry. She had a reputation for being on time. Her crisp white blouse and figure hugging trousers added to her air of efficiency. She was proud of the way she had climbed to the top in the engineering firm where she had worked since graduating. Her shoulder length hair and fine features, added to her image that she strived for, one of achievement and beauty.

Caro expected the same kind of dedication to work from her colleagues as she herself was prepared to give.

It was getting near to tea time and the tea lady would be bringing the usual mug of tea to her desk in less than an hour. She wrote on a scrap of paper, ‘  Good Morning Anna , please do not bring me any tea this morning.  I will be out of the office until one o’clock’.

 Coming back to her office,  exhausted from the lengthy meeting in the hot summer weather, Caro was astonished to see  that Anna had brought her a mug of tea after all, in spite of her note. She gulped the cold tea down, in gratitude for Anna’s  oversight. During the afternoon Caro met Anna in the passage, on her way to the copy machine.

“ Anna did you not see the note I left for you on my desk, to say that I did not need tea this morning?”

“ Yes, I did see the note , I am sorry.  I cannot read. I never went to school as my parents were too poor and a lot of my friends in the township are the same. They cannot read. I try to hide this from the people in the office, in case I lose my job.”

Anna was a slender girl, close to forty years of age with long,  straight, ebony black hair falling to her shoulders. She had a pleasant, quiet manner and lively brown eyes that smiled at people when she spoke.

Caro experienced a gut wrenching feeling of emotion. How was it possible in the country where she had grown up, that adults were not able to read.  She had been surrounded by books all her life. Her mother and father had read stories to her before she could read herself and once reading for herself, she had found, in books, a delightful world of adventure, fantasy , mystery and a world that opened up sweeping vistas, outside of her own reality.

Back in her office she looked on the internet for some information on adult literacy. There were presumed to be 8.3 million illiterate people in South Africa and the numbers were growing. Worldwide there were around 800million illiterate people.

It did not take Caro long to decide. She chucked her job and went in for obtaining a diploma or two in Adult Basic Education and Training. She had saved up enough money to study full time.

After two years she became involved in organising workshops and distributing reading matter.

Caro had kept in touch with Anna from the office. And one day invited her for a coffee, after work.

“Anna,” she said , “Come and help me with my work. I need an assistant and you with your knowledge, can be of great assistance to me. I am now dedicating my life to helping people learn to read”

“But how can I help, when I cannot read myself.”

“You can help me with organising the workshops, sending invitations and making learners feel comfortable. You can guide me with my tutorials. Adult learners have a wealth of life skills and knowledge about every day experiences and it is vital to keep their interest going. Learning to read is not easy for adults when they already know how to look after themselves and their families. They do not need to read stories about Jane and James and Spotty the dog running and playing in the garden!”

“Alright , I will join forces with you, but it is very scary giving up my present job.”

“Anna do you know the story of how the elephant got his trunk?”

“No, I never heard of that story.” said Anna.

“I will teach you how to read my favourite story, it is about an elephant who had a lot of curiosity and a feeling for adventure. I am sure you will appreciate it one day.”

Anna left her job and between the two they built up a successful business, helping adults to read and write.  They called their company , “ Read and Write for Power”. Caro developed her own texts and marketed them in the open market. It was mainly this activity that earned them the big money.  Anna gave valuable insight into the needs of adult learners.

Anna herself was so busy that she hardly had time to learn to read herself. She was a great mixer and engaged with everyone. She was particularly good at discovering learners’ requirements on the path to improving their living standards.

She encouraged people to tell their stories about being embarrassed because of not being able to read.

She knew how it was to be illiterate. One elderly learner told her story of when she caught a bus at the Central station.

 “ I  was in a queue of people and when the bus arrived I  could not read the destination on the front of the bus. I did not want to show my ignorance by asking for help.  I thought the name was Strand so I got on, hoping for the best. The bus took me to Nyanga and I only got home to the Strand at midnight.”

Another elderly person told his story.

“I went to the big shopping Mall and when I got to the entrance I pushed and pushed at the glass door but it would not budge.”  

“Can’t you read?  You have to pull not push.”

Abel  looked down and saw that it was just a small boy looking up at him.

“I felt ashamed!”

Shopping can be a potential nightmare. Even for a literate person it is easy to pick up a bottle of hair conditioner instead of a bottle of shampoo. The bottles look the same and if you cannot read, it makes things worse in every way. You very often choose the wrong item from the shelf.

There is a big question in this day of new technology.

How do illiterate people manage a mobile phone? Mobile phone technology is growing fast and everyone you see now, is busy texting their friends and associates. People are so busy with their phones that they are forgetting how to make conversation.

Caro asked Anna how she managed and if she knew her mobile number.

“I always carry a piece of paper with me, with my mobile number. I asked someone to write my daughter’s number down for me as well, on the same piece of paper.”

“And how do you send messages to family or friends?”

“ I don’t send messages. I mainly use my phone for calling family and friends.”

“How do you find contact numbers on your contact list?”

“I ask my friends to save numbers and then I memorise how they look so I can get back to them. I think of the numbers as pictures.”

Caro thought this over and realised that mobile phones were an even bigger challenge than going to a shop to buy food. So much for us lesser mortals who want to crash their computers against a wall when something goes technically wrong!  People like Anna, struggled to know the alphabet, without dealing with technical problems.

Searching on the internet she found that studies were being made in Bangladesh and other countries on how to design mobile phone apps for illiterate users. One way would be to put small icons on the mobile screen, pictures of words. This new pictorial way to read, goes back to pictographs in prehistoric times. Caro already used pictures frequently with her texts.

Anna was due in the auditorium where there was a large crowd waiting for her to give a reading .

She walked on to the platform and smiled at her audience. Then without a book, without reading, without looking at any picture she began speaking

“In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved , had no trunk.”

And then the Elephant’s Child asked the question, ‘What does the crocodile have for dinner?’

“The Kolokolo  Bird said, to the Elephant’s child, ‘ with a mournful cry,

 Go to the banks of the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River, all set about with fever-trees, and find out.’

Anna delivered her story in the best oral tradition.

Her audience was spell bound and they were of all ages, parents and children.

Anna went back to her office .  She had an appointment with a well known sponsor of television programmes. Caro and Anna were hoping that television would boost their vision of a more literate world and give them some good publicity.

Opening the office door she welcomed  Alan Carter, the CEO of “Action Projects.”  He was an impressive 6 foot 2 and wore a neat pair of jeans and check shirt.

“Take a seat, “ said Anna, I hope you had time to listen to the story I just delivered.”

“ Yes, I did and I am impressed with the whole set up here. You and your partner have done very well.  You have built up a flourishing business as well as being a guiding light. May I ask where you  would have been with your exceptional skills and talents, if Caro Gardner had not invited you to be a partner in her company?”

“ I would have been a tea lady in the offices of Heinemann and Stellenberg.”