(2 of 3)
The school buildings are virtually identical: breezy, modern four-story structures, awash with portraits of Marx and Lenin. Classrooms are brightly colored, equipped with the latest audiovisual aids, and neatly arranged with rows of sleek, polished-wood tables. Each nationality represented on the island has its own school. The curriculums vary somewhat. Students from Namibia (Southwest Africa), for example, are taught English grammar, while those from Angola and Mozambique learn Portuguese. Cuban instructors normally teach academic subjects like math or biology, but the teaching of social sciences and ideology is reserved for men and women teachers imported from the students' homelands. "They are here not to forget that they are Namibians," said one teacher. "They are not here to become particularly Cuban." The "revolutionary" part of instruction would typically include the history of the country's colonial past, its place in the non-aligned movement and its economic problems.
"We have discussion groups and exchanges of views," says Bernard Kamwi, a Namibian teacher. "We talk about building a just society, how to eradicate the capitalist system, how to give the toiling masses of Namibia a say in what is happening."
In fact, views are not so much exchanged as imposed. The classroom ambience is strict, and the rote method of learning prevails. A question is asked. Hands are raised aloft by students eager to give the answer.
The correct response is then recited by all students in unison. Recent visitors to the Angolan school were invited to witness a sort of stage show. Part of it consisted of cheerful tribal songs and dances, but then the program became political.
Students re-enacted the "Kassinga massacre," an incident in which South African forces attacked guerrillas from the air. As the students performed it, the scene was an African version of Guernica. A tape recorder played a screeching sound track of an air attack and gunshots. Students acted out people being hit from the air and falling dead; others played comrades who picked up the wounded. There was an impassioned song, the gist of its message being, "We will never forget Kassinga." At the end, the students formed massed ranks, shook their fists and chanted, "We shall never give up. We shall win. Down with imperialism."
Life on the island is not all work and no play. Each of the schools has a soccer field and courts for basketball and volleyball. There are barbershops for the boys and hairdressing salons for girls, most of whom are coiffed with intricate "corn-row" braids. On Sundays there are bus trips to nearby beaches or sightseeing tours of the island. Sex is not a problem, the teachers insist. "They are told the facts of life, but there is no formal sex education as such," said a Mozambican instructor. Girls are free to talk with women teachers about the problems of puberty. "They have biology classes," said a Namibian ideologue, "but as elsewhere in the world, the kids do not apply biology to themselves." He may be right. Since the program is so full and disciplined, there would appear to be little time for love among the grapefruit trees.