From teacher to car guard
2009-07-23
Lise Beyers
FIVE years ago Fernando Ogadi packed up his life and travelled to the land of milk and honey. But still, this university graduate is living from hand to mouth as a car guard. Meanwhile many Paarlites frequenting the parking area behind the Zomerlust Spar, have come to know this gentle giant with his broken English and his special talent for mathematics. Ogadi, from Brazzaville in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was enticed to South Africa after his brother had been living here for some time. There was the promise of work and a better life. Thus, Ogadi sold the little he had, bought a plane ticket and headed for greener pastures. He has a degree in mathematics and physics from the University Marien Ngouabi and was a teacher back in the Congo. Due to civil war, political unrest, conflict, and the collapse of the social sector, school enrolment rates and the overall quality of education in the DRC have dropped dramatically Less than 20% of all Congolese have a high school education. Thus, when Ogadi got the chance to travel to South Africa, he grabbed it, with the dream of continuing his teaching career. “I just want to teach, but back in the Congo classes would always get disrupted by political turmoil. Then the children wouldn’t come to school for weeks.” His dreams were shattered when he came to South Africa and discovered that things are not so easy here. The only employment which French-speaking Ogadi could find, was as a car guard. Now he spends his days, rain or shine, tending to cars and earning R60 on a good day. “R20 I save, R30 I keep for rent, and the little that is left I spend on food.” Ogadi has sent out his CV to various institutions in the Boland and the Cape Peninsula. But although it is constantly reported that there is a lack of qualified teachers in South Africa, Ogadi’s applications for employment are ignored by the authorities. “All I want to do is teach.” A dilapidated advertising board in the parking area of Zomerlust Spar, filled with solutions to complicated mathematical problems, is witness to the knowledge which Ogadi carries with him. But Ogadi still dreams of one day again being a teacher.
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