ninehillsRAMBLE in the JUNGLE
Not Education, but Literacy
By Wanaku Verdzekov · · Africa & the Gulf of Guinea
Tags: poem, literacy, language, colonialism
Not education, but literacy, the heart of the fight,
In the lands of Sub-Saharan night,
Where words may dance on native tongues,
Yet die silent, never sung.
The West writes down its every thought,
Arab, Asian: nothing left to naught.
But here, in Africa's ancient land,
The script slips loose like desert sand.
Colonization's iron hand
Stilled the tongues of this rich land,
Erased the scripts, the tales, the names,
Left us wandering, blind to flames.
Who are we, the people cry,
Without the words to reach the sky?
Our stories lost, our voices still,
Our language chained by foreign will.
But can we find the words again,
Revive the pride with voice and pen?
The first step's clear, we know it true:
To name the wound is what to do.
In Africa's soil and across the sea,
Let us reclaim our legacy,
For literacy is more than just to read:
It's the breath, the root, the seed.
TM
— Wanaku Verdzekov
Reading & grammar
Reading level: Gr 8–10
Understand
- What difference does the poem draw between education and literacy?
- What did colonization do to African scripts and tales, according to the poem?
- What is "the first step" named near the end?
Grammar focus: rhyme and meaning. The poem pairs fight / night, land / sand. Good rhymes connect ideas as well as sounds: "land" and "sand" link Africa to the image of script slipping away.
Try it: Find another rhyming pair in the poem and explain the link in meaning.
Discuss: Should every child learn to read and write their home language before a foreign one? Argue.