Africa Time

School was cancelled on Friday. The children had no idea why. I did. I told them. The classroom erupted with cheers and screams and laughter, and I was literally thrown backwards by the children bombarding me with hugs, pinning me to the blackboard. This was then followed by “Miss? What’s a funfair?”…so funny how they get excited about things they don’t even know the meaning of! I think it only comes once a year, but it means an actual source of entertainment! Something which Mthatha lacks.

Now I would like to introduce you to something known as ‘Africa Time’; something that is becoming all too familiar to me! Everything always takes FOREVER here! With the bustling streets and impatient driving, you would have thought that everyone here would be doing things quickly, but it seems people are actually realising they’re 3 hours late and are trying to get to wherever it is quickly. For anyone who knows me well enough, you know that I fit in here perfectly, haha!

The taxi that was meant to arrive at 9:30 to pick up the children actually arrived at 12:30 – AFRICA TIME! I travelled in the trailer part at the back of the Thembelihle vehicle, kind of half standing/sitting/kneeling in it, with 7 other people – something that I'm sure would be illegal back in the UK! For once though, it was nice not to be stared at for being white (I stick out like a sore thumb here), but for being with a completely mental bunch of amazing kids, singing off the top of our lungs and blowing the eardrums out of everyone we passed with a whistle - SO much fun!!! When we arrived, we had to wait about 45 minutes (AFRICA TIME) until we were allowed in! But the kids loved it, even though it was the most rusty and uncomfortable fair ever! What was quite funny was that they hadn’t censored  ‘Riverside’, even at a kiddie’s funfair! But a good time was had by all.

A massive thanks to Rotary for paying for the children’s tickets J

Going the extra mile…

I think I mentioned the computers in one of my previous posts? We have a big stack of them in the corner of the classroom covered in about an inch of dust and numerous rat/mice droppings. One afternoon of fiddling around later, and I have successfully managed to set one of them up! I can’t wait to start up an ICT class or teach them some skills in their Technology lessons. Their faces when they saw the screen turn on was priceless…even though all it said was ‘No Signal’!!! Hopefully at least one more of them will be ready to use by next week, but a lot of the wires have been chewed by mice so are a bit useless, but we shall see!

The desks in the classroom were also in bits. They’re a simple metal frame with a wooden platform screwed on, but the screws on half of them had come out and were a nuisance in lessons; slipping off onto people’s toes and trapping little hands and fingers. So our lovely friends Dom and Michaela who are working at Bethany Home on the other side of Mthatha offered to come over with some tools and we helped mend every last one of them! Dom also had to get the grinder in as the screws were too long, so we had sparks flying out of the classroom. But they’re all fixed now and the kids are so pleased with their new desks…surprising the difference a couple of hours makes!

I’ve been spending extra time with the children out of working hours and I feel as though we all get on really well now, which has definitely helped in lessons. I can now remember all of their ridiculously complicated/long names (only took me a month!). I’ve loved sharing my music with them although writing lyrics of every song out 26 times is a bit of a bummer! They’re in the process of teaching me some Xhosa songs which are difficult to learn, but great fun J

I have now officially driven the massive Thembelihle car, which is the most difficult vehicle to drive EVER…well as far as I know ;) Mthatha’s roads are dotted with massive potholes and people walk out in front of you all the time. I don’t think I have come across a single road marking and people tend to make new lanes for themselves whenever and wherever it suits! Oh…and parking in the middle of the road – that’s a new one! But it’s pretty good practice and I actually quite enjoy it although I have nearly died several times…

The children at Thembelihle rarely get out of the home, unless they’re going to the hospital or across the road to play in the field. So it was nice to take one of the older girls out to the supermarket with us…a simple trip put a massive smile on her face and it was a great opportunity to get to know her better! I’m hoping to take the children out more often so they get a change of scenery!

I’ve also started helping out with admin work in the office outside of school hours, and adding to the Thembelihle website which I’m really enjoying. It makes a change from the teaching aspect of the work, and means I am making a difference to the home in a different way!

Basically what I’m trying to say in this post is that every little helps…even the smallest thing will make a big difference to these children’s lives and I’m finding new things every day that will help the home in some way…loving it J

Heritage Day

I’ve started to pick up the odd bits of Xhosa, although the clicks are really tricky…for anyone that didn’t know, the language has various different clicks which appear in some words…check it out on YouTube to appreciate the difficulty, haha!

As well as the basic ‘Hello, how are you?’ and ‘Thank You’ I’ve also managed to learn the words for ‘big’ and ‘small’, although the way I found out wasn’t that flattering. One of the children came up behind me, grabbed my bum and shouting ‘Ikhulu’ (big) before proceeding to grab my boobs and shouting ‘Ichici’ (small), haha! But, these two words have actually come in quite useful during lessons when trying to describe things so it’s not all bad news J I seem to have gained a bit more respect from the children, knowing a little bit of Xhosa…definitely the way forward for controlling their behaviour.

So. Heritage day was meant to be on 24^th Sept, but here at Thembelihle we celebrated it a day early. Instead of going to the field after school, we stayed at the home and had our faces decorated with dots, suns, spirals and various other designs, using something similar to Camomile Lotion, applied with matchstick ends and blades of grass, which was really cool. Our lunch was prepared on a stove outside, which tasted…ermm…different ;) The Xhosa bread /dumplings were pretty good, but were covered in the ‘gravy’ from the meat which tasted strange. No idea what animal it was, or what part of the body for that matter! All sorts of unusual shaped pieces of fat and gristle, bleurgh. But I'm sticking to the promise I made to myself that I will try everything this year! Fortunately we have started eating in the main house with the children, where it’s easy to dispose of any unwanted food…the kids love you for leaving food on your plate!!! After lunch, we set up some music and got the drums out, ready for some traditional Xhosa dancing! The kids all put on black and white string skirts and showed off their amazing skills…they’re such amazing dancers! Even though I can’t dance, I couldn’t resist and it seems my Ikhulu Bum is rather useful after all, as Xhosa dancing basically involves making your bum as big as possible and bopping it to the beat…heheheee.

Coffee Bay

I get one weekend off work a month, and for September’s weekend I headed to Coffee Bay with some friends at other projects. Having only seen the outskirts of Mthatha from the plane window, it was great to see the surrounding area during journey and the contrast between the town and the more rural areas of the Eastern Cape was amazing. In the 2 hours it took us to get there, we had gone from a bustling city through a sparse landscape with teeny rondavels dotting grassy planes, to rolling hills with a pink sunset, to the winding roads which led to even more little villages, and finally to the coast, all along a VERY pot-holey track! I wish I had the opportunity to get some photos during the journey, (Sam, Stu and Kirsty…just WOW! You would have had a field day out there with your cameras!).

Although I haven’t had a chance to explore South Africa properly yet, I know that Coffee Shack is going to be one of my favourite places! My accommodation for the three nights was a Rondavel with 3 bunk beds … the best bit was I had to cross a (bridgeless) river to get to it! Quite funny actually, especially when the river leads to the sea and the currents are fighting to knock you over both ways…not quite so funny when the tide is in and the water goes up past your thighs! But an experience I must admit and what a sight for anyone watching me attempt to cross J

During the 3 days I was there, I got to see why the area is called ‘The Wild Coast’. It’s completely untouched and such a beautiful place to visit – if anyone is ever in South Africa, it’s worth a visit in itself! On one of the days I went for a really long walk along the coast, down a very steep crumbly cliff on my bum, over lots of slippery rocks and into a bat cave which stank of poo, before squeezing through a very narrow gap between two rocks and taking a dip in a ‘natural jacuzzi’ as it were...VERY COLD! I then clambered up some huge rocks before being shown where to/not to dive off by a man throwing a rock into the sea below. What was worrying was that the ‘where NOT to jump’ rock was about 3 foot away from the ‘where TO jump’ – there is no ‘health and safety’ here at all! It took me three attempts to actually do the cliff dive, but I DID IT! J

What I loved most about Coffee Bay was that everyone staying there were all travellers too and they all had such amazing and interesting stories to tell around the campfires in the evening. One guy was telling me about how his sister used to live in Bishops Stortford…small world, eh?! I also managed to squeeze in a surfing lesson (yes I did manage to stand on the board and hold it there for about 10 seconds, and no I did not get eaten by sharks, although I did see some Dolphins!).

The whole place was really hippy and everything was eco-friendly (you Scriven’s would have loved it). We did lots of singing and dancing in the evening to 4 men playing drums…a shout out to Rhino…I’ll keep my promise and will be back soon, haha J

Human climbing frame

It gets pretty cramped here at Thembelihle, particularly when there are new arrivals, as there is much less space in the classroom and much more weight on your arms, shoulders, legs, head, back and stomach, as you’re used as a human climbing frame by 26 excitable children. I don’t think I can count the number of times that I’ve been wrestled to the ground and had various vital organs crushed by bony little elbows. I’ve also found that once you let one child sit on your shoulders, every single child expects to be allowed on too. It’s pretty hard to explain without knowing Xhosa, that because they’re much bigger, they will probably break me, haha! J Although, 7 year old Boy-Boy has managed to clamber onto my back and use my hair as a stabiliser, pulling and grabbing on it, before shakily standing on his tip toes on my shoulder to retrieve a bean bag he had thrown in the air and that had somehow got hooked onto the basketball hoop…a painful experience. Next time, the beanbag is staying up there!

My clothes which I have so lovingly spent hours hand washing have been adopted by Preschool as their new tissues, and I seem to come in every evening with a selection of new bogies in various places across my stomach, back , shoulders and knees. Unam, the 6 year old with the runniest nose you will ever see now has competition, as Aya and Zethu seem to have developed a cold! My face has also absorbed rather a lot of sneeze recently, and yesterday one of the pre-schoolers decided to save the wall she was looking at from her spray and turn to face me, just as she sneezed…lucky wall, eh?! But they are getting there with their numbers, colours and animals. They are even moving onto simple addition, to catch up with group 1! Their handwriting is coming along well, although the letters seem to get bigger towards the end of the line, and they don’t understand that words REALLY DO need finishing, and the first few letters aren’t going to explain the rest of the word/sentence! Very cute :)

Group 1 now have constant pins and needles in their fingers after having spent most of their maths lessons sitting on their hands to stop them from counting on their fingers! Shame they can’t sit on their toes at the same time, as this seems to be their sneeky back up plan! But it has worked and I’m so proud of all of them. The 10 year olds who at the beginning of the week couldn’t do 1+1 or 1+2 without the aid of their fingers (no joke!) can now do basic sums in their heads! WAHOO!!! And most of the more capable students have now moved onto long addition with 3 and 4 digit numbers!

I have also been teaching them basic First Aid in their Lifeskills lessons (St John friends, you would be proud of them!). I came out of the lesson with pen drawn all over my arms which acted as ‘cuts’. Having no equipment for them to practice on meant they had to mime it all, but they loved it and I managed to work out which students learn better from practical activities, which is always useful! Their descriptions go something like “Ohh Maya, your arm is paining!!! I help you. I wash my hands, put on my gloves, I squeeze (a.k.a. apply pressure…yes this time it was me with the pins and needles). I clean clean clean cleeeeannn the arm, I get bandage on, I put on shoulder (a.k.a. elevate), I take the gloves in the bin and I wash my hands…” all whilst acting it out. SO CUTE! And they can all do it perfectly and remember it – they keep coming up to me and practising! We’re moving onto the recovery position next lesson which should be interesting!

I’ve now decided that black boards really aren’t that bad, after having spent a whole evening with one, drawing up the solar system for the following day’s science lesson, and coming in absolutely covered in chalk dust! Group 2 now know the basics of space, although are still struggling to get their heads around the fact that Pluto isn’t actually a planet! I also managed to squeeze in a bit of my beloved Geology and did a lesson on the structure of the Earth :D

UPDATE: I have now found a shop nearby that sells Lemons.

Mthatha and a little bit of Superglue...

So I figured Mthatha deserves it’s own post on my blog…

I have now had a chance to explore the town and get to know where most things are – post office, supermarket, internet cafe etc, although I think by the end of the year, I will still be coming across the odd gem of a shop; maybe, just maybe one nearer the home that actually sells a lemon…we made pancakes the other night for tea and had to settle for an orange and sugar topping (tasted quite nice actually)!

Heading into the centre of town, we need to cross a bridge (the safest of the two in the town). If any of you lovely readers ever visits Mthatha, it’s the one with the massive lamppost that’s squished flat to the ground and which has become engrained as part of the landscape. Be careful not to trip over it – trust me, it’s very easy to do! That, and the massive potholes in the road and the drains with no covers of course. I can just see someone snapping their leg in one of those one day, eep!

So the bridge goes over the Mthatha River which I think is the dirtiest river I have ever seen. The banks leading down to it are just a pile of litter, and it’s quite sad to see the residents of the town polluting it with such disgusting rubbish – but then again, I’m here to accept how things are done and not to judge or change anything.

I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to the stares, the pointing and the “Helllllooooo Ladies!!!” from every second man we pass in the street. That along with the stroking of my arms as you walk past them and the fact I nearly got my phone pickpocketed at the taxi rank last week (don’t worry I realised in time and he ran off)! But we’re learning quickly and are stuffing our bra’s with all our possessions and not going out after dark when it really just isn’t safe to do so!

Combitaxi (Maya’s definition) – a minibus taxi that is pretty cheap to use and which basically picks you up and drops you off wherever you want, on route. Often rusted so much that the sliding door doesn’t close, and the person sitting nearest must barricade it so that no one falls out. The place where your fare is passed along the line of passengers to the front, and where your change is then passed back, by people who can’t believe you didn’t have the right change in the first place, oops! One of the bumpiest rides you will ever experience, but something you should have a go at, even though the taxi won’t leave until it’s full – this could be 3 hours or 30 seconds!

Now onto Superglue...I pass countless people sitting on the side of the road with their own little stall set up, selling Superglue. It just seems to be the thing here, although I haven’t actually seen anyone buy any yet! Superglue? Just why?! No idea, but if I ever find out, I’ll be sure to let you know. At least I know where to go if something breaks, which will no doubt happen, knowing me, haha!

When you are walking through the streets of Mthatha, you will come across people sleeping in the streets, and others peeing in the drains (you have to watch out for the many stains on the pavement – I’d hate to think what half of them are)! The only thing that has been successful at unblocking my nose from my cold is the smell of something dead which I can guarantee you will smell at least once during a trip to the shops…niiiiice… What is quite funny but also very worrying is the rather large number of A4 posters plastered on bins, walls, buildings (generally every surface the eye can see) that read “100% Safe, Painless Abortion” followed by “Penis enlargement” and then a phone number…very random!

But Mthatha is not all that bad. It’s nice to see the women dressed in traditional clothes who rely on their head and the strength of their neck to carry rather oversized items through the streets. There’s the good music blazing from the shops (you can’t go wrong with a bit of Reggae) and there’s the odd whiff of a fat cake or two (my new favourite food, for only R20 – that’s 20p…)!!!

Ohh, and I have finally conquered crossing the road! You simply walk out in front of the fast moving vehicles, and voila! You are now sprinting so as to not get knocked down. I swear the cars speed up when they see you. There really is no other way to get across though…

So that’s Mthatha…not the greatest place on earth, but I’m already learning to love it for what it is!

Teaching and other bits and bobs...

So Church on Sunday was new...like I said in my last entry, I had seen the children praying in the evenings, but this was something quite different. We took the children to the Baptist Church down the road and the service lasted about 2 and a half hours (is that normal?!) but they kept us entertained, and there was lots of loud singing, clapping and dancing…the children all looked so cute dressed in their best clothes! Myself and Emma are now in charge of taking the kids to and from Church every Sunday – the rest of the day is spent lesson planning!!!

First full week of teaching is now over…wow, just wow! It’s now Friday and I have no idea how I feel about it all...

The week started off pretty poorly with several of the older children having fights during the lessons. The arguments being in Xhosa meant I had no idea what was being said or what the problem was, so I couldn’t do much to help, and by the time I had turned from the blackboard (yes the days of interactive whiteboards have now passed for me, and have yet to arrive for the children of Thembelihle) the two girls had already stood up and were kicking, slapping, biting each other etc. What I have found particularly tough this week is when the children refuse to make eye contact with you or join in with the lessons. Zero hands being put in the air at the simplest questions, as if they don’t want to be there! Really heart breaking when I know they can do it, and they just won’t try, and it’s upsetting when I have put so much hard work into planning the lessons so that they are interesting and fun. It’s hard not to get angry with some of the children sometimes, but I have to keep remembering that the tantrums they thrown when they are not chosen to write something on the board, and then fights and arguments with each other are all down to traumatic events that I have never, and will probably never experience or understand. As a past volunteer told me before I came…’the children are little angels with troubled hearts of gold…’ – so true, and that’s what it is that is keeping me going!

As the week went on, however, and after a gathering with all the children and the director of the home to discuss their behaviour, the lessons went a lot better (although we did have had a couple of minor incidents)!

Preschool can now identify all the colours and various shapes in English and can count up to twenty!!! Their handwriting is getting better by the day and they have started simple addition sums…shame about the wet trouser incident…they’re still too young to hold to go to the toilet!

Group1 can now tell the difference between odd and even numbers, and are able to draw tally charts that don’t involve 30-odd tally’s bunched together with one massive long line cutting through them - success! :D

Group2 are still struggling with their verbs, adjectives, nouns etc, but they understand the relationship between animals and plants when it comes to the transfer of oxygen and carbon dioxide! They can also explain how rain and clouds are formed, along with the connection between wind formation and the rise of hot air. They loved the Art & Culture lesson I planned for them today on China…shame I didn’t have any photos or music to share with them from the SWCHS trip in 2007 – would have been very useful! I wish I had a photo of their faces when I showed them some Chinese symbols…they didn’t believe me when I told them that that was what their writing looked like! And, it was quite tricky explaining to them, that ‘No, Chinese people definitely DO NOT get eaten by dragons…they’re not actually real, they’re just featured in art work and on buildings etc!’ … they all looked rather disappointed by this, haha! They learnt how to use ‘chopsticks’ (which were actually pencils, but it did the trick) – a really successful session…none of them had known anything about China 2 hours earlier and they were all talking about it afterwards! I will get a photo of the lovely posters they made with everything they had learnt during the lesson uploaded soon…such an amazing feeling J What really shocked/upset me was that they had never heard of the Olympics before…they’re 17years old…I think I have my next lesson planned!

Spending 2 hours every afternoon with the children outside of the classroom organising sporting activities and fun and games has been really good and has given me the opportunity to see a different side of them. They’re all such amazing children, but just change as soon as they step into the classroom – quite sad really L

We’ve been playing Rounders in the field across the road for the past couple of days in the 32degree heat, which they have enjoyed a lot (I’m not gonna lie…I’m loving it too)! We all come in dusty and my feet have seen better days - maybe I should keep my flipflops on next time?…naaahh! Although, I have managed to cut my foot on a bit of jagged metal fence across the road, so if any of my St. John maties are reading this, do you fancy sending me one of those Tetanus advice cards that we seem to have unsuccessfully manage to get rid of at ANY of the shifts, hahahahahaaaa! Mum, if you’re reading this, could you send some sort of foot stuff in the post, please!??!?! Chaaaars… :D

Today we were joined in the field by the local Mthatha chavs, whose street dancing even puts Diversity to shame. It’s amazing to watch - I’ll try and get some photos or a video up if it works! They come from the school down the road and invited me to play football with them (or ‘soccer’ as they call it here) and they actually seemed impressed by my football skills – no idea why! But I saw one of them in town later on and he invited me to join their team…should be fun and it’s good to make new friends my age, outside of Thembelihle and have something to do in my (very limited) free time!

So…my Friday evening has been spent out in the classroom marking the children’s books…I love my red pen and stickers – makes me feel more of a teacher!!! It’s obvious who has worked hard and who hasn’t, and it has given me something to work on for next week – I’m actually looking forward to it, even with the highs and lows of the past 5 days of lessons.

I’m hoping to be able to spend some of this weekend setting up/mending the stack of ancient computers gathering dust in the corner of the classroom, as it would be great for the children to have some ICT skills up their sleeves - we shall see. I doubt that with my shoddy computer skills I will be able to do anything, but it’s worth a go, eh?! Hopefully I will be able to design some sort of fun image to paint on one of the blank sides of the classroom and on a wall along the edge of the driveway. It is in desperate need of some touching up, and some of the walls are completely bare…

Better be off to have a shower now – still covered in chalk from the blackboard, snot from preschool, and various colours of felt-tipped pen….I hope some people are finding this blog vaguely interesting…if not, let me know. Thanks to those who have written comments – a real boost of confidence, and it’s good to hear from you. Sorry I haven’t got round to replying yet, but will do soon. I like to babble a lot, so tell me if it’s too much. If there is anything you want to hear about in particular, let me know, yaaa?

Hope everything is ok back home or wherever you are right now. Can someone please tell me what is happening in the world at the moment as I haven’t seen any news, and come to think of it, haven’t actually seen a single newspaper being sold or read in Mthatha…will have to have a look around for one tomorrow on my day off.

Loadsa love

xxx

Prayers...

I probably wouldn’t normally do two blogs in 24 hours, but I had to write this down now before it becomes the norm…

Tonight I decided to go over to the childrens’ home across the courtyard for evening prayers…I’m not religious, but I probably will end up being by the time this year is over. It was amazing…

When I arrived they were all chatting away and watching a programme on one of those big old fuzzy TV’s that makes everything look the same colour! Some of the younger ones were sleeping on the floor, whilst others were trying to sing to the lyrics of various old songs I had on my phone which they had been playing with earlier today. I had scribbled them down on paper for them, and they had miraculously not been destroyed in some way shape or form…(unlike the spinny toy I mentioned in my last post)…it turns out SHAWTY means Poo in Xhosa, so they found that quite hilarious whilst trying to sing to Iyaz’s ‘Replay’…

…anyways…they’re similar to the ones they sing in the morning before school, but half way through they all chanted their own individual prayers out loud, and the whole room was awoken by a chorus of whispers in Xhosa…AMAZING!!!

One of the little ones at the front who had been woken up for the event was wandering around and swaying whilst rubbing her eyes trying to keep awake, whilst one of the older children behind her attempted to hold her up and keep her in line! Adorable :’) The prayers ended with the children snaking around the room, shaking everyone’s hands in the traditional South African fashion which is a combination of three handshakes…our ‘normal’ handshake, followed by linking the thumbs and gripping the other persons hand, and the normal handshake again…it stands for Love, Hope and Friendship (or something…will check!)

But yeah…an amazing experience, and I will probably do it as often as I can throughout the year. The children had been asking me all day to come along, and I could tell how much it meant to them, me joining them!

Whilst praying, we had 6 new faces sitting in the corner observing...6 new admissions to the Thembelihle Home of Safety...although it is sad, i'm looking forward to inviting them into what is now also my new home...

Week 1...

Molo J

So my partner (Emma) and I arrived at Thembelihle Home on Monday night (29th) after spending a couple of days with the country group in Joberg, 'climatising'…we got picked up from Mthatha airport  - it’s the smallest, skankiest airport you will ever see and we had the most crazy, bumpy landing ever, in our little plane which carried only 27 people!!! Looking out of the window I could see all the little round houses/mud huts, in the middle of a pretty bare landscape. The toilet in the airport pretty much summed it up…no lock, no toilet seat, and no flush…just a continuous dribble of water…I decided to wait ;)

Pumeza, our host then met us with two of the children from the home…both with the most amazing smiles you will ever see  - they sang the whole way home (IN HARMONY!!!) in the back of the truck, looking after our massive rucksacks so they didn’t fall out :) The arrangement seemed quite dangerous and I felt bad that the girls were sitting there, but as we entered Mthatha, I realised it’s actually a norm! The town (which I think should really be classed as a city) was how I expected it to be; busy, noisy, bustling and absolutely MENTAL! But I love it…although I’m pretty worried about having to drive the kids around…A, because I haven’t driven since I passed, and B, there seems to be no highway code…everyone drives where they want to, and if someone’s not happy about it they will beep, shout, get in your way, or generally just a mixture of the three!

I was quite nervous about arriving at the home. It seems pretty safe with a security gate at the front, but I didn’t really know what to expect, even though I had seen photos. We were shown our accommodation, which is a simple shared room between the two of us. The children had painted/drawn pictures for us and stuck them on our wall to welcome us into their home which was lovely! We have a toilet (which is thankfully MUCH nicer than the one at the airport) a bathroom and kitchen, all of which we share with the staff and any visitors. Unfortunately a couple of the lights weren’t working when we arrived, so it was dark and a bit cold which made it all the more weird to actually have arrived! We then went to meet the children who live in the building on the other side of the small courtyard. They were eating dinner when we were being introduced, so along with the bread stuffed in their mouths (their standard dinner), their accents, their slight shyness and the fact they mainly speak Xhosa, it was nearly impossible to make out what they were saying…along with the fact that they all have very complicated names and a few of the louder ones even insisted they were called MAYA or EMMA! They were all so cute though and I couldn’t wait to get to know them better the next day!

I’ve now decorated my half of the room with all your lovely letters, cards and a stack of photos… J It’s made it seem more like home! After having dinner and spraying the ants which seem to have infested the kitchen we unpacked and settled in for the night, preparing to wake up at 7am, ready to meet the children…

…7am….didn’t happen…the kids wake before 6 and run around in the courtyard (our door opens straight out onto it!), sing LOUDLY, play with things, laugh, dance, hit things with metal poles…all the noisy things children generally get up to…so we lay there, trying and failing to get back to sleep :P

We were greeted by 31°C (it’s only Spring here!) and 28 excitable children when we emerged from our room. They seemed to love us already, even after their shyness the night before. We lined up outside the classroom facing them. They sang to us in Xhosa  before singing AMEN, AMEN, AMEN, AMEN continuously...(I think these are the morning prayers we were told about!!). Thankfully we didn’t need to teach on our first day. We played ‘get to know you’ games, before having a meeting and going through everything with Pumeza.

Our working hours are 8 – 11:30 (one lessons worth!), half hour break, then 11-13:00 (another lesson), then an hour lunch, and 14:00 – 16:00 which is recreational stuff, like going to the field across the road and playing football etc...i’m considering starting up a Karate class! :D

Our first lunch…fish from a tin with some sort of stinky sauce, carrots and green beans which had landed in the stinky sauce and Pap which looked nice, sort of like mash, but really wasn’t….more like rubbery foam which needed to be broken apart into edible chunks, haha…

We’re quite fortunate to have other volunteers nearby. Jayney and Sarah, are working in Bethany Home…a sister project to ours which is aimed at younger children, located on the other side of town. We’re hoping to meet up with them every so often, but it turns out their day off is Thursday and ours is Saturday. However, our Rep Ian took us all out for a meal on our second day, before he headed back home to Jo’berg, which was nice!

The next day we had a go at teaching…although we had nothing prepared as we don’t formally start teaching until Monday (5th) we wanted to get a feel for the classroom and the ability of the children. The small classroom is split into 3 groups, each facing different walls to make it seem like 3 rooms in one. Preschool is taken by another member of staff, Refiloe, whilst the other children are split into two groups. Group1 is further split into, 1A and 1B depending on abilities…this means who ever teaches this group must set work for, and manage both groups of children at once, however it will be the same subject, so shouldn’t be too difficult. Group2 is the older children, who have much better English, and has fewer children in it than Group1. The subjects we teach are:
English, Lifeskills, Life Orientation, Maths, Natural Science, Social Science, Economic and Management Studies, Art & Culture, and Technology, whilst Refiloe takes Xhosa lessons during other sessions. Our working hours are 8-4, after which time we can play with the children, read bedtime stories, have prayer time with them etc.

Because it gets dark before 6pm here at the moment, combined with the fact that it’s too dangerous to go out after dark in Mthatha, we haven’t been able to adventure out of the home much, so we’re looking forward to when it gets lighter! Pumeza took us into town for a sort of orientation session where we were shown the supermarket and Child Welfare building…a place where we will have to visit to hand in documents for funding and when a new child is admitted to the home.

I’m really looking forward to starting the teaching. The school year here runs from Jan-Dec, so arriving in September is a bit annoying…we have no syllabus so the lesson plans are completely up to us! We can teach them what we want, but it’s going to be tough as not all of them speak English, and we’re not completely sure as to what they were taught last year. We’re going to be spending the weekend planning the curriculum for the next 16 months, for up to Dec 2012…it’s going to be a challenge!!!  

The kids are AMAZING!!! They all have such warm hearts and love being cuddled and lifted into the air! We played in the field across the road this afternoon, making friendship bracelets and playing with my camera :D The settings are now all jumbled on it, hahah!!!

We cooked our first meal last night…the light in the kitchen is now broken, so we had to cook using my torch as the source of light :P We had pasta in a tomato/onion sauce from a tin…the tin opener doesn’t work, so we stabbed it open and we chopped up garlic with a big sharp knife which is actually blunt and doesn’t have a handle…we forgot to buy washing up liquid (the main reason we went into town to get the shopping, haha) so washed up with water…again…from the drippy tap. …Today we noticed the drippy tap was no longer drippy…we had our first water cut – not great when you want to flush the toilet! :D

One of my favourite moments from Thembelihle so far:

The little stick plastic spinny helicopter toy I brought with me went down a treat! :D I wish I had a photo of their faces when they played with it! It’s already lost, but Pumeza said she thinks she knows where it is…the masking tape grip I carefully stuck on was fiddled with and ripped off within 5 minutes, and one of the older boys has already picked his earwax out with it :D It’s their favourite toy at the moment!

The children, like us, handwash their clothes. Today when I was hanging out some laundry, one of the little ones ran around the corner, grinning, collected her knickers she had supposedly washed earlier from the line and showed them to me proudly…they were still all muddy and wet, but she proceeded to run back to her room, and I presume put them back on :D…I think I might help her with her washing next time! J

Will upload pics soooon xxx