PAINTING!

In my afternoons and spare time I have been painting the children’s wardrobes and re-painting a wall surrounding the home. In the process I have managed to brighten up the children’s rooms and brought some smiles to a few of their faces, whilst also establishing that gloss paint is a bit annoying and impossible to clean off brushes and rollers!!! I’m hoping to finish it all in time for me going home!

Youth Day

The association of Afrikaans with apartheid caused huge problems when around 20,000 high school students begun to protest in the streets of Soweto on 16^th June 1976 in response to the introduction of Afrikaans as the standard language of instruction in schools. Police responded with tear gas and live bullets and the occasion is commemorated today by a South African national holiday, Youth day, which honors all the hundreds of young people who lost their lives in the struggle against Apartheid. Back in August last year when I first arrived in South Africa, I visited the Apartheid museum in Johannesburg and it gave me a much better sense of the scale of the issues associated with apartheid and a greater understanding of the country’s past. Here at Thembelihle we joined the rest of the country and celebrated Youth Day with readings of the event to educate the kids and a celebration of young people just like them with music, singing and dancing followed by treats in the classroom. To the amusement of the children, all the staff agreed to dress in school uniform for the whole day…a commitment which ended up rather embarrassing as we were invited to a prayer session for a funeral in a rural village in the afternoon…BUT, I managed to fit into one of my students’ uniform and got the good ol’ piggy tails out!
A few days later, we were invited to another Youth Day celebration in Mthatha which saw children for various children’s homes come together to celebrate the day. Being the only adult representative of Thembelihle, I was invited to sit up on stage in front of hundreds of people for the 6 hour duration of the event. I gave a speech on Thembelihle to raise awareness of the home, but unfortunately the translator didn’t really understand what I was saying, so I’m not sure how much the audience understood! Being the only white person there I drew in a lot of attention and was prompted by both the organisers and the crowd to dance (on my own!!!) in front of everyone, to which I insisted I couldn’t dance! Ahh!

Busy busy busy!

So I’ve now entered my last few months out here in South Africa, and I'm as busy as ever…! Teaching is still my main role here, but I've also taken on other commitments alongside it!

Karate lessons in the evenings with Sindiswa are still going really well…she can now perform her first kata, do the basic kicks, punches and blocks and often comes out of lessons dripping with sweat…always shows it’s been a good lesson, along with my sore kidneys and red stomach from where I have acted as her punchbag/target!!! I'm hoping to get some of the other children involved too to make the class bigger and to share my skills with more of them and that way they will hopefully still be able to train together once I leave in August.

Many of my evenings are filled with homework help sessions for the older girls who go to mainstream schools…they are all in much higher grades (8-12), so I often find myself having to re-teach myself the stuff they are learning before I can help them! They are up to sort of GCSE and even A-level standard! Maths…ouch!

I have also found myself acting as a bit of an art factory, being asked to make cards, advent calendar style birthday gifts for nuns, making homework folders for the older girls, design and print off leaflets to hand out to visitors, update and monitor the website...so on!

I am still teaching the Sunday School and have got some designs ready to paint on the small sheds…although the winter weather has started to kick in and it has begun to rain heavily recently…need to get the paint brushes out soon! As well as the Sunday School, I’m also planning on painting the insides and outsides of ALL the cupboards/wardrobes in the children’s rooms…apparently white, but I'm hoping to get permission to paint them lots of funky colours to brighten up their rooms a bit! AND…all the walls surrounding Thembelihle and some of the doors…ahhh!

The staff here (mamas and social workers) have also asked me to teach them ICT as some of them have never even touched a computer before, so although I’ve already done a couple of sessions, I’m struggling to find extra time to fit in more! I’ve had to bring it right back to basics, from how to turn the computer on, to whether it’s the right or left button to click on the mouse. I’ve also been doing this in the evenings with one of the older girls who also requested lessons.

Think that’s about all just now…busy busy BUSY - AHHH! Mid year exams started yesterday so I have been busy getting the final touches done to all the papers and am now onto invigilating the exams!!!

A bit more of the South African experience

Around my busy working life, I have had the chance to travel a bit more of South Africa during my one weekend off a month. At the end of March, I went to the very contrasting city of Durban, famous for it’s curry and tried out a ‘bunny’ (basically half a loaf of bread hollowed out and filled with curry)! Between us, myself and Sarah managed to down a whole 2 pints of milk during the process of eating it – it was really that hot!

I’ve also been to Port Edward and went to the cinema for the first time 9 months and managed to not run down any banana plants whilst quadbiking through a banana plantation – score!

I’ve also been to see some very good friends at Lady Grey who are also Project Trust volunteers, teaching in the arts academy…unfortunately it was their school holidays at the time so I didn’t get to meet their students. This may have explained why the VERY small town felt a bit ghostly and empty. Surrounded by stunning views up in the Drakensburg Mountains, it was easy to see the consrast a couple of hours drive can make on the landscape. The following week the girls came to visit Mthatha…and one of them managed to have a panic attack (literally), hahaha!!! Won’t mention any names R****! ;)