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!!!