Some sad news...

It’s always hard saying goodbye to children when they are discharged from Thembelihle. When I look back to the beginning of December when a large number of children left, I realise how far I have come and how many children I have worked with over the last 9 months. So many faces have come and gone and the Thembelihle family continues to change. I remember all of their smiling faces and all of the little quirky things each of them did that made them individual and special. It’s always strange and I often wonder how the children get on when they leave. In March one girl returned on a week visit during her school holidays. It was great to see how her English has improved and how her dreams and goals are keeping her strong and motivated and how grown up she now is…she gave us a helping hand at the home and was much more mature than she was before Christmas!!! I had a catch up with her and found out that she was doing really well at school and was really enjoying it, despite the 3 hour walk there and 3 hour walk back each day! Sometimes though, I guess it is just inevitable that things don’t always go right. Thembelihle was saddened this week with the news of the death of one of our children who was discharged back in December. A horrific death that no one would ever deserve and a story which highlights many of the dangers across South Africa…

Please keep your thoughts and prayers with her family.

Exams - round 2!

The beginning of April saw more exams which were meant to have been written in March, but with a busy month, they were sort of accidentally postponed until April! Oops! So more exam writing, invigilating, marking, and report writing has been done and the children’s hard work has paid off with another set of great exam results…a few were slightly disappointing, but there is still time for improvement as the mid-year exams are coming up in June!

Beach

So as Mum mentioned, March saw another trip out of Thembelihle for the kids. They hadn’t had one since the funfair back in September/October time so it was great to see all their smiling faces as they ran and splashed in the water, running and jumping over the waves, and stuffing their trunks/cozzies with disguisting amounts of sand…eurgh! We had a Braii, drew pictures in the sand and generally enjoyed a day out of the classroom and Mthatha (although I think I may have come down with mild sunstroke from the long day)! I’m hoping that when I return home to the UK I will be able to fundraise not only for the general running of the home, but also for days out like these as it really does mean a lot to the kids!

A visit from home

At the end of March my Mum and friend Sam came out to visit me and the children here in South Africa. Here’s what mum had to say for her visit:

“Arriving at Thembelihle Home on a short visit I was greeted by a group of shy faced children curious to see the mother and friend of their Volunteer teacher/carer.  Thembelihle is a home of safety with an ever changing family of children who spend almost their whole time within a compound consisting of a small classroom, living accommodation and limited play area, supported by several Mamas, Social Workers and a Director.  We were given a tour of the children’s shared bedrooms and living accommodation before seeing the classroom where they spend most of their day.

The children were wonderful to meet, and seem to adapt and on the surface accept their surroundings and situation. It’s great to see how they support and look after each other on a daily basis. Children, whose backgrounds have been hard and testing in a culture where local village women are still subservient to men.

Before their bedtime at 7.30pm, we joined all the children to listen to their songs and prayers.  A delight to hear as they harmonised with each other and the sound was very uplifting - something they do every night!

We experienced a VERY rare day out at the beach which all the children loved with a Braai, (BBQ), cooked by the bus driver and a day at the school helping the children with their lessons.
The trip gave me a real insight into Maya’s life over the past 7 months.  Being woken at the crack of dawn by children singing, chatting and playing games outside her bedroom door every morning to facing a full day of work planning, teaching and entertaining a group of little people with big demands. A very challenging experience for a young person not much older than some of the children she helps. She is also living in a very uninspiring town that has a long way to go to overcome struggles of crime, poverty, unemployment, AIDS and many other issues.  I can only say I am very proud of her.

Nawwhhhh, thanks Mum! Hope you and Sam both enjoyed your visit! Thank you for coming! :D <3 xxx

Responsibility

With the half way mark now passed, it was time for Project Trust to come out and visit us in South Africa. This was a good chance to reflect on the past 6 months and discuss how things have gone. For reasons that we won’t go into, my project partner has been repatriated, leaving me with even more responsibility than I already had! Not only am I now in the classroom looking after and teaching all 3 classes at the same time on several of the days the week when the teaching assistant is absent, but I’m also the most constant person in these children’s lives…quite a daunting position to be in but I’m actually really enjoying it and like the freedom which being alone has given me. I have also realised now how much the past 6 months have changed me, although I don’t think I will fully understand until I arrive back in the UK in August...

Anyone who is thinking of taking a gap year with Project Trust but are not sure of it….seriously just go for it - it really does change who you are for the better :)

Secondary Project!

Project Trust encourage volunteers to take up secondary projects whilst overseas, however the working hours and nature of Thembelihle means that I sadly don’t have the opportunity to get involved in the wider community as much as I would like to. However… a week or so after returning from the New Year travels I was asked by one of the members of the church who heads up the Sunday School whether or not I would be interested in becoming one of the two Sunday School teachers. Those who know me well will know that I’m not particularly religious and when I was offered the job, was a bit wary of the fact I would have NO idea what I was teaching the children, but I agreed and have once again thrown myself in the deep end and out of my comfort zone (a new challenge is definitely needed)! So far it's going pretty well although i'm currently getting the kids ready for Scripture Exams?!?!?

The Sunday school at Norwood Baptist Church is held in two small sheds in the garden of the main church. They are pretty run down on the inside with stacks of broken old benches covered in a layer of dust and crawling with spiders – not a great learning environment. So as well as teaching, i’ve also offered to do them up a bit; mend the furniture, clean it all down and paint the outsides. Actually really excited!

Travels…

So I have finally had a chance to see more of South Africa. I must say there is a massive contrast between the Eastern Cape where I am living and the rest of the coastline I visited on the way back from Cape Town, where it felt more like being in Europe than Africa! It was great to see all of the other volunteers and hear about their stories from the various projects across the country. It seems everyone is having a great year and really making a difference at their placements J Thank you Project Trust!

I had a jam packed and much appreciated break from the project, climbing Table Mountain on New Year’s eve, sandboarding the longest ride in the country at 350m, quad-biking, mountain biking (with pushbikes?…painful), and finally jumping, or should I say pushed off the world’s highest bungee at Bloukrans Bridge – the highlight of the holiday! – type it into Youtube!!!

Arriving back in Mthatha and Thembelihle was a bit of a shock, but it definitely felt like home and I was glad to be back. I am now well settled back into teaching and am loving it more than ever. I am looking forward to meeting the new admissions this year. My favourite lesson back so far has been Group 1 Lifeskills – “the 5 senses”. I have never had so much fun with peanut butter, a ‘smelly’ sock and a hairbrush which I promised ‘wouldn’t bite’ when they put their hand in the bag with their eyes closed! YAY!

“Do they know it’s Christmas time…”

It feels a little ironic listening to Band Aid whilst being out here in South Africa. We have tried our best to make Christmas special for the few children who are left at the home over Christmas. Many have now be re-homed, either back to their families or to more permanent accommodation, whilst others are spending Christmas with safe relatives and will be returning to Thembelihle in January. I must say it is much quieter here now that there are only 8 or so children left…much different to the 26 I’m used to! We have had some interesting new admissions and children with extremely challenging behaviour, but with each one I remember why I am here J

The lead up to Christmas involved making paper snowflakes, tree decorations and stockings with the kids helping  to decorating the house, office and classroom…I must say their decorating skills are impressive! The day started early and involved lots of smiles hugs and screams of excitement as they saw the pile of presents under the tree… brand new clothes in time for church and new toys to play with…smiles all round! Church was a shorter service than usual and we all enjoyed singing Christmas carols in the heat! The children were then treated to a bouncy castle in the back garden and a Braai!

Thanks to everyone back home who donated presents, clothes and money…they had a super day! J

So…Do they know it’s Christmas time…? – They certainly do here at Thembelihle Home!

Brandy

The rest of the month has been spent being bitten to death by trillions of insects, finally hanging the mosquito net up above my bed, finding a new love of brandy and egg scented shampoo (Mthatha never ceases to amaze me), crawling cockroaches and swelteringly hot days followed by thunderstorms at night…WAHHH! Only in South Africa J

Exams, exams, exams…

Yes for you Scots out there, having the end of the school year in Nov/Dec may seem normal, but for me it was strange to be writing up the end of year exam papers after having been here for only 3 months! With Thembelihle being a home school and having no set syllabus, it was up to me to write the exam papers, invigilate the exams, create the mark schemes, mark the papers and write up the reports for each child at the end of it! So November was spent frantically making sure the children understood everything I had taught them over the past few months, holding extra revision sessions outside of lesson times, one-on-one tutoring and mini tests in lessons. I think the biggest challenge was writing the papers and finding the right balance between phrasing the questions in a way they will understand, whilst considering the different abilities within each class…much trickier than it sounds! Invigilating the exams involved sitting in on 2 hour long exams, although I must say I did enjoy the silence…I think it is the quietest I have ever heard them! Marking the exams was more rewarding than I thought it would be. Although there were some silly mistakes and some disappointing answers, overall I was very proud of every single one of them! They did me proud, and I’m am so happy with the A*’s, but more so the E’s which the less capable English speakers achieved – their faces when they saw they had passed…!