The process continues, disorganized, despite what I think are the best efforts of the local volunteer staff. One of the schools was writing exams today, so those volunteers split up and some went to our school, and some went to another school.
When we arrived at our school (Hector Peterson) there were only two learners there. Luckily three more showed up pretty quickly, but we had a total of six instructors and one observer/videographer. As we were expecting and heard from other schools, the learners were very shy to open up but being outnumbered by volunteers and the presence of a video camera on the first day certainly did not help. Tomorrow should be much better in this respect – there will be only four of us and no camera, and it is also possible more learners will come.
Because there were so few, our lesson plan was somewhat shot, so we wound up dividing chapters on the fly, and alternating between lecturing the material and engaging the students in exercises. Warric did a fantastic job at the end of the day engaging the learners in a brainstorming session about businesses they could build in various scenarios (e.g. at the World Cup, in the school, etc.). The real homework for tonight is to prepare good ways to engage the learners with the material. Since we were expecting a much more informal setting and also did not anticipate the level of reticence of the learners I, at least, was unprepared to engage them well. Of course I was also unfamiliar with the curriculum other than the prep work I did last night, but that is another matter (it’s not rocket science or anything).
This was my first time in an African school obviously and it was interesting (and also very very cold – today it was cold and rainy and there is no heat in the classrooms). In the center of the building is a huge open area (courtyard) for school assemblies, and we speculated that it might also double as a community gathering place since this was by far the largest and most well-constructed building in the area. The classrooms are on the first and second floors, off to the sides. I was amused both by the graffiti (you see that everywhere) and in particular all the American ones: G-Unit, 50 Cent, Eminem. So funny.
Another interesting thing is the classroom had some “life orientation” sheets from a prior class and it was interesting to compare the students’ answers. Of particular note was that all three sheets I saw had “True” in the True/False section next to the statement “Real men are strong and aggressive.” Speaks to the culture I suppose although we did learn that the men take turns cooking, at least in this township.
At the lunch break I spent a good amount of time talking to Archie (who is from Zimbabwe). I really wished I had a tape recorder so that I could remember all that he said, but he did say conditions in Zim (as it is apparently called) are much better now than during the runoff, and Morgan Tsvangirai is maturing and turning out to be a good leader and administrator, and effecting positive change. Which must mean Mugabe is letting him; I suppose as long as he keeps the perks of power it’s in his interest for the lives of the citizens to improve marginally. Also I didn’t realize but Tsvangirai’s two-year-old nephew drowned about two months after his wife died in the car crash; as if that man and his family haven’t been through enough. I was asking about him because I was curious if he was actually a good man or just appeared to be good because he was the leader of the opposition. Also it was very interesting to talk to Archie because he was obviously quite well informed about world events (Darfur, the Palestinian right of return, the LRA, etc.). If he was surprised that an American knew about some of these things as well as what was going on in Zimbabwe he didn’t let on, in contrast to the reactions one usually gets traveling.
On an unrelated note, if I have to eat another cold tasteless chicken sandwich again (we had the same food for Friday lunch) … well, I won’t be eating it again. Tomorrow I’m having leftovers and then we’re going to the store to make our own sandwiches. Or maybe we can encourage one of these budding entrepreneurs to make some money by cooking for us!
Tomorrow should be much better. By the end the learners were perking up, and had relaxed, and were much more engaged than in the beginning when everyone (including the instructors!) was nervous. I find the people here just beautiful and I really love hearing the Xhosa language; the clicks are really neat to hear. Sometimes even when people are speaking in English they will click (maybe for effect? Not sure), and it sounds especially neat when they do it twice in a row. One of the other volunteers speaks Xhosa and I hope to get her or one of the learners to teach me. I bet laughing at the silly American who can’t make proper sounds is a good ice breaker!
At the end of the day we all gathered back at Stellenbosch for a debrief, which was delayed about 45 minutes while we waited for volunteers from this school that is very far away to get back. Hopefully that is coordinated better tomorrow, but we spent the time discussing our lesson plan for the next day so it wasn’t exactly wasted time either. Some people even ate another chicken sandwich; I was just not going to go there. We also found out there are no more rooms available (on the whole campus believe it or not … not sure I do but whatever) so Mary and I are stuck bumming showers for the next two weeks. The weekend in Cape Town will be so nice …
I went out for a long run and found an awesome trail by the river which I followed to its end, then turned around and took the other fork down to the athletic area where I saw the massive gym building and ran by the rugby pitch which is gorgeous. The greenest grass I’ve probably ever seen, with the backdrop of the foot of this massive mountain with a cloud halfway up it, and a gray sky. I really wish I’d brought my camera for some of the things I saw on the run. Meanwhile Jacky and Nick were apparently having all sorts of fun on their tour of the gym, which is the largest in South Africa and has all sorts of specialized rooms and equipment. I’m all about the sand bag floor, how cool is that? I think BSC Andover needs some sandbags!!
We found yet another awesome restaurant for dinner. No more only-decent Italian food. This place had like 8 different kinds of meat, including zebra and a couple of things I hadn’t even heard of. I went for the local fish of a variety I had also never heard of, and ate one of Jacky’s prawn heads before peer pressuring Ross to eat the other one. Rayshawn ate the biggest burger I have ever seen, and Nick demolished his oxtail stew. A few people ordered cheesecake for dessert which meant we all ate the cheesecake and it was out of this world. The total bill worked out to less than we’ve usually been spending, too, so it was smiles all around. Then when we were leaving I started talking to the next table - they were from London following the Lions (I think) English rugby team, and one of them works right around the corner from where the Jeeves office used to be in Holborn. Apparently Belgo's is no longer there though. Very sad... now I miss London. Stupid nostalgia ...
Most of the others are watching a movie right now (or that was the plan), but I need to go over my lessons for tomorrow and get to bed because 5 hours sleep is simply not enough.
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