Lots has happened

January 16-19, 2008 (Wednesday-Saturday)

Wednesday was the first day of school for the students. Regardless of how I was feeling, it was great to see the students active in a school atmosphere. I ride to school with two ladies – Anita and Helen, one of which is an Afrikaans teacher and the other is Maths. As you can see, they say maths and not math. That has been one of the changes I am attempting to make in my South African vocabulary while I am here. As of now, I don’t really have a set schedule of what and when I am teaching, but I do know I am teaching Grade 8, 9, and possible some Grade 10s. I am helping Anita with her Form class. Form is similar to what we call a “homeroom.” The girls meet there every morning before Period 1. While the students are in Form, the entire faculty is in the staff room for their daily meeting. I really do love this idea because it gets all the staff onto one page of the day’s activities and schedule. On the first day, I was thinking, “well, what are the girls going to do? Are they just unsupervised while we’re all here?” Yep. I’m not sure if this type of set-up in the States would work or not. My concern was about the girls and if they cause trouble. Shame on me for thinking that! The only trouble the girls would get in is for talking way too much! They love catching up with their friends and talking about their boyfriends, facebook, etc.

At the school on Mondays and Thursdays, all of the girls have to attend Assembly. The entire school meets in Kemp Hall and upcoming events, etc are shared. This is also a time the girls sing out of their Hymn books. On the first day of school, they sang the Lord’s Prayer which sounded so great. But, my thought while I heard these girls singing these songs was “Wow! This is not allowed in the public schools in the States!” I mentioned the fact to some of the faculty members and they pointed out to me that since Rustenburg is a public school owned by the government, they cannot actually force a certain God upon the girls. They can sing about a God, but not be forced to believe a certain God within a certain religion. It was quite fascinating to learn of this.

The girls at my school also wear uniforms. They wear light blue dresses and have the option to wear their jerseys (pullover sweater) and their jacket with their dress or just the jacket with their dress, I believe. It’s also a must to make sure their “colors” (the collar on their dress) are out and over their jersey and/or jacket. The music teacher actually asked me what I thought of the uniforms. I can’t remember if I already posted this or not. Anyway, she said the uniforms are nice and serve as a common ground for the girls. Girls can’t flaunt their money by wearing particular clothes.

Friday night (January 18), the school held a “bring and braii” for the parents and for the girls. This was an opportunity for the parents to meet some of the faculty and to have a casual evening together. Many families showed up and I was introduced to a couple of them by the French teacher, Dominique. She was gracious enough to take me around with her as she was meeting some of the parents which I was happy about because I was a little timid to do that on my own. Everyone brings their own drinks for the braii and my choice of drink was wine. It’s tradition here to drink wine with meals. It was a crazy idea to me that I was drinking wine with families and other faculty members on school grounds. What a difference from the schools in the States! By the end of the night, I was exhausted as I had spent all day at school. Although one of my feelings by the end of the night was that I was happy. I was happy because I had reflected on the past few days and realized how great Rustenburg is and how much I enjoy the faculty here. They have all been very gracious in helping me get around the school and including me in everything. For their kindness, I gave them a box of the Esther Price candy I brought from home. The loved the chocolates! Good work, Emily. J

January 19, 2008 (Saturday)

Terrez, Patrick, and I decided to do some touristy things. We walked to the train station to catch a ride to Simon’s Town because we wanted to go and see the African Jackass penguins. We walked to the train station which was about a good mile or so. In all honesty, once I got to the train station, I was a little nervous because I felt like the three of us stood out as Americans. It was the first time since I’ve been here where I felt like a minority. Immediately I felt insecure, held tight on to my bag, and was cautious of everything around me. Once I was on the train, I felt better, but Terrez and Patrick got into a really good discussion about blacks and whites. I just listened and didn’t take too much part in the conversation only because I wanted to hear Patrick’s thoughts and Terrez’s perspective as he is black.

Once we got off of the train, we walked to grab some lunch and then after, continued our walk to Boulders Beach. I suppose I should state that continued is an understatement. The three of us walked and walked and … we walked some more to get to this beach. We really didn’t even have a map to tell us how far to go. Oy! In total, I was told our walk was over 8K (3.1 miles = 5K)… you do the math. Nonetheless, we FINALLY found it and it was so worth it. These penguins were everywhere! I took many pictures and hope to post them soon. The cool thing about the penguins is that they were indigenous to the beach. They found South Africa themselves and over time, built up their habitat! We eventually made our way back to the train station and for home.

Kaylene, Jean’s friend, came to pick us up around 7 PM. Jean was taking the three of us, and many other students who are here from Norway, out to an African restaurant called Marco’s. It actually was really good and I enjoyed myself. I am rather proud of myself because I tried some new meats that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. For example, for my main course, I ordered ostrich which actually tasted like a lean beef. I also tried crocodile from the others who had ordered it. Now… I told myself before I left for this trip that I would try anything and everything. Well, let’s say I did just that when I was at Marco’s. Jean suggested I try tripe. The word tripe is the equivalent to the words “cow stomach.” So someone had ordered it and I attempted to try a piece. I… cut the little piece in half and took a bite. Dun dun dun. As soon as I put it in my mouth, I just knew it wasn’t going to work out. I ended up having to spit it out into my napkin because the flavor was horrendous to me. I won’t state on here what it tasted like to me, but if you’d like to know, I’d be happy to tell you. For those who enjoy tripe, hands down to you.

Overall, the dinner was a nice experience and I danced my booty off to some African music. They had live music and all of us danced around and just had so much fun. Marco’s is definitely a restaurant I would love to go back to.

I hope to have pictures and videos posted soon. I am also going to try and make it a point to reflect every day. There is so much that goes on during the days and I really don’t want to forget about anything I’ve experienced here. Thanks for reading if you made it this far!