Happy Valentines Day!

I couldn’t have asked for a better Valentine’s Day! And I was even Valentine-less. Well, sort of.

Before I left for South Africa, I stopped to by some valentine’s (Madagascar valentines if you were wondering; tattoos included) before I left because I knew that I would obviously be in South Africa for the big day. :) I also made sure to buy some of the sweet candy hearts. You know, the ones that have particular phrases that say, “Go girl” and “Fax me.” HA! So you’re following. Okay, good. I brought 3 bags. One of which I brought for the staff to have and then the rest of the girls I teach/observe. I knew it might have been kind of corny, especially for the older girls, but whatever, they can get over it. It’s the thought that counts. Well, let’s just say they LOVEEEEEED them! And for this I was so happy. The first class I had today was a double Maths period. I distributed the valentines out to the Grade 10s and they were SO thankful and quite enjoyed the candy. Also during this period was a Grade 10 Investigation of which they took a tennis racket and a squash ball. The object of the investigation was to hit this squash ball straight up in the air and to attempt to reach 5 seconds before it touched the ground. We didn’t reach the 5 seconds, but we were close. I won’t go into detail with that because the focus of this entry is Valentine’s Day of course :) Ok, so… moving onwards. During my break, I received an SMS from my Host Mom that she picked up a package from my MOM! YESSS!!! Even though the package was sent 3 weeks ago and was only supposed to take 2 weeks to get here, it ended up coming on a perfect day! I’ll talk about that later. So throughout the day I distributed my valentines and the candy and in particular, my Grade 8s were looooooving the candy. So after class I told them they could come up and grab some more of the hearts and they were all over the opportunity. I ended up distributing them to all of my classes (yes, I planned ahead and made sure I had plenty to go around :) … good thinking, Emily).

The last class I was in for the day was quite a bit talkative and it was rather annoying because they can be a bit disrespectful to the teacher. This same class, yesterday, one of the girls I’ve been noticing who can’t seem to leave her cell phone alone during class, I confronted. She had asked me for help during the class and then at the end, she thanked me for helping her. And this was the time I said, “Hmm… well I’m pretty sure you won’t be learning any Maths on your cell phone.” And she replied, “So yes, I do understand that particular problem.” She put it back onto me which is a known habit she has. So I nicely touched her arm and said, “You need to be careful with your cell phone.” Having their cell phones out during class or during school in general is an absolute no-no and they will be confiscated. Supposedly once they are confiscated, the parents can get the cell phone back after paying a fine. Anyway, the same girl decided to pull out her cell phone today and started to SMS. So I watched and she definitely was so I immediately jumped up from my seat, looked over her shoulder, and shook my head. The girl next to her elbowed her that she needed to pay attention. I sat back down, gathered my thoughts and stated to her, “… I’m NOT telling you again.” From then on, I didn’t see her using it, but it really aggravated me for some reason. I have learned that I don’t want to be a strict teacher, but when rules are spelled out for you in the school handbook, I have absolutely no sympathy to nail you for violating the rule. I actually ended up mentioning to the teacher during class (in private) that she had her cell phone out. The teacher ended up confronting her after class. Listen, I’m not out to get girls in trouble when I’m observing, but when you’re in Grade 11, you should know better which is why I actually was proud of myself for standing up and saying something to her. That’s all part of the job. I’ve really been trying to have a dividing line between being a friend to them and being a teacher. I actually found myself struggling with this in the beginning of my experience. I’m starting to have more confidence in myself with this. I’ve also been really focusing on not trying to bring my school matters home into my social/home life. Once I leave school, I need to leave the problems at school.

So sorry, I was a little sidetracked! Back to Valentine’s Day! So after school, I received an SMS from one of my staff friends that he had something for me. I met up with him and he gave me a rose! I thought it was so sweet! He told me that he knew I was a long way from home and didn’t want me to be entirely alone on Valentine’s Day. It really was a nice gesture!

The best part of the day… once I got home I was finally able to open the package from my MOM!!!! So I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it was going to be good. Well, let me just tell you the card she sent said, “I thought you might like a “taste” of home.” Well taste of home is right. Here’s what was in my package: Skittles, Peanut Butter M&Ms, Chips Ahoy chocolate chip cookies, two original Pringles cans, Dutch Cocoa cookies, Tootsie Rolls, and Nutter Butter bars. Hot damn! All of my favorite bad foods! Definitely not in the half marathon training diet, but I’m not complaining. It was so good to have junk food. Ha! I never thought I’d say that. I’ve been eating nothing but healthy food here (aka salads like woah during dinner and for lunch at school I eat half of a cheese sandwich with a tomato… yes tomato and I’m LOVING them! I never thought I’d say that). So needless to say, I’ll be gaining all the weight I have lost back this week as I stuff my face with the junk food. Thanks MOM!!!! And I don’t mean that sarcastically! LOVE YOU!!

Well, I hope you enjoyed this post. I certainly enjoyed my day so I hope you can felt the joy as you read through!

Love Always!!!

PS. I wanted to comment on a culture thing:

*Typically people here will kiss each other on the cheek (yes, ladies kissing guys/guys kissing ladies, and ladies kissing other ladies… I think guys just shake other guys hands… I’m not sure. I’ve never really seen that one! Sorry!). It’s like a sign of saying thank you and that the gesture was really appreciated. It’s such a unique expression of joy and happiness to each other. I don’t mind it really. :) I saw that a couple times today amongst the girls and their friends. They all are so compassionate and caring about their friends and even the staff. It’s so neat.

There is so much I want to bring back to the States with me, but I know as soon as I do, I’ll get some rather weird looks. I’m going to start saying SMS (for texting because it’s so much easier than saying the word text/texting! Ha!) and words like “divine” and “rubbish” are definitely going to be in my vocab. There are many others I will bring back with me so prepare yourselves.

Hope everyone had a good day!