Well, I'm sure people will be glad to know that this week has just gotten better and better. I've settled more into teaching and am enjoying it so much that maybe it's time for think about the future. I'm working predominantly with a group of 3 of the older kids, Rudi, Christelle and Christaline and they are wonderful. This week I taught them about the use of capital letters, plurals, punctuation marks and how HIV/AIDS can be spread. Sometimes they find it hard to grasp a certain concept and so we spent an hour on thursday finding descriptive words for each letter of our name. The same boy who asked me for money, Rudi is very smart and is very quick to understand things and started straight away, but the words he used to describe himself filled me with sadness; Rude, Unhappy, Dead and Ill. I had a little talk with him and asked him to look at it from another perspective and all the good things about himself. He had to think about it for a while but then he came up with Responsible, Unstoppable/Unbeatable, Driven to play soccer and Incredible/Invincible. I asked him how the words made him feel and he said when he read them, he felt them, and that made me feel like I'd done a good job.
Thursday was really nice because once the little ones had gone home, the older kids the rest of us played a game where we were each given a smiley face with the word, "compliment" on it and were asked to give them to someone we felt deserved a compliment. I got some amazing feedback from the kids in my class and also Bridget and Jolien told me I was doing really well. I was also given the opportunity to make the kids feel good about themselves which is something you can't really do in class in case the other kids think you favour one over another. It was also wonderful to be able to tell Franklin, Bridget and Jolien how much I admired their work without seeming a bit cheesy.
One of the little ones, Lorenzo, who is 5 was really sick on thursday and had to be taken home. He seems to have a permanent cold, but he was really tired and ended up messing his pants. His mother was advised by Franklin to take him to the hospital on Friday and not go to school but the next morning he was back again and seemed to be better. He was running around the playground and saying, "Please", "Thank you" and, "Good morning" like I remind him to, but he started coughing and physically couldn't stop. Franklin did a bit of an examination of his chest and heard how his lungs were sounding and although he didn't say anything you could see that he was really concerned. I hope that he is taken to the hospital this weekend, and there isn't anything terribly wrong with him.
Friday was a really fun day for the kids though, and we played a lot of games and there was a lot of laughter, I even managed to get Delano(the little boy who had been so violent towards me) to use manners and say sorry and shake hands with the other kids if he hurt them or took things from them. I also got to teach my kids about self respect and although I feel like it got through to them, like with all things, they'll learn with repetition.
As a group we all want to do so much for the school and the kids, the playground is covered, literally with broken glass and rubbish and we would love to clean it up. The toilets are also atrocious, our classroom is right next to the girls toilets and the smell in the mornings is sickening, I'm glad I have a strong stomach. Everyday our programme gets the kids to do a hygeine check where we look for clean hands, and ears and then the kids get to brush their teeth and I brought along baby wipes which I've told the kids they can earn by being polite and concentrating in class. I wish I could have filmed the minutes as they were cleaning their faces, ears and necks with them, they were so happy. They all kept smelling their clean hands and it was so bittersweet to watch.
Today we all went to Addo Elephant Park and it was such a wonderfully chilled day. There was so much beauty around us for miles and miles that I couldn't believe we were in the same country as the townships with the burnt down shacks and children peeing in the street. A smaller portion of our group decided to have a tour in a jeep and it was amazing. We saw Elephants about a metre away from us, mongoose, Monkeys, Cape Buffalo, Warthogs and Satin Starlings. But the view was just as gorgeous as the animals, and so refreshing.
We're all going clubbing tonight and then to the flea market and maybe a church tomorrow. I hope everyone is well.
