Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Another crazy week! Friday, Good Friday, we do not have school and we wont again until May! But that’s awesome because us girls still have places we want to go!
VG only had 9 school days from last break until this one, so it’s been pretty busy in every part of the school. The girls work really hard though, and as always, they are the politest group of young ladies I have seen. I truly love these girls. I’m also really starting to realize that I’m going to have to say goodbye, not for another couple of weeks, but still. I have only 10 more school days with them even though I have a little under a month until I leave. But I really love teaching these girls. They’re smart and they have a great sense of humor. The only problem I occasionally have is class talking, but it really has never been unmanageable and also, these girls are just physically louder than me. But I’m definitely a match for them when I need to be ;)
Last weekend the Matric girls (seniors) had their version of prom. They call it a Matric Farewell, or MF. LOVE IT! I was so excited to see what it was all about and had my outfit picked (out of a sparse selection….) out way before. I work with a lot of the Matric girls in choir and voice lessons, and the grade 11 girls put the dance on for the Matrics. The girls in the hostel are also all grades 11 and 12. So everywhere I went there was MF talk. And before I continue with dance deets, I have to say, South Africans have by far, BY FAR, the best footwear I have ever seen. They have creative sandals down to an art. And I’ve never seen so many girls wear and work glitter stilettos on cobblestone before. Girls after my own heart!
But my register class (like homeroom) is a grade 11 so I was all in the know about what was planned. But nothing prepared me for the transformation their Hall took. It was incredible. They have someone come in and they call it draping, but it was like a beautiful black tent. You couldn’t tell that we were in the Hall, it was ridiculous! And the dresses the girls wear! They are all interesting. And I was really impressed to find out that lots of these gorgeous dresses are either made by the girl’s mom or ‘granny’; or that the girls design their dress and find someone to make it. Some are bought, but it’s very hard to tell the difference. But lots of bright colors, some traditional African prints, and lots of fabulous shoes.
The other thing I love about teaching in Africa is that you really get to do it all ~ which as a double major is definitely what I love. Friday afternoon, one of the teachers comes up to me and asks if I can waltz. I’m not going to lie to you blog, I had no idea why she was asking this and I might have just said yes. Well the next period I find myself in front of almost 100 Matric girls trying to teach them how to Waltz. Just ridiculous. And by the end we were beating the one, two, three on a djembe, which kinda felt like butchering 2 arts simultaneously. But I was so proud at the dance when they all waltzed the first dance. Also, as a side note I have a wonderful handout I created on the box step, if anyone’s interested…
The next Monday, after school, the girls put on a fashion show for anyone who wants to come. It is like Grand March here, only it’s a separate event. They do their hair and makeup all again and get dressed up and then they walk through the school’s courtyard. It was so pretty and so nice ~very tasteful. They played Norah Jones in the background and had tea and biscuits (the usual after event treat) with the families after the show.
Yesterday, we went to the Victoria Primary School to see their grade 4- 7 concert of Wind in the Willows. I was super excited. First, because Emily works with the girls in the concert. And second because I was really interested to see how these types of concerts differ to ones in the States. Turns out theirs aren’t that much of a difference, but the show was so cute. The whole school works on this concert and it really showed. From the costumes to the animal makeup on every student, it was fabulous. They also added a lot of little parts in order to include more students, which I thought was very nice. The have the younger grades concert at another time in the year.
The other day I discovered the school’s Library. It’s my new hangout when I have an open period. But when I saw it I literally felt like Belle from Beauty and the Beast.
So it’s now into autumn here and it’s starting to get cold. Also, people are starting to get sick, me included. I already have extreme allergies here, apparently Grahmstown has a super high pollen count, but I also think I’m reacting to something in the Hostel, because I have never had seasonal allergies ever before. I’m not looking forward to Choir rehearsal though with the voice I currently have. And it’s the whole group today; that’s over 100 students. UGH! Oh well, we will make it through. I am having them sing Seasons of Love from Rent. They are really starting to sound nice on it.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Well, it’s the end of another break – this one over a week long. For Easter we went on a safari at Addo Elephant Park with one of the teachers Heather and I work with. She’s super nice and it was a blast having her drive around in the school’s bus/van. And she knows so much and all the Afrikaans names of the animals. She also happens to be an animal spotting champion! We saw lots of animals, and lots of elephants!!!! Nina’s fav animal is the elephant so I was really excited to go there and get some good pics. They just are walking around the park. No big deal. Also, equally important to the elephant, the protected dung beetle. We would actually stop at big piles of poo and check to see if we could see any dung beetles in action. We had to check a lot of piles, but eventually we spotted some. Also, there was some crazy swerving on the road to avoid them (it’s really bad to run them over). I feel like we each should have a couple dung beetles cleaning up after us and wouldn’t that help with a lot of waste problems.
Later in the week us girls rented a car and drove to a really big pineapple. That’s just what it’s called, the ‘Big Pineapple’. After seeing it, I think it must have been what inspired Sponge Bob Square pants. It is also a pineapple farm. I really thought pineapples grew on trees, but alas, just like money, they do not. Or at least not all varieties do. They had these tiny little pink pineapple type things. Apparently they are flowers, they were called the love something. I can’t remember, but they were so pretty I bought one for 4 Rand and it’s currently sitting right by bed. It’s supposed to bloom for 6 weeks and then dry like that. I wonder if I can bring that home?
We also went to Boknes beach that day. Emily had been there on a field trip with her girls and said it was just beautiful. It was gorgeous~ and it wasn’t even that nice of a day. But the beach isn’t crowded, its just long and serene and untouched. It’s been really cold lately though, so I didn’t go in the water this time. I started meandering down the beach, and then wound up pulling away from the other girls. On the other side of the beach is a cross up on a hill. Emily was telling me that it’s Diez’s cross. The explorer? I don’t think I got his name right. But either way, some explorer landed there and it was big deal because it was a point where they discovered they could go around Africa to get to India for trading. I have no idea why, but I felt compelled to go there. I was just curious to see what it was. But this hill was so far away. So it took me an hour each way to walk through all the wind, sand, and water, it was NOT a leisurely stroll. Haha, I don’t even know if it was worth it, but I finally made it! It was definitely a workout though.
And this past weekend we went to Hogsback, which is famous for supposedly being the place that inspired Tolkien to write the Lord of the Rings books. So we watched one of the movies before we left to get in the spirit J It really was amazing. Just thinking about the drive makes me carsick again though ~ all those swervy mountain roads, barf! I kept on thinking ‘how am I going to make it to North Carolina!?!?’. Ugh, that’s going to be rough weekend.
Anyways, at Hogsback we stayed at this backpackers called ‘Away with the Fairies’ which was very cool. Parts of it just cracked me up though. Like the lady there was telling us that there is bath overlooking the mountains if we wanted to soak and watch the sunset. Which sounds amazing! But like I although I knew it wouldn’t be an infinipool or whatever, I was not picturing an actual bathtub wedged out there. Like someone’s crappy old bathtub out there, haha, so Africa. But I mean that lady didn’t lie, you could take a bath out there I guess.
She also told us there was a lookout on one of the paths that was great to watch the sunset on as well. She suggested we grab a beer and go on up. Well we do that and get to the treehouse, and it really is just that. Forty feet up a ladder is a platform in a tree. I’m not afraid of heights, but this climb was a little terrifying. You have to switch ladders halfway too, and as you’re going up you see these sticks holding things up… oh AFRICA! But we sat up there until we were so cold we couldn’t take it and then climbed down. We were all so worried it was going to be sososo cold that night, but it turns out it was way nicer and warmer than even the hostel is.
Okay, here’s a side rant about the Hostel. Now that it’s Fall going into Winter over here, it gets pretty cold at night. And being a Minnesota girl, I think I’m pretty cold tolerant. But the Hostel has is a new version of cold. I swear its warmer outside than inside that hostel at nights. The last week I slept in my dressy sweater (cause it’s the only sweater I brought), a t-shirt, my fleece polo, plants, my Uggs, scarf and two blankets and both Heather and I were so cold we couldn’t sleep. Just ridiculous. We finally broke down and bought a heater cause we just couldn’t take it. I don’t even like being in the Hostel during the day now because it’s still so cold. We also had to downgrade to a new room. It was a den, but if you take out the couch and add a bed, it’s a bedroom, viola! So now we have no sink, refrigerator, or toilet. Africa gets more and more tricky as time goes by haha.
Back to Hogsback! We got to go on lots of hikes and see three different waterfalls. It was very pretty and it did feel magical. I kept thinking more about Ferngully then Lord of the Rings though. Maybe it was all the Fairy references at the backpackers. We had some adventures, some mud slips, some driving escapades, and some really good food.
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| Some of the pretty birds we saw. |
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| Black Swans!!! |
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| A sneaky monkey looking into a kitchen window. |
So that was my past week. I have 12 days until I fly home. I am so excited, I miss my family and Mark so much. But it’s going to be a whirlwind when I get home, so I’m a little overwhelmed about that. Until then, it’s a beautiful day, I’m wearing a sundress, and drinking a smoothie in my favorite place to eat in South Africa, Café D’vine. It’s a good day. Hopefully I find Internet soon to load this onto the blog page.
