Last week was a lot of fun. I feel completely settled here now, except today I'm feeling homesick as I realised this morning I have been away for six weeks and as much as I love it here, I can't help but miss everyone at home and the familiarity of home. I have the same dream at least twice a week where I visit home for a short while knowing that I'm coming back here and I don't know why because I'm not coming home until the middle of July. I also realised that we only have 18 weeks left at our placement so time will fly by. I am getting SO excited for Easter now...I haven't seen Sonia in five years or so and we are going to have such an amazing week. Also the road trip with the other two is going to be fantastic as we will have a lot of freedom. Only four weeks to go!
Valentines Day was really enjoyable and over here it is not so commercialised but more about love in general which was actually really refreshing as no one is worried about “oh I don't have a boyfriend on Valentines Day so it's going to be so bad” like it is at home. The grade twelves put on a function in the science lab so that they could raise some money towards their matric dance at the end of the year. I was feeling a bit annoyed when my nine B's decided that just because it was the hour before the function started, then it was Ok not to turn up to my lesson! I went down to the science lab afterwards and they had these huge speakers borrowed from a local church and their were learner's everywhere, even sitting on the top of cupboards! The younger grade's catwalked in front of a panel of judges and in between people just got up and danced. It was great to see another side to the school and the matrics organised it so well. They made 650 rand (about £60) which I thought was amazing, especially if they can pull it off every month like they are planning to do. We wore our uniform and got lots of compliments about how good we looked! It felt so strange being back in school uniform after three years and it I got so hot- I can't believe they have to wear that everyday, especially the long socks!
On Wednesday after running around the playground with the high school girls in sports, we cooked a roast dinner for Rose and Mienky. Unfortunately, the oven in this house does not work so we had to use the one in the house next door to cook the chicken and potatoes. It took a few hours and we set the table nicely with wine glasses with napkins in and put flowers on the table. Both Mienky and Rose enjoyed it even though we forgot to put the vegetables on! It felt like Christmas or something! We still have a whole chicken in the freezer so I expect we will do another one soon for some of the other teachers' or the principal and his family.
This week at school I set all my classes tests but I seemed to spend most of the time finding people who hadn't done their homework and making sure they go it done or basically just leaving their class teachers to punish them. Even the grade eights are starting to realise they can't get away with it now. Two boys were punished by Rose who threatened them with cleaning out the jars with snakes in them in the science lab cupboard that were going mouldy! Poor things, apparently one boy nearly cried and begged for another punishment (don't worry- she's not actually that mean to make them do it) and he has been good in class ever since! I know quite a lot of names now and it's a lot easier than it was at the start. Teaching just comes naturally after a few weeks and I learn very quickly about what works and what doesn't.
So the weekend! Best weekend here by far! We went to Thobeka (the backpackers) in the evening and stayed there until very late with two boys we met. One of them is a matric at patrick's school and his friend is the same age and works in Manguzi. We just chatted over drinks and talked about the differences between our countries...they seem to find our accent hilarious. On Saturday morning I woke up and shouted 'ELEPHANTS' at Katie to wake her up and she thought I said 'pants' but I was so excited for going to Tembe. We borrowed a 4x4 bukkie from one of the teachers Patrick knows and it was about half an hour drive. We paid 40 rand each (£4) for entry and the car and set off into the bush to spot some wildlife. We saw lots of cool deer, impala and other creatures with antlers and then a lone warthog that was just chilling in the middle of the road. We were saying lion king quotes the whole day! We also saw a family of warthogs and the baby ones were so cute but they ran quite fast. There are a few hides where you can walk up to a viewing point and in the first one their was a watering hole with a herd of wilderbeast sitting under the tree. Very scenic but still no elephants! The next animals we saw were a group of about five buffalo who just stared at us. They have incredible facial expressions...these two reminded me of a couple of old ladies! We then approached a herd of about sixty and they were pretty impressive although they looked a bit angry. We weren't expecting to see Zebra but it was lovely because they were next to some wilder beast which took a fab photo. Our first sighting of an elephant after quite a long time was perfect. I felt quite tired and just closed my eyes before Patrick shouted and there was one in the bushes on our right. We were able to stop and take photos before it wondered off. The next one we saw gave us a bit of a shock as it appeared around a corner and was a lot bigger than the previous! BUT the third one nearly gave us all a heart attack...Katie was driving and literally emergency stopped as this massive elephant is facing us walking along the road. It was the strangest feeling....we were in an elephant park expecting to see elephants yet it still scared the life out of us. It must have been about fifteen metres away and all we could do was reverse as there was thick bushes on either side of us. The amount of screaming and swearing and laughing was unbelievable as we turned the car around and went to look for it again. I got a great video of it walking in front of us swishing it's tail but the photos and videos will never get across how huge it was and the feeling of being so close to something so magnificent. Luckily all the elephants we encountered were very passive but we had no idea if they might charge at us- especially when we had to drive through a herd! Luckily we were a safe distance from them. The other amazing part of the day were the giraffes. We stopped to take photos and I have never seen anything so huge that is living- they were honestly twice the size of the one's I've seen at the zoo! When we drove off I thought that there had been about five but we suddenly realised that about twenty were running along the hill NEXT to our car! It was the most amazing experience of my life until one nearly ran in front of our car and I thought we were going to die!! I think our screaming made it turn back! It was just incredible- it was like they were playing with a toy car or something. I was so grateful I was filming at that exact point. I would never have experienced anything like that if I hadn't of come here!! the way they let you drive round the park by yourself is a little risky but I wouldn't have wanted to go with a tour guide after what we experienced. We saw one other car with tourists in the whole day and it was so cheap!
On Saturday night we went back to the backpackers with the boys and had dinner and a few drinks, although I was designated driver so I was on the fanta. The attitudes towards drinking and driving here are ridiculous, it's like for us maybe one drink and we can drive. For the South African's it more like six drinks! Luckily we are sticking to our own beliefs about drink driving. The backpackers is down a sandy road just like the one's we were driving on in the park and I was still driving so carefully as if an elephant was going to appear around the corner- it was so funny! On Sunday morning we taxied back to Ingwavuma and it was good to be home and tell Rose all our stories. We are quite close with her now and I'm usually in her room chatting with her or we just watch TV and it would not be the same without her hilarious comments to make us laugh everyday. Now it is a new week at school and hopefully we will FINALLY pay a visit to Fancy Stitch! We are planning to go to St Lucia at the weekend- a beach town a little bit further down the coast. I can't wait to get away from this area now and it will have normal shops!!
I am missing home but there is no way I would want to go home, I’m having too much of a good time! Huge thank you to everyone who got me here, it was the best decision ever!
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