Highlights of this week!

Eight weeks- sometimes it feels like we have been here forever and sometimes like time has flown by! Highlights of this week:

The staff braai was held after school on Monday to celebrate the excellent matric (A level) results achieved last year. In the afternoon we helped prepare the “chakalaka” which consists of shredded carrot, onion and baked beans cooked together. The school has a feeding programme so the cooks prepared the meat for us all in their kitchen and we all sat round the staffroom with a steak, chilli worse, maize meal/mashed potato and chakalaka presented to us each on paper plates! It was so much that I couldn't finish but it was really good and most of the teachers attended. It was great to not have to cook in the evening. Mr Magagula picked on me to pray before we ate and I was totally wordless as I really don't remember the last time I was asked to pray out loud- probably in primary school! I kept it short and sweet but I really was thankful to be there with them. The teachers are almost like our family now as we see them everyday and are getting to know them well.

I have played a lot of netball this week as we were preparing for a match against another school held this weekend. Our netball team consists of both males and females and I am not the best, but it's still fun to take part. We usually play against the grade nine or grade twelve girls and Eugene, one of the teachers just makes it because he is so hilarious throughout. He gets very enthusiastic but constantly makes up his own rules. Mr Mbereki is a great shooter and Katie also used to play a lot so they make our team work better. The only thing with playing netball at lunchtimes is that by then it had reached about thirty degrees so it is exhausting!

This week, Katie had just about had enough with her grade eights as they seem to behave really badly in Maths and not in science so we talked about it and I offered to take half the class for maths from now on when I'm not teaching- so she will only be by herself for one maths lesson a week. I am not the best mathematician but it will be good to do something else for a change and I have been getting a bit bored at school this last few weeks. We are trying it out until Easter to see if it works and Thursday last lesson I took the 'good ones' who are mostly girls whilst Katie took the 'naughty ones' into another classroom. They had been learning about the perimeter and area of shapes and had to complete a worksheet so I basically had to sit there and help them if they needed it. We had just played netball and it was extremely hot but they were actually very good! They started asking me how to work out the areas of a triangle and something was going through my head like “base times height divided by two” but I still told them to times the wrong measurements and it basically meant they all got the answers wrong....woops! Some girls started playing with my hair and did some braids on the side which I probably shouldn't have allowed but I wanted to see what it would look like if we got it done (we have to wait until winter because my scalp will just burn in this weather!) Because last lessons are an hour and a half it usually ends up that the last twenty minutes the learners never stay focused which is understandable.... although, next time I am going to make sure I know how to do the work!! Katie had a successful lesson with those that were struggling as they actually did the work and the ones in my class were happy that they didn't have to be punished for once as a whole class because of the ones that do disrupt the class. So hopefully it's going to work out well from now on as long as I can start remembering my maths!!

On Friday afternoon I found out I didn't have to teach my two lessons because Miss G who is in charge of sports was letting the students practise for the matches on Saturday. We played netball for a bit then walked up to the high school behind the older grades classrooms where I discovered they have a huge football pitch. The whole school was up there and there was such a great atmosphere watching the teachers play the nine boys and girls were singing and cheering them on. Londiwe, one of the intermediate teachers, made me laugh so much because she is also as scared of being hit by the football as I am and every time it came remotely near to us she screamed and ran in so many different directions behind me. I wish I had my camera with me because it still makes me laugh now. This weekend has been the first in seven weeks we haven't rushed off somewhere on a Friday afternoon and it was actually a relief to come home and just relax. We visited Fancy Stitch where we had lunch and it was really nice to eat out in Ingwavuma! There was another family there we sort of know who run a school behind spar and the people who work there are lovely.

Before I write about the weekend, I just want to say that I have been feeling sad this week as Rose, who is like our older sister, has still not returned from her home in Pretoria as her Mum is very ill so she has to stay and she doesn’t know when she is able to come back, if at all. I am just praying that she will finally come back and that her Mum does get better as she is in a very difficult position and it can't be much fun any of them. I miss her loads and we call her nearly everyday. It's funny how we take things here for granted now when we wont be here forever.

On Saturday morning we were up early to meet Miss G to walk down to the hospital where five taxis were meant to be ready to take all the learners going on the school trip down to Manguzi. As usual, things never happen on time here and we were late walking and I spotted a massive African snail on the side of the road! It was so cool to see something like that because people at home keep them as pets in tanks and I had not expected to see one here. We dressed for hot weather however it looked like the news of the cyclone arriving that night was wrong as the wind was picking up and the clouds were quite dark. Once all the students had arrived, they were shuffled into taxis and I travelled with Londiwe in her car. The students treated the taxis as party buses and the drivers turned the music up SO loud so that the students could have a rave in the back which Katie was experiencing as she was sat in the front of one. It is unbelievable how relaxed the rules are here that they will allow students to stand up and dance around in taxis but there we go- TIA. We seemed to stop at every major town to go to the shops and spent a lot of time in Manguzi where Londi and I ran from the car to the garage in the pouring rain laughing and screaming before getting something to eat and waiting to find out where the school actually was! It turns out that it was on the way into town so we had to go back on ourselves before finally arriving at Hambisanani school two hours late. The school was very hospitable providing us with snacks and lunch but I was quickly whisked off to the hall after Miss G asked if I would represent the school as being one of the judges for the debate. Mr Mafuleka, the school librarian, was also asked so we went into this hall where we met two other teachers from the other school who were acting as judges. The students quickly filled up the hall as I tried to work out how we were marking each of the teams. The Hambisanani team was actually very good, especially their english and it was clear that they had put a lot of preparation into it, whereas our school team had been picked that morning! The topic was “Is the government to blame for the crime rate in South Africa?” with Nansindlela arguing for it and the other team arguing against it. The Hambisanani students I actually thought were so aggressive, especially the girls! I couldn't believe how rude they were being at times! Our school was a lot calmer and polite but did not have such a strong argument (I wonder why!). At the end of it I was selected to give some comments and reveal the winner with Hambisanani achieving 78% and Nansindlela 79% so obviously we were happy and loads of students from the other school were even hugging me!

It was still raining when we finished the debate but the girls still wanted to play netball and so Katie umpired the matches. I'm pretty sure that our school won which is not surprising as we have two strong teams. The netball court was made of mud and sand so I have no idea how they judged the lines! Every time we scored we all ran on to the court which was fun although I got soaked. We wanted to play as teachers but the other school refused because of the rain so that was a bit disappointing but understandable. We watched the male teachers from our school play the other school in football and I think we won that too although after a while we went inside as we were so cold and wet and our umbrellas were even breaking because of the wind. We had lunch and waited for the grade nine boys to finish their match which they were insistent on playing and after what seemed hours of taking shelter in front of a taxi with some of my nine B girls, we finally left for home about half past four. I was squashed in the middle of the front of the taxi with two other girls and it was incredibly uncomfortable and cold but still the students wanted to dance around in the back. There had been rumours of some students drinking and it was quite clear when we stopped for petrol in Scamelele that quite a few students were drunk. It actually broke my heart to see some of my grade eight girls stumbling around in a petrol station but no one knew who had bought it/where it had come from so there was not a lot the teachers could do. I found a warmer, more spacious seat next to Miss G in a different taxi for the second part of the journey and it was dark by then. We had a long wait at the taxi rank in Ingwavuma as people were swapping taxis and it was still pouring with rain- I felt so sorry for Miss G who was trying to round them all up! I had no idea what taxi Katie was in as we had got split up and didn't know whether anyone would be home. Luckily Mr Magagula had just arrived in his car so I could get in the house (Katie always has our keys). It was SO good to finally be home and dry and Katie came through the door about ten minutes afterwards. Overall, I enjoyed the day, especially the debate and I didn't spend too much money after last weekend so that was a bonus.

I have definitely got that end of term feeling as I now only have two more weeks of school before my Easter holidays start. Today we had a lie in and a bit of a pyjama morning watching TV and not much else. Today feels like the first time we have stopped since we got here and the weather has cleared up a bit although still windy and gloomy. Hopefully it will have cleared up by next weekend as we have plans to go to Sodwana beach. Missing everyone xxx