Roaming Africa

Hey Everyone,

Volunteering at Pendla this week was especially rewarding. It is great to go there every Monday and Tuesday, but something about this week was a little extra special. I have mentioned before that I have become fond of my students in class. I hope they are learning from me as much as I am learning from them. As my time here is limited, I have looked back at the experience going into these last two weeks. We meet quite regularly to discuss ways that we can maximize our time at our volunteer site. This week we discussed different parts of volunteering like what we found frustrating, what worked, what didn’t work. I want to write about two instances that I will remember for a long time because they were particularly special.

First, the past couple weeks the Department of Education has brought in a group of people to teach the students how to play sports like rugby, soccer, field hockey, and other sports that are popular here. It is a way of giving the students a gym class once a week basically since they don’t have that regularly. They come during the students break conveniently. When the group arrives midday on Tuesday, their bus is swarmed by the all the kids, all but the students in my class. The students in my class could care less. During recess I play soccer with them. Them being Busisa, Zuko, Liyema, Liyema S., Ayabonga, Hlmelo, Sisababwe, Sive, and Likhane. I figured I should give them recognition finally on the blog. They acknowledge that they are there, but would rather play soccer with me.

The second came this past Tuesday. One of the grade 1 teachers is retiring, so there is going to be some shifting of students. The class that I teach in will be doubling in size to hold about 60 students. It will be a challenge as I expect it to be mayhem in class. The room is not particularly big, so we worked on Tuesday moving out the teacher’s desk and getting more desks and chairs in the room. While this was going on, I happened to just be sitting around talking with the students. I was not going to be able to control them with the room in such a clutter, or so I thought. As we were sitting there, Busisa and Liyema took out English books that I had been teaching an English lesson out of before we started moving the room around. They asked me to read with them. This was amazing, so I grabbed a book myself and went over to read with them. After we started, more students came over to join. In the midst of the mess of the room, I ended up being able to still teach the students. I must say that this has been the most rewarding part of the trip for me. I think that this also can symbolize the current situation South Africa finds itself today. The country may be a mess because of the past, but there are great people here that have big aspirations and strides being made to improve the country.

I have been looking at the weather reports for Minneapolis, and they look very similar to Port Elizabeth right now. Highs in the low 70’s with lows in the mid 50’s. It is getting dark here earlier and earlier every day since it is fall here. It is dark at around 6 o’clock now. It is weird since the days are getting longer in Minnesota and that is what I am used to. The nursing department from CSB-SJU will be arriving here Sunday. It will be interesting to see their reactions to being in South Africa. I am sure our group looked the same way back on February 2. Our group has adjusted to living here, so we will be able to show them the ropes about SA.

I want to wish a Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there! Happy Mother’s Day Mom! Thanks for everything; I hope you have a great day. I would not be having this great adventure without you.

Thanks to everyone for reading. Cheers,

Bobby