It's been another fun packed, jet set, month out here in South Africa. I have put my working cap on and started volunteering at the township school, which I'm loving; the children have put their school caps back on and are enjoying playing lots of sport; and I have managed to take off my parent cap and sneak in a trip to Cape Town to meet up with two of my childhood friends from school in the UK.
My work at Riversands Primary School in the township of Diepsloot has begun. I work within a team of dedicated volunteers and am teaching phonics to eight year olds. I have three sweet little students called Kefentse, Refilwe and Melody, a boy and two girls. One is confident, one shy, and the other has no understanding of English at all, but they concentrate well and are keen to learn. I'm quite in awe of these children as they are often hungry, they live in corrugated iron shacks with poor sanitation i.e. no running water and sewage disposal, no electricity, and on top of all that, have to go to school and learn in a language that is not their mother tongue. It's a different world to the one I grew up in and currently live in. Even the Army provided us with portaloos on exercise and we always new the exercise would end. I'm humbled everyday by people's will to fight against adversity and sometimes even with a smile on their faces. I'm enjoying the challenge of gauging the little ones' level of understanding and in helping them as best I can. We are having fun and currently working on the sounds 's', 'a' and 't'.
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| Riversands Primary School, Diepsloot |
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| The Preschool playing outside of my classroom window. |
Amelie and Elowen have had a whirl wind start at school. Elowen has taken up tennis and Amelie extra swimming. Both girls are also enjoying computer club and working hard in class. Joel has learnt to swim and is really enjoying the water. He paddles along saying, "I'm doing it, I'm doing it!"
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| Off to school and preschool |
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| Joel's first swimming lesson with Teacher Lollipop |
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| Sunset at Hout Bay, Cape Town |
Laurence and I, courtesy of Granny, were able to spend a weekend away from the kids in Cape Town. With no kids in tow, and therefore filled with wild abandon, we spent endless hours at the beach, whether it was watching the sun setting behind the mountains or going for a morning walk, it was truly revitalising!
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| Having a meal at Dunes, Hout Bay |
We spent an afternoon with two wonderful school friends of mine, SJ and Jacqui, who were on holiday with their families. We had a braai together, which is a South African barbecue, overlooking the ocean in a little fishing village called Fish Hoek (Afrikaans for Fish Corner). And as the name would imply, it quite literally is a bay full of fish. So it was rather fitting that a shark siren should interrupt our afternoon. We looked on to see if we could catch a glimpse of Jaws cutting through the waves, which we thought for a second we'd seen, only to realise that it was a kayaker making their way rather hastily to the shore. Never a dull moment here in Africa.
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| Me, Jacqui and SJ overlooking Fish Hoek |
I also managed to squeeze in another beach Parkrun at Melkbosstrand just north of Cape Town with Laurence's sister, Gina, and brother in law, Phil. It was absolutely breath taking, which given the task at hand was rather unfortunate, but, jokes aside, it was an incredible moment to be running bare foot along the beach looking across at the iconic table mountain. My little waterproof feet served me well and we finished off with a post run dip in the ocean.
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| Melkbosstrand Parkrun, Bare feet out and ready! |
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| Running towards Table Mountain |
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| Post run with Gina and Phil |
It's a two hour hop between Cape Town and Jo'burg, and our plane did well to land in thunder and lightening. The power was out everywhere, not due to the storm but because of load shedding, which means that electricity is purposefully turned off by the government to conserve supply. A combination of trying to provide low cost electricity to the majority of the population post Apartheid to boost the economy, and in latter years, corruption within ESKOM the government provider of electricity, has meant that there is now not enough electricity produced to meet the demand. So whole suburbs just get switched off for four hour blocks, and this was our turn. We cautiously drove along the unlit streets, where even the traffic lights were off, and made it home safely. It was then that I felt like I had walked straight into a 19th century Charles Dickens novel as I had to find our lantern (albeit a solar powered LED version) and walk around the house with it to get the children into their pyjamas and into bed, and to read the teachers comments in their homework books. Carrying my lantern up and down the stairs coupled with the thunder and lightening going on outside, made me feel that it was only a matter of time before the Ghost of Christmas Past would reveal himself to me! Thankfully normality was restored by morning and 21st century living reigned once more.
So, from school to seaside frolics, Joel's swimming to a shark siren, and 21st to 19th century living and back; it's been another fun and busy month out here in South Africa.
I hope you are all well and surviving the tail end of winter.
Wishing you all lots of love, Jess xxx
