Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Our lovely weekend away at Bulungula was definitely the calm before the storm, as with the start of the new week came Masakhane Bootcamp. From 8:30am until 1:30pm Monday - Friday grades 6, 7, 8 and 9 Axium students came in their school holidays to do extra Maths and English. Hardcore I know but we did throw in some games to lighten the mood slightly.
Aside from chaos and the server breaking once again on the last day of bootcamp (story of my life) everything went smoothly. Bootcamp gave us the opportunity to do out first 'real' bit of standing-in-front-of-the-class-writing-notes kind of teaching which was a nice change.
During games I showed one of my pupils how to work the camera on my iPad. Needless to say it didn't take her long to find the front camera, and took her even less time to start posing in front of the camera with friends. I have noticed over my 7 months how South Africans are not camera shy. You can see the results in my photo album!
The awards ceremony on the final day was great; it was nice to see some of the kids getting recognition for their commitment to learning and the hard work they put in. Our translator who is on maternity leave also popped by with 6 day old baby Simthandile, he was tiny! In Xhosa culture babies aren't just given a name because the mother likes it, names have strong meaning. Like Simthandile means the one who was loved. I think it's nice anyway.
The week was good fun but I'm very glad Saturday finally arrived. With a sore head, swollen ankles and quickly becoming sick of the sound of my own voice I felt I deserved a treat come Saturday afternoon. So I made myself some brownies which everybody else ate for me... How kind of them.
Ps: I would also like to mention these same people are supposed to have given up sugar for lent. Just saying!
- comments
John Everson Hannah It is some time since we have commented but it has been very good to follow your blog. your time will there will be coming to an end all too soon. However, it is very clear that you are deriving all the benefits you should from such a challenging experience. Linda and John from 19 Oxhayes,