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sorry for the lack of writing, i'm useless i know! i keep coming on the internet and only going on skype and for some reason i'm unable to talk and write at the same time - a poor excuse i know. here goes for a brief update of life in cape town over the past 2 weeks...
The previous week i was still doing the same thing at the high school, although we decided to focus on the kids who needed the most help and do mainly one-to-one basics with them. Its scary how some of them can't read, write or spell and their 15. Crazy. This week i've had a complete change as i've been at the primary school so dealing with a lot younger kids (grade 3). My teacher is a crazy scary woman who if i was 8 i'd be petrified of, but these kids are clearly made of tougher stuff as they cannot be controlled by her. Obviously then i have no chance so my job is basically general helper and good cop to her very bad cop. Its just completely different to anything you'd get in england - i mean at one point she walked around the room at hit every one of the 47 kids in the class with her beating stick and i can't even remember what it was for. So far i haven't had to dish out any extreme punishments, more just breaking up the mini fights that happen when the teachers back is turned. Generally they ask me questions about spellings and words, and one day i did reading with them. I say reading it was pretty much them memorising what they had clearly read a 1000 times before and reciting it. You can tell because when they get to a word they don't recognise they'll just say every other word they know appears in the story!! Frustrating because they aren't actually reading whats in the book. Its the same with the teacing - if you can call it that - because the 'teacher' just writes from a book on to the blackboard, reads aloud and the kids recite back to her parrot fashion, and then they are made to copy it down into their work book. So really they don't take anything it and aren't even require to use their brains. And she wonders why they don't listen or take an interest...
This weekend we took a 3day weekend and decided to go to Cape Of Good Hope on the friday. We hired a taxi driver to stay with us for the entire day and visited Simons Town, Boulders Beach with the penguins, Cape of Good hope and Cape Point. We were hoping to hire mountain bikes but apparently this is an unheard of business is south africa so walking it was! That night we went out for a chinese buffet and then into town as it is Tom and Vickys last weekend here - no prizes for guessing that we went to the Dubliner as usual. Finally got to try boerwurst as well on our way home - basically just a hotdog but south africa style - and i recommend it! Saturday there was no chance of a lie-in as we had booked to go to robben island. The ferry there took around 30mins and was the perfect wake up journey as the wind really blew across the top deck. It was a really interesting trip as you get a bus ride round the island and then a tour of the prison by an ex-prisioner, so you find out things that an ordinary guide couldn't tell you. I would have looked a little more time to explore by yourself as you only get about 10mins by the time the tour is over, but still really enjoyed it. After lunch at the waterfront we headed home and left for Newlands at around 5, in time to watch the early game of rugby before our match started.
We had seated tickets this time and again the atmosphere was amazing. We looked like proper fans as we all had our faces painted with the stormers logo and flag on either cheek, our plaquards they were giving out with 'im a stormer' written on them and tom even bought a flag! Luckily they won the game and are now into the final next weekend. We had hoped it would be help in cape town but because the bulls won it will be in pretoria - have to make do with watching it on a tv instead of live! After the game we hot footed it to the nearest pub to watch the champions league final. Vicky is from holland so was very anti Bayern Munich - hence why all of us were cheering on bayern just to see her get more and more annoyed. Luckily for her at least they won and she was happy. By this time we were all knackered after 2 busy days so our previous plans of going back to springbok to go out were rethought and we just headed back for some well needed sleep.
Today has been a very chilled out day and we are having a braai tonight to round of our weekend. On friday tom and vicky are leaving so we will definitely be heading out a couple of nights this week as a goodbye for them!
- comments
Christabel Hey Julia, I feel really sorry for those little children, 'learning' in fear, but repeating out of books isn't exactly the best way to teach how to read, and it is making the English student in me, very angry! But it sounds like you are having a great time seeing the beautiful and cultural sites! I am very excited about the idea of going to a rugby match in the home of sexy ruggers players, I am sure you enjoyed that! So, keep on soaking up that sunny atmosphere- England has got some sun too, and even Manchester is warming up- but I guess you might come back a little bit more tanned than I am! See you Lots of love, teaching-pickle! cboo! xxxxxxxxx
Dixon Hey Ju nice to hear from you! I've only just had a chance to read everything and it sounds amazing, although the stuff in school sounds pretty tough! At least you get to be good cop I suppose... I'm going to be home in mid July, can't wait to see you and the others! xxxx