Mamelodi Primary School

I do have some new News for everyone. As most of you knew I was volunteering weekly at Mamelodi a township school, but now I am doing an internship there this semester.  I am working with twelve fourth grade boys.  Their teacher told me these boys have had some behavioral issues in class and are currently behind.  I was told that up to two years ago teachers were able to hit students that misbehaved. Now that it is against the law, teachers are struggling with classroom behavior and management. The teachers want me to work with and teach these boys English.  At Mamelodi, the children are taught in the language Zulu.  The students do not start to learn English until the fourth grade.  In South Africa their semesters are different from ours, so their first semester just started in January.  This means that my students hardly know any English if any at all.  My first day was quite interesting to say the least.  I did not know they didn’t know English, until I had so many clueless faces.  We had ourselves a bit of a language barrier, but one of the boys helped me translate.   This Tuesday I taught my first lesson.  One of my friends that lives in my residence speaks Zulu, so he had to teach me some words.  Since I do not know my students very well yet, I wanted to do a lesson that would help them get to know me and let me get to know them.  I did a family tree activity.  I translated all of the different family members in Zulu and then in English.  I then had them make a tree with all of their family members and then share to the rest of us their family in English.  The activity went very well.  The boys seemed to really enjoy getting to use markers, colored paper etc.  Normally in their classrooms they just listen to the teacher.  This is mainly because they are limited with the supplies they have.  When I was leaving for the day their teacher came up to me and asked me what the students and I had done for the day.  I explained to her and then with a big smile on her face she said “I have never seen that much excitement on their faces”.  This motivated me a little bit more.  In the weeks ahead, I have many more lessons to come.  I am trying to plan activities for them to learn in a way that they have never learned before.  

Sunday February, 27 -Horse Back Riding in the Mountains

Everyone knows my fear for horses.  Let me just say I had a traumatizing event happen when I was younger.  No matter what, I have always refused to get back on a horse.  I would rather go sky diving, or bungee jumping than get on a horse.  Well this weekend was a different story.  I decided I needed to get over this long time fear and sign up for a horseback riding adventure in the mountains.  I mean why not I am in South Africa, BRING IT!  We showed up in the mountains and I was pumped up and ready to go.  The head lady was assigning horses and I asked her to give me the calmest horse they have.  She said follow me and brought me to George.  While saddling up she informed me that George is almost dead so he would treat me well.  As riders were getting on their horses, I had a little pep talk with George.  I was treating him like a human.  The journey started and to say the least it actually wasn’t that bad.  The scenery was absolutely beautiful.  Not to long into the ride the instructor asked if we wanted to gallop.  Hesitantly, I said lets do it!  I gave George a nice kick and there we went.  Everyone in the group knew when I was galloping because I could not control my laughter.  Forget the rule of being quiet on a horse, George and I were bonding and getting along great! 

Once our ride was over I told the rest of the group to forget that as my fear, when I get home I am buying a horse and competing at the Iowa State Fair!  J

Saturday February, 26- LETS RAFT

Rafting was a freezing yet exhilarating experience.  They measure the rapids on a scale 1-6 and we did rapids 1-4.  We started out with training and then we hit the water.  Throughout the day there were numerous water fights and even jumping from raft to raft for secret attacks.  We also had a back flip competition of our boats.  We are supposed to get a video soon, which should be fun to watch.  Later that afternoon there was a beer festival going on so we attended that for a bit. Afterwards we all had a Braai and Bonfire.

Clarens

This past weekend our house parents took us on a trip to Clarens.  Clarens is a beautiful little village in South Africa.  When we arrived Friday evening they did not have enough girl bedrooms so they asked if Leah and I would mind having the honeymoon suite.  Of course I did not have a problem with the honeymoon suite.  In our suite we had our own kitchen, bathroom, and gathering area.  Our room became the after hour party spot.  After moving into our room we went out for dinner and then to about the only bar in the town.  It was a nice environment.  They had a live band, and as long as we continued to buy drinks they continued to play.  Eventually the bar closed so we headed back to the honeymoon suite to continue the party.  At about four or so in the morning we decided we should go to bed because we had to wake up in just a few hours for a day of white water rafting. 
  

Karaoke Thursday

All week I had been looking forward to Karaoke night by recruiting others to join Karaoke night.  I promised our group that I would sing a song.  After looking through the songbook, some of us girls decided on singing Wanna Be by Spice Girls.  As other people at the bar were performing their songs, there was a t.v. screen showing who was up next and how many other people were to perform in front of you.  I saw on the screen the name Caitlin.  Everyone in our group went along saying “that is weird there must be another Caitlin here.”  I agreed and kept scanning the crowd trying to figure out who looked like a Caitlin, yet alone, even spelled their name the same.  When it was time for Caitlin to perform everyone started chanting Caitlin and pulling me up to the stage. Wow had I been fooled. It was me that was supposed to be singing.  Some of my friends went and registered me for the song Barbie Girl when I was not paying any attention.  Yes, I said it Barbie Girl.  I knew I would look like a fool if I didn’t go up on stage when the announcer kept calling me up to perform.  What did Caitlin do? I got up on stage and rocked Barbie Girl.  I might say that it was somewhat embarrassing because I had no one to sing Kens part, so the announcer helped me out.  It was also humiliating because I did not even get ready for the night picture this; I had my hair pulled back and glasses on.  I am sure everyone at the bar was judging me as the girl who wants to be Barbie however she is in glasses and not rocking the Barbie life.  My friends did tell me that everyone in the audience was getting into the song.  However, I beg to differ that’s what friends are suppose to say!

How to Catch a Predator

You have all seen the show how to catch a predator.  For a few weeks lets just say our household got to play a little version of how to catch a predator.  We had a peeping Tom hanging around our house at night.  We started witnessing him at unexpected times, mainly late at night.  Our house is right next to the boys house, so we use our windows as  convenient communication.  One night my roommate Lay and I were going to creep on the boys.  All of a sudden I noticed a guy outside our house and pointed him out to Lay. He was dressed in all black, which made it difficult to see.  The minute she saw him she started laughing and he started acting somewhat suspicious.  Whatever, we continued to chill and then about 30 to 40 minutes later I went to bed.  We have no air conditioning in our house so sleeping with the windows open is a must.  I have a tree outside my window so I can always hear when people are walking in between the houses because of the leaves on the ground.  I kept hearing people walking by my window, but blew it off because people always walk in between the houses.  About ten minutes later I kept hearing walking, so I peaked out my window to see the same guy pacing back and forth outside my window. I snuck out of my room to go and get Lay.  I am guessing he heard me open my door because then he was gone.  Weird occasions like these kept occurring.  My friend Canada who lives in the boys’ house can see our house from his window.  He was warned if he were to see this man to go and get security.  A few nights later our peeping Tom was caught but then let go.  The head of our housing finally caught him again at six in the morning.  I thought everything was over but oh no.  When I got home from class the next day a man from criminal investigation was at our house waiting to question.  He then took me into the office for more questioning.  Everyone was taking it a little out of proportion, but lets just say I haven’t seen any peepers for a while...  Another predator caught my friends!

Update

Sorry it has been a few weeks since the last blog.  I have done many things since then but have not written everything down.  In a nutshell I will explain some of the stuff I have been up to: House 21 Family Dinner, birthdays, learning how to cook, volunteering at the township school, wild nights of going out, working out at the gym, a weekend in Johannesburg, wait! Did I mention going out? Oh and one other thing I almost forgot, classes finally started.  I am loving the South African lifestyle and cannot believe I have already been here over a month.  We are starting to get a set schedule for each week.  Monday night some of us attend Trivia at a bar near by.  Trivia has become a huge competition between the houses.  We are so close to beating the boys!  Tuesday and Wednesday we do whatever.  Us girls have started taking turns with cooking dinner.  This is really nice because you do not have to worry about cooking every night.  One of the exchange students from Canada tried out for the varsity basketball team at our University and made the team.  This past week we went and watched him play.  Actually let me say we were his support team.  Every time he would go in for some playing time we would go nuts with cheering; I felt like a proud parent.  Thursday nights are hopping at the square so we cannot seem to pass up the fun. Fridays have become Braai-day Friday and Saturday is our clubbing night.