A Day in the Life of Ms. Rebecca

For a disclaimer this is what a weekday would look like.

6:30 my alarm goes off and I get up out of bed around 6:45. I then head to the Common Room, where the teachers gather in the morning to eat breakfast. Breakfast is usually bread with something like jam, butter, peanut butter or a hard boiled egg. There is sometimes muffins and then always fruit. I usually bring my fruit to eat at a break.

At about 7:20 I start walking down to the school. To get to school I walk through a garden, down a path, through a campsite, down a steep hill and then through a field of sugar cane. (Okay so this may be a little exaggerated. But it is actually all true.) It takes less than 10 minutes to walk by myself but if I walk with others it is closer to 15 minutes.

Once I am at school I go and unlock the door to the classroom. I do somethings in the class to get it ready for the day.  There is usually some kind of devotion in the mornings before the kids come.  Some mornings at 8:00 there is an assembly but only on Tuesdays and Fridays. At 8:00 school starts and the kids come in. In the mornings I will ask them questions in English about their day.  Then we usually sing some songs, a few in English and a few in Zulu. Then we go sit at the table. There we work on things together.  Right now we have been working on simple math problems in addition and subtraction. They are doing great!

At 10:00 is first break. This is when the kids usually eat lunch, not sure why its this early but it works for them.  During the breaks me and the two other volunteers from Germany (Jonas and Alex) supervise to make sure the kids stay out of trouble.  After break the 3 of us get our own break, we usually all sit on our ‘volunteer bench’ as they guys call it and chat. At 11:00 we go back to our classes.

During the time I am on break the kids do a Zulu lesson with Ms. Gabela, the other teacher in my class. When I get back we work on the ACE booklet we are to work through with the kids. It is the curriculum that the school runs with. It is a American based system, so I often have to change the way I we work through the book because of level of English and the cultural differences. But it all works out. We then do either some kind of craft or colouring until our next break at 12:30.

1:30 I come back to class after my break and the kids are done their second part of their Zulu lessons of the day.  From there I will often try to get the kids to teach me some Zulu and then I teach them the same words in English.  This way we are both learning. This happens for about 15 minutes and then the grade one class comes and joins us for a movie. So far they have watched Toy Story and Cars.  They love it. 2:30 is usually out door time where the kids can then run around and learn motor skills. But right now the high school is doing exams so everyone is done at 2:30.

Alex, Jonas and I are also on supervision with the kids that wait for the buses to come a get them. We wait until the two buses come and get them, sometimes it takes 30 minutes some times an hour. Once the kids all leave we head to the Common Room for lunch. After lunch everyone goes their own ways.

Supper is usually around 6:00 but most people come later. After supper we will sometimes play a game or watch a movie together. But often we all go back to our rooms. And then bed time is often around 8:30 or 9:00. Or thats what seems to happen anyway.

Until next time…keep reading! I promise they will start to get shorter! Or at least I will try! It is just so hard to keep them shorter when I want to share everything with you!

Cultural Observations

• Don’t show up right away at 6:00 for supper you will most likely be the only one.
• Even the females eat large portions.
• It’s weird that I spend so much time by myself (mostly it is because I have my own room separate from the other girls).
• People go to bed early (which I am used to by this point and love, I am getting over 9 hours of sleep each night! and I am getting up at 6:30).
• When people say “Just Now” That means it will happen anytime from now to who knows when. “Now, Now” means it will happen right then.
• Most people go off of the 24 hour clock.
• -25c is not just cold it is really really cold for people here!  They can't even fathom -15c.
• Most people like tea and enjoy instant coffee. (not that there is not coffee grounds they are just too expensive for many people and it is not as accessible.)
• South Africans say “sorry” more than Canadians do!
• One must ask where the toilet is rather than asking where the washroom or bathroom is, other wise you get looked at like you have two heads.
• Everyone walks slow or saunters.
• Food is all relative.

This food is from the Heritage Day that happened this past week. I did not eat it all. There is Chicken feet, cow stomach, sweet potatoes, yams and beans. This is not a normal meal that I eat. This was just special for that day. 

The other picture is of one of the teachers Philile the grade one teacher. She is dressed in a traditional skirt. She is a doll!

I am sure there are many many things these are just a few that I have noticed in the past few weeks.

Until next time, take time to noticed the different quirks about your own culture.

Being a Teacher

On Friday September 12th I went to the school with all the other teachers.  I was greeted by many of the people I had met on Thursday and more.  One that I met Friday was the other teacher who is in the Grade R class (kindergarten) with me.  Her name is Ms. Gabela, she is a sweet older lady who only speaks very little English but understands more, other wise she speaks Zulu.  When we met and I introduced myself as Rebecca, she looked like she was going to cry.  She squealed and said “I am so tired”.  She was so thankful that I was finally there to help her in the class.  With 4 little boys she had her hands full!  I was sad to tell her that I was going to be in the grade one class in the morning and then I would start teaching on Monday.

I started that day in the grade one class with Philile (the grade one teacher) and then moved to grade R to get to know the kids a little bit.  I spent most of the afternoon listening to them recite all the things they had memorized, days of the week, months, counting by 10s, 5s, songs in Zulu and some in English that Mr. Russell (the other SALTer who was there before me) had taught them.  Than Ms. Gabela looked at me and said “Now you teach.” And I had no clue what I was supposed to do.  I had not even gotten the curriculum 30 min before. So I told her I could not, so instead I read them some stories, than she did a Zulu lesson with them.

Monday has come and gone. It was my first day of teaching and it went as well as it could.  Josh or Mr. Russell had given me a rough schedule that he went off of with the kids and that has saved me! Thank you Josh!  This week has been getting an understanding of where the kids English is at.  A lot of what I noticed was that the kids had forgotten a lot of what Josh had taught them because they were not using English everyday other than the things that they had memorized (there was about 3 months gap between Josh leaving and me getting there).  But it has been fun getting to know them and making the schedule more of my own thing.  This week has also been a cleaning week too.  There were many piles around the class of papers and old work books, so because of the person I am I have been cleaning them all up and going through each pile trying to get rid of the things we don't need any more.

Here are some pictures of my kids and my class room.  Their names are Unathi, Aphelele, Ayanda and Lefanelo.  Until next time remember that it is okay to be silly sometimes!

My New Home

Being here finally is kind of surreal. When James and Joan were dropping me off on last Thursday we drove past a game park and there a giraffe right by the fence! Of course we stopped at took a picture!

Driving to the farm reminded me a lot of driving to Bethany College for the first time (minus the giraffe part!). The half hour drive to a small town with a school, not knowing anyone there. Watching for signs of how much farther until we got to our destination. Having butterflies in my stomach. When we got to the farm and walked in the gate of where I was going to be staying Joan turned and said to me “Welcome to your garden of Eden” And wow! Its beautiful!

I was ushered to my new room by one of the ladies who work here, Esnath.  But not before two dogs came to greet me!  I am not sure why but this made it a little easier to be okay to settle in to a new place.  I was quite amazed at my room when I walked in.  I have a double size bed with two dressers, my own bathroom to use, a closet, a crib (not that I will need it!) and a rocking chair.  Also I have a separate entrance to my room so I don’t have to talk though the whole house and disturb my new hosts, Trish and Nigel.

After putting my stuff down in my room we were ushered into the living room where Trish and Nigel met us.  We had tea with them and talked for a little while.  They are great people and I am looking forward to getting to know them better.  When James and Joan left it was kind of hard for me because it was like Bethany again where the only people I knew were leaving me in this place I was not quite sure about.

Though quickly after I was whisked away by some of the teachers who had just come up from the school.  They were heading to have lunch (at 3:30), I jumped right in because otherwise I might have lost it and went to my room and just cried.  So overwhelmed by just the new surroundings I did not know what I was getting into when I walked into the ‘Common Room’! (This is where they teachers who live on the farm eat their meals together and will hangout during times when we are not working.) There were at least 15 people in this common room all talking, and loudly I might add, introducing themselves to me and asking me why I was not eating.  Haha. Well I was not really given a choice because someone ended up scooping some food out for me and gave me a large portion on pap and sauce and then 3 things of meat! Oh gee! I had just eaten  lunch at 1:00 I was not hungry!  Needless to say I did eat some of it but then put the meat back.  I was really worried about this because we were told culturally you always take what you were given and eat it all.  

After a week of getting to get used to everyone I have become a lot more comfortable!  There are still people I do not call by name because I either can’t pronounce them or I can’r remember it! Oops!  But the people I interact with the most I have all their names down!

Until next time go and talk to someone new and get to know them, whether it be someone in your work place you have seen for years or a person at church or even a stranger on your path.

 
 

Learning Zulu

Sanibonani!! Over the past 5 days I have been learning different things from history, to a new language, to keeping track of finances, to safety.

I have been spending a bunch of time with a new friend, she is Zulu and works here in the MCC office with James and Joan. Her name is Nontobeko, or Nonto for short.  She has been lots of fun to work with.  She started me out on language lessons.  Zulu is the local language most people speak, especially in the community I will be working in.  This has been difficult but has been good too; I have been able to see each morning that I am getting better. I have been mostly working on greetings and a few basic words here any there. "Sanibonani" means "Hello" but only when you are speaking to two or more people (so lets hope more than one person reads this! ;)  "Hello" to one person would be "Sawubona!" Some other phrases I have learned are "How are you?", "What is your name?", "Stay well and Go well", "Did you sleep well?", "Good" , "Thank you" and "Sorry" (important for any Canadian to know!).  These are just a few of the words or phrases I have learned. Some thing that has been tricky to catch is there are a few words with clicks in them.  The letters q, c, and x all make different kinds of clicking sounds. Maybe in a few weeks I will be a bit better, especially if my kindergarten class wants to teach me.

Nonto also has taken me out in the community to take a combi which are vans that drive around and is the most popular way of getting around, especially for the black people in South Africa.  If I lived here I would take them everywhere it only cost 5 rand or .50c Canadian to take it! And I will be taking it regularly while I am here to get from town to town. Not sure how I feel about going around by myself on it yet, but eventually I will.

Also yesterday Nikki one of the other SALTers was here.  It was really good to see her and for the two of us to talk.  We had lots to talk about to catch up. She told me how her assignment is going and I was able to talk about how I am a little nervous about heading to the school today.  I am sure we will have even more to talk about on next Friday when we see each other after I have also been in my placement for a week.

I am heading to Hope Valley Farm School this afternoon. And I am looking forward to getting to know everyone there but also a bit worried too.  I have realized that since August 20th until now I have met over 150 people. A lot of people for two weeks and the number is just growing!  Today I will most likely meet the teachers, the family that lives on the farm and maybe some of the students.  It is more likely that tomorrow I will meet my students most of the kids.  Then I will have the weekend to get s bit settled in and work on a lesson plan to teach the kids on Monday! Yikes! It is coming fast! Ha.

Be prepared for most of my blogs to be not as often as they have been.  And might be a few short ones every once in awhile. The reason for this is I won't have great internet.
But until next time take the chance to try and learn and new language! And be very prepared to laugh at yourself and try again (I am still having trouble with it all but I am working on it too!)!

I made it, I actually made it!

I last left you off in Toronto after my visit to the embassy. Well guess what I have travelled a lot since than! Cause look what I got!

Okay so this is kinda cheating because I did not take this picture as soon as I got it like I planned....but it gives you the idea of how excited I was!

I ended up finding out that I got my visa on Wednesday, but we did not have time to pick it up.  So as soon as I found out I let Helen (who is in charge of all flight bookings) that I got it, along with many other people, and she found me a flight for Thursday evening! We than drove into Toronto on Thursday morning got my visa and then did some touring around and strait to the airport!

From the time of being dropped off at one airport and being picked up at the other end it took 40 hours! I am tired! But thats okay, because I am here!

My flight schedule was from Toronto, Canada to Frankfurt, Germany to Johannesburg, South Africa to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. My time in Germany was 10 hours! It would have been great to go and explore but because I forced my self to stay awake during that time I was a zombie! I literally felt like I was just floating around with a dead expression on my face and I would not be surprised if I was not walking straight sometimes! There I found something to eat (McDonalds was my choice because I knew the menu well enough and knew what it was even if it was in German! (Ha! Don't judge me!) and a little corner to curl up in and sleep for a little while.
Needless to say I slept most of the flight from Frankfurt to Jo'burg. I had a window seat so I looked out the window a few times and oh my where the stars beautiful!!! I thought I would share them with you! ------->

Don't know if you can see that...hahah!! I laughed when I saw that there was nothing! Hope you did too!

Okay so I should know better than to try and take pictures of darkness but thats okay! I did get some great pictures of the sun rise! That was beautiful! You will have to just trust me that the stars were just as beautiful! I mean you could actually see the milky way!!

Once I got to Jo'burg I actually had a bit of a lay over there too, but instead of staying in the airport again, I had a great visit with Prosperity (Pros for short). She is the MCC Peoples Coordinator, which means she is in charge of helping getting things set up for SALTers and many other things! So we headed to the close mall and had coffee and visited! Which was great! Also I was glad she picked me out of the crowd because honestly there were soo many people and I had only seen a picture of her once! She is so great! I am looking forward to getting to know her better!

Finally I now sitting in James and Joan's house, showered, fed and relaxed! Their house is actually an old prison! Pretty cool! Actually when I was in South Africa 3 years ago they had brought us here and showed us this place! They did a great job cleaning it up! I added a few picture so you can see! Also just to rub it in (especially to all of you who have snow already ;) it was plus 30 here today! And guess what! Monday was their first day of spring! HA! :D

 

Until next time, go and take the time to look at the stars! Go take a drive out into the country if you have too, get away from the lights of the city!

The Life of a Traveller

Okay so this is not the life of every traveller, but its nice to think that I am not the only person in this boat.  Even though most of this time this boat is not so bad. And for that I have to thank Chris Landes, Wade Snowdon, Helen Yocum and so many more people!  Chris, Wade and Helen have gotten me where I am thus far! They have kept me company, or setting up other dates for me to hangout with people so I am not by myself; they have booked me flights; and arranged rides and places to stay.  I could not be happier to be apart of such a great organization!! MCC you rock! :)

God has, really been working with me and moulding me through this whole experience!  He has provided so many great people for me to be surrounded by even though all the other SALTers are gone. For the rest of my duration in Akron I was kept company by some great people and I honestly would not have met any of these people on my own or better yet done any of the things I did by myself. Some of the things I did were going for meals with some of the MCC staff (not just from Akron), went to a benefit concert, ate ratatouille for the first time (all I knew of it was from the Disney movie!), volunteered at the MRC, went for walks with strangers, enjoyed the beautiful country side and getting to see lighting bugs!  I also learned that someone observed that Canadian Mennonites wear cool or funky glasses and that they also wear black leather jackets! Ha! I could not help but laugh!  That ended my time in Akron. It sounds like I did a lot but I got to relax quite a bit too and Skype with my parents and Tyla!

Off to Toronto I went! I made all my flights just fine! I made my flights just fine....my bag on the other hand did not! When I was waiting by the baggage area I was no surprised at all when my bag did not show up! But it is now in the Toronto airport and should be here either later today or tomorrow. I found Jamie (a friend of Wade's) just fine and I made it to Alan and Winnie's (Alan works for MCC) house just fine! Slept well and then got up early this morning so we could be one of the first people in line for my interview! I was number two! There were two speed bumps, I had to fill out another application form (because apparently it changed again) and I had to run 4 blocks to the bank to get a current bank balance.  The one I had was stamped about two weeks earlier not recent enough I guess.  The gentleman who 'interviewed' me was very helpful and was gracious. He said everything looked good to him, the only thing he was worried about was the itinerary I had given him because it was dated for August 27th when everyone else left. But he told me to get a new itinerary and to e-mail to him when I got it.  Well guess what! I got it within an hour or two of being out of the office but....cannot find the mail address he gave me anywhere! ARG! I am trying to figure out what it is and I am close. I will figure it out though soon!

Now I am staying at Alan's parents place just outside of Toronto. Here is where I will stay until I get my visa. They are going to call me when it comes in and I am going to go and pick it up! Now I sit here figuring out last minute things and sending e-mails. Not sure if I should cry, laugh or just go stand in the rain that is coming down steadily for the past 30 min or so.....
Until next time remember to laugh!! It's okay, even if you do not think it's funny anymore or maybe you are past that point, like me and just laugh it all off now!

(I just want to say, that God has been with me this whole time, maybe you can't see it. I know I don't all the time; but when I look back at the past few days and the fact that I have been able to keep clam and not get over stressed, I know he has had a hand in the whole situation! (Oh and next time I promise pictures!))