This week was a great first week back at school! After slowly getting back into the swing of things, on Tuesday, I met with the principal about my responsibilities for the next two weeks. Since the time frame is shorter than planned, he decided I should teach different classes when needed, teach PE to the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten everyday, teach random PE to other classes when needed, and help coach the track runners for their competition in Pongola next Friday.
For most of the week I followed the second grade teacher around, Elma Bradenhorst. Swazi is actually in that class, so she had an extra set of eyes on her. I kind of feel like she is my kid, so whenever she would get called down, I shot her a look. haha! Although, she doesn't go by Swazi at school. Her real name is Bongeka, so I am constantly catching myself when I have to call her name in class. I really enjoyed working closely with Elma. She is a wonderful, loving, gentle, caring, and insightful teacher. It is amazing how she can do bible school and bible lessons with the children every day. That is something we cannot easily do in school at home. Not to mention she has the best set up with only 17 children in her class. Those children really do love the Lord! You should hear them pray- and they are only 8-10 years old! I got to teach a couple of lessons with them this week and Swazi and I ended up teaching her class "Shackles." Swazi also decided to teach them "God is so good." Working with the children this week really made me miss my students back at home. I am so excited to start back school! I also took the second graders out for some PE activities and we played Hospital Tag, Red Light- Green Light, and did some relays. They loved it!
Working with the Pre-K has been going pretty good as well. I have them for a little over half an hour each day and we have been working on locomotor skills, social interactions, and playing games. All of the games I have introduced are brand new to them, so it has been fun watching them enjoy the games. However, it does take them quite a while longer to catch on. I played a game called "Animal Tag" where one team tries to guess what animal the other team is acting out. When they guess correctly, the guessing team chases the acting team to the other end of the field. I love playing this game with my students at home. My animal idea box had quite a different make-up than my list that I usually use. Here, I got to give them animals to act out like giraffes, zebras, elephants, and lions.
On Wednesday, I got to teach a class the principal usually teaches; Religious Studies, grade 7. He told me they were on the topic of relationships, but they had only covered family relationships. He kind of insinuated he wanted me to hit on "those" kinds of relationships, but not in the serious way of boyfriend-girlfriend. I ended talking about all relationships- those with the opposite sex and those with close friends. It was mainly just about them surrounding themselves with the right people; those who are positive influences. I really had such a good time with them! At the end I was trying to pull a discussion out of them. I told them I must have been boring. They kept saying, "No Miss! No Miss!" haha. I think it was probably an awkward conversation. Noxolo was in that class and at one point they were picking at her about a boy in the class, Lindo, who is like the typical popular, smooth-talking machine. Cute as can be though. I keep telling her she better not be boy crazy or I will get her. After we talked, I had brought my guitar, so we sang some songs together. I knew they knew, "Lean on Me" because I had heard them singing it in choir. We ended singing lots of songs together, and man, I just had a blast with them. I love that age.
Later on in the day on Wednesday, I ended up teaching an Afrikaan class. No, sorry to disappoint, but I did not speak in Afrikaan. Thankfully they understand English! It was a life skills class and only had about 7 students. I got to speak on road and driving safety. Let us not question at whether I was qualified to teach on that subject especially under the circumstances that we drive on the complete opposite side of the road! haha. No, it went great as well and they were very insightful. It was different, because all the students were white! It is amazing how that seemed like such a change to me. I guess I will be in shock again when I go back to school at home in a couple of weeks.
All summer long, I have been enjoying the fact that I have no vehicle (with the exception of Jordan's vehicle) to drive around and be lazy (it is the same feeling with having no cell phone). After school, I will go and walk around town or either run if I am exercising. Most of the time, I will run inside the school grounds around the field. Anyways, I was walking after school Wednesday and met Lucky (cool name, huh?) walking on the road. He works at the hotel and I met him and his brother, Sidah, through Jordan. They are super nice guys and coach the boys soccer team that Jordan got jerseys for. They have their first game Saturday. Lucky and I ended up walking to Jordan's house and one of his friends came over from the hotel. We all just hung out, talked, and they grilled out. It was nice just to have a different conversation. Lucky and Jordan ended up having a rapping battle. Talk about interesting. I think Jordan had an unfair advantage because his English came easier, obviously. It was hilarious!
Yesterday, I got to start helping coach the Athletics which consists of the sprinters, long-distance runners, long jumpers, high jumpers, and pole-vaulters. I helped with race starts with the sprinters. Sadly, I think I introduced most of them to the idea of stretching and warming up. We did some famous Larry Honeycutt agilities. The English teacher I followed before the Holiday also helped. She actually was very knowledgeable. I found out her husband had been a South African sprinting champion back in the day. No wonder!!! Anyways, I will get to go with them to Pongola next Friday for their Athletic competition.
Today was another awesome day! I traveled with the school's singing choir to a big competition with surrounding rural Zulu schools. It was held in Mtubatuba. I knew it was going to be a great experience, but I tell you, I have never heard so many beautiful voices......coming from children! They have the moves as well. The competition had all these different categories (including a category where females "model" without tops on- cultural thing). Anyways, the category we were in was called Afro without instrument. All they had were their voices and percussion from their feet. There was also a spiritual singing, gospel, creative poetry, all male choir, and afro with an instrument category. Some of the outfits were so cool. They were the traditional Zulu outfits. If you could hear how low some of those boys sing! Unbelievable! I am not sure what place the choir got because we left before the results. I was so proud of them, though.
Tomorrow, the boys' soccer team plays in the morning at 9. I have been hounding them about when they are going to play for awhile. I am excited I finally get to watch! Forman will also be coming back from Durban and I am pretty sure we will have revival again tomorrow night. I can hardly believe I only have a week and a half left! Insane! I will get some pictures from the competition today on here soon. :)
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