Friday 19 August 2011

Review of week 5

Review of week 5
Over the half way mark now, none of us can believe how little time we have left!
In celebration of Women’s day on the 9th, Monday and Tuesday of this week were public holidays so the schools were off. So we had 2 free days! On the Monday, we headed to the beautiful Nandoni Dam which is situated 45mins out of Thohoyandou. The dam has lots of space to sunbathe, a swimming pool, boat rides, barbeque spots and music blaring from a DJ (well, a guy with a laptop and a Lady GaGa cd...) We had a great afternoon just chilling out in the sun and watching the sun set over the water. On Tuesday we had a wee sunbathe, then headed into town to try and book our Cape Town flights, but everything was closed apart from supermarkets, so we got our shopping and went home!
Wednesday 10th August
Great morning teaching at Jumbo today! We had to leave at 11.30 so that the volunteers could head off to their respective Love Life sessions and resource centres for the afternoon. At night, we watched the film Neds to remind us of home, ha!
Thursday 11th August
Had a chat with Suzi at Vhutshilo today about more ways we can be involved at the school. We decided that as of next week, volunteers will go into the classes at 9.30 on Mondays and Thursdays to observe and participate in the lessons, then computer literacy and reading will take place as usual at 11am. We arranged to hold another ARV workshop this Saturday, and one the week after so that we will be able to see the first performance of their HIV play before we leave. Also, we arranged to visit a local secondary school a week on Monday, as they asked us to come along and talk to their pupils about careers, why studying is important and generally give them some motivation.
Friday 12th August
Jumbo! Lots of practice for Phiphidi’s Got Talent today! Definitely got the superstars of the future in our classes! Mercy announced today that she’d had a phone call from the government inspectors that we met previously who said that due to our groups happiness with the school, she is getting another sum of money and we are to have lunch with the inspectors on Thursday! Great news! So on Thursday we are having a traditional Venda meal at Mercy’s house with all the teachers and the government officials - pretty exciting! After school we headed into town and (after quite a kerfuffle) booked our flights to Cape Town for the end of the project-can’t wait! We’re going to have 6 days in Cape Town seeing the sights, before flying home.
Saturday 13th August
Early morning to meet the ARV workshop kids again which we’ve all been looking forward to, they are such a great bunch of kids! We needed to add some songs and dancing into their play, so we spent the morning making up dance routines to Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) by Shakira, and Umbrella by Rihanna which are performed at appropriate times in the play. Such a fun morning, we were all shattered by mid day! We’re already looking forward to next weeks workshop to put the play together!

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