weeks 6 & 7

Week 6!

How time flies!

Monday 15^th August

After chatting to Suzi we decided that the volunteers would start working in more of a teaching capacity at Vhutshilo Mountain School. So this morning, they sat in on the lessons being given to a variety of ages to gauge the abilities of the learners and were so impressed by the teaching standard and the excellent behaviour of the children! The weather here today was terrible! heavy rain and very cold-just like being in Scotland! The roads from our village to town were very dangerous, as some are dirt roads and the rain had turned them into mudslides! So we stayed in this afternoon all wrapped up in blankets and watched a DVD.

Tuesday 16^th August

Still horrible weather!!  We headed off to Jumbo this morning (very nerve wracking journey in the rain) for a day of teaching! The miserable weather is no fun!

Wednesday 17^th August

Today we were invited to have a special traditional lunch at Jumbo School with the government inspectors that deemed the school in need of government money, it was great! On the menu was : white pap (pap is a staple food in many African countries. It looks like mashed potato, but don’t be fooled, you could stick a fork into it and lift the whole bowl up. It’s a perfect example of “stodge” food), yellow pap, salad, samp and beans, cabbage, a delicious pap sauce, and last but not least Mopani WORMS. Eating them was quite an experience for the volunteers...not necessarily a good experience but hey! when in Rome! We had a lovely afternoon spending time with the inspectors and teachers.

Thursday 18^th August

Today, Vhutshilo had another Scottish volunteers visiting! his name was peter and he was sent by the church of Scotland in Greenock who have generously supported the school for years. It was nice to have a new face around! Matt and Hannah taught an extremely successful Rights and Responsibilities lesson to the Grade 3 class today, while Erin, Sam and myself were designing and making thank you cards using our photos for Vhutshilo to send all around the world to thank organisations and individuals for their donations and support. Rebecca and Katie also had a very positive and rewarding Love Life session today! A good day all round!

Friday 19^th August

Pretty standard full day of teaching at Jumbo! Our day to day activities out here seem so normal to us now, but im sure when we look back on it we’ll recognise that it wasn’t normal at all, but very special. We went into Thohoyandou after school to use the internet, then buy the group shop for the following week which is not very exciting at all, lots of bread, peanut butter and milk!

Weekend

We had Saturday off, as the ARV workshop we had hoped to join in with was cancelled, so we had a very lazy day! On Sunday we headed to Jumbo school to do some painting! the classrooms were in dire need of a lick of paint so we spent the afternoon brightening up the classrooms. We even used a small part of the wall to commemorate our visit by putting our handprints and signatures on it! Very pleased with the results, we’re surprisingly good at painting!

Week  7

Second last week-scary stuff!

Monday 22^nd August

What a great day! First thing this morning we gave a donation from our fundraised money directly to Suzi for Vhutshilo School. It is such an excellent cause, and we have all been inspired by the work done here by the teachers, the local volunteers, and especially Suzi and her assistant Khatu. We then got picked up and taken to Humbaleni Secondary school who had asked us previously to visit their school and try to motivate their pupils. When we arrived we greeted all the teachers and staff and were then put in front of an assembly of 500 pupils, some of which (due to the South African education system) were older than us! Rebecca did a great welcome speech, and they were especially impressed she said good morning in their language, Tshivenda! We then split up by subject groups, and were assigned to the teacher of that subject to follow for the morning. Sam, Ruth and myself chose to teach social science, which was great fun, we learned so much! and the kids were so keen to ask us questions about the UK! They have taken particular interest over here with how our government dealt with the UK riots, as riots are so common here and they see the UK government’s hard punishments as a great example of how rioters should be dealt with. We all had a tea break (with sandwiches) then visited more classes with our teachers. I was asked to invigilate a grade 11 English exam which was very interesting!

We were struck by how well behaved the learners were, and their level of English was excellent! Better than any I’ve heard in a secondary school in this area. We then got more food! they were so generous and grateful for our visit, and we had such a wonderful day. All of us saw definite potential for involvement in the school, and all felt that next years volunteers could work there in a teaching capacity.

Tuesday 23^rd August

Jumbo jumbo! Lots of rehearsals today for our big Phiphidi’s got talent event that takes place on Saturday! Trying to organise it is proving stressful though! we had planned to stay late after school and paint the banner for the event but we were all so shattered for some reason! so we headed home for nap time, then painted the banner at night. We also decided on prizes for all the races, and made up a rough timetable for the day. Starting to get excited!!

Wednesday 24^th August

Yet again, a lot more Phiphidi’s got talent rehearsals! the kids are getting sick of us nagging them to practice, but it has to be done! In the afternoon, some of the volunteers headed off to their last resource centre at Malavuwe while the others shopped for prizes and extras for Saturday. I went to meet Jenna who works at the Thohoyandou Victim Empowerment Programme (TVEP) to see if they had any odd jobs they would like our help with! She took me to the Court in Sibasa to show me a Wendy House that she’d like us to paint! The wendy house is there for the children testifying in abuse cases to sit in before they going to court. There is 2 rooms, one for them to chill out and watch tv, and the other for them to prepare their case with the relevant authorities. It’s a great project which we are so enthusiastic about being involved in!

Thursday 25^th August  

The volunteers taught lessons at Vhutshilo this morning, then held their usual computer literacy and reading class!  They then headed into town for their last visit to the Ngoudza Resource centre, which unfortunately due to transport issues, did not happen, so they all went shopping for more materials for Saturday!

Friday 26^th August

Last minute preparations for the big day! Erin, Matt and Julie accompanied one of the teachers to the sports ground we have arranged to use on Saturday, but quickly realised there was absolutely no shade at all, and if it was hot weather, we would have a big problem on our hands! so they went into town to arrange the rental of a tent for the parents to sit under while watching the races and talent acts. We had a pretty stressful afternoon trying to get all the last minute chores done! While most of the group headed back to the house to paint the banner and make up the sandwiches for the event, Sam, Hannah, Calum and myself headed to Sibasa to buy paint for the wendy house, which we are painting on Sunday! We got a lovely shade of yellow called “bananarama”. By the time we got home, almost all the chores for the next day had been done! so we had a surprisingly relaxed evening!

Saturday 27^th August

The big day -PHIPHIDI’S GOT TALENT!

The day did not start well to say the least.. various things that were meant to have been done weren’t, and I think we all gained a few grey hairs that morning, but let’s not dwell on that, we had a wonderful day!!Around 40 parents turned up and lots of locals came down to see what was going on! We began the day with races - sprint, egg and spoon, backpack race(my personal favourite) and many more. The kids were great, and so well behaved! we then had some sandwiches and juice before football time! The first game was Scottish volunteers and teachers versus the parents which was crazy! we got beaten 2-1 L then it was Scottish volunteers versus around 50 pupils! not fair! but a lot of fun. We had snacks then moved onto the talent portion of the day! we began with Grade’s 6&7 (and me and erin) doing our dance to Waka Waka by Shakira, then Hannah, Ruth and Grade’s 4&5 doing their dance to Bad Romance by Lady Gaga. Next was The Grade’s 2&3 dancing to Firework by Katy Perry with Katie, Calum and Julie, and lastly the Grade 1’s singing twinkle twinkle little star (in great outfits!) with Sam and Rebecca. Then it was our turn! We performed our routine to Rihanna’s Umbrella which we made up with the ARV workshop kids at Vhutshilo, the kids loved it! Then we burst into the South African national anthem which we have been learning for weeks (it’s in 4 different languages-difficult!) The kids loved it!! At the end of the day we had a ceremony where we handed them certificates and presents and rounded off such a fun dayJ well worth the stress!

Sunday 28^th August

No rest for the wicked! we have a 7 day working week this week!

We did have a bit of a lie in today, feeling a bit fragile from post Phiphidi’s Got Talent Celebrations...then we headed to sibasa and started painting the wendy house! We really are getting very good at this painting and decorating lark! We decided to pack it in at 4 and to finish it tomorrow afternoon! Home time for a chilled out evening. Well that was until we found a large rodent-type animal in one of the classrooms! we have no idea what it is! It’s the size of a large rabbit, looks a bit like a massive rat! We’ve named him Vhutshilo J

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 9^th, 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 10^th 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 11^th 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 12^th 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 13^th 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!

Double Whammy!

Week 3 AND week 4's reviews here-finally up to date!

Week 3 Review

Again, late with this one! Only getting to the internet once every 4 days or so.

Monday 25^th July

Vhutshilo day! Stayed on site today, did activities with the children at break. When they were in class, all the volunteers planned their lessons for the coming week at jumbo! We got a visit in the afternoon by the head teacher of a local secondary school who is good friends with Suzi, and helped her get the Vhutshilo school up and running in its current form. He told us how much of a struggle it was for Suzi to start the school here for various reasons. It was very inspirational to hear how hard she fought for the school. He also told us all about the problems with the education system in this area. The big problem is a lot of the kids don’t know why they are even at school, they don’t receive any career guidance. So they may say they want to be a doctor when they grow up, but have no idea of what that actually entails, and what subjects they need to study. In addition to that, they stay in school until they have passed their exams, so in a grade 5 class which should be children around the age of 9, you could have a 12 year old, or older! We agreed to visit his secondary school and do a few talks on careers, and why studying is important! They hope that by hearing it from young people like us, it will have more of an effect than hearing it from teachers.

Tuesday 26^th July

This morning we began our day at Jumbo by calling a meeting with mercy and the other teachers of Jumbo school. We all felt the behaviour of the children in the first week of teaching had been unacceptable, and we could not control the younger classes without a teacher. Mercy completely understood and took it all on board, there will now always be a teacher in the two younger classes, which we were very happy with. Mercy then went on to tell us that after 10 years of writing to the government asking for financial help for the school, she had finally been given a lump sum! Brilliant news! She had plans of how to spend the money, however we felt it could be better used in a different way so called a volunteer meeting after dinner and wrote up an alternative budget for the money to show to Mercy tomorrow.

Wednesday 27^th July

We called another teacher-volunteer meeting this morning to discuss how to spend the lump sum she had been given by the government. They listened to how we thought the current plan was a bad way to spend such a generous sum of money and they totally agreed with us! Mercy said that she trusts our advice on money over anyone else’s so we agreed that she could leave the construction of a new fence (what we felt needed urgent attention on safety grounds) in our hands. Calum and Sam headed into town to go round all the construction shops to get quotes while the rest of us got down to teaching! After a productive morning at jumbo (the behaviour has VASTLY improved) we headed to the bus station to meet Sharon of the CPC (Centre for Positive Care) who was taking us all to a resource centre which we will be working with every Wednesday afternoon for the rest of the project. After a sweaty bus journey we arrived and met a large group of OVC’s (orphans and vulnerable children) and their care workers. We had a great afternoon of playing games then headed back home!

Thursday 28^th July

Vhutshilo day! Matt and Calum taught their first computer literacy class to the older children this morning which was great! In the afternoon we met Sharon again to go and visit anther resource centre that is run by the CPC. This one wasn’t as far away, but had over 200 kids! It was great fun. We split up into different age groups. Julie, Sam, Calum and myself took the large group of young children aged 2-5 who we read with, sang songs, and played a lot of games! Matt and Hannah took a maths lesson with older children, and Rebecca, Katie, Erin and Ruth did a life orientation lesson on puberty. We all really enjoyed visiting this centre and the care workers there do such a great job to provide for so many children!

Friday 29^th July

Jumbo day! Full day of teaching today which went really well in all classes! As it was my birthday on the 30^th, all the classes made me birthday cards as their art activity for the day, which was wonderful! Lots of bits of paper to take home! Mercy also told us today that the government has agreed to subsidise Jumbo school in the coming future which is more great news! Mercy had arranged a meeting with the parents who all told her that they would like the new classroom for grade R’s to be built before we do the fence, so that’s the plan! Grade R is the grade in between pre school and Grade 1, and it is growing week on week! So they really need a classroom of their own. It’s wonderful to see Jumbo school growing so much! Only problem is there is no space for new pupils. But this new classroom will change that! Mercy took our new fence quotes, so she will use the government subsidy to build it once the new classroom is all finished!

A very positive week J

Non project stuff

We had a great weekend celebrating my 21^st! Ended up in the VIP section of a local music festival on the Saturday listening to one of my favourite bands, perfect birthday!

We finally gave in and had our first junk food binge on Friday for dinner. 12 large pizza’s between 9 of us! Big yum. (ps. 12 large pizza’s only cost the equivalent of £56! Bargain)

We learnt how to dance, Venda style, and can’t wait to whip out the moves in Glasgow!

Having watched 2 Julia Styles movies in the past week, we can confirm she is a terrible actress.

“Is that an elephant?” “No it’s a cow”

Thinking you’re tanned, then showering and realising it was actually just dirt is so depressing.

That’s all for now!

Jen

Week 4 review

Halfway!aaah!!

Monday 1^st August!

This morning Sam and Ruth headed off to their first Love Life session, organised by the CPC. Love Life is a nation wide programme in schools which educates the children about life issues, mainly HIV awareness. Sam and Ruth met with Lufuno (who runs the programme on a daily basis) and visited a local secondary school for a couple of hours! Back at Vhutshilo, Hannah and Rebecca accompanied Khatu, Suzi and the American volunteers to the local HIV ward at Silom hospital. Monday is the day that the children go to collect their ARV drugs. The clinic was very busy so Rebecca came home, while Hannah, who studies medicine, stayed to talk to the doctor. At the school, Calum and Matt took computer literacy, while Erin, Rebecca and Katie took small groups for reading help while they were waiting to get on the computers. A quiet day!

Tuesday 2^nd August

Full day of teaching at jumbo! Matt’s not very well so me and Julie took his place in the grade 1 classroom with Erin today, very tiring! A new teacher, sent by the government, started today at Jumbo! He is there purely to teach maths to the two older classes which is great, the kids seem to really enjoy it! Julie and Hannah headed off to Love Life today and came back feeling very positive! The one worry is that next week we will be teaching classes on our own, and the English level in some of the schools is not very good. It makes us realise just how good the standard of English is at Jumbo! We began practicing today for an event we’re running at Jumbo at the end of the project “Phiphidi’s got talent”. It’s going to be a sports day/ talent show day at the school which will be a lot of fun! We practiced some races in the morning with the oldest class. Then in the afternoon we tried to get them to make up acts for the talent portion of the day but that ended up with the whole class (and us) up dancing to Party Rock Anthem (everyday i’m shuffling...) The children are all so good at singing, dancing, and rapping! We can’t wait to see what they’ll pull out the bag in the coming weeks.

Wednesday 3^rd August

We had a great morning at Jumbo today! Erin and Calum left at break to go off to their Love Life session. Ruth’s unfortunately coming down with tonsillitis, but luckily she has antibiotics with her so she took the day off to get some badly needed rest. We’re dropping like flies!  The government inspectors arrived today to have a look round the school before they give jumbo the subsidy. They were very nice people and we spoke to them about our continuing work with Jumbo and how the money would make such a difference! Our sweet talking must have done the trick as they agreed to give Mercy more money in September to fix the fence! The good news for Jumbo just keeps coming! Over the moon!! In the afternoon Hannah, Matt, Katie and Rebecca headed off to the resource centre, while Sam, Julie and myself had lunch (Nando’s – amazing) and got the group shopping and headed home for a yummy stir fry dinner. We’ve come to realise that we spend 90% of our day talking about food, even while eating our dinner!

Thursday 4^th August

Everyone woke up full of the cold today! Suzi says it’s due to the switch from the winter season to the summer season. This morning Calum and Matt taught their computing class and the girls took small groups for reading. Katie and Rebecca headed off to their Love Life session, then in the afternoon Sam, Erin, Ruth and Calum headed off to the Ngoudza resource centre! Busy busy. A past volunteer from the 2009 group, Eilidh, arrived today to stay for a few days! Nice to have a visitor! Tonight we discovered that soy mince is definitely the way to go. Another recipe we can add to our collection “How to feed ten people, 3 meals a day on £1 per head”

Friday 5^th August

As it was Mercy’s birthday yesterday, we bought a big cake to take in today as a surprise! We went straight into teaching in the morning. We witnessed a rather hilarious lesson being taught by one of the school teachers to grade’s 4 and 5 on puberty. They had to draw the male and female body, oh my goodness I wish I could have taken photos of some of the stuff they drew! At break time we sang happy birthday to Mercy- she cried! Then tucked into yummy cake before activities time where we got the classes to practice for some of the races for sports day. With the grade’s 4 and 5 we were trying to come up with an act for the talent show, despite their determination to do Justin Bieber, we found out that Ruth knows the dance to the chorus of bad romance by Lady Gaga! We had such a fun afternoon teaching them it! They all got right into it-even the boys!!  Grade’s 6 and 7 practiced singing for the talent show and came up with the plot line for a drama they will perform.

We had a 4 week evaluation meeting tonight after dinner as I wanted the group to fully evaluate everything they had done in the past 4 weeks at Jumbo, CPC, and Vhutshilo. It was a very productive meeting, and the conclusions we came to were that all our current projects are running well, and no changes need to be made apart from finding something more to do on Monday afternoons. We then celebrated with a halfway through project cake! (we love cake)

Week 2 review! (a bit late)

Due to lack of internet access/pen drive difficulties, this week 2 blog is very late-sorry!

Another busy, tiring and sweaty week in Venda!

Monday 18^th July - HAPPY NELSON MANDELA DAY! The big guy turned 93 today, a great day to be in South Africa! Today we stayed at Vhutshilo to talk with Suzi, the founder of the school about how she would like us to help her. She’s asked us to help out in a variety of ways! Firstly, we are helping out the ARV workshop group, which is a group of around 14 HIV positive young people who are all on ARV medication. As mentioned in a previous blog, they are going to be putting on a play at the local HIV clinic. Suzi also would like us to teach computer literacy to the children, and also to a local women’s support group. In addition to this, we are going to be helping out with Vhutshilo’s income generated projects which we will have more info about soon! After the meeting, we met all the kids at the school for the first time and spent all afternoon playing! We met another 2 volunteers today, Nancy and Tricia from the US. Nancy runs the great Hope For Limpopo website and has known suzi for many years. They gave us lots of great advice and help with lesson plans!

Tuesday 19^th July - FIRST DAY OF TEACHING AT JUMBO. Tough day... All of us are shattered after our full first day teaching! The first day is always hard though when you’re trying to gauge the level of English in the class. And you’re also trying to work out what they know and what they don’t know about their other subjects like maths. Resounding sense of trepidation in the camp tonight, about the week ahead.

Wednesday 20^th July - The original plan for today was to teach at Jumbo School until 12, then visit a Resource Centre with our NGO this afternoon, however the Caregivers at the resource centre were at training so we had the afternoon off! The teaching this morning went better than yesterday as the volunteers began to adapt to the situation. In the afternoon we just got the shopping then chilled out! I thought the volunteers deserved it after being dropped in at the deep end at Jumbo!

Thursday 21^st July - VENDA TOUR DAY. Every year our favourite tour guide, Mr Fobbe takes us on two trips, a day trip around the historical sites of Venda, and a weekend in Kruger Park. Today we decided to do the Venda tour, as it’s one of the few days Fobbe was free, and we’re working on a Saturday this week so could take today off. It was a great day!! First stop was the Vondo Dam Viewpoint, up in the hills. Beautiful views of Venda and Mr Fobbe told us all about the political history of Venda, its place in apartheid and so on. Next stop was Lake Fundudzi, where we had to greet the lake the traditional way by turning our back to it, then looking at it through our legs! This is because in the olden days people only wore flaps of fabric on their lower halves, so the motion of swinging your head between your legs would lift the back flap up, exposing your bottom to the god of the lake, and making yourself vulnerable, as a sign of respect towards the god of the lake (who is a half man half snake by the way). Next on the tour was the Thathe sacred forest, which is home to a white lion god, and is the path by which the dead bodies of the kings are carried through before burial.  Last stop was the potholes, a very nice setting for our braii lunch. We headed down to the water while Fobbe cooked up a wonderful meal! a few of us braved the FREEZING cold water for a swim, but most were content just dipping out feet in!! After lunch we listened to Fobbe impart more of his endless wisdom(what a guy) then headed home.

Friday 22^nd July - Unfortunately I took ill today so spent the day in my bed, but the volunteers all headed off to Jumbo for a day of teaching and activities! They are all getting into the swing of things with the teaching, and the kids all love them!

Saturday 23^rd July - Wee lie in today! Then the ARV workshop kids arrived and we got started painting the backdrops for their play! we split into three groups for 3 backdrops, the house, the traditional healers house, and the hospital. The kids designed what they wanted to paint and set to it! We were so impressed! they came up ideas that we never would have thought of. We headed into the classrooms to paint, with lots of music blaring, it was a really fun morning!! Such a great bunch of kids. We then got given a massive lunch by the ladies at the school of rice, chicken, beetroot, butternut squash and coleslaw. Big yum. We had the afternoon off to clean up and catch some sun!

Sunday 24^th July - sunshine! We all read our books, wrote our diaries and listened to music all day!

It’s been a great week!

Non- project stuff.

·         We’ve started racking up a fair few films watched with our movie nights. So far we highly recommend Precious, American History X and of course, Mean Girls.

·         Sam and Rebecca have developed an unhealthy addiction to the soft drink TAB.

·         We’re all getting really good at the accent out here- top of the impressionists is Hannah by far.

·         We’ve discovered that no fast food restaurant in Thohoyandou will deliver out to our accommodation.

·         We finally found something that almost resembles jam and we are single handedly doing great things for the peanut butter industry in South Africa.

·         Mosquito nets are a pain in the bum.

·         Katie should have her own tv show- “Katie says the funniest things”

·         I bought an “original venda hustler” tshirt on Wednesday-best 130 Rand i’ve ever spent.

That’s all for now!

Jen

So we're a week and a half into project and it is amazing! I'm just back from a morning teaching a bunch of crazy 9 year old which is soooo much fun but a lot of hard work (I discovered I have a loud shouty teacher voice today!) We're all having a great time out here and cannot wait to get fully into the swing of things. Everyone out here is so helpful and im finding myself chatting to anyone and everyone on the street and in taxi's. Im also getting a proper work out carrying 10 kids on my back all dy! Gotta go! Sam x

Week One - DONE

This first week has just flown by!
i'll start with Saturday! a rather stressfull day spent on a very warm bus, but we arrived safely in Venda just after 4pm. We were picked up by Suzi, the founder of Vhutshilo Mountain School where we are being accommodated for the next 8 weeks! Our accommodation is great! the 7 girls are staying in two rooms in a separate building just next to the school, and the boys are staying in a classroom of the school. There are two flushing toilets, two clean showers and a great kitchen area. They even gave us a tv! very happy.
Sunday we hd a lazy day and got used to our surroundings! We made a friend in the little girl who lives next door so spent the afternoon entertaining her!

Now to the beginning of the project!
Monday we headed to Jumbo School in the afternoon, The school where we have worked in a teaching capacity for 3 years. Unfortunately the kids had finished school early and the head teacher Mercy was not in, but it gave the volunteers the opportunity to have a look around the school. They were all quite taken aback by how rundown the Jumbo School is, and how few resources it has, but it fired them up to want to make a difference! After our visit to the school we went into Thohoyandou, the nearest big town for some food and to show the volunteers around.

Tuesday we got up bright and early and got to Jumbo for 8am! Only the older grades are in this week for "winter school" We got an overwhelming welcome from the children! Screaming their wee hearts out, it was wonderful! The children then sang the south african national anthem for us, then flower of scotland! We had a great day getting to know the children, playing games, and trying to learn their names (so hard!) When the children left we did a big clean up of the playground (glass and rubbish everywhere) and swept the classrooms.

Wednesday, back to jumbo to begin more structured lessons. We split the volunteers up into two group with two classes to do lessons of their choice in the morning, then outside games after break. All were a great success! the older class designed their own coat of arms, and the younger class played hangman! then the boys played football (our volunteers were put to shame by the kids) and the girls taught us lots of fun games!

Thursday, we met with Khatu who works at vhutshilo mountain school and she told us about an HIV drama she needed our help with. The idea is that the HIV positive children at the school will perform this drama at the local HIV clinic because the people have to wait a very very long time for their drugs, so it saves them from getting bored, and they can be educated at the same time! We are helping out by making all the props, scenery and costumes and also directing it, which will be great! Khatu then took a few of us to the local hospital, where the HIV clinic is. It was very very busy, and there was only one doctor to see them all. Some people had been waiting for 5 hours already, and could easily be waiting for another 5 hours before they were seen by the doctor!

Friday we met with our NGO, the Centre for Positive Care in Sibasa. At the meeting we discussed where they would like us to help this year and settled on two programmes. The Love Life programme which requires us to visit local schools and raise awareness of HIV and AIDS, and a resource centre programme where we will spend afternoons in centres playing games with the children and helping the NGO with its work of identifying the orphans and vulnerable children andchecking on their progress!

I'm about to run out of time in the internet cafe but we've had a great week! The weather is starting to get better (its winter here) and next week its full steam ahed with the project, busy busy!

Jen x

The final countdown!

So it's finally here, the night before we all head off to South Africa!
We fly tomorrow afternoon to Paris, then onto Johannesburg, where we are staying in Pretoria for a night before heading off on the 8 hour bus journey to Limpopo!
Lots of stressful last minute panicking is taking place as we speak! Last minute trips to Tesco for more sun cream no doubt!
Next update will be from South Africa!

Salani! (Goodbye!)
Jen