September's Happenings

Hello friends!

It’s been a little while since I’ve updated you all, and I apologize for that.  But currently life is going by so quickly and there are so many other things vying for my attention that I tend to go to bed before even thinking of reflecting on my day.  But I don’t want to forget this part, simply because I don’t want to let these days go by without remembering the interesting and fun things that are a part of each day. 

So I don’t really know where to begin.  It is now September, and I can't believe my time here is nearing the halfway point.  Parts have gone slowly, others quite quickly, and I'm becoming more attached each day. But here is an overview of things I have taken note of over the past few days J

• ·         Friday is national casual day at school.  The entire country of South Africa will be paying 10 rand to buy a sticker that allows them to dress casually at school.  The funds raised will be going to support students with disabilities.  What an awesome cause!  I was so excited when I heard about it that I started going around the school trying to get kids excited about it.  I took the last 45 minutes of the day yesterday talking to my kids about what disabilities are.  Many have never seen a wheel chair or encountered a person with disabilities, so we had to start at square 1.  I am glad the para-olympics are going on right now, it helped me explain a little bit.  You should have seen the class when I began to tell the story of Helen Keller!  That is the first time I have had all of them silent and staring at me.  It was so much fun.  Tomorrow, they are all bringing pieces of fabric and we are going to each have a disability and go on a scavenger hunt around school.  I’m excited J.
• ·         Tomorrow is also Arbor Day.  So, in class, we “planted a tree.”  I found some old hunks of paper of old posters kids had made from 2003 and cut them up to make a big tree on the wall.  Students are each making 3 leaves with different information on them and we are putting it all together tomorrow.  I’m pretty excited about this too!
• ·         (this bit of info may be slightly inappropriate, but I find it too hilarious to leave out) I was pooped on today while pooping.  I know that is disgusting, but I have never laughed so hard in my entire life.  The bathroom I use at school is interesting.  Whenever I go inside, I always scare out at least 5 birds.  I am usually afraid of being stabbed as they zoom out the windows; one even took a bit of my hair with him as he flew past my head a while back.  But yesterday, I shut the door as best I could, then sat down.  One bird must have not wanted to leave, so sure enough, he did his business right on top of me as I was doing mine.  I guess it was a bonding moment of sorts with nature, haha!  I laughed out loud so hard that I know the cooks outside heard me J
• ·         A group of 3 boys that I have grown to love, even though they misbehave quite a bit, came to me during break, obviously concerned about something.  I asked them what was up, and one boy says, “now, are God and Jesus 2 or 1?”  Wow.  I laughed, and then tried to explain the idea of the Trinity as best I could, only to confuse them.  It was quite funny to see them try and use different items in the classroom to show 3 in 1.  It doesn’t work, and that was the beauty of it.  So at the end, one boy says, ”I just want to go home to heaven so I can understand!”
• ·         One student came to me the other morning, and says “teacher, what does OWkwerd mean?”  It was the nasaliest sound I’ve ever heard, and not said with the typical accent here, so I asked where he heard it.  Some television show had said the word, and he wanted to know what it meant.  So I tried my best to explain it, and literally all break and lunch outside of class I hear, “that’s awkward!” multiple times.  So funny to me J
• ·         People here don’t pronounce the letter “r”.  This makes for quite a few misunderstandings between us.  Here is an example.  My sister here in grade 9 was asking me the meaning of a word she read.  “Kelly, what does pee mean?”  hmmm, I looked at her funny, and then asked her to read the sentence to me to try and figure out the context.  “It is rude to pee through the window,” she read.  I busted out laughing, and she was so confused.  I couldn’t figure out what she meant, and it struck me as hilarious.  So eventually, I realized it was the word peer, and we were able to sort it all out.
• ·         Another “r” story:  I told my students a story.  Later on, I brought up a random sentence from that story to remind them of a concept.  I said “After the truck dumped out the load, it drove away.”  And one student says to me, “Kelly, why was Load in the truck, isn’t he in Heaven?” haha, again, I laughed out loud and my students joined me, not sure what they were laughing about.  Lord vs. Load, quite a big difference.
• ·         I took a bath in dirt-filled water today.  I turned on the faucet and then went into the other room for a moment while it filled up.  We must be coming to the bottom of the water tank, because the water was so dirty I couldn’t see the bottom of the tub!  But I still washed up, I figure this way my hair isn’t as blond, maybe I’ll blend in a little more :P
• ·         I had a grade 12 learner in my class today.  He did not get to class in time, but was just sitting outside after finishing writing his exam rather than going back into class to do work independently, so he was sent to grade 3 for an hour and 15 minutes until second break.  So he had to come and read his sight words to the class, and I even gave him a sticker on his forehead for succeeding.  And there he sat, in a little chair at a little table, participating quite well.  It was a little odd to have such a low voice in the class as we read aloud together J
• ·         Yesterday, my students ate in the classroom because it was too cold to eat outside.  Many of the students go buy lunch from the shop, so in they come with bowls of the traditional food that was cooked over the fire earlier.  Yum. Chicken feet.  So all of my kids sit there, gnawing on chicken feet and putting each individual bone and left over claw on the desk. There are no Lysol wipes here, just one bucket of water in the class to rinse off your hands.  YUMMY!
• ·         I had a classroom visitor a few days back.  A goat walked into the door, it caught me by surprise, that’s for sure!  The students chased it out and laughed for quite some time about it, but I still just couldn’t believe a goat walked into the class!

Well, that should be enough for now, I’ll try and keep you updated as more and more interesting things keep happening.  And as always, thank you for your support!