As of a week or so ago, I finished my 8th month in country and my 6th month at site. Crazy, huh? At least I think it is. I had to fill out my first VRF or volunteer report form, which is to convince the dudes in Washington that it makes sense to have us here (I had a dream last night that everyone was removed from south africa due to violence and given interrupted service...thank god I have never had a prophetic dream in my life) Anyways, I decide it is high time to give some sort of progress report
School: school is out for this week and I wasn't teaching recently due to exams. However, next week, I shall return to teaching grade 9 english and maybe some life orientation classes. I'm a bit nervous, my adventures in the classroom have definitely been rocky. But I've learned some good techniques through trial and error.
Library: My goal this term is to get people to actually use the library, as because of its resources and worry people will misuse them, a lot of the time it sits dormant. So I hope to start some type of afterschool library gatherings a couple times a week
Girls Club: Because of the awesomeness of Sbongile, the Girl's club basically runs itself. My goal is to get it to flap its wings and fly. Its been dormant this term as the leaders have been distracted as have I by teaching. But I hope to revive it and let the caterpillar grow into a beautiful butterfly
Gogo's Group: the gogo's group is its own little butterfly. Right now we have all the materials and even a seller for the vaseline...we just haven't actually made it yet. Every week something comes up. But once we start making it, it will hopefully be a success. The gogo's have also decided to continue the bead work, this time using more traditional ndebele beadwork. The results so far are stunning. We will definitely have customers. My goal will be selling and marketing. The Gog's themselves have picked up exercising like teenagers with Justin Bieber and are now playing soccer and doing other exercises about four times a week. This is all thanks to my awesome counterpart and friend, mama tlou, who if she were born in the states, probably would be the head of a fortune five hundred company. She is that awesome.
I have some other ideas for projects in the works, but I'll see how those go before I post them on the internet. Suffice to say I have broken out of my slump that I was having a couple weeks ago and am now all sunshiney and happy. Teaching the neighborhood kids gymnastics and baseball. Enjoying my time with my host family. Planning fantastic trips for the rest of the year (drakensberg mountains! polokwane thanksgiving! provincial conference in Nelspruit! Turtles in St. Lucia! Beach in Durban!....THREE WEEKS IN AMERICA!) Yeah, not like I'm excited to go home...whatsoever.
I'm almost a third of the way done with my service. Keep on keeping on.
