A Chilly Day

July 17, 2015-Saturday

Today was an amazing day.  I was awake at 5:00 due to a bit of jet lag catching up on me, but that wasn’t too bad.  It was about 2 degrees outside this morning, so a little chilly, even by my standards.  We were served a wonderful breakfast once again and by 8:00, Julia and I were at John and Linda’s house, ready to head to the Malaleni Center.  The Malaleni Center was described to us as a day-care for students ages 5-18.  It assists them with school work and just offers them a safe and engaging place to be.  I was looking forward to this. 
The drive was 45 minutes long.  We attempted to memorize it as soon we would have to drive it on our own.  It seems pretty easy – left, right, left, right, left, right.  Now we just need to remember at what spot to make these turns.  At the Malaleni Center, we were greeted by all the staff members and shown around.  This center has a learning lab which consists of 10 computers – something everyone is very excited about.  It also has a kitchen to serve the students breakfast and lunch as well as some classrooms and a large open room.  After we were at the center for some time, the students started filtering in.  Today is the last day of their three-week winter holiday.  Many of them chose to come in on their holidays to have homework help, but many of the students did not come today as they were away for their last day or wanted to enjoy their last day of no school. 

The students then were served some breakfast (oatmeal) and then played soccer, netball or on the playground set for some time.  I attempted to play netball, but I had no idea what I was doing.  However, due to my height, I was very good at blocking the shots from going into the net.     

As well, I spent some time reading and reading and reading with some of the students.  They read most of the stories, and they are amazing readers.  Most of these students were in Grade 2, which means they only have been learning English for three years.  However, they were able to read through Gr. 2 level English readers with only a little bit of help.

We also spent some time doing flash-cards.  These students were excited to do the flash cards and were excited to spend time practicing their ‘maths’. 

After this was something called ‘Teen Talk’.  This was something that we had told would be one of the most interesting parts of the day – and it was. 

Before the teen talks started, we had an ice-breaker, which involved running to someone else’s chair before the teacher grabbed it away.  It was fun and it was a good way to start this way. 

Once this was over, the 18 students gathered their chairs and sat in a circle.  The topic for their discussion was ‘School drop-out’. We were invited to join them and listen in.  The purpose of these topics was so that teens can speak out and discuss items that are important to them.  In this area, school dropout is quite high and so this is quite a relevant issue.  Well, after listening to their stories and concerns, our students have it easy.  Some issues were teen pregnancy (one year there were 7 girls in a Gr. 10 class that were pregnant), drug and alcohol abuse, peer pressure, bullying and corruption by school officials.  In the last instance, one student talked about how even though the government subsidized the schools, yet each student was required to pay a ‘donation’ fee and bring 2 packages of paper.  If they did not bring this, they were not allowed to come to school.  Other issues that students talked about were prostitution and teacher manipulation.  The students were quite honest and open about the struggles they faced.  Afterwards, I was asked to say something.  All I could really tell them was that the fact that they were at this center and willing to ask for extra help was a huge and that if they continued on with this perseverance and determination and they would go a long ways with that.    We then headed home and had a nice relaxing evening sitting around. 

John and Penny and their son joined us for supper and we had an interesting conversation regarding the struggles that are in South Africa.  They feel as if the struggles are worse than before and are continuing to get worse.  There is a lot of corruption in the government which leads to an aggravation of the problem.  Also, many of the people only want free stuff, so instead of buying water or electricity, they will join up to a neighbour’s line illegally. Another issue is that in Johannesburg, there are office buildings that are empty for some reason and a random person will come along and start selling these office spaces as housing for the poor people.  They will pay their money; this guy will leave after a few months with millions of dollars and after a time these people will be evicted because it is someone else’s office space.  These issues are not a result of all the poor people doing something that they need to change, but in the end, they are the ones that are affected.