It's Getting Hot Out Here

Who knew carrying the groceries could be such a good workout? Well a lot has happened since the last time I wrote to you! The past week has seen elephants, communion around a table, varsity hockey practise, a heat wave, a lightning storm and as I speak it’s just threatening to rain! So where to begin? I think I’ll start with last Thursday, a day when things started to really come together…

I finally got my registration finalised which was huge relief as it had dragged out for over a week of coming and going, seeing one person then seeing another. Even the final stages were a bit like this between getting a picture taken for my student card beside the health clinic, to getting a barcode put on it at the library, to getting login details at the computer lab and then getting print credits in the main building. I suppose this is just the life of a large university. The NMMU has over 20,000 students as opposed to Stranmillis which has about 1000 students. Also on Thursday we had our first ‘international Bible study following a series by Mark Driscoll entitled ‘Praying like Jesus’. It is so good to have fellowship with fellow Christians and to have a place where we can talk about our struggles with each other and pray with and support one another.

 

I still haven’t settled in a church yet so having this group is going to prove really helpful to me. On Sunday I attended St.James Community Church and ate communion around a table with 7 other people. The whole hall was set out in little groups like this and the whole service was based around the communion. It was a really nice concept where we broke the bread and drank the juice (it wasn’t wine) together. Livewire on Sunday night was yet again lively and next week we’re having it in an outdoor auditorium so I’ll make sure to keep you posted on how that goes!

 

The highlight of the week though came on Saturday when we went with Les Meiring to Addo Elephant Park, about an hour north of Port Elizabeth. Now, I’ve been on safari before so I sort of had an idea of what to expect, drive around, see some animals, take some pictures but after the first 15 minutes we still hadn’t seen anything apart from some elephant dung and the occasional warthog! Nothing, however, could have prepared me for what we were about to see! We had heard there were some elephants at a particular waterhole and on our way there we had encountered a few. However, at the waterhole there were literally hundreds of elephants of different shapes sizes and colours. Some were dark some were light, some were big some were small, some had tusks some didn’t but there were just so many! Hopefully I’ll be able to upload some photos to this for you to see. The best part of it was that we got into the park for 30 Rand which is the equivalent of about 3 quid…so less than it would cost to go to the zoo plus you don’t have to walk up that wretched hill! There were also hides in the park where we could get out of the van and see the elephants up close and these moments were the most surreal because you could see and hear the elephants splashing water and mud onto themselves…it’s hard to describe how cool it was! Saturday evening I also got to watch some Six Nations rugby, go ten pin bowling (they let you do it barefoot), and have the most incredible crepe ever…it was a crepe in a tub with ice cream bananas and chocolate inside it…don’t even want to think about the calories!

 

School this week has been good. After three years I finally understand what Vygotsky and his Zone of Proximal Development are all about and all it took was one simple explanation…fancy that! Now my education essays back home can be filled with educational theory! We also had a monkey in one of our classes this week which was definitely a first. He just kept walking in and out of the windows and climbing along the roof. The campus is situated on a nature reserve and so the monkeys are a constant visitor. They love to raid the litter bins around campus and chew on anything they can get their claws on! I also had my first day of observation this week in the school which I will be doing my teaching practise in and it was certainly interesting. We were sent to Khwezi Lomso Comprehensive School, a township school which has 1500 pupils and not enough room to teach them all. The classes are overcrowded with many of them having 40+ pupils and the furniture has not been upgraded or replaced since the school first opened. So teaching in an overcrowded classroom is going to be a new experience and so is teaching in a secondary school. I think it might be tricky adjusting from teaching 5 year olds how to say a word phonetically to teaching 18 year olds how to create a vision and goals for their lives. This is a challenge though which I am really looking forward to. I will be teaching Life Orientation and PE, which I’m really looking forward to as I have always wanted to gain experience of teaching this particular subject in a secondary school.  I know I’m going to have to adopt different teaching practises to adapt to the number of children in the classroom and the under resourcement of these classrooms. Whereas at home there may be enough resources in a school to do each child two or three times over, in Khwazi Lomso there aren’t even enough chairs or desks for each child, never mind textbooks.

After visiting the school yesterday I went to my first hockey practise at the NMMU. It was good to get back into the swing of hockey although I have to say pre season training in 35 degrees wasn’t the most pleasant experience! I also realised during the course of the session that I would have to do pre season twice in one year due to the differing seasons between the northern and southern hemisphere so I’ll either be super fit or lying in a heap at Edenvilla in the middle of July…I’d vote for the latter! It will be good though to get involved and see how hockey works here and more than anything it’s good to get back into the keeping pads again after over a year of playing outfield…I definitely couldn’t last the pace out here! I’ve also been playing a bit of basketball on one of the courts down by the beach but the only problem is that two of the American guys I play with can slam dunk so there isn’t much competition!

The heat has been crazy the last couple of days to and it doesn’t really show much sign of breaking either. It’s been hitting 35 most days and it’s also been really humid with very little of that Port Elizabeth breeze so the sea always looks very inviting. Last night we had a thunder and lightning storm but only a very little bit of rain. The people here really need rain is the region is currently experiencing drought conditions but it just doesn’t seem to be coming.

The last week has also seen some low points as well as all of the above highs. Some of the girls in our apartment building were robbed at knifepoint, a very real reminder of the threat of crime in the city. This also led to my first and hopefully last experience of a South African police station to find the girls. Thankfully they’re all OK minus a few phones and some cash! It was also with deepest regret that I last night found out that my PE classmate Nicole McGrath had sadly passed away. I just would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to Nicole who was an enthusiastic, caring and supportive individual who was destined to be a fantastic teacher. It is indeed tragic that her life was cut so short and she will be sorely missed not only by our PE class but by all who knew her and my deepest sympathises go out to her family at this time.

I think that’s just about me for this week. I had intended to write more regularly to keep the length of each post down but that grand idea spectacularly failed! I’ve got some potatoes roasting in the oven that I should probably go and check on. So until next time,

Peace

God Bless