Delayed entries

September 11, 2011

Well our transport came and I didn’t get the last entry out for quite a while after I wrote it.  The week with the teachers’ group was good.  I think we were able to share a lot with the SA24 trainees about our experiences so far.  The sessions gave us a few new pieces of information and helpful tips but much of what was being taught we had picked up in 5+ months in SA schools.  We learned the most from the “trainers” (who were PCVs from the teachers’ group that has been here a year or more) during the “off” times – over supper etc.  We were able to stay at the “staff” house with them rather than with the new trainees.

When I got back I was surprised to learn they were interviewing people for the open teaching position. The Principal had told me before that it can take up to 6 months to get a new teacher when one leaves.  Just before we left he said he had gotten approval to fill the vacancy left by the teacher who was elected ward counselor.  He told me a teacher would be hired within two weeks.  Knowing the pace of things here, I didn’t really believe him, but it looked like it might happen.  A new teacher was hired and started work on Wed. of that week!  Yea, I don’t need to teach Grade 7 Science any more!........ Oh, wait!  It seems that approval was given at the Circuit level but not by the District!  It is now up in the air whether she can stay hired or not.  The Principal is supposed to take teachers from the current pool of excess teachers not hire a brand new one.  The problem with that is that the pool is empty now and won’t have “excess” teachers until the end of the current school year in December.  There is no such thing as a substitute teacher, so if approval is denied, the students will be without a science teacher again unless I teach them till the end of the year.  That is really more than I want to take on.  I’m doubtful that many of them have enough English to benefit much from my teaching them.  Although my Sepedi is slowly improving, I’m still at very basic sentences with a very limited vocabulary.  So I think I will not pick that up again unless I hear from the students they would like me to continue…and maybe approval will come through.

September 21, 2011

I started this just before we left for a permagarden workshop we were at last week and get this out, but instead I spent my time visiting with all the other SA 24 volunteers in the evenings.  To continue the saga from above about the new teacher, it isn’t going to happen and I have been asked to help out with some data base work since the office volunteer left to go back to work in Pretoria.  I feel badly that the Gr 7 students won’t get science for at least the rest of the term (2 weeks) and probably the end of the year but I really don’t want to pick that up again.  I have my hands full with the library - which I now have open to 5 students a day during “long break” (they sign up each morning) and after school 3 days a week – the English classes and the administration work.  I have almost finished sets of alphabet cards for all the learners in Grades 1- 3. That’s (58+46+43) 147X26=3,822 letters glued to cardboard and cut out!!!!  The ones for Gr 1 have lower case and upper case letters and a picture.  The ones for Gr 2 & 3 are just lower case letters.  I use them to teach phonics and the learners are enjoying them and learning how to “write” English words.

Richard is leaving for an “IRC” meeting (IRC=Information Resource Center – i.e. Peace Corps library) tomorrow morning and he will send out the blog from there where there is free internet for PCVs.  It’s getting late  so I’ll close for now. 

Kruger with 90 kids etc.

Blog Entry August 14, 2011

Time does fly by.  A lot has happened since I last wrote a blog entry. 

We are well in to Term 3. I have taught two sections of Grade 7 Natural Science.  The first topic of the term was not exactly an easy topic for a new teacher to come in on in the best of situations: Human reproductive system, pregnancy, STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections), HIV and AIDS.  Compound this with the fact that, although the students are supposed to be taught in English from 4^th grade on, they really do not have very good English skills or vocabulary.  After 4 weeks of teaching these topics, I gave them a test.  It was mostly multiple-choice, true/false and fill-in-the-blank.  I was very disappointed to look at the results.  Fewer than I thought understood enough English to pass the written test.  I hope maybe they learned a bit more that what was reflected by the test – very discouraging.

On the other hand I am thoroughly enjoying my work with the younger learners.  I have helped kindergarteners make letters with playdough – some even spelled their names.  I’ve played word bingo with Grade 3 learners.  For Grade 1, I’ve been making them cards with upper and lower case letters with a picture.  They each have an envelope with their name and they get one letter at a time.  They have S, T, and P so far.  They learn the name of the letter and the sound it makes.  The next time they get O and we will be able to sound out and read lots of words: top, to, pot, stop, pots, tops, spot.

Two weeks ago we got to go to Kruger National Park with the primary school field trip – 90+ learners and ten adults in a double bus (the kind with an accordion section in the middle).  Kruger is a huge wildlife preserve.  It is a drive through park.  We saw a lot of animals: giraffes (they are incredibly graceful creatures), a rhinoceros (that was asleep and really looked like a large rock), lots of elephants (we saw a big bull elephant knock over a tree to get at bugs under the roots), hippos, a crocodile and lots of deer like animals of all sizes.  There are some pictures posted here and a link to a video.

                The garden continues to grow.  We had broccoli from our garden last Friday before we left for our current trip.  The carrots now have their first true leaves! 

Our current trip is a trip to Pretoria area.  We left Friday, Aug. 12 and had an “All SA PC Volunteer” meeting on Sat. and are going today (Sun.) for a week of training for education volunteers.  There is a new group of PC volunteers who will be placed in schools.  We trained with a group going into NGO’s and missed out on the training specific to teaching in SA.

We’re at Peace Corps Headquarter in Pretoria just now and I hope to get this up today.

Bye for now,

Emily

Return from IST

When we got back from our week + of  IST workshops in Pretoria one of the first things I did was go check out my garden.  I was right to be concerned about the goats eating my veggies.  One or two did munch on some of the kale and broccoli but they were stopped before they devastated the plot.  I think all but one plant will recover.  Otherwise, the garden was a pleasant surprise- things were growing! - despite the less than exemplary soil.  I’m looking into getting it tested.  I found out today that there is a service through SA Dept. of Agric.  I tried calling the Municipal and Provincial departments but got passed around and finally gave up talking to people who sounded like they didn’t know what I was talking about.  I called the Peace Corps office and they gave me the number of the guy who talked to us at PST about permagardens.  He said he will text me the contact info for the person at the Dept. of Agric. who can tell me how to get a soil test here.  Since we got back we’ve had green beans several times and Richard has convinced me that Swill chard and kale can actually be good if cooked properly (with lots of onions and butter).  I planted carrots yesterday and Richard planted peas today.  Our house mother has also been planting up a storm.  She has a type of SA spinach they have had already and her tomato plants are doing better than mine – maybe tomatoes in 3-4 weeks?!

                We are almost at the end of the 3-week school break between Term 2 and Term 3.  The first 10 days were taken up with IST and getting back & forth to Pretoria.  On the way home we spent the night at a nice “backpakers” – like a youth hostel for all ages.  The owner was really nice.  He does tours through Kruger Park too.  One of the other PC volunteers says he took her and they saw a lot of animals.  If my son comes after Christmas maybe we’ll set up something with him.  Both Richard and I volunteered to help at the “vacation” school for 12 graders.  There were two 2-hour periods for subjects each morning.  The first week we were back we had quite a few students but by the middle of the last week of break we had none.  This was true not just for us but for all the classes.  It was a little frustrating to get to teach physics and help students for a few days and then have nobody show up for the last two classes but I did enjoy the days I did get to work with the high schoolers.

                We have also reached the coldest part of winter – which isn’t exactly cold.  The lowest it’s been is 6° C which translates to about 43° F.  The coldest it’s been inside is about 52° F.  We do have a little space heater but we’ve only used it twice in the evenings so far.  I think my garden is safe from frost.  I’m enjoying the days getting a little longer.  I just hope it doesn’t get too hot too fast.

                So…school starts again Monday and I have the hectic schedule I put in the last blog entry.  If you read it you may have wondered why it said, “Personal Schedule – Mokgadi” at the top when I’m Emily!?!  Well, I’m also “Mokgadi”.  There is a Peace Corps tradition (at least is SA) to give each volunteer an African name - it is easier for Africans to remember an African name than an American one.  My supervisor gave me this one.  It is his daughter’s name and means a special girl-child in a family.  Most of the people here call me by that name and I am beginning to respond to it as I do when someone says “Emily”.

                Richard is going into Hoedspruit tomorrow alone.  I’m staying home to have some last quiet time puttering at home and in my garden – maybe even start planning for Monday?! – It’s never too early? Right?  He’ll try to follow my directions to get this out on my blog.  He may include a video he took of some people on the road outside our house coming back from the river.  They had gone to the river for a traditional healing ceremony. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue_7vkn9fIk

Till next time –

Emily

3 months at site

              We have been in South Africa now for just over 6 months!  We have finished our first three months at our site.  This first three months (Phase 2 of PC training) is supposed to be an information gathering period where you get to know your community and organization.  The people working in NGOs did a needs assessment.  The education volunteers have “assignments” that become a report.  Then for Phase 3 our whole group gathers for IST (In Service Training) with our supervisors.  We learned all about project management and planned a project with our supervisors.  I chose a fairly small project because I thought I actually might get it done.  It doesn’t involve as many educators (teachers) as I’d like but it will be helpful.  Currently the text books, workbooks and materials are either in stacks on the floor in one of the staff rooms or in the small “offices” off the classrooms that each teacher has.  There is no inventory or list of what is available.  One educator is supposed to keep track of everything and sign materials in and out but I’m not sure how well that is being done.  My proposed project is to create, with that educator, a Resource Center where all the materials can be housed in an organized fashion.  We’ll make a list to hand out to all the educators of what materials and books are available. My supervisor, who is the school principal, assures me there is money in this year’s school budget to buy the bookcases and cabinet we might need.  He thinks it is a good idea and together we’ll present it to the staff at the first staff meeting after the break (mid July).  I hope to have the Center open by September.  Richard and his supervisor wrote a much more ambitious plan for a computer center at the high school.  They hope to have it open for the beginning of the next school year in January 2012.

          There were several great things about IST.  It was held outside of Pretoria in a conference center with heat, hot showers and wonderful food.  After a week + of this it will be hard to go back to baths in a plastic tub.  Also it was wonderful to see the other PCVs in our group, most of whom we hadn’t seen since PST, 3 months ago.  Of the 46 who started only one had “ET”ed. (Early Termination – i.e. quit and gone home early).  We got to tell our story of our site, host family and experiences at the schools and hear about everybody else’s. .  Most people have one or two things to grumble about but are still glad they are here and were glad of the opportunity to be with their supervisors for 5 days.  few are feeling that they are not beeing utilized and have too much time with nothing to do.  One of our group asked for photos we had taken and put together a fabulous slide show that made us realize how much we had all been through together. 

         On the way here (my supervisor gave us a ride) we stopped at a gas station and saw several monkeys just hanging around – not pets.  They lived in the woods behind the gas station.  Another reminder I’m not in Kansas anymore.  We got to see quite a bit of country on our 5 hour drive here.  Fewer mountains, lots of hills but also some flatter country.  Before we left our village Richard and I took a long walk up river from our house.  There were mountains on the other side of the river and we saw in the distance and heard baboons or monkeys.

          My garden is finally doing well (see pictures).  We even ate a few green beans right from the garden just before we left.  I can’t wait to see it when I get back on Tuesday.  My biggest fear is that the goats where we live will break out of their pen and eat everything up before I get a chance to. 

We leave IST tomorrow and are spending the night at a backpackers in Nelspruit and then back to our village the next morning.  Richard has volunteered to help some Grade 12 learners there.  They have a vacation school for the people who have to take the big exam, the Matric, in December.  The Matric is a week + of tests that determines whether they graduate from high school or not.

          We are still struggling with the local language but have found a tutor (PC will repay us a minimal amount for one – if we put ours together it comes out to a sort of reasonable amount).  We’ve met with him once a week for 1 ½ hrs five times.  He is a teacher at my school who lives in the village.  Some progress but learning a new language at this age is not easy.  Educators at school all have enough English to communicate but if I want to work with the younger children, it will help a lot if I can speak their language.

          Next term, which starts mid-July, I have a pretty full teaching schedule.  Not only will I continue working with the younger children but I’ll be spending an hour a week with each English class in Grades 4 – 7 and teaching a Grade 7 Natural Science class.  (See schedule below) The previous science teacher was elected as Ward Counselor (sort of on the level of our state representatives – not the ones to Washington but to the state capitol) and is resigning.  I’ve been told it can take up to 6 months to hire a replacement.  Meantime the learners have no teacher for that class!!!

TERM 3 - 2011

Personal Schedule - Mokgadi (my African name)

Period

1

2

3

4

LB

5

6

7

8

SB

11

12

13

Time

7:40

8:10

8:40

9:10

940

10:20

10:50

` 11:20

11:50

12:20

12:30

1:00

1:30

Monday

N S

7A

Gr 2

Gr R

L  B

Gr

3

N S

7B

S  B

Tuesday

N S

7A

O  R

Gr 1

Eng

5A

H  R

N S   7B

Wednesday

N S

7A

N S

7B

N  E

Eng

7A

Eng   4

O  E

Eng

5B

Library Open until              2:30

Thursday

Gr  1

Gr   R

G  A

N S   7B

N S   7A

Gr   3

R  A

Library  Open until                  2:30

Friday

Gr   2

K

Eng   6

Eng 7B

T  K

Well, I’ll sign off for now and I’ll post this in the morning before we leave the hotel.  Got to go pack.

Emily

Times flies

Blog Entry June 17, 2011

Again, I am surprised that it has been so long since I’ve found time to write a blog entry – almost 6 weeks!  Life here is very full!  If I thought Peace Corps was going to be an extended vacation – and maybe I did a little bit – it isn’t.  Well I knew it wouldn’t be a vacation but I thought I would be less busy than I am at home.  I guess I fill time no matter what or I guess I don’t have blog writing as high on my priorities list as I might.  Anyway…..

How do I spend my time?  A typical day is: wake up to the alarm at 6:00; out the door by 7:00 for a 20 minute walk to school (15 if I’m late and in a hurry).  The school day ends at 2:00 on Mon. & Tues. and 1:30 Wed. – Fri. but educators are expected to stay until 2:30.  (Teachers are known as “educators” here and students are called “learners” until college level, then they are students.)  I get home about three and check on my garden – water everything, weeding, transplanting.  I read email if Richard has downloaded any while at his school; play g few games on the computer; prepare supper and eat about 6:00.  If Richard cooks, I do dishes & vice versa or we do both together.  In the evening we’ve been playing cards together almost every night.  We’re usually in bed by 10:00.

On weekends we usually go to our “shopping town”, Hoedspruit on Saturday.  This means getting out the door a bit before 7:00 to walk to the main dirt road in the village to catch a “taxi” (ie mini-van that is used like a small bus).  An hour or so later we arrive in Hoedspruit and have until about 2:00 to do all our errands including going to an internet café that has reasonable connections where I will post this.  We carry our groceries to the taxi rank (bus stop) or sometimes we can call the driver who will make a stop at the grocery store so we don’t have to carry the groceries (except when we get home).  Sunday is laundry day, which takes most of the morning as it is all done by hand.  My host mother (who si 20+ years younger than I am) had to give me a lesson in how to wash by hand as it was clear that I hadn’t had to do it before and had always had a machine.  I’ve learned there is a way to scrub that really does get out most stains – some that even a washing machine wouldn’t.  We obviously line dry – although I did that in the states except for the coldest part of winter.  And that is a typical week.  Yes, I could make time on a more regular basis to write blog entries and will work on finding a regular spot in my schedule.  I do want to feel in touch with you back home.  There is a tower going in at a sight ½ way to Hoedspruit that may significantly upgrade our signal for cell phone and internet but it isn’t operational yet and we are so tucked into the mountains, it may not help much.

The garden is frustrating but I still love trying to make things grow.  The wind here is absolutely incredible!!  The Lapelle River comes through the Drakensburg Mountains about ½ mile from our house and from May until August very strong winds come during the night and don’t end until mid-morning or later most days – although there have been a few spells of 3-5 days without the winds.  This means many of the seedlings I had started got buffeted about and broke off at the soil line.  Then a LARGE branch of a pawpaw tree(different than American pawpaws) fell on my tray of broccoli, kale, basil and tomato seedlings and I had to plant many before I thought they were ready.  None of the tomato or basil seedlings survived but the kale and broccoli are growing slowly.  The green beans we planted directly are doing better.  There are a lot of baby green beans about 1 ½ inches long but some of the plants look like they might have a virus and I’m afraid I’ll lose the plants before we get any big enough to eat.  The dill is doing great! Which is nice because I can’t find any dill weed in the stores only dill seed (for seasoning).  The soil is not only rocky it has very little organic matter, thus nutrients for plant growth.  I have made a compost pile and add manure (I look at cow dung in the street very differently now) and turn it every weekend.  I’ll call this first pile big enough in a few more weeks but it will be another couple of months before it is ready to add to the garden soil.

School as well as the garden has its joys and challenges.  Since the beginning of May, I have spent some time each week with the Kindergarten through 3^rd graders.  I’ve been teaching the younger ones nursery rhymes and children’s songs.  We have great fun with “Head, shoulders knees and toes”. And the kindergarteners are a riot doing “1-2 Buckle My Shoe” with the motions.  1^st grade has 58 learners and one teacher!!  No matter how good a teacher someone is, it is hard to meet the needs of 58 learners.  The sense of time and the importance of educators being in the classroom are very different than in the states.  Workshops involving all the teachers can be held during the school day.  There is no such thing as a substitute teacher.  If an educator is absent, the learners spend the period alone with a teacher peeking in if the room gets too loud. 

Also during May I spent a morning observing each of the classes starting with Kindergarten going up in order to 7^th grade, the highest grade at Kgopong, to get a sense of what skills they have and for the older grades (4^th & up) to find out how well they understand English.  The learners get some English instruction in 2^nd & 3^rd grades but not a lot and then starting in 4^th grade all their instruction is supposed to be in English!  Many of the educators use a mixture of English and Sepedi, especially in 4^th & 5^th grades.  By 7^th grade I think most of them have a basic knowledge of English but their learning is hampered not only by large classes, absent educators but having to learn in a language that is not their “home language”.

The first three months at our site are called Phase 2 and we are allowed to leave your site one weekend a month.  Last month we did get out to Polokwane the capital of our province for a get together with several other PCVs from our group.  One of the PCVs is working with the city government and the “house” they found for her to stay in is a two room “rondeval” on a city owned game reserve.  I’ll put up a few pictures.  The only animals I got a picture of were the ostriches but we saw zebras and many different herbivores that Richard called “DLA”s – deer like animals.  The reserve has giraffes and white rhinos but we didn’t see any even on our early morning walk.  The only other “wild” animals we’ve seen were some baboons crossing the road in front of the taxi going to Hoedspruit about 3 weeks ago.  In our village pigs, goats, donkeys and cattle more or less roam free.  Everyone has a fence around their piece of property.

The only other thing of import since last blog entry is that on May 25^th I turned 60 years old!  I had a bit of a hard time with that big number but it’s hard to feel too old when you’re a Peace Corps volunteer half way around the world (well 1/3 of the way) from home.  I would have turned 60 back in NH too.  I look old when I look at myself in the mirror but I don’t feel that old – “old” has gotten older and older as I’ve approached it each time.  Now 80 is really old but then we have one volunteer in our group who is 79 and will be over 80 before she ends her service.  I guess you are as old as you let yourself feel.

More later and sooner than 6 weeks.

Bye from South Africa J

More from rural South Africa

Hello, everyone,

The soil here is really rocky!  No wonder the whites designated this village as a “black” area during apartheid.  We spent much of our week away from school for Easter recess in the garden.  Our host family has a large garden area but when we got here it looked as if it hadn’t been worked in at least one growing season.  I don’t think I’ve said much about our host family so I’ll divert from my garden story for a bit to tell you about them…

Our host family is a widowed mother and three children.  Sophie (the mom) actually has four children, but the two older children no longer live at home – the first born, Catherine, is living in Pretoria and studying to be a police woman and the next oldest, Mathupe is living with relatives and attending 12^th grade in Johannesburg (because it is a better school than the one in our little backwater village).  The three children living here are a 10^th grade girl, Winnie, a 3^rd grade boy, Terrance, and Catherine’s daughter, Promise, who is in 1^st grade.  Sophie’s husband died about three months before we got here although he had been ill in Johannesburg for a while before he died. 

Richard and I worked really hard in the garden the day after my last blog entry to get a bed ready for planting.  The bed was toward the top of the garden and had lots of rocks to pry out and move since we were trying to follow the permagarden suggestion of digging double deep to loosen the soil and make it better at holding water and softer for the roots to grow deeper.  We got a nice bed about a meter wide and 4 or 5 meters long.  The next day we lounged around most of the morning.  When we finally got out of the house and looked at the garden we were amazed.  Sophie and two of her friends had double dug an area about 20 times as big as the one we had done the day before.  We later learned that the part of the garden we had chosen hadn’t been cultivated as much and where she dug had far fewer rocks; still they did a very impressive job in just a few hours putting our meager effort to shame!  She told us ½ of what she dug was for her to plant “moroho”(like Swiss chard) and the other half was for the tomatoes and kale we had started in seed beds.  Later that week we also planted beans, beets, Swiss chard and started seed flats for broccoli basil & dill.  When I got home from school yesterday a few of the beans had popped out of the ground! J

I have mentioned that our village is very rural but I haven’t said much about our “living conditions”.  It’s funny, when we learned we were going to Africa for the Peace Corps and I thought about myself in the Peace Corps in sub-Saharan Africa, I imagined the Africa of the 1960’s National Geographic of my childhood.  I knew that much had changed in 45years but I couldn’t picture it.  Yes, our village is VERY rural but it looks nothing like the 1960’s National Geographic.  The houses are brick covered with cement with corrugated iron or tile roofs (no grass huts) .  The village is on a dirt road 5K from pavement that dead ends in the Lepelle River (on most maps the river has its Africaans name “Olifant”).  The village has several wells that provide people with water.  Most people get water from taps that can be as much as a kilometer or more from their house.  We are lucky we have a tap in our yard but in our part of town the water is only turned on about once a week.  This means we store our water in large plastic barrels.  I don’t think anyone in this village has indoor plumbing.  One of the “lessons” we had in PreService Training was how to take a bucket bath.  We actually use a large plastic tub – not a bucket!  Everyone in the village has access to electricity.  We filter and boil our drinking water.  We heat water to take baths.  We have an outdoor toilet.  What has surprised me about all this is that it has been very easy to accommodate myself to these “rural” conditions.  The most difficult part of being so rural is that we don’t have reliable cell phone or internet access.  We did buy a short wave radio last weekend so now we can at least check in on what’s happening in the rest of the world but I have gotten so used to being able to call or email any one at a moment’s notice.  There is some talk of a new tower going in that would upgrade service in this area but I’m not holding my breath!  Also I've realized that the largest adjustments are cultural not physical.  Attitudes about education is very different! - more about that some other day.

I'm puting up a picture of the school where I am

More news from rural South Africa

Blog Entry April 23, 2011

It’s hard to believe it’s been almost 4 weeks since I last posted a blog entry.  I thought I’d have more time to write when we got to our permanent site, but there always seems to be something I need/want to do.  There is no internet at our site and I just don’t get on the computer as much.  We’ve been to Hoedspruit every weekend but the time there is limited and I have to plan ahead and write what I want to send out the night before (like I’m doing now). Tonight it feels like I have a little more space because we are at the beginning of a week and a half Easter break.  That has good & not so good aspects to it.  It’s great to have some free time, but even though we’ve been in our village for a month, we’ve only had 10 days of school.  We got here in time to go to the last day of first term.  Then there was a two week break between terms.  This year Easter comes very late, so after nine days of 2^nd term it is Good Friday, which is a school holiday in SA and then a week for Easter.  Easter is the big family holiday here when everyone gathers at the “homestead” – more like what our families do for Christmas or Thanksgiving. The following Sunday is May 1^st “Workers Day” (sort of like our Labor Day) and, as we do in the States, when a legal holiday falls on a weekend, it is celebrated on the Monday.  This on again-off again school schedule has made it hard to get a sense of what a regular stretch of school is like.  I have had a chance to read to some Kindergarteners & 2^nd graders and teach them a song in English.  I’ve worked with a 3^rd grade class twice.  I am getting a better sense of what is in the library the previous PCV set up and how it was used by the children.  When we get back I hope to spend a day with each class to see what a day is like for the students (called “learners” here) and their teachers.

During the two weeks between terms, I had a chance to spend some time with the two local NGOs I mentioned in a previous blog entry.  They both asked for some help with clarifying policy documents.  Almost any “official” business here is done in English.  There are 11 – yes eleven! – official languages in SA: English, Africaans and nine different tribal languages (one of which is Sepedi, which I am still trying to learn – we’re looking or a local tutor to help us).  All the policy documents have to be approved by the government so they have to be in English.  Even though the leadership in the NGOs speak English pretty well, it is their second language and policy stuff is hard enough to write clearly in a native language. Working with them on those documents gave me a chance to get to know them and the organizations better.  It was good to feel that I was able to help them accomplish something concrete.

Since so many people speak English (especially in the schools), there isn’t an absolute necessity to learn Sepedi but I know I am missing a lot of opportunities to connect with people, especially the children, since I can’t understand much of what they are saying.  I am continuing to work on vocabulary but I need help with anything more than very basic sentence structure, I was excited yesterday because I realized I knew how to say, “I’d like to borrow a shovel.”

One good aspect of the timing of this break is that we have time to put in a garden.  We’ve been reading up on “permaculture” gardening and trying to understand how to work with the sandy (rocky) soil and the limited water supply.  Today we planted seed trays of kale and tomatoes.  Richard dug a trench to hold the water when it rains and help prevent soil erosion.  I started collecting material for a compost pile and clearing a spot for it.  Then I realized I should have sited it closer to where we can get water on it to keep it moist.  If we put it nearer the house, we can put our bath and dish water on it.

I’ve enjoyed the responses from you who have written or emailed me after reading the blog.  It’s nice to know there is still a connection to friends back home.

I hope you are all enjoying spring as we enjoy the cooler weather here in the southern hemisphere.