So I guess that’s a good place to start… with the most AWESOME 5 weeks ever!!!!!!!! I truly believe I hit the Peace Corps jackpot being here for the World Cup, what an awesome and exciting time to be in SA. I ended up being around for 4 games, where most of the time we would have a big group of PCVs and other friends and go to the fan parks that were set up in the cities that were hosting the games. These turned out to be much more fun than anticipated… they were set up almost like a concert, with drinks, food and even live music before everyone would huddle in the cold to watch the game on the giant screen. I can’t even begin to describe the excitement that swept the country for this event. People from all around were there in support of their countries, and I still can’t believe how patriotic being in that environment makes you! I’ve never cheered harder for the USA in my life.
The most thrilling game for me was the USA/Algeria game in Pretoria, where about an hour before the game we scored free tickets from the backpackers we were staying at, and then were there to witness the USA make an extremely exciting goal in the last few minutes of the game and moving them forward in the tournament. The crowd went absolutely crazy, and I wasn’t even mad when I got hit in the nose with a vuvuzela and had beer spilled all over me… sometimes you just gotta go with it! Each game was also followed by really fun partying/dancing/mingling with more nationalities than I could count.
Sometimes I think the millions and millions spent on hosting the event could have been put to better use in a country with so much poverty, but alas… you can’t win them all. At least SA showed the world it was capable of pulling off such an event without any major problems! Besides, of course, our beloved Paris Hilton getting arrested… but who didn’t see that coming? Thanks for making us proud Paris!
Whew, so that’s my World Cup rant. I’ll say it one more time for good measure.. it was awesome. Needless to say, the transition back into my Peace Corps life has been a bit rough and slow. School started last Tuesday, and only this week have we established some sort of normalcy with teachers actually going to their classes and following some sort of schedule. While it wasn’t easy going from the excitement of World Cup back into “work” mode, it feels good to be back in the classroom.
And now for the typical thoughts of a PCV at their halfway mark: “Oh my god, I’ve been here for a year… now what the heck am I doing?!” The one-year anniversary is being met with a mixture of emotions: I am really excited I’ve made it through what is most often said to be the “worst of it”. I know that my second year will go much smoother, faster, and more comfortably than the first. I know my community and my school much better than when I first got here last September, and I am hopeful that I will be able to make some sort of tangible improvements in my schools in the next year. Of course, I still have days where I want to rip my hair out with frustration. After a year, it amazes me that I still have to explain to my educators that I am not their secretary, and although I now come to expect it, knowing I have only one year left to get something done makes it all the more irritating when things that could be finished in an hour end up taking days.
So what is on the agenda for the next year? I have decided to restructure my work days a bit here and there and change around what my focus areas. I now only work 1 day a week at my school #2 (the tiny one in the next village), for various reasons including the likely even that by next year it will be closed and combined with the school in my village. Which, frankly is what I am rooting for, as the school is barely at a functioning level, and my main school is more than equipped to take on more teachers and students. So my main work at the school this term is continuing teaching Grade 7 English and Life Orientation, Camp GLOW in December, implementing weekly reading hours for each grade and teaching literacy classes in all grades with our new librarian, and team-teaching English in kindergarten and Grades 1-6. This sounds like a lot, but it is actually only 3 classes since grades 1-3 and 4-6 are combined. I am quite excited about this, especially for working more with the really young ones. Nothing makes your day quite like getting attacked with hugs and “good morning teacher” by a bunch of adorable children! And our library project is underway… which is probably what I’m most excited for. In fact, I am currently finishing up writing a Peace Corps Partnership grant in order to raise funds to get the resources needed to finish putting together our school library. What does this mean? That soon a blurb will be put up on the Peace Corps website and all of my wonderful friends/family/colleagues from home will be able to donate to it! Exciting, right?! So if any of you are interested in helping out, I will be requesting your help soon!
OK, that’s all for now. Sorry for the incredibly long post… I’ll try to write more frequently so I’m not overflowing with updates on life in S.A.!
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