On Monday, I spent the whole day sick with the stomach bug, so I missed my first planned day of boarding. I arrived at 6:30am on Tuesday morning, and all the girls were eating breakfast. Just like DGC, College House is very strict and traditional, with a lot rules. The first thing I did there was go and unpack my room. I shared a room with Frances, although I wouldn’t really qualify it as a room. The grade 10 dorms are small cubicle-like rooms inside one large room. Each cubicle fits two girls, and they are actually quite spacious but the shared ceiling and thin walls make it quite hard to have private conversations!
I had already eaten breakfast at The Pearson’s, so I just unpacked my room and headed up to school. College House provides tea and lunch for the girls that board, so during lunch I went back down for food. I was told the food was incredible, and made by a chef who worked at a five start restaurant, so I was a little disappointed in the cold, shredded cheese wraps that we were provided. Lunch was otherwise nice, I sat with Frances, Courtney, and Jen, and we had a conversation about the differences between the US, and SA. School was quite regular that day, nothing out of the ordinary, except in consumers we got to make pasta. I really like consumers, especially when we get to make food! Jen and I made Penne Alfredo, and it was delicious.
After school I worked out with Frances for about an hour, it’s so weird to me how DGC has such an amazing gym, but nobody uses it. We spent a long time in the gym, because you aren’t allowed in your dorm rooms from 3-5pm, which I thought was odd. Most of the girls just sit in the common rooms and play on their phones. The common rooms are much nicer than the actual dorms, they are all very light, airy, and beautifully furnished, they remind me of a nice beach house.
A speaker came that night to talk to the dorm girls, so we got to shower early which was nice. She came and spoke about Jesus, and how she found Jesus at a young age, and it had helped her to overcome the many hardships that life has thrown at her. She also spoke about the four different types of love, and how God’s love is eternal. Dinner Tuesday night was nice, we had steak, rice, and roasted butternut. After dinner, we have a mandatory two hour study hall. I don’t get any work from the teachers, so this was really boring for me. I focused on practicing origami for my at project. Our study hall was loud, so we got punished and had to give in our phones at 9:00 instead of 9:30. I was very surprised that our phones were taken at night, and I was nervous for waking up without my alarm, but I had no reason to worry. At 5:50am on Wednesday, I was awakened by ‘The Circle of Life’ playing at an unholy volume. That was the first out of the two songs they play for wakeup, the second one plays at 6:30, and is somehow louder than the first. Everyone must be downstairs, fully dressed and ready for attendance and uniform checks at 6:45.
I enjoyed my first day in the dorms, because I had Frances to keep me company, but she left on Tuesday afternoon, so I was alone for Wednesday and Thursday. The girls were all very sweet, but they had been boarding together since grade 8, and they liked spending time with each other, not the American exchanges. Overall, the dorm was okay. I did not like all the rules, I found them hard to follow, and I was always scared I was doing the wrong thing, and the food wasn’t what I expected, but College House is a very nice environment. I really liked being so close to the gym and soccer fields, and not having to drive 40 minutes a day.
The rest of my week was really great, I got to see lots of monkeys on campus, and on Friday I went to teach math at Bhambayi with Mandy, Jenna, Zoe, and a few grade 10 volunteers.
After school, all the volunteers met at the Pearson’s, and then we headed down to help the orphans of the project with math. South Africa has one of the lowest math and reading literacy rates in the world, so whatever extra help the kids can get is very useful. Bhambayi is one of the poorest townships in all of SA, and I was shocked when we were driving through it. I had never seen such intense poverty before in my entire life, there is nowhere in America that is even close to those horrible living conditions. When we arrived, people were walking around in the middle of the road, some had no clothing on, others were coming up to the car to beg, children younger than three were walking around naked, with no shoes, and some were even playing in a small stream that was more trash and fences, than water. Most of the houses are made from scrap pieces of metal and wood, and the ones that aren’t, are one room without doors or windows.
At Bhambayi, I was in charge of teaching four girls in grade 6 how to do addition and subtraction with large numbers, and rounding. We actually made great progress, and they learned how to do long addition and subtraction. It was easy to teach them this, but Mandy says that the important thing is to reteach and stay with them every week, because they will just forget it. I had a really nice group because everyone was excited about learning math and spoke English well, but other teachers did not get that. I really liked teaching at Bhambayi, and even though I don’t like math, it was really cool for me to see other girls who really love it. It made me grateful for all I have been given in my life, and I am really excited to head back there next Friday. More on my adventure to game reserve soon!
South African Adventure 