new talents..

One of the things I'm encouraging my 40 children to do is to come and chat to me about how things are going with them at school, at home or wherever.

I was very happy yesterday when one of my girls in Grade 5 stayed behind after the session and came over to tell me her exciting news. Despite the language barriers she managed to communicate to me that she's learnt this week to bend over backwards like a crab and to do the splits. She then proceded to demonstrate her newfound skill. Respect.

Kids' Club 3

Don't mess with my Grade 1 boys...

One of the main skills you quickly learn how to use in Africa is the ability to be flexible and not to expect to make plans and stick rigidly to them. I'd planned a whole term's worth of sessions to do with my children, but have rapidly come to the conclusion that I need to hold lightly to these plans and to go with the flow of the school system here.

Last week's Thursday session was all planned and prayed into etc, but when we got to the school and I set up in my classroom, no children appeared. I went to investigate and was informed by the teachers that they were finishing school early so they weren't sending any kids to me that day! Upon further investigation it turned out that all the staff were going to the home of one of the teachers whose relative had passed away. I think it was some kind of memorial service. And at 1.30pm, exactly half an hour before the normal end of school, there was no bell, but every teacher left their classes, jumped into cars and in a flash they were gone! The kids got themselves together and headed off home.

This week has been more productive! I managed to get all but one of my Grade R-1 children together and tried a different tactic with them. We played matching pairs animals, a game they didn't really get! They loved turning the cards over but the idea of finding 2 the same was lost on them! Then we looked at animal noises and the English names for them. I'd found a children's book in a sale when shopping called 'Izilwane 100 zokuqala eziyikhulu' which cost the bargain price of R3 (about 25 pence!). For those whose Zulu is a bit rusty that's 'First 100 animal words in Zulu'!! This book proved to be a lifesaver with the children as they could match up the animals in Zulu with the cards. I'm amazed at how God provides even the smallest things. I'd got this book to help me learn my animals, and at the time I'd not thought that it could be useful for teaching English but it was perfect!

Grades R-1 can now do convincing animal noises, and name in English, the following...

Cat - ikati
Dog - inja
snake - inyoka
cow - inkomo
kangeroo - umlalaphansi

Unlikely to see many kangeroos around here, but seeing as one of the first zulu words I learnt was ufudu (tortoise) and I've used it since I've been here, you never know...

It was a fun session and the little ones have quickly got over their fear and are quite chatty now with me. In each session I'm taking pictures of the children for their profiles and am starting to collect information about them so as to understand what they have to go through everyday to survive and to have fun!

Whereas the younger group went well on Tuesday, the older group didn't show on time, but much later appeared on the soccer field just as we were about to leave! Yesterday I put 2 groups together to see how that would work and had children from Grade 1-5 together. It worked well. One of the main reasons is that it's not like in the UK when you get all your 5-year-olds in one year and 8-year-olds in another. Here the children are a variety of ages. In grade 5 I've got an 8-year-old and a 13-year-old. This is completely normal. Children might have started school late, or may have taken some time out to look after dying relatives, or not had enough money to consider coming.. there are many reasons for this variety of ages in each Grade...

Kids' Club 2

Today it seems to be even hotter than usual. Everyone's flaking out, I think it's about 34 degrees C and sunny. Building up to a storm, no doubt... Anyway, that meant football for the boys was cancelled again so Steve and Sean came to help me with the Kids' Club instead.


I always knew that these younger groups might be a challenge and the Grade R-1 group only had 4 children today, all of whom were happy to throw the inflatable dice around. However they were too intimidated, I think, to say anything beyond telling me their names. These children have no knowledge of English at all so communicating with them will be difficult. They enjoyed doing the craft and decorating their treasure boxes though.

The Grades 2-3 were a totally different story. These children are the ones with whom I've spent the most time in the playground so far and they rushed in eager to see what might happen and quick to greet me with a hug. They were a lively group (see photo above) and they managed to understand what I was trying to teach them. I used a lot of Zulu with them and they seemed to get it! I really need to get learning some more Zulu though, it's annoying to be unable to say sometimes simply phrases... I'll get there!

Kids' Club 1

Tuesday's Kids' Clubs didn't happen as I had the room but no children. A slight mix up meant that they hadn't been told. But no matter, it was so baking hot that no one was in the mood for being stuck inside a classroom and even football was cancelled!

Today, however, I managed to get the kids in the classroom and we are off! I had Grades 4-5 today followed by Grades 6-7. Communication was ok as they've been studying English for a while. In each session I talk mostly to them in English which helps their comprehension, and we started today with a little English language game as an ice-breaker. The first group went very well and, although the kids were a little quiet, they we obviously enjoying all the activities. The second group came a little bit late and I ended up with 14 children, just not the 14 children I was supposed to have! In a school with 300 orphans, even the ones who came are 'needy'. So I'll work with these children instead...

The main aims of these clubs are to get to know these children and to help them in whatever way I can. I've explained to them that I'm always available to chat and pray with them about whatever they need. I'm often in the playground with the Lionsraw boys so the kids have 4 of us to chat to at the moment. During the sessions we'll have lots of fun and do some games, craft activities, a bit of singing and a bit of teaching about God, plus opportunity for them to engage with their heavenly Father for themselves. In a Catholic school, all the children know who God is and I'm offering them a different way of communicating with Him in addition to the devotion they do through Mass etc. The children are super keen to do whatever and were excited to learn that God loves them and thinks they are great, which was today's message.

Using a method nicked from some Americans (which I'd already adapted to teach kids in the UK and now re-adapted into Zulu), we're making treasure boxes. The treasure box is a little box which the kids decorate with stickers and then each week I give them a little keep-sake and a verse of a Bible truth for them to put into their box to eventually take home. Each week they learn something new about how God sees them and it helps them establish their identity in Him. At the end of term, they'll get to take their treasure box full of goodies home with them and each time they feel down, they can get them out and look at the verses and remember the truths that are about them. It's a lot of fun and it's brilliant for remembering who they are in Christ!

Although I didn't get so far with the second group, we are on our way to fun and learning and I'm really excited about what God is going to do through these sessions. For those of you who pray, please pray for each of the 40 children who come and spend time with me, that this year would be an amazing transformational year for them as they encounter God and go deeper in relationship with him. They are hungry for more of God and that's always a good place to start...

Time out

Just realised I haven't blogged for a few weeks. Here's why...

I got diagnosed with severe neck problem brought on by extreme stress. Doctors orders to chill out! The tension in my neck caused it to straighten completely and lose the natural curve that you are supposed to have. This caused muscle spasms which were painful and gave me headaches and shoulder aches etc. So I've been trying to shift that over the past few weeks and it's improving slowly. Trying to remove stress from your life is quite difficult, especially as most of it is outside of my control...

At the end of January I went on the Young Adults Weekend Away from my church. We drove up to the Drakensburg mountains and stayed in a Scripture Union camp called Glenhaven. The track to get in was somewhat muddy and the experience of being on the back seat (minus seatbelt!) of what could be the smallest car in the world, sliding and bumping our way into the site will remain with me for quite a while. The centre is really cut off from the world and by a beautiful river, surrounded by hills. It's quite idyllic.

The main activities for the weekend were tubing and rafting on the river and going over the rapids. I chose to be photographer and not to venture into the icy depths of the fast flowing river. I'm not the best swimmer and didn't want to get some bug from a foreign river either (although the water up there is quite pure and clear) But it was a good time to relax with friends and to make new ones.

I did feel a little bit old at times, most of the others there were early to mid-20s and I'm slightly older than that now! The antics on Saturday night (there always has to be some apparently) left me more than a little irrate... Apparently it's amusing to break into the wooden wendy house, where girls are sleeping, by leaping James Bond style through a tiny window, waking up said sleeping girls and shoving shaving foam in their faces!!! Cheap and nasty shaving foam at that! I was so annoyed I was ready to physically hurt the perpetrators if and when they came back.. (not so good for someone who is trying to de-stress!) In any case, the guys in question thought it was funny the next morning when weren't so happy with them. However, apparently, at about 4am someone in the boys' dorm shouted 'the girls are coming' and all the guys leapt out of bed and got scared. As far as I can tell, we were all fast asleep. So the fear is still there. We didn't have to actually 'do' anything... ;-)

I was refreshed by being in the mountains, but on my return my neck got worse and I had to wear a neck collar to help me relax! It's all got a little bit ridiculous. Thankfully the sun has finally arrived and it's too hot to rush around getting stressed and I am making the most of relaxing in the pool and a little bit of sunbathing, which is helping my situation.

Grapevine-wise, I've been continuing to sort out the land that was offered to us and making little progress. The problem is (and this is typical Africa!) I have to meet with the councillor and he answered his phone a few weeks ago and we chatted, he agreed to meet and told me to call back the following week, which I did. He was in a meeting and told me to call back 20 minutes later. At which point I got his answerphone and have had it ever since. I've been to his office and his 'helpful' staff tell me he doesn't have set office hours I just need to pop in and try to catch him. He never listens to his answerphone apparently, he's a politician. (that's what everyone else here tells me). So getting hold of this man is quite frustrating. In the meantime there's another bit of land near the school so I'm making enquiries about that one instead... the saga continues..

I've finally got my list of 40 children from the school. It took only a week longer than planned, and that was with me going in every day to encourage the teachers to hand over information. TIA (This is Africa). With all this going on, I haven't managed to get the kids together until today, but today I start doing Kid's Club with them. I've got 4 groups and the school has given me time during the day to see them. Today it's Grade R-1 and Grade 2-3, most of whom don't speak more than 2 words of English, should be fun! More on that later...