More fun and frolicks in Cape Town

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Some things I’ve noticed about South Africa:

School stops for rain.

School stops for teachers' meeting.

School stops if someone feels like it.

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School stops for absolutely no reason.

On Monday afternoon it was pretty windy, and the gale force winds and rain throughout the night didn’t make me feel good about having to go to work the next day. (However, I was secretly glad I wasn’t my housemate, Leo who had to get to work using his usual mode of transport. The locals must have wondered what the hell a white guy in a shirt and tie was doing in Parkwood, standing in gale force winds at 6.30am, shouting at passing minibus taxis.) As I ate my breakfast my host mother told me there was no need for me to go in because it was raining. I informed her that if we went about things that way in the UK no one would ever go to work. She laughed and told me to phone the school and they’d say the same. Which they did.

This is how South Africa runs. In some ways it is a Godsend after the tightly timetabled lives we live in the UK, but at times it can be the most frustrating thing ever for a Westerner. We are used to order and outcomes; they are used to chaos and unfinished tasks. To be fair, the reason there was no need to go in was because most of the children would be off. With no proper outdoor wear to walk to school in, they would be completely drenched all day which is quite sad. However, there have been other times I have gone out when there’s been a chance of rain and my host family thinks I’m mad!

Argh today was crazy. One of the teachers was off and obviously they have no money to pay supply teachers so I was asked to take her grade 5 class for a while. I had no lesson plans but a teacher threw me an English grammar book and told me she’d be back to check how everything was going. Well it was fine for a while, but how can these kids not understand what copying from the board means?? They speak fluent English!! I was asked at least fifteen times what they had to do after I had painstakingly spelled it out three times. And to top it off, some of their spellings were completely unreal, especially since they were copied from the board. The word ‘favourite’ was spelled ‘vyvrit’ by one kid (I assume there’s some Afrikaans influence there…) Ah it’s all good fun…

In other news, last Thursday we took part in a community project near to where we teach. It was a fun-filled day for kids, with face painting, sumo wrestling, football, rugby, food etc. The girls were put on face-painting duty which was interesting considering the quality and number of face paints they had there. Still, we muddled through somehow and we were quite pleased with our efforts in the end! The next day three of us went to the southernmost point of Africa, Cape Agulhas for the day. It’s where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet and it was breathtaking, if a little windy! In the evening, we ate at a place called Mama Africa’s which is just about the best place I have ever eaten in! Ostrich and crocodile on the menu, live music, a snake-shaped bar – what more could you want? Oh right, yes, an earring stall! Wahey!!