School life..

Some of you might be more interested in what we are doing in the Esangweni school. So, I'll write a few words about that.

It's now our second week at Esangweni school. (On the picture, there's one part of the school, seen from the parking lot - can you see our Beetle there?)

By now, we have met with all of the groups - photography, newsletter, webpage and the new one we started - the movie group. On the first meetings there have been quite many students in each group - more than 20. But many of them didn't come to the 2nd meeting.
We've set up a plan of what we are doing with them and we are trying to stick to it. Of course, we also have to be flexible and prepared for unexpected situations. For example, at the moment it is quite difficult to do anything with the photography group, because the school's digital camera (the only one they have) is broken. Also, we are having a similar problem with the movie group - the sound card of the multimedia computer is not working...

At first it was really difficult to understand the students, because their mother tongue is not English, but Xhosa and it was difficult to get used to their accent. (We are trying to learn some Xhosa, but we are not doing very well - I still can't do any of those click sounds...)
Also, it is very difficult to remember the names of all students..
But it seems that once we get their attention in the groups, they seem to be really interested in what we are telling them and they really want to learn.

Besides teaching the students and teachers, we are also repairing computers (at least trying to) and installing software in the computer lab.
The school also has a webpage, which we started updating: http://esangweni.wizzy.org.za/webpage/index.html

Right now I feel that I'm getting used to it here and I'm really enjoying it, although during the first week it was quite difficult to settle in.