July 29 - Aug 6
It's been quite a few days since I last wrote the blog - the Internet at Esangweni went down last week. There was something wrong with the Linux server. The internet is back now, but it's very slow for some reason...
We had a great weekend! Although I was still exhausted from Friday night - we went out to a bar at Long Street - the drum music was amazing! On Saturday we planned to go swimming but when we got to the pool, it turned out that it was closed for a week - there was no reason given!
At night we (Tobi, Karen, Lucka and I) went to a gospel concert in Bellville (about 30 min drive from Cape Town) - it took us some time to find the place. But the concert was just amazing, it was a choir called "Desire". Tiina, I wish you had been there - you would have loved it! I bought their CD for you + I have a CD of another choir! Also, I recorded parts of the concert with my digital camera - but the sound is not too good there.. The concert lasted 4,5 hours!! I was a bit surprised about the reaction of the audience during the concert - they were quite noisy and when they liked some song or parts of it, they raised their arms, stood up and danced!! Very much unlike European audiences!
31 July.. it's already the end of July... time is going too fast! It was a great day, the weather was perfect. We climbed Lion's Head! It took us less time than climbing Table Mountain, but some sections were more difficult, because you had to climb vertically. Luckily, there were chains and ladders. I really enjoyed the climb! Now the plan is to climb a mountain every weekend! :)
The views from the top were amazing.. and we did some crazy tricks there -it looks much worse on the pictures than it really was!! The only thing I didn't like was that it was much too crowded at the top (and on the way to the top)...Many people were climbing with their dogs, carrying the dogs on their backs as they climbed the parts with ladders and chains! :) Afterwards, we drove to Muizenberg and Kalk Bay, went to a beach and had dinner.
I'm quite used to the school now, the groups are doing fine and we are having a great time with them. We met with the movie group on Monday morning at 7.30 to film students coming to school. It was freezing cold outside, but almost all members of the movie group showed up! We even managed to film something, but the shots were quite shaky (we didn't have a tripod) and the kids just loved the zoom function (although we told them not to use it too often!)!
A student from school, Mandisi, took us to a beach in Khayelitsa. It was nice there, but the beach was rather deserted and it would probably be dangerous to go there alone. But it was a good relaxation & we got some great pictures!
For those who know a bit about computers, here's something quite funny - the principal's computer was brought to us - they said it was too slow and asked us to do something about it. What we discovered was quite 'interesting' - the computer had Windows XP with 32 MB of RAM!! :) After adding more memory and removing a bunch of viruses (there was no antivirus software!), the computer worked just fine!
----
Yesterday was an exhausting day - but it was really great! We had lots of stuff to do at school. During the lunchbreak we attended the meeting of the HIV group of the school. The group is planning to visit an HIV hospice next weekend - we are planning to join them.
In the afternoon, we had two classes. First, there was training for the teachers - we taught them how to use a computer program for educators. It was quite difficult to teach the teachers, because they were incredibly noisy during the training - much more than the students! :o)
Right after the teachers training, we had the webpage group for the advanced learners. We taught them CSS - at first, they were really confused about it - but when they got it, they were really happy and excited about it! I was really glad in the end!
At 5, when we finished, we were invited by a caretaker at school to his place. He lives about 5 minutes from the school. He showed us his house - it was not a shack, but built from brick - although he had extended the house himself - the material used for the extensions was mainly cardboard...
It was amazing to hear this man talking about his life and experiences inSouth Africa. He has spent 10 years on Robben Island as political prisoner.. Right now, he's really struggling to survive - he is working only 2 days a week and his salary is no sufficient to support his family... He has 4 children, 2 of them living with him... It was amazing to see how the man had tried to provide his children with things necessary for life... Experiencing something like this makes you see life from a different perspective...
There's no school until Wednesday - they have holidays here..
We had a great weekend! Although I was still exhausted from Friday night - we went out to a bar at Long Street - the drum music was amazing! On Saturday we planned to go swimming but when we got to the pool, it turned out that it was closed for a week - there was no reason given!
At night we (Tobi, Karen, Lucka and I) went to a gospel concert in Bellville (about 30 min drive from Cape Town) - it took us some time to find the place. But the concert was just amazing, it was a choir called "Desire". Tiina, I wish you had been there - you would have loved it! I bought their CD for you + I have a CD of another choir! Also, I recorded parts of the concert with my digital camera - but the sound is not too good there.. The concert lasted 4,5 hours!! I was a bit surprised about the reaction of the audience during the concert - they were quite noisy and when they liked some song or parts of it, they raised their arms, stood up and danced!! Very much unlike European audiences!
31 July.. it's already the end of July... time is going too fast! It was a great day, the weather was perfect. We climbed Lion's Head! It took us less time than climbing Table Mountain, but some sections were more difficult, because you had to climb vertically. Luckily, there were chains and ladders. I really enjoyed the climb! Now the plan is to climb a mountain every weekend! :)
The views from the top were amazing.. and we did some crazy tricks there -it looks much worse on the pictures than it really was!! The only thing I didn't like was that it was much too crowded at the top (and on the way to the top)...Many people were climbing with their dogs, carrying the dogs on their backs as they climbed the parts with ladders and chains! :) Afterwards, we drove to Muizenberg and Kalk Bay, went to a beach and had dinner.
I'm quite used to the school now, the groups are doing fine and we are having a great time with them. We met with the movie group on Monday morning at 7.30 to film students coming to school. It was freezing cold outside, but almost all members of the movie group showed up! We even managed to film something, but the shots were quite shaky (we didn't have a tripod) and the kids just loved the zoom function (although we told them not to use it too often!)!
A student from school, Mandisi, took us to a beach in Khayelitsa. It was nice there, but the beach was rather deserted and it would probably be dangerous to go there alone. But it was a good relaxation & we got some great pictures!
For those who know a bit about computers, here's something quite funny - the principal's computer was brought to us - they said it was too slow and asked us to do something about it. What we discovered was quite 'interesting' - the computer had Windows XP with 32 MB of RAM!! :) After adding more memory and removing a bunch of viruses (there was no antivirus software!), the computer worked just fine!
----
Yesterday was an exhausting day - but it was really great! We had lots of stuff to do at school. During the lunchbreak we attended the meeting of the HIV group of the school. The group is planning to visit an HIV hospice next weekend - we are planning to join them.
In the afternoon, we had two classes. First, there was training for the teachers - we taught them how to use a computer program for educators. It was quite difficult to teach the teachers, because they were incredibly noisy during the training - much more than the students! :o)
Right after the teachers training, we had the webpage group for the advanced learners. We taught them CSS - at first, they were really confused about it - but when they got it, they were really happy and excited about it! I was really glad in the end!
At 5, when we finished, we were invited by a caretaker at school to his place. He lives about 5 minutes from the school. He showed us his house - it was not a shack, but built from brick - although he had extended the house himself - the material used for the extensions was mainly cardboard...
It was amazing to hear this man talking about his life and experiences inSouth Africa. He has spent 10 years on Robben Island as political prisoner.. Right now, he's really struggling to survive - he is working only 2 days a week and his salary is no sufficient to support his family... He has 4 children, 2 of them living with him... It was amazing to see how the man had tried to provide his children with things necessary for life... Experiencing something like this makes you see life from a different perspective...
There's no school until Wednesday - they have holidays here..
posted by Kadri Aavik at 5:39 AM
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