Bryson's Travel Blog: School time

Well after a two hour taxi ride we made it. You go and wait for your taxi but have to wait for it to fill up. We only waited two hours before leaving. We got into the village and saw the rooms. They are cinder buildings with corrugated steel roofs. The house has chickens and a garden area. It has a water spicket where you can fill your buckets then you take them for all your washing and cleaning and you have to purify the drinking water. The water from the tap is really not in a drinkable state. The toilet is an outhouse down the hill from the rooms. I haven't used it yet. It's not attached to the house.

Many people have to go down to the stream daily to get all their water. We walked by and it really was just a small spring were you would use a pitcher to put water in a bigger bucket.

The house from the gate

The rondavel on the right is the ancestral hut.

The spring where people fetch water.

You use buckets to do the dishes and have to heat water separately. Things take a little longer, but it's really not too bad. It feels like you have the time to do the extra things as their aren't a thousand other things going on.

We had a Tuna salad sandwich and a salad today. It was really quite good.

Cooking dinner

Kitchen sink

Amy the peace corp volunteer I am visiting was just telling me some of the beliefs or superstitions of the Zulu people. Like they don't sweep the floors at night and owls are bad luck. I met her sisters and mom as well (host family). They have all been very nice. When we first arrived there were a bunch of gogo(grandmas). Sitting out on the porch drinking their traditional beer. It's not really appropriate for women to drink at all but especial in front of men so I felt bad that we broke up the party. They are still quite superstitious and maintain a lot of their beliefs. They do a ritual every night to keep away the bad spirits. They use a switch from a tree and splash a sooty water around the outside of the property and inside the rooms. They have a circular house on the property where their ancestors live.

So I woke up this morning and got the skinny on bathing. These volunteers are badasses they really are. You use a basin to wash in and to catch the water. You use about a liter of water and more or less sponge bath.

Bath time. Big red bucket to catch the water. Pink bucket to hold water.

Not to bad for a day and I am sure you get used to it but makes you appreciate showers and the like. One of the peace corp volunteers actually has a place without electricity, which means no refrigeration and you have to use gas to cook. Also you have to use oil for lights. It's cool talking to Amy because she feels really lucky to have what she does and by almost any standards it isn't much. These places make the worst of the hostels we have stayed in look luxurious. It's funny to watch Amy because she has everything down to a routine and everything has it's place but it still feels so foreign to me. She's been really great at showing me what her life is like.

So I am off on my own while Amy teaches class. I am sitting on a stump drinking a coke and eating puffed cheese balls. Could life get any better? I submit to you that it could not.

This lady walked by with a big log on her head. While I hung out on the stump.

At about ten I get to go have lunch at the school then we are going to go play with the kids. I am supposed to teach them an American game and due to the fact that there are 56 kids we are going with red rover. Hopefully it goes well teaching is not really my strong point. The town is really pretty. Set in some green rolling hills. A simple life for sure. People are nice for the most part. They say hi when they walk by and all seem to be pretty happy. They smile and greet you and I think they are excited to me.

Talking to Amy it sounds like there are a lot of challenges for kids and adults here. There isn't much to do so drinking tends be an issue. Education is a hard task with 56 kids to a class. Amy teaches the fifth grade and said there are kids from 9-15 in the grade because of kids being held back. She also said there's opportunity for those who seek it but it's pretty hard to find and there isn't really a great system to help kids take advantage of it. The other issue is that internet isn't really here at all And so it's really hard to find and apply for things like grants and scholarships.

This experience has already been incredible and I feel incredibly blessed and lucky to be were I am with the people who are around me. It's crazy how much I take for granted. Those simple conveniences are lost so easily on you.

So another thing I have realized is that no one here is on a rush. We took a walk and to say it was at a leisurely pace would be an exaggeration. Just an interesting thing I noticed. I like it though I am always in such a rush to go anywhere. It's nice to slow things down a bit.

They use like a dirt paste I think for sunscreen. So it actually looks really cool like they have painted their faces. Most people in the village will keep a garden to eat from. A lot of people in the town have to transport into town to work. It can mean that kids will often stay with their gogos or siblings. The village is really great because they have such a great community mentality. They help each other and look out for each other.

Well I am at the school marking papers right now. It's a math final so nothing real subjective. It's tiring but kind of fun. Today was so awesome so far though. I got to teach a fifth grade class how to play red rover it really was a ton of fun. Amy is really good with the kids. It's fun to watch.

It was interesting grading papers here. 40 percent is a passing grade. But the scores ranges so greatly and with grading them you could really see that every kid is on such a different level. It presents so many problems because the brighter kids aren't being challenged and the slower kids are being left behind. With a class of 56 you can't afford to teach to an individual level.

The grounds are cool. The have a big dirt area they play in which is where we played red rover. The class rooms are cinder block and pretty large but are quite full. The first grade just got a new building but don't have desks so they have these trays they write on and just sit on the ground. Walking around is interesting everyone just looks at me and the first grade class all piled in by the doors to see me. Amy introduced me to her students as Mr. Bryson so that was pretty fun. When they meet new people the have this whole in unison back and forth like Hi Mr. Bryson how are you? - good thanks , how are you? - we are fine. Thank you. It was cute.

Another interesting thing they do is have the kids do the cleaning of the school. They have a time set apart where the kids will move all the desks and clean the floor and do the cleaning in the room they study.

Amy serving rice before I took over.

I got to help serve lunch as well. It was really good. Rice and beans. It feels a little like a prison cafeteria because they bring the food out in 5 gallon buckets and you serve it with a metal cup as the hold out their dishes. I served rice as I couldn't be trusted on bean duty apparently. It was really cool and the food really was quite good. I met the lunch aunties as well. They were really sweet aunties and quite fun even though I only met them briefly.