Internet problems

Dear All

First of all apologies for the long delay since my first post from Knysna last week. I have been having problems getting to an internet cafe and when I do all the emails etc that I diligently type then mysteriously disappear into the internet ether never to be seen again. Anyway, here goes again.

I have now had 3 full days at Percy Mdala and weirdly, even though each day has flown by, I feel like I have been there much longer. The first day we (Mel and I) got a great welcome from the Head Teacher and all the other teachers we were introduced to. My assigned teacher has been absolutely great. I have sat in on a couple of her own lessons and she arranged for me to sit in with other classes and teachers.

At the moment I am getting to know year 8. Last week I spent time with year 8B and today I followed year 8C's timetable. I have had to 'take' a few classes so far. For instance last week the Geography teacher was off sick so I took the class. I didn't have any pre-assigned work to give them so I told them a little about where I came from, the BBC website and so on, and then I asked them to give me facts on South Africa. The class were great and the students showed a great understanding of the challenges that South Africa faces in the future.

Today another teacher was not in school so I took her class. This time the class was Xhosa so there was no way I was going to be able to help the students out there! They suggested that we play Hangman in English - so we did and it went well and the students were very well behaved.

In this blog entry I am just concentrating on the school as, let's face it, that is what I am here for, but I hope in future blogs to write a litte more about my fellow travellers, the house, the country and the people I have met so far. Every day seems to bring some little excitement or incident that wouldn't be the norm at home.

I am hoping that the students from St Dominic's school in Belfast will post some questions that I can pose to the students here in Percy Mdala. I am also hoping that Mr Scott, the Citizenship teacher at St Dominic's, will do a guest post or send some comments in, so, the invitation is there folks so I await your input!

Over and out for now. Can't put any pictures up here so it is all text, text, text again.