We had planned our return well which left us with a weekend to recover from Cape Town and to prepare for the next term. Both of us are very aware that this is our third and final term and therefore we need to make the most of every second not forgetting the incredible amount of things that we need to get done before the end of August. This week I was teaching Agriculture, Maths and Science as Ken was still in Windhoek, so I had lots of lessons to prepare as well as the usual activities.
When talking to Mummy on the phone she told me how Emma had been involved in a nasty car crash, which was a massive shock. Luckily she was okay but unfortunately her parents were away, so Mummy went and rescued her. Really didn’t like being out here then as felt I was needed at home to look after my friend and nothing I could do out here apart from spend all my credit texting her! Thank goodness she is okay but I was very worried about her and just wanted to be there to give her a massive hug.
On Sunday I spent four hours copying out music for my recorder groups – I would say they’d better appreciate it but I know they won’t! I teach three groups; beginners, intermediate and advanced, and for each group I have four books which I copy music into for them to share. Luckily, I was kept entertained by Milla (one of the G7 boys who had returned early) who had captured a donkey and was galloping up and down the path outside my window before he promptly fell off, much to my amusement! Woke up the next morning to discover that in the night someone had broken our outside door handle....little creepy. Obviously someone tried to get in once we had locked the door. So once we left the house we couldn’t get back in through the kitchen door and had to revert to climbing over our garden gate again (yes the one with spikes on top). Luckily Brian came to replace the handle that day so not too much climbing occurred! All the children arrived back on Monday in dribs and drabs and it was lovely to see them again. I went over to the little boy’s hostel to see Dankie and to take him his new teddy bear, kindly sent out by Emma, and his new clothes that Mummy brought out. Sister Hendrika kept some of the clothes for him so that they wouldn’t get stolen but he loved all his new things. It makes me really happy to see him walking around in them and he has gone from one of the worst dressed to children to looking incredibly smart.
The first day back was very relaxing as we didn’t have to be at school until 8 and we finished at 11. I just spent the morning handing out all the exercise and text books to Grade 6 and then hearing a little bit about their holidays. I got all of them to tell me two interesting facts from their holidays; some were more interesting than others – 1) I went to the farm and 2) I went to the other farm! 1) I went and 2) I came back! One boy said that he had ridden a donkey so the next said he had ridden a goat and the next said he ridden a chicken and I responded with I rode an elephant! I spent the afternoon going for a long walk across the farm before doing some sewing on one of the costumes. We went to Paul and Sara’s for supper, spaghetti bolognaise, which was lovely and we had a real catch up about the holidays.
The kindergarten has now officially opened and runs from 8:00 to 12:00 Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. It is called Bushbabies which I think is really sweet. It is going really well and Sara has a class of 15 which is much more than was expected, especially at the start. We are going to do a music class with them on a Wednesday which should be interested. Lots of them are literally ‘Bushbabies’, not speaking any English and there are identical twins who don’t even know their own names so for Sara it’s pretty impossible at the moment!
Happy 21st Birthday Cluny – when the family was happily relaxing on a beach in Norfolk I was teaching Fractions to G5 and Sex Education to G6. I know which one I’d choose to do! Actually, that’s quite unfair as all the children were beautifully behaved if a little hyperactive but it was the first proper day of school so fair enough. Sex Ed with G6 actually went really well as it was one of the girl’s, Arabella’s, birthday and she had brought a massive cake to share with everyone. I said we could have it at the end of the lesson but anyone who was misbehaving or being silly wouldn’t have any cake. Funnily enough they were all as good as gold. Sadly the next day there was no cake... In the afternoon we had a proper rehearsal for ‘Build Our Own Future’ – this is the song that was written by Howard Jones and it’s a project to connect children all over the world. Lots of schools from load of different countries are learning it and recording it and then it’s all being mashed into one to make a record which will be released in the UK at Christmas time. You can Google it and hear the song accompanied by pictures from children all over the world singing it – including mine!! I videoed them singing it and took some pictures which we then sent to him on the internet.
With G7 in science I was doing different scientific processes and on Wednesday I was focussing on Chromatography. The key to this is remembering that “the different dyes have different solubilities”, I was trying to make sure that they memorised this key phrase but I was failing miserably with Diodores. I love this boy to pieces but he isn’t very strong academically and I would come back to him time and time again asking the question in different ways trying to get him to answer with this key phrase but he always got stuck. Luckily after a couple of days with me asking him a question every time I saw him he got the phrase into his brain and hopefully he will have passed his end of unit test. It was then time for G6 science and more sex education. They had been so well behaved the day before so I wasn’t expecting any trouble, however. we moved more onto the sex side of things and away from puberty. Their text book has a lot of words in it that would NEVER appear in an English science book such as orgasm and masturbation. I got them to read a couple of pages and then said I would answer questions on anything they didn’t understand – big mistake! I had to do some very careful phrasing but then fielded difficult questions such as “How do you masturbate” to Ken on his return. He also dodged out of answering this and told them to look it up!
I can’t believe that it’s the end of May – not really sure where this month went to and now only three months left. So records for this month....I sent 22 letters and received 7 (massive win from me, keep writing people! Although not for much longer as any sent after the middle to end of July probably won’t reach me before I come home!), I read 7 books, went to two new countries and saw my parents for the second month in a row. Lots of firsts this month: went to a Bob Marley tribute concert, did a Gorge Swing, rode an elephant, went to my first proper concert this year, went up Table Mountain and got mugged! Luckily most of them were positive firsts and it was a really good month.
Friday’s teaching went without a hitch and in the afternoon we had our first rehearsal of the Button Box. Before they went away on holiday we instructed out four main parts with speech that they should come back with their words 100% learnt, this meant I expected to know roughly 75%, the most someone knew was the first two pages. Slight panic! On the plus side, Ruben who plays Uncle Jack, who had struggled all of the last term with the tune of his solo somehow miraculously managed to teach himself it over the holidays. Not sure how as he had no way of listening to the melody and he definitely didn’t know it at the end of last term but he did it. This made Chelcie and I so happy that we just jumped on him and gave him a massive hug much to the amusement of the rest of the cast!
Otjikondo now has its very own craft shop; this is so that when visitors and tourists come to Otjikondo they can buy something made by the children to take home. With my boy playgroup I am going to make sets of cards with Kudus on the front to sell. So I spent Saturday cleaning making templates for the different body parts as well as writing all the names of the children onto the mark sheets for PT and Art – that’s 468 names to copy out! As it was the first Saturday back there was no bank so instead we had a rehearsal with our four principal parts. They had all learnt scene one like we had requested and a bit more so we were very pleased with them. In the afternoon I gave Jacky a keyboard lesson who had forgotten quite a lot of what we did last term but picked it up again very quickly so that was pleasing.
Sunday morning was so windy and really not very pleasant. The priest who was coming from St Michaels was late arriving and therefore we didn’t get out of church until 11:10 having left the flat at 9:15! I then went and did Birthday Cupboard which was very exciting as it had been stocked up over the holidays which meant the cupboards were very full and the children had loads to choose from. The downside of this was they took ages to choose their three items! I came back to the flat where Chelcie was writing thank you letters to sponsors with a couple of children who had been sent a birthday cupboard. Uatuuapo who is in G5 had been sent this amazing doll complete with a change of clothes, shoes, bag, pillow, mattress and duvet. Chelcie and I then proceeded to play with this doll and had great fun getting her ready for bed as Uatuuapo wrote her letter! We then went down to have lunch with all the Stommels which was lovely as usual. The afternoon was taken up with another Button Box rehearsal; we did some more chorography and got another two dances ticked off. However, Grandma played by Aune, got into a massive strop for no apparent reason so we sent her away as she was being a hindrance. She skulked by the door for the rest of the afternoon and at the end we had a big chat with her saying that she couldn’t bring all her troubles to drama and that she has to come ready for work. However, if she ever needs to talk to either of us we were both there whenever she wanted outside of drama time!
I can’t believe how quickly the first week back has gone and how much we have managed to pack into it. I have a feeling this is how all of this term is going to go. It’s so lovely to be back at Otjikondo although both of us suffered a bit from post holiday blues. It’s always difficult acclimatising again to being very isolated and away from everyone however lovely it is to be with the children again. Really good to spend the first week academic teaching and hopefully I will get some more opportunities this term. As usual sending love to everyone and hope that you are all well. Special love to Emma – really hope you’re okay now and just sorry I couldn’t be with you.
Lots of love
Ottilie xxxx
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