teaching

I have been officically teaching at Phakamisani High for 5 days now, and I have a completely new respect for teachers. It is hard work. But I love it. The kids respond very well to me, and seem to be grasping the concepts I am introducing. After school, I sit on the veranda of a hotel on the main road in Hanover, and when kids pass by and see me they all stop and try to talk. The language barrier is still a complication, but slowly I am learning how to interpret the gist of what the kids are saying. I hope to begin a girl's soccer team this week, but things tend to move very slowly in South Africa. I met another American from Washington state who works for an organization called Grassroots soccer that educates children on HIV and AIDS prevention and treatment through soccer. I am hopefully going to take the girls, once I have a team, to one of the workshops that Grassroots does. I have also begun helping with the choir at the school because I can read music and am familiar with the piano. And I am currently tutoring 6 kids in math. I hope to increase that number significantly as students begin to need more help. I find that I can accomplish a lot more in 10 minutes one on one with a student than I can in 50 minutes in a classroom of 33 kids.
Please continue to pray that my actions will speak louder than my words. Perhaps an American who has very ambitious goals and does not drink or smoke or do drugs is just what this town needs. They can easily identify with me because we look similar, so pray that I can use that to my advantage. And vigorously pray that the people will stop abusing alcohol. That is still the most shocking thing I have experienced here. It is very widespread as well. It saddens me to see people with talent just throw it away because they do not want to work hard.