First of all, sorry for the complete lack of updates! Life here has completely laken over and so we hardly have 5 minutes to sit down and blog. I will try and cover the past couple of weeks now, so it will be slightly brief, but at least you will have an idea of what is happening.
Thursday 14th - Wednesday 20th March
This past week has been crazy for a few reasons... First of all we have had so much planning to do for various events that we are holding - english lessons, holiday clubs, stories of hope and encouragement, organising an exercise regime for members of staff, planning the pre-school and on top of that trying to fit in time to chill as a team and sleep!! Such a hectic time... To add to this on Monday (18th) Londy brought home a tiny, terrified, on deaths door 6 week old puppy... As Monday was our "day off" we spent it at the girl's house, planning the week and trying to nurse Poppy back to life. By the end of Wednesday we had a solid plan for holiday club (2nd-4th April), our first english lesson (26th March) and had worked out and planned what we were going to do with the pre-school. We also had time to see friends from Howick, which is such a blessing to us as we can relax, and rewind with them so that we are refreshed for the following day of work. Poppy is completely healthy now, and was taken to the vets on Wednesday (20th) morning to be dewormed, defleaed and to have her rabies jab, she is more than better and loves waking Clo and I up every morning at 6:30!!
Thursday 21st - Sunday 24th March
Thursday was our first South African Public Holiday (Human Rights Day) and because of that schools were closed on Thursday, and then everyone just had Friday off (TIA!). To make good use of the extra long weekend, friends of the team's from Howick invited us down to the coast to their beach house with them. This was the most perfectly timed break I think the team could have had! Having been in South Africa for 5 weeks by the Sunday, we were all compelely drained - loving ourselves - but so in need of some time off and some TLC. The Bank's beach house was in Shelley Beach, which is about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Howick, south of Durban down the coast. The beach house was about a 30 second walk from the beach, and the weather was lovely. The time away not only gave us time to "recharge our batteries", but also to have some well needed team time, and time to just get to know everyone more.
Monday 25th March
Moday's are meant to be our days off, but due to the amount of work we have on at the moment, we are using them to do most of our planning for the week ahead. We headed to the library in the morning to finalise plans for english lessons and the pre-school. The morning was so well spent, and so we headed back to the house for lunch and used to the afternoon to relax and try to start planning our Ladies Nights. Monday evening we headed to Howick to visit some friends for dinner and chill out there for a little bit. The team have been invited up north to Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Game Reserve over the Easter weekend with friends and so we managed to hear more about that and get a list together of what we needed and when we were leaving (4am on Friday!!).
Tuesday 26th March
Yesterday was spent focusing on the pre-school. In the morning we worked out how we were going to spend out time there. As the pre-school is for children aged 1-6, we can't do any work while the children are there. Like most schools and pre-schools in Mpops, they close before lunch (12:30ish) and then the children are fed before leaving. This means that we can't get into the pre-school to work until 1:30. We started yesterday by sanding down all of the walls. The walls are simply concrete with paint on top.. this means that they aren't flat at all, and have lots of bumps on them, so painting at a later stage would have been difficult if we had left them. Once the sanding was done, we sugar soaped down at the walls so that they were ready and clean for todays work!
Wednesday 27th March
Today was our first english lesson! It went really well, and the team worked so well together. We were unsure as to numbers, and level of english and so had planned compeletly blind - 14 people turned up, with a range of english levels. The lesson was a great success and they are all really excited for their next lessons - as are we! This afternoon we are heading back over to Grace Chaple pre-school to try and start the painting which is very exciting!!
I will try and keep you more updated in the following 2 months, but this is Africa so you may have to wait a little while! Happy Easter and have a lovely time this weekend! I hope that you are all well, and the snow isn't too bad....
Loads of love, hugs and kisses from a very sunny Africa!!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment