So now we're safe and sound doing sleeping, eating and working in a community centre called Joseph Project. The whole concept of it is to teach the inner city kids of Joburg to dream again. It's based in Troyeville, once a rich gold baron's residential area, now turned into a slum controlled by 'slumlords'.
So here's what my schedule looks like...
Monday mornings I'm helping build a website
Tuesdays I help out in the preschool for kids too poor to go to normal preschool. They are incredibly cute but their little toes stick out from their shoes and they still arrive in shorts even when it's freezing. Here's some photos of them.
This is Josua who quite prefers the pink bike.
This is Noella. I think she's from the Congo.
Here is the extremely rickety swingset that rocks off it's feet everytime the three of them get on and start swinging.
Mawimpizo, who is the smallest boy in the class, also managed to build a tower bigger than he was. I was so impressed.
Esther is a Malaysian Australian who is the preschool teacher. We have 'circle time' every morning which includes singing. People keep asking us if we're sisters e.t.c
Everyday Lungile, the girl, dresses up like a princess.
We're trying out a new thing, which is teaching them to clean their own dishes. It's very slow, but they did do it. The kids here have to take on a lot more responsibility around the house than kids in Australia. They already fold their own blankets, wipe down tables and help me butter the bread.
Then on Weds there's a meeting and I plan (which usually means shooting a few hoops at the local basketball court while I'm thinking)
On Thursdays I do building work, which so far has been bricklaying or like today, shopping for cement, timber and fittings.
On Fridays it's the website again.
This is only for the mornings. Every afternoon kids from the local primary schools arrive from 2pm onward. We play cricket, pingpong or this dodgy American version of handball called 'foursquare' which turns the kids really vicious as they slam the ball at each other. Then they sit down at tables and get fed lunch. You can tell the ones that are really poor cause they eat everything.
Then we do homework with them for an hour, which usually forces me to go into teacher mode to make them all sit and concentrate. Their level of education is pretty bad considering the ones I tutor are in Yr 7 and they ask me questions like "what's 6 x 2?". I've been trying to give them extra work to help them catch up because a lot of the time their teachers aren't giving them homework (or the teachers simply aren't turning up to class). Surprisingly they like maths a lot better than English.
Finally it's playtime then clean up at 5pm. By this time I am usually exhausted because I have the rowdiest class. I don't know how teachers do it everyday.
The girl on the left, Princess, makes me play pick up sticks with her every day. I hate that game now. She always wins...until yesterday!
This is the dining situation. That's my team leader, CarrieAnne in the red cardigan.
This is cricket in the garage. It's extremely scary if you're fielding up close. I have bruises on my legs from it.
This is that evil foursquare game. Did I mention it was played with a basketball?
Although at first I really missed the open fields, skies and plain living of Zimbabwe, I'm finally adjusting to life here and not feeling so cooped up. Since this is Johannesburg we can't be outside after 6pm at night so the only time I get to be under the blue sky is if I sneak away to do planning on a weds or on 5 min walks at lunchtime. It was driving me crazy at first but I realised a lot of their regular staff are away so they do really need our team here so I had better stop 'kicking against the goads' and just come to accept it was in God's plan.
