Karoo Culture Adventure Weekend!

Hello!  I survived my first week at Pearson High School and, while it was certainly exciting, my weekend was even more fun!  Here’s the abridged version of my Karoo Culture Adventure!

We left straight from school on Friday to go to South Africa’s fourth oldest city, Graaf-Reinet.  Our leader-friend, Murray, has relatives with a guest house in the city and it was absolutely breathtaking.  The property was gorgeous and we all couldn’t wait to have a relaxing weekend by the pool!  As soon as we arrived, however, we went and drove/hiked up to the top of the Valley of Desolation.  You don’t quite understand the meaning of the word “breathtaking” until you have experienced a place like this.  It was so humbling to stand on top of God’s creation and I have to say that the verses in Genesis 1 don’t do it justice.  “God saw that it was good,” is the biggest understatement.

Enjoying the Valley of Desolation

Seriously so beautiful

Sneaky Murray took pictures and I liked this one!

Then, we went to an old restaurant in the town of Graaf-Reinet that used to be an old hunting club.  Ladies were only allowed into the club beginning twelve years ago so it was a really neat experience to chat with everyone over dinner.  I ate ostrich, springbok and beef and they were all delicious! 

Murray's girlfriend, Jordie, explaining the history of the
men's club

Family dinner!

On Saturday morning, we journeyed to the town of Nieu Bethesda, population 56.  It was like going back in time!  We walked around the sleepy town and then took a donkey cart ride up the mountain to Two Goats Brewery.  A friend of Murray’s opened this restaurant in the middle of nowhere because he was so sick of the hustle and bustle of the corporate world.  He makes his own breads, cheeses and meats and brings them on this huge platter! 12 of us shared 3 platters and still had food left over!

Donkey cart ride!  So cool! 

The entrance to Two Goats Brewery  

This is ONE PLATTER!  Everything is home-made and the
meat is springbok meat.

Murray and Jordie's dog, Swazi, came, too, and decided
to jump on the table and join the fun!

We then went on a two-hour boat tour of the river because Graaf-Reinet is the only town that is completely surrounded by a game reserve so there were animals everywhere!  It was so nice to just relax on the boat and get to know everyone a little better.

On the boat with Skipper Steve!

On the way out of town, we drove through some townships and, for those that don’t know, here’s a little history: Townships were established during the Apartheid era when whites removed blacks from the towns of South Africa.  As a statement of strength, the blacks decided to name their new locations “townships” to prove that they could survive despite the prejudices against them.  Today, townships are still extremely impoverished so it made us feel so blessed to drive through the areas and see the children who were content playing with an empty water bottle in the street!

Exploring the township

That night, we drove to another township to have a cultural dinner at Miemie’s.  Here’s the cool back story:  Miemie’s ancestors used to work for Murray’s ancestors and so when Murray created the Freewalker’s group, he went to Miemie and created a cultural dinner experience to generate extra income for her family.  It was so cool!  We ate all kinds of neat food, and the only thing I recognized were rice and bread, but it was delicious and we were all stuffed.  After dinner, we all danced and laughed all night long.

Watching Miemie make the bread

Dancing after dinner!

One of two long tables of friends

Loving SA!

Sunday morning, we woke up to a beautiful brunch that involved a little work.  Murray’s uncle is an ostrich farmer and he brought us two ostrich eggs that we had to crack for breakfast! You have to use a spoon to make two holes in the egg and then blow out the yolk.  It was really different, but the eggs were so good.  Two eggs fed 24 people and there were left-overs!

Very different but I'm glad I got to do it!

After brunch, we toured Graaf-Reinet and the Reinet house and it was really neat to see some of the history of the small town.  Graaf-Reinet has the most historical landmarks in one town in the entire country of South Africa!

Last stop of the day: the Daniel Spotted Cat Conservation!  We took about an hour long tour to hear about the endangered cats and we even got to pet a tame female cheetah named Ola!  She was so sweet!

8 month old lion cub... The two lions were
named Chuck and Norris! 

Beautiful leopard

Just hanging out with sleepy Ola!

We headed home and hit the hay… Exhausted is such an understatement!

In SA, people say “See you just now!” instead of “Goodbye,” because goodbyes are so sad, so...

see you just now!

Katharine / Miss Martin

The Official Tour of Pearson Hoerskool

Hello, all! It’s almost been a week here at Pearson High School, so I figured I would give you a tour, led by my best friends!

Here’s a little bit about the school:

The school goes from Grade 8 all the way through Matric (12^th grade).  They have 3 houses (yes, just like Harry Potter): du Plessis (pronounced: Doo-pee) Deary and Ffolliott (pronounced: Fall-ee-at).  There are Prefects and Head Boys/Girls that lead the students, monitor the hallways, etc.  Again, just like Harry Potter…

All the students are fluent in at least two languages (English and Afrikaans, which is derived from Dutch), but some don’t speak either at home so they are fluent in at least three!  Lots of students speak Xhosa (pronounced: Ko-za) which is one of the clicking languages! So neat!  Their classes switch back and forth between speaking English and Afrikaans so it’s difficult to keep up in everything except the English Literature classes- lucky me!

They are EXTREMELY polite.  The students must begin and end every class by standing and addressing the teacher by saying, “Good morning, ma’am”.  Students must look at the instructor or principal at all times or else they are called out in public and embarrassed.  They place a lot of emphasis on athletics here so when I am linked up with a specific sport, I’ll give you more details.  I do know, though, that we are getting out of school to go to the local university for an entire day of athletics! 

The schedule is CRAZY confusing, but you will see that in the pictures below.  The campus is massive and it’s so easy to get lost, so I’ll just give you the basic rooms...

This is the staff room... we have staff meetings
each morning before school and our breaks are
spent here.

Here is the front entrance! The grounds are gigantic...

We have two 20 minute tea breaks every day where we
are served by the staff! It's so relaxing, everyone in America
should adopt this.

This is my schedule just for the first week! The students don't
attend the same classes at the same times every day, so instead
of planning 10 lessons like most people, I will plan 40 for
Grades 8-11 and then for our LO (Life Orientation) classes.
Crazy.

The students must wear uniforms.
This is the winter uniform...

... and here's the summer uniform!
This is what the students are wearing right now.

This is the hall... Assemblies, grade meetings and presentations
obviously happen in this room.  In the far left of the picture on
the wall is one of the coats for the three houses.

Students can spend their breaks out here or
wait for their athletics to begin after school.
The grounds are so lush and beautiful, it's like this
all around campus!

Here is one of the quads where students may
spend their breaks.  There are three main ones: regular,
staff and Matric (seniors).

This is our Olympic-size water polo pool!  How cool!

Whew! That's it for now, but it doesn't even cover the smallest portion of the grounds!  Thanks to the Secondary Education folks from UA who helped out...

Katharine / Miss Martin

First Week in PE, SA!

Hello, friends, family and 6th graders!

I am safely in South Africa and just about to start my first week of teaching! Here’s a little bit about what is going on:

Monday-Tuesday, January 14-15

Emily (my education buddy from the University) and I arrived at the Atlanta Airport around 10 am on Monday, January 14th and began our 30-hour trip! We took 4 different flights to get to our final destination. From Atlanta to Washington DC to Senegal, Africa, to Johannesburg to Port Elizabeth, we were exhausted the whole way there. My carryon bag broke in the DC Airport (so, right at the beginning of our trip...), we didn't sleep the entire first half of our long flight, and we were so cranky and miserable by the time we got to Johannesburg. We saw the Congo soccer team at the airport and flew with them to Port Elizabeth (PE) and, apparently, they are SUPER FAMOUS. We should have taken pictures and gotten autographs! 

12 hours into the trip...

Landed in Jo'burg!

After we landed, our supervising Professor, Dr. Prakash Singh, picked us up from the PE Airport with his son, Kavish. He took us straight to McDonalds, even though we just wanted to eat some real South African food! I had never had a Big Mac, so I guess there’s a first time for everything!

Wednesday, January 16

We woke up and met our housekeeper, Zookie! She is the best. We had lunch and did a little shopping at an outdoor area called The Boardwalk and I bought a new bag and a beach towel. We then spent the longest time trying to find the office for our apartment that is actually 2.5 miles away. Total, we walked about 6 miles in our first day here. We spent a little time on the beach and had an early night in since we were still getting used to the time change and waiting for our 3 other roommates to get in.

Thursday, January 17

Today we took our time waking up and, for some reason, I couldn’t sleep so I leisurely read and worked out all morning. We walked to lunch at a place on the beach called Angelo’s and it was described as “Afritalian Cuisine”. It was GREAT and CHEAP- we will definitely be back! After spending some time on the beach and getting caught in an afternoon shower, we walked to the Pick ‘n Pay (our grocery store) to grab some fruits for breakfast, we waited out the rain and had dinner at a pizza restaurant called Charlie Superstar’s. They specialize in all sorts of different combinations, but we played it safe with a pesto, cheese and olive pizza. Later, our roommates, Maddie, Nichole and Liz, got here and it was so nice to talk to them and Skype with some friends back home!

Friday, January 18

Our first day visiting the school! We walked to Pearson High School and it took all of 4 minutes form our apartment, which is GREAT. We met Mr. Bubb (our supervisor at PHS) and he showed us around the gigantic campus and taught us some sayings in Afrikaans, which is good, because all students speak both it and English. The grade 8 supervisor asked if we could help with the Grade 8 Adventure Day tomorrow and, of course, we said yes so we will see what that’s all about! It made me so excited to start on Monday! We then just ran some errands at the market and we had so many that the manager just told us to take the cart home and bring it back!

Saturday, January 19

HOLY COW. “Adventure Day” is no joke! There is nothing like it in America! The school hired an outside company to give the students a series of contests and challenges around PE for almost 10 hours. It sounds normal, but the challenges were INSANE. For example, my station: the students had to stick their feet in a bucket of motor oil and fish out “treasures” only using their feet, then run to the automated car wash and get hosed down with soap and water and a pressure washer! They were all such great sports- no eighth grader in the US would have done that! The other challenges were things like bowling, “surfer rescue”, arcade challenges, human bridge, things like that. Then, we were asked to go supervise the “Hot Curry Challenge”- two students had to eat a plate of spicy hot curry as fast as they could and the fastest time won! We walked to the school and had lunch and began the afternoon’s activities which included normal things like slip and slide, archery, swimming and helicopter rides.

Yeah, you read that correctly. The absolute GROSSEST thing the students had to do all day was the spider web: students had to work as a team to get everyone through the giant spider web. The trick is, though, if a student touched the ropes in the web they were hit with a bucket of LIQUID COW DUNG. As in POOP. Not a joke. The best part of the day, though, was getting to know all of the students and teachers who have offered to be our tour guides while we are here. We went out to a very popular restaurant called Barney’s and it was delicious! Tomorrow is our very own Adventure Day!

Officially Pearson Educators!

The "Hot Curry Challenge"

COW POO.  GROSS!

Sunday, January 20

Today was so great! We went sandboarding and snorkeling with a group called the Freewalkers and their philosophy is so neat. They are a traveling organization that plans trips for tourists and locals with a spin on volunteer work and charity. For example, if we were to go on a weekend safari, they would ask us to repair a gate or a fence or something like that and we would get to do the trip at a steep discount! So cool! Today, we spent almost the whole day sandboarding and snorkeling. I can’t wait to go to the schools tomorrow!

That’s all for this week! Next week, we are traveling to a township outside of PE for some serious African culture including cheetah petting, traditional dances and food!

Lots of Love from the Friendly City!

Katharine / Miss Martin