First week of teaching at Pearson High School

Monday
Our first day of teaching started on Monday morning. We had to be there at 7:45 so we left from our apartment at 7:30am. Waking up wasn't hard at all because the sun rises here at 5am sharp so I got to get ready when the sun was out which I'm not used to back at home. We arrived at school and walked into the staff room where all the teachers were sitting around drinking tea. None of us were given a set schedule or teacher to follow because they want us to follow different teachers and teach in different classrooms. So without being told or guided what to do we quickly began looking around for our content area teachers. I found a Science teacher and observed in his grade 9 classes in the beginning. The next class I went into observe was a different Science class and I learned quickly that it was an Afrikaans (the native language) speaking class rather than English. The day was a little overwhelming and hectic but it wasn't bad for our first day in a different country, we made the best of it and everyone is so friendly to us and eager to help. :)

Nicole and I on the first day of school

Monday was also Emily's birthday and the teachers at Pearson invited us to go to a restaurant called Spur with all of them to celebrate. The teachers at Pearson are really young and friendly and even met us outside our flat to walk with us there. The place we went to was on the boardwalk and had buy one get one free burgers that night which was a great deal since there were 12 of us hungry girls. They don't split checks here at all so when the bill comes everyone just splits the bill however many ways and throws in rand.

all of us girls at the boardwalk for Emily's birthday!

Tuesday
When Tuesday came around I was nervous to go to school because I hadn't finished a schedule yet in order to follow multiple teachers around so I felt clueless for part of the day. In a way I hate how nobody gives you a schedule and you literally have to hunt down Science teachers and ask to see their schedule but I also understand why they do it that way. It allows us student teachers to be responsible for finding the teachers in our contents, introducing ourselves, asking to copy their schedules out of their planners, and observe their class. Oh and by the way did I mention that their bell to change classes sounds like a tornado alarm and freaks me out every single time it goes off. Also everyone in school has two tea breaks where literally everyone drinks tea to up their caffeine and make it through the rest of the day.

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 Tuesday night our professor Jill and associate dean of the education program at NKU came to visit us! They got a wonderful tour of Pearson High School earlier in the day and joined all of us five girls out for dinner on the beach getting to watch the sunset. She was really impressed and happy with us.

Dinner with our professors from NKU

Wednesday
Today I finally fixed my schedule of classes from all of the Science teachers I can choose to be my Cooperating Teacher and observe my lessons. The students here are so respectful its amazing. They walk into the classroom and are not allowed to sit at their desks until they have all entered and gotten to their seat and say hello to the teacher all at once before they can sit down at their desks. Then as I was observing today a class was working on something where the students had to make a small graph. Almost all students pulled out rulers to use to keep their lines straight. This really made me realize how much students in America take their classes, technology, and education for granted. Emily and I volunteered to help out with synchronized swimming team tomorrow and didn't realize that their practice is from 6:10-7am tomorrow morning. So we decided to take it easy tonight and go to the beach for an hour or so, then laundry (which turned out to be a dry cleaner that will wash, dry, and fold our clothes for R49 which is $5 for all of it), then short dinner on the beach on the other side of the laundry place.

eating at Charley Superstar pizza

 Thursday
Today went a whole lot smoother! It started out with Emily and I volunteering our time to help coach synchronized swimming workouts in the water polo pool. We basically just read drills from a paper for an hour from 7:10am-8:00am. It was really intense and we were surprised how none of the girls gave up even if they were weaker swimmers. All the students are so dedicated here, its a great thing to see. I finally fixed my schedule so that I have a class to go to every period! Instead of just observing today I walked around the classroom a lot helping kids one-on-one with their work they were doing in their books. My last class which is a grade 8 Science class they are learning about Scientific Method and presentation of data so I thought of a lesson I have previously seen at Nagel and shared the idea with my teacher and she wants me to start it tomorrow! Whew time to start planning!

Tonight we went to the beach for a little over and hour, Liz and I ran a couple blocks around to pick-n-pay then down the beach boardwalk then did lunges and wall sits in our parking lot. Tonight was the first night we haven't eaten out on the beach. We cooked spaghetti, bread, and salads and hung out in the apartment for the evening. We also had to pack and get ready for our Cultural Adventure Weekend with the Freewalkers ! We're pretty excited about that! They're picking us up right after school then we're having drinks at sunset, going to the townships and the oldest town in South Africa Saturday, then a cheetah farm Sunday to play with baby cheetahs before we head home. We have a busy weekend ahead of us but hopefully I will have lots to blog about Sunday evening if I'm up for it! :)

Freewalkers: Sand Surfing and Snorkeling

So luckily before we even left the states we had a connection to the coolest group in the world called Freewalkers. They take groups out..tourists, families, anyone and do fun trips and activities for charity. I contacted them before I even left the states letting them know that we would be coming to Port Elizabeth,  South Africa and that we were interested in traveling and working with them. They emailed me just as I arrived in Port Elizabeth and set up to go sand surfing and snorkeling on Sunday from 9am to about 3 or so.. when we didn't even get back until almost 6pm. Murray, the co-founder of Freewalkers picked us up Sunday at 9am sharp in his van and we began our trip! He took us to some of the tallest sand dunes in South Africa and we sand surfed for hours and hours! The drive there was so gorgeous! We saw literally hundreds of dolphins! The sand dunes don't look tall at all until you actually begin climbing them.. Whew what a workout! I was able to sand board right away and all of us girls had fun taking turns boarding down the dunes. With the wind blowing just right we really didn't really feel the hot sun beaming down.

 Murray made sure we had plenty of water to hydrate and after a couple hours of boarding he took us to a beach side restaurant called Barnacles where we got fresh calamari, fresh queen pawns (shrimp), and the best ocean view around! Since the exchange rate is so low here we are able to pay practically nothing for meals like this! This meal cost us about R70 (70 rand = $7) or really only cost us $7 USD. People had written all over the walls so we of course had to join and stuck a U.S. dollar bill up on the wall with all of our names on it and the Freewalkers website!

Our meals that only cost us $7 !

Nicole and I sucking the brains out of the queen prawns

After Barnacles Murray took us snorkeling at a nearby cove full of reef. I'm not sure if we had more fun actually snorkeling or putting on the wet suits. We laughed historically at one another struggling to get these things on! Then we climbed over the dunes and snorkeled in the reef. It was pretty shallow and we saw lots of colorful fish, octopus, and gorgeous marine life. After that we grabbed some South Africa popcicles, which were delicious and headed home. We all got TOO MUCH sun on this day trip so Murray was kind enough to stop at the Pick'n'Pay by our house and let us get "After Sun," for all of our burns.

Murray trying to help us in our wet suits

Pearson High School

So this post is for Friday and Saturday!! 

Friday Emily and Katharine (the Alabama girls) and I got to walk to Pearson High School and meet the principal and tour the school. The vice-principal Mr. Bubb greeted us and showed us around the school! The school is HUGE!! They have an Olympic size water polo pool, net ball courts, 6 or so tennis court, rugby fields, and field hockey fields. It's crazy how big it is. When we were being shown the school all of the kids were SO polite and respectful. Almost every one of them said "morning mam" or "afternoon mam". We were shown the school and invited back Saturday to work and lead their grade 8 Adventure day.. which would be like an 8th grade orientation. I will be posting pictures of the school soon!! After checking out the school we walked to get wifi and groceries. We got so many groceries and didn't realize we had to walk home to carry all of them so we asked to borrow a cart to ride our groceries home.

Nicole and I trying to push our cart in the rubble grass

 
Saturday was the grade 8 Adventure Day and whoa was it fun! Grade 8's were placed on teams with a leader who was a Grade 12. The teams had had to complete as many activities as possible and the stations were placed all over Port Elizabeth in a two mile radius around the school. We got there and were told to work the "car wash" station. So we go to the car wash with one of the workers and the students had to dig their feet into oil and pull out washers then walk and get sprayed through a car wash. We didn't actually realize we were using CAR OIL!! GROSS!! The stations on Adventure Day were crazy! One of the stations the kids had to swim out to bedrock in the ocean and back, one station kids had to eat HOT curry as fast as possible, and one of the last stations was just gross. The kids had to climb through a spiderweb made out of string/rope tied between and if they hit the rope the workers threw animal dung/mud mixture on them! So Gross!! The girls and I said to the workers that it would be a lawsuit waiting to happen in the States.

A team of grade 8's getting sprayed down in the car wash

Having to pull washers out of the oil using their feet

Hot Curry challenge

Swimming out to the far rock

 The spider web and poop being flung.. GROSS

the bungee challenge!

First night out with the girls

 We were at Adventure day from 08:00 to 17:00 (5pm) and when we got home we showered and headed out dinner at a place on the beach called Barneys! It was a lot of fun dancing around with all ages of locals! A lot of people realized we were Americans and wanted to talk to us. We asked them if we blended in or not and they said.. Yes.. until you open your mouths.. HAHA.. ouch! The locals here are really nice and willing to answer any of our questions us annoying Americans have! :) Loving it so far!

Breakfast of Champions

so we got in last night at about 9pm and our university supervisor Prahash picked us up from the airport with a smile and his son and took us to our apartments where the other two girls were there to greet us and help us in. After getting all of our luggage in Prakash handed us two bags of food, milk, and diet coke. He sat all five of us down and had a little meeting with us reminding us to be safe and letting us know that we would all be checking into our schools the next day (today!). After Prakash left, all of us girls sat in the Alabama girls room and relaxed and talked about the adventures they have had so far since they got here a couple days before we did. Prakash was sweet enough to bring us some food so Nicole and I checked it out and I would describe them as mud or beef pot pies. They were little pies wrapped in foil and when we broke them apart a beef stew substance poured out but without any familiar foods or veggies in it. If anyone knows me they know that I am not a big meat eater and I will not eat anything myself or someone else cannot identify. So we picked at the french fries and I ate some leftover chipotle chips that somehow made it from Washington, D.C. airport.. YUM!!

After our free wi-fi time ran out Nicole and I went across the hall to our apartment and began unpacking our clothes and putting them in the closets so we would not have to live out of our suitcases the entire time we are here. I took a melatonin and fell asleep about an hour an a half later. Nicole said she tossed and turned all night hearing every single little noise and didn't fall asleep until 5am.

On a side note when Prakash dropped us of there were about eight police cars in our apartment complex outside our rooms and we figured out that they are here for the world football cup or something like that. So I felt a little safer with them here all night :)

We set our alarms for 9am because Nicole and Liz had to be at their schools at 10am and the rest of the girls and I are free to check out our school whenever we want today. We decided to check it out as soon as we're ready so we can get on with our day and enjoy the sun and beach as much as possible today. We're getting wi-fi and go-phones today so that we will be able to communicate with each other and people here.

Right now I am sitting here typing this while the Alabama girls get ready to go check out the school we will be teaching at. Since I don't drink soda and too scared to try the water, I figured I'd give these "honey & almond Rusks" and milk a shot. I would describe them as brick cookies... letting one soak in the milk as I wrote the entire first paragraph. They're pretty good once they get a little softer. We're going to the grocery today so we will get to buy some juices and fruit finally!

It's Friday the 18th, 10:43am here as Im writing this and 3:43am at home but I think the melatonin is really going to help me with jet lag because I don't feel tired at all! Will post again soon!!

Some of the police cars out our front window

there are separate spouts on the sinks.. one for hot one for cold..

Nicole and I's closet

Interesting Nutrition facts

He went to Jared!!!!

The day is finally here for us to leave the states and begin our two month journey in South Africa!! I'm writing this on my 17 hour plane ride which surprisingly is not so bad. There is a little tv on the back of the seat infront of me where I can watch a selection of about 150 movies (really good options btw) and television shows. I watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Juno, Trouble with the Curve, and an episode of Modern Family on the first half of the flight. We were served a really yummy dinner with a choice of beef or pasta (I of course chose pasta). It was delicious. Alcohol is free on South African Airways so I enjoyed a gin and tonic to help me fall asleep a little faster. Our flight stopped in Dakar at around 5am SA time, dropped a couple people off and continued our flight to Johannesburg. I passed out after that stop but we were also served breakfast which I didn't take because I was still full from dinner and we were served lunch an hour before we landed. We landed in Johannesburg at about 5pm SA time and boarded our flight to Port Elizabeth at 19:55 (7:55pm). Customs in South Africa were amazingly EASY to get through we didn't even realize it was customs. Our professor from Nelson Mandela University was there waiting for us with a smile :)

Such a HUGE plane!

One of the meals we were served.. yummy!

Oh and you're probably wondering why this post is called "He went to Jared"! Because just as I was saying goodbye to everyone in Cincinnati my boyfriend Joey slipped me a small bronze box with a bow into my pocket and said "Don't open until the plane!" So as soon as our flight for Washington boarded I ripped that baby open and there it was a beautiful diamond ring!!!!! No note or anything so as soon as I landed in Washington D.C. airport I called Joey to say THANK YOU!!! No, it is not an engagement ring.. he said it was just my first beautiful diamond from him!! I love it!!

My pretty ring! I love it!