May 17, 2010
Well I have officially been living in SA for nine months already! I can hardly believe that! Sometimes I think back to when my fellow SwaLeSa SALTer’s and I arrived those 9 months ago and how excited we all were to finally step foot on African soil, South African soil, that is! It has been a good 9 months, many good memories of adventures, laughs, tears, hugs, near death experiences (flying bricks!, I must be a brick magnet, lol), friendships, sad goodbyes and the list could go on.
As I sit here pondering what to write thinking that I had lots of ideas on my walk home from the MCC SwaLeSa office today, and yet I draw to a bit of a blank. Actually those thoughts I want to blog about, but for a later blog entry. I want to blog, I want to write something, something interesting, something thought provoking, something with passion and charisma or something inspirational. Hmm, what to write, what to write!!!
So here I go, I think I’ll write about my unknown future; my future that only God knows “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, “plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11.” One of my goals this past year was to figure out my future; to figure out what am I good at? And what do I want to do when I get home? I don’t want to work the rest of my days working behind a Tim Horton’s counter asking, how may I help you and what size of coffee and how do you take it? Regular? Double double? Triple triple? No, I need something better, sorry Tim Horton’s fellow co-workers and coffee friends; making and serving coffee isn’t my life career!
When I came out here to SA I thought I would be working in an office behind a desk doing various admin office tasks. Well I guess I do work behind various desks! My days at the MCC SwaLeSa office I’ve been working on writing up journal entries and reconciling bank statements, and putting together MCC SwaLeSa’s liabrary, so a bit of office work. My days at Project Gateway with the DMPR (Donor Marketing Public Relation) department I have found some admin work, and also at Gateway Christian school also some admin work, but all together not what I had expected. This has caused me some frustration at times. I would like to say I have enjoyed working here, so please don’t think from what I’ve written that I haven’t, it just been a challenging year working at three different locations every week! A number of years ago I was enrolled in a business program and I thought that my future was in business; business of some sort like Inventory Management! And then my country reps offered me this SALT Admin Assistant position and I felt that yes God is reaffirming this career avenue I had so long ago started. But the last number of months, actually I don’t know how long, I have been giving this a second thought.
Then one day at school I sat in for Melanie (Grade R teacher) for a few minutes, holding up a story book and turning the pages as the students listened to the story of Jonah and the Whale from a CD player. Afterwards I asked the children a few questions about the bible story. Melanie returned and as I wandered back to Mrs. Bennett’s office I came to a different understanding of my unknown future! I excitably shared this with Mrs. Bennett, how enjoyable and fulfilling those few minutes with the Grade R’s was. The next thing I knew, Mrs. Bennett and Melanie arranged an opportunity for me to spend a good hour once a week in her class. You must be thinking how can spending those few minutes make such an impact? Well it isn’t just that one experience; I’ve had other brief moments of interaction with the students. And I’ve also had someone else here whispering into my ear I should go into teaching. So now I’ve been analyzing my purpose here in SA, and my future back home. I am a little unsure about being a teacher, but possibly an Educational Assistant (EA)?!?! Maybe God brought me here to show me that business isn’t my future plan, but maybe working with and helping children learn is!
So where do I go from here? What is my next step? My sister Kristine, kindly had her college mail me a Niagara College program course book and I’ve read through the Educational Assistant program and I ask myself, can I do this? Am I capable of achieving this career? This is where I get stuck!! So, I will end here for today with these pondering questions that only God knows the answer to. And so I ask all of you to pray for me as I decide this career option.
Signing off and Mach Gut ….
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
April Showers Bring May Flowers
May 1st, 2010
Well April showers bring May flowers, is the saying back home at this time of year. But I here in SA I haven’t heard the saying yet! Well the seasons have been changing, but not into Spring like back home but it’s now into Fall and very soon Winter. I have to admit I do miss the warm mornings from summer, but not the hot humid days and now it’s back to dressing into layers again. Mornings and evenings are nippy, but gradually the day warms up and layer by layer you are forced to peel off your layers, until evening when it becomes nippy again. I am unsure about the winter months and how cold it will get. Homes do not have central heat or furnaces nor are the house structures insulated, but some homes you may find fire places! I have been told that in some areas of SA, you can find snow during the winter. It almost seems wrong to say that it snows in Africa! My friend Juli, who teaches grade 3 at Gateway Christian School, has family who lives in Underberg and they experience snow there, but Juli has never seen the snow actually fall!
During the month of April I went to Port Elizabeth and Cape Town as you already have read, but I also had some other busy fun weekends too! A week after my return home (April 17th) was Project Gateway’s first Car Boot Sale. You might be wondering, what is a car boot sale? Well back home we have garage sales, but here they don’t have those but have car boot sales. Those wondering what a car boot is, well it’s what we call the car trunk back home! So we posted posters advertising this fundraiser event and people called and booked a spot in the car park; they came and set up tables of their goods for sale or arranged the boot of their car with their goods, hence what a true boot sale is! Selling goods from your car boot! We had all types of goods being sold, from a lawn mower to cupcakes, to homemade jewellery and clothes, to yummy Indian Samosas to used books, to Tupperware to everything and anything we had it! Since I work with the DMPR (Donor Marketing Public Relations) 2 days a week I helped in planning and creating some of the posters, as well as helped to calculate out the car boot stands and put together an information stand for Project Gateway. It was a great day and the weather co-operated beautifully!
Besides a Car boot sale that weekend Felicia and Andrew were spending some time at the Alty’s so between Friday night and Saturday afternoon and evening I spent time with them. Sunday that weekend, one of the guys from my NCF home group had our home group and I over to his home for a wonderful braai. It was a great weekend but I was tired by Sunday afternoon I and finally crashed for awhile before 6pm church. Monday the following day, which is my MCC day, where I am always busy writing up journal entries, reconciling bank statements against receipts and trying to get their MCC books into a working library. Andrew and Felicia reappeared back from the Kombi rank, a little bit later after I arrived to James & Joan’s for work. I soon learned that the Durban taxi’s and public transport were on strike and they couldn’t return back to their city! What else is new! Strikes seem to be a norm here with the municipalities’, if it’s not a garbage worker strike it’s something else!
My MCC library work consists of inputting the ISBN number off books into a computer program and if the computer program doesn’t know the dewy decimal number, then researching and deciding the book’s dewy decimal classification numbers myself. Next it’s inputting the dewy data into a computer program, printing off labels and labelling the books; this has taken me forever!! I am still not quite done, but slowly getting there. I have discovered some interesting books that maybe in the next short while before leaving I’ll get better chance of flipping through them.
Over the last long while at school, I’ve been helping Kerry in the Library with covering new books with plastic covering to protect and help to keep them nicer longer. When I’m not covering books, I’m going around with the attendance clip board, printing off soccer pictures for teachers, and typing up worship songs. But for the last little while for about an hour on Thursdays, I have been spending time in one of the grade R classes, reading to the children, singing songs, teaching them a game or just wandering around the classroom helping them with their work activities. I find the grade R learners really sweet, but sometimes find it challenging since their English isn’t very good yet and it’s sometimes challenging to communicate with them.
The following weekend (April 22-24) was also quite busy, but fun. I spent three nights in a row watching three different movies in three different theatres (Thursday – Skin, Friday –Date Night, and Saturday –Kick Ass). Friday I tagged along to uShaka Marine Water Park in Durban with the school (tones of fun sliding down the slides with the kids), stayed the night in Durban and so I ended up spending two fun half days with Felicia and Andrew, and then finally home again Saturday night after catching the movie Kiss Ass, with some friends from England & Belgium. Saturday after returning home I finally learned about my Grandma’s failing health, but I didn’t realize she was going that quickly until the Monday.
The last week of April while my family was planning and attending the funeral arrangements for my uGogo was very hard. I so wanted to be there, even though I told my family before I left home I would not be coming back if she passes. But you never realize how hard it is to be away when someone passes and you can’t be there. Your mind and spirit are home, but your body isn’t. I had wonderful support from my friends at work that I know it will be hard saying goodbye in a couple months since they have been here for me during the hard difficult times! I officially have eight more weeks of work left and eleven more weeks left here in South Africa, and twelve more weeks until I see my family!!
Signing off and Mach Gut….
Well April showers bring May flowers, is the saying back home at this time of year. But I here in SA I haven’t heard the saying yet! Well the seasons have been changing, but not into Spring like back home but it’s now into Fall and very soon Winter. I have to admit I do miss the warm mornings from summer, but not the hot humid days and now it’s back to dressing into layers again. Mornings and evenings are nippy, but gradually the day warms up and layer by layer you are forced to peel off your layers, until evening when it becomes nippy again. I am unsure about the winter months and how cold it will get. Homes do not have central heat or furnaces nor are the house structures insulated, but some homes you may find fire places! I have been told that in some areas of SA, you can find snow during the winter. It almost seems wrong to say that it snows in Africa! My friend Juli, who teaches grade 3 at Gateway Christian School, has family who lives in Underberg and they experience snow there, but Juli has never seen the snow actually fall!
During the month of April I went to Port Elizabeth and Cape Town as you already have read, but I also had some other busy fun weekends too! A week after my return home (April 17th) was Project Gateway’s first Car Boot Sale. You might be wondering, what is a car boot sale? Well back home we have garage sales, but here they don’t have those but have car boot sales. Those wondering what a car boot is, well it’s what we call the car trunk back home! So we posted posters advertising this fundraiser event and people called and booked a spot in the car park; they came and set up tables of their goods for sale or arranged the boot of their car with their goods, hence what a true boot sale is! Selling goods from your car boot! We had all types of goods being sold, from a lawn mower to cupcakes, to homemade jewellery and clothes, to yummy Indian Samosas to used books, to Tupperware to everything and anything we had it! Since I work with the DMPR (Donor Marketing Public Relations) 2 days a week I helped in planning and creating some of the posters, as well as helped to calculate out the car boot stands and put together an information stand for Project Gateway. It was a great day and the weather co-operated beautifully!
Besides a Car boot sale that weekend Felicia and Andrew were spending some time at the Alty’s so between Friday night and Saturday afternoon and evening I spent time with them. Sunday that weekend, one of the guys from my NCF home group had our home group and I over to his home for a wonderful braai. It was a great weekend but I was tired by Sunday afternoon I and finally crashed for awhile before 6pm church. Monday the following day, which is my MCC day, where I am always busy writing up journal entries, reconciling bank statements against receipts and trying to get their MCC books into a working library. Andrew and Felicia reappeared back from the Kombi rank, a little bit later after I arrived to James & Joan’s for work. I soon learned that the Durban taxi’s and public transport were on strike and they couldn’t return back to their city! What else is new! Strikes seem to be a norm here with the municipalities’, if it’s not a garbage worker strike it’s something else!
My MCC library work consists of inputting the ISBN number off books into a computer program and if the computer program doesn’t know the dewy decimal number, then researching and deciding the book’s dewy decimal classification numbers myself. Next it’s inputting the dewy data into a computer program, printing off labels and labelling the books; this has taken me forever!! I am still not quite done, but slowly getting there. I have discovered some interesting books that maybe in the next short while before leaving I’ll get better chance of flipping through them.
Over the last long while at school, I’ve been helping Kerry in the Library with covering new books with plastic covering to protect and help to keep them nicer longer. When I’m not covering books, I’m going around with the attendance clip board, printing off soccer pictures for teachers, and typing up worship songs. But for the last little while for about an hour on Thursdays, I have been spending time in one of the grade R classes, reading to the children, singing songs, teaching them a game or just wandering around the classroom helping them with their work activities. I find the grade R learners really sweet, but sometimes find it challenging since their English isn’t very good yet and it’s sometimes challenging to communicate with them.
The following weekend (April 22-24) was also quite busy, but fun. I spent three nights in a row watching three different movies in three different theatres (Thursday – Skin, Friday –Date Night, and Saturday –Kick Ass). Friday I tagged along to uShaka Marine Water Park in Durban with the school (tones of fun sliding down the slides with the kids), stayed the night in Durban and so I ended up spending two fun half days with Felicia and Andrew, and then finally home again Saturday night after catching the movie Kiss Ass, with some friends from England & Belgium. Saturday after returning home I finally learned about my Grandma’s failing health, but I didn’t realize she was going that quickly until the Monday.
The last week of April while my family was planning and attending the funeral arrangements for my uGogo was very hard. I so wanted to be there, even though I told my family before I left home I would not be coming back if she passes. But you never realize how hard it is to be away when someone passes and you can’t be there. Your mind and spirit are home, but your body isn’t. I had wonderful support from my friends at work that I know it will be hard saying goodbye in a couple months since they have been here for me during the hard difficult times! I officially have eight more weeks of work left and eleven more weeks left here in South Africa, and twelve more weeks until I see my family!!
Signing off and Mach Gut….
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