Team Journal, November 9

Tuesday, November 9, 2010 (Mark)

After 7AM breakfast, job assignments were made. Tai had administrative duties – report writing, budgeting, coordinating the new fence poles, and then swept goat “deposits” from the Community Center. Lily went to pre-school, where only 3 students were in class probably due to the bad weather. Betty went to Mbange Jnr Second School 4th grade. Bingo sight words were a big success. They worked on nouns/verbs and got locked in twice. The “instructor” did better than on the first day. Susan went to the same school 9th grade, where they had 24 students. They started with math, but soon said “we like to do English”. They also did logic games and reading. The last 20 minutes they entertained Susan with singing. Laura and Mark worked with Sikho, Pila, and Mzuyanda adding barbed wire higher on the tree planting cages until rained out about noon. Then, they went to the Bakery where they attempted to repair a leaky faucet and discussed the water supply and vent problems with Olga and Tai. As we were having an end of day discussion, we had a long visit with the local Police Commander, Kettaldas and his two assistants. They provided some Xhosa names: Tai = Nomvula (Rain Lady), Betty = Noxolo (Peace Lover), and Laura = Montombi (Good Lady). After their visit, Olga gave us another isi Xhosa phrase lesson. Then, Bonke, a male nursing student dropped in and we had a nice cultural exchange visit. After dinner, we played “musical chairs” with the electricity and candles due to the rainstorm.

Message of the Day: (Lily)
You can’t change everything, but you can always change something for the better, including the way you look at it.