Excursion in Schoemansdale

I joined the 4 Dutch students to their weekly place, Schoemansdale, where they are teaching English at school. They actually teach in English but can also teach some mathematics or life skills in English. Schomansdale is a swazi town, it was part of the Kingdom of Swaziland in the past.
The way to Schoemansdale was my first experience with the minibus taxis. First you must take a taxi to the taxi rang, which drop you off as close as possible from the minibus you need so that you don’t have to walk around with bags and stuff at the taxi rang, definitely an unsafe place in Nelspruit, and in most of place. Here there are no train station, no train in this country, but you can compare what is going on in the taxi rang to the train situation, which are also often not enjoyable places in France. Then the rule wants that you directly go into the minibus, if it is full and about going, you wait for the next one but don’t go and walk just stay here close and be aware, keep your bag on your back and don’t let anything on the ground. Wait inside the minibus. Here you are safe. Either the bus driver collect the money when the minibus is full (15 places, never you will see a minibus going with one free sit, never! They don’t let more than 2 big mamas sitting on the back to make sure 4 persons can fit in then they don’t lose a space available) or the bus driver let someone else collect the money for him, this tierce person win R5 per minibus. It is the cheapest way to travel and the true south African one! I like sitting on the front to look outside and ask the driver to drop you off exactly where you want, if possible before the taxi rang on a safer place.
We changed the minibus after one hour drive in Malelane for an other 30 minutes. Schomansdale is a little town only built of township, no big shopping centre here, a KFC though!!! Horror! The only finished house is the mayor’s one. Maaike, Janneke, Anik, Bernadette lived just next door, a little house dependant of the parking place where the bathroom is, a bath, with tap water, use a mug to have a shower… 2 bedrooms, a furnished kitchen and a living room. Quiet nice, I expected something worst. Also there they are not allowed to go out after the sunset. They probably represent the 1% white person living in the town so…
I learnt a bit more about the 4 girls, they are doing their last practice, go back to the Netherlands in 2 weeks, have exams in June, and are teacher in July!!! The youngest is 22!! None of them wants to be a teacher next September, they will probably carry on studying or do something else waiting a few years. They all would feel ready to teach a class of 25 kids tough, they just don’t want to get into the profession so young!
We went in bed very early, school on Monday at 7am. I woke up with a doubled left eye! Fucking mosquitoes!! I heard them during the night and pulled the cover into my ears , they hitched me finally on the eye! I couldn’t open it, as usual in this kind of case I looked like a monster (do you remember last May? It is my “May’s destiny” maybe, I am curious to know which reason it’s gonna be next year!) After worries and discussion, I finally went to school with one eye… poor children, a white unknown girl with one eye left… never mind, I didn’t feel really comfortable but couldn’t go back to Nelspruit and not have spent the morning at school! Unfortunately, we arrived too late for the songs the children and teacher sing every morning, prey songs, because I needed time to persuade the girls that I didn’t have to go back to Nelspruit and go to the doctor for a casimodo eye, it’s usual by me. They didn’t trust me really but couldn’t go reverse to my willpower either so we finally took the way to school, and what for a way! All kids stand in front of the gate grupped in their respective class. Everybody in blue uniform. Most than one time, the first task for Anik and Bernadette at school is to put their shoes under the water because of mud, earth, straw…we arrive a bit later because of the cows who were crossing the path…the kids are scared of cows, let them go by staying as far of the path as necessary!
I first went with Berdanette, grade 8, children about 14 years old. A sit for each of them, but only 10 tables for 35-40 pupils. I introduces myself at the beginning quickly, Berdanette plaid pictionary with them! For one hour. She was called by a professor after 30 minutes and didn’t come back so I decided to take over her role and plaid the pictionary’s teacher for the rest of the lesson. I enjoyed it extremely as you can guess. I also think they liked it, they laughed at least I had a beautiful 30 minutes. I joined then Anik in two different classes for the same lesson. The first question they asked me was : “what is your surname?”, I don’t exactly know why, maybe because it is something they learnt, but it’s wired because here, nobody knows the surname of nobody, we always introduces ourselves with our first name, and everybody notice the name very quickly, what I am trying to improve but I mostly forget their name, sorry. They had to write a letter to a Dutch child, introduce themselves and ask question. Some of them have no pen, nothing to write, I spoke shortly with a few of them, in the second course, the real teacher began to speak with e rather than listen to the course and ask me to write down a list of French words… She was about falling in sleep as the course arrived to its end…amazing interest!!!!
The lesson must be 50 or 55minutes, after 3 lessons comes the lunch, at about 10:30am… the only meal of the day for a few of the children so they would never miss it, even if there is no school in the afternoon they would come to get food. Bernadette and Anik showed me around the school : the main outside area where the porridge with bean sauce is served next to each schoolroom’s door. They all bring their own plate at school and can wash it after lunch.
Outside, a big big field where the kids can run and play, also a tree under which the grade 1 is taught. The project of this year built by the Dutch is a sport field! The made make plans and evaluation of costs here and thanks to the 2000 Euros they collected in the Netherlands before their trip they managed the new construction; I’m not sure it will be finished before they leave, it means this Thursday, but they started it at least and Anik and Bernadette were very proud to show it to me. They can! This last week of their stay at school, they are teaching sport so that the children can use it properly after they leave too. But it’s not easy. An other volunteer is there for 2 years, an American girl, she managed to open a library at school, she painted the wall in nice colours, a huge world map on the back, received hundreds and hundreds books from the USA,…it looks very nice. She also showed the teachers how they can use it, she organized one hour a week for each class a reading hour or a hour she was reading a story and the children just listened. But she is sure that after she will have left, the library won’t be so much used, she hopes the next volunteers can look forward with it.
In the past, other Dutch students managed to open a COMPUTER ROOM!! I don’t believe it even today. An amazing room with new update computer, screen, printer… and NOBODY uses it!!! Why? Nobody knows how to use it! They even had an internet access, and Anik heard some of the teacher thought they couldn’t use it while an other person is on internet… So they would now need computer lessons before they could start using the computer room with the children, in a far future… The project was amazing but not really needed I think, money could have be invested in something else. On the other hand this project can be the beginning of the new technology in the town, it just needs a continuation, otherwise the computers are going to die alone in their room.
In all case, I could see it brings something helpful for the school to receive volunteers.