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I wish a happy belated Independence Day to all my friends in
the US who are reading this. I hope your parties went of without rain and
without a hitch. I hope you enjoyed maximum firepower in your mortars and
bottle rockets with minimum injuries.
A note from Tuesday I forgot to mention:
When I got home Tuesday I had to respond to my students
journals and write back to them. I thought that it was interesting that without
my say all of their journal entry’s took the form of short essays with titles.
When I told them they could write about whatever they wanted for the last
portion of class this is what I got. They went like this:
Thimbe (girl): Thimbe by far had the best English and the
largest vocabulary of any of my students, her whole essay was about how excited
she is to learn. She wants to use her education to become an accountant and
work in the SA’n Nat’l Bank. She says that she wants to be an educated woman so
she can better her country.
Tsepo (boy): Tsepo’s essay had by far the most upsetting
title, “I has good friends” Tsepo understands how to write but his tenses and
his grammar are off. Tsepo wrote about his friends, saying he doesn’t know what
he would do without them.
Vuyo (boy): Vuyo at this point has the worst English of any
of the students. He spells words he doesn’t know by breaking them apart and
spelling them phonetically. For instance, going is “go win” I can’t at the
moment ever remember what his essay was about, but I know I responded to it by
saying I would be willing to stay after school to help him with his English if
he wanted to.
Zinhle (girl): Zinhle’s essay made me cry. Her title was
promising, “My best friend” but as I read on it wasn’t a story with a happy
ending at all. The story is either about how her best friend was nearly beaten
within an inch of his life, or about how he was beaten up and died. The problem
is that I can’t tell with the tense of her sentence. All I know for sure is
that the kids got jumped in the bathroom of the Menlyn Mall, got hit over the
head, was bleeding a lot and wasn’t breathing.
Nadipha (girl): Her journal essentially read like this,
“Photography is fun. Dillen makes it a fun learning experience. I can’t wait to
learn more things to make my pictures better.” We aren’t supposed to have favorites
but gosh darn I have a feeling that’s about to get awfully hard.
Friday – I made it a point to get out and take some photos
today. Here is my take on our morning worship, as well as just some other fun
moments in our day.
I borrowed Nadipha for a quick portrait today and this is
what I got. She’s so beautiful.
Please pray that:
Nadipha will grow in her English capabilities and continue
bringing her great attitude and passion to class.
Thimbe will stay on the track she is on, she believes in herself
quite a lot for a 13 year old and it’s a great thing to see.
Vuyo will seek help with his math from Siya and make
progress over the winter program.
Tsepo will consistently show up, he seems the least
motivated of my students to be in at The Mamelodi Initiative.
Zinhle will find healing from the rough scars that she has
already had to endure at such a young age.
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