Sunday, May 16, 2010

Big Fish

Hello,

I have decided to try and post on here once every two weeks. I was going to do once a week, but I am quickly discovering that I don't have enough to write about every week and I don't want the blog to become a burden otherwise I might just stop.

The computer class is still going well. Most of the students will hopefully be taking the Microsoft Word test this week. I am nervous about their ability to pass, but I guess that is pretty normal for a teacher. I wish I could just have one student take it so I can see how they do. Now we are starting to learn Internet Explorer. We are getting the internet upstairs this week, hopefully, so they will be able to start practicing soon. The internet is proving to be more difficult to explain, and I don't know if it is because it is more complicated subject matter or I just don't understand things as well. So many of my students ask me what HTML and http mean and I don't know what to tell them. Even if I can give them an answer, I am still using words they don't know and I just don't know how to make it more simple. It is really hard to explain more complex things when the basics are missing. Slowly but surely we will get there though.

Sarah, Katie, and I took a roadtrip to Parys yesterday. It is a fun little town. There are a ton of antique shops, which I found quite odd considering Kroonstad has none and it is a bigger town than Parys. We ate at a fabulous restaurant for lunch, although the portions were a little on the small side. I had raw warthog with vinegrette ice cream. The warthog was delicious, the ice cream was weird. We went down to the river afterwards. I really wanted to swim until I saw what the fishermen were pulling out of the water. There were bunches of huge fish hanging in all of the trees. I asked one of the fisherman what kind of fish they were catching and he said cod. Perhaps I misunderstood him, or maybe I don't know how big a cod is, but they looked too big to me to be cod. Swimming would've been fun, but I would have for sure been freaked out knowing there were so many big things swimming next to me that I could not see.

Next weekend we are going to Johannesburg for an orientation thing. I think they are just going to give us some general information on South Africa and then see how we are doing. I am pretty sure we will be able to pick up our World Cup tickets there too. I will be happy to have those in our hands, I still have a sinking feeling that we did something wrong when we bought them.

Hope everyone is well!

Kelly

Saturday, May 1, 2010

Road Trip

Hello,

I think winter has officially arrived in Kroonstad. The days are in the 50s and the nights get down to the 30s/40s. I love it, my roommates are diggin' it so much. The weather here is so funny, it will go from clouds as far as you can see to completely sunny in ten minutes flat. I don't know how it happens, but it does.

Sarah, Katie, and I took our first road trip last weekend. It was between Paris and Welkom. We decided on Welkom because they have a movie theatre and the weather wasn't promising enough for Paris, which is a little more of an outdoors place. I was also the driver, so this was my first time driving in 5th gear, which was a nice gear, still a little intimidating though when I look down and see my spedometer reading 100. We had some delicious fish and chips for lunch. I have become completely addicted to putting vinegar on fries and will do just about anything to get my hands on the duo. After that we went and saw the "Blind Side." I was pulling for "Alica in Wonderland" but the roommates weren't feeling the dark humor of Johnny Depp that day. The movie was good, gave me the warm and fuzzies.

After that, we tried to find the mall that was supposed to be nearby. We asked 2 people where it was. The first told us it was behind the building a bit, the second told us it was behind the building but it was still being built. We decided to just go for a walk instead and no joke, within probably 3 blocks we had found a big mall. I don't know what those people were thinking. We got some cheesecake at a place and it was one of the more nasty things I have ever eaten. It was still frozen from being in the box it came in and it was yucky strawberries and the ice cream was this nasty cheap stuff that we have accidentally bought twice at the grocery store. So, Welkom was okay, but I don't think we will be going back any time soon.

My computer class is going good. The students are learning really fast for the most part. Slowly but surely they are discovering the fun features such as games and music on the computer. At first I told them class time wasn't for playing games, then I thought about it more and now I can't decide. They are still learning how to open and use programs, even if they are not the most useful or complex ones to discover.

My boss is trying to open a secondary school on the property for next year. This keeps getting brought up to me in passing, even though I can't figure out why it isn't more the center of conversation. I got to go through a bunch of catalogues last week and try to see how much it would cost to get it stocked with supplies. Funding also came through for the community gardening project last week. This means that in August or September I will go away for 2 weeks and get trained by a bunch of farmers how to grow things. It will be cool, although I am a little nervous to have people's main food source left in my hands.

That is about all from me. Let me know how you are doing!

Kelly

P.S. If you are interested, here is a link to the NDMV newsletter:

http://www.ndmva.org/Media/HumanKind/Human%20Kind_Spring2010.pdf

Enjoy!