Don't Worry Be Happy

In South Africa there is great, great discrepancy in quality among the schools.  As far as I could tell, there are 3 schools that the students attend - one in their township of Simile, one in the coloured township of Harmony Hill across the valley, and one in the town of Sabie (referred to by one student as the 'white school'). As the students start to arrive, the older ones immediately begin setting up the tables and chairs outside, despite this being only the 2nd day of the new school year. They are provided with an after school snack of soup with bread which they energetically gobble up. Vicky takes the time to introduce each student to me as they arrive and they all politely greet me with a "How do you do Ma'am". The students range mostly from Grade R (for reception like our K) to 7 and they're divided into 2 groups.  There is a large group of grade 7s so they head off to the room inside, while the younger ones sit at the tables outside. I sit down ...

Two years ago I blogged about my visit to Sabie, where I met my letter writing partner from the group I belong to, Grannies a Gogo . Reading about my visit  here will give you some background to this post. This year, during our visit to South Africa, I was determined to visit Sabie after the Christmas holidays (which extend from early Dec to mid-January) so I could meet the entire group of Gogos as well as the two administrators of the funds we send. Miriam and Vicky are boh retired women who decided several years ago that they needed to be involved in helping disadvantaged people. They did some research, happened upon the Grannies a Gogo website and made contact. Shortly after, they moved to Sabie and began working with the gogos and subsequently took over the administration of the funds after Ginny left. (Read their story  here .) On Thursday, I spent the day with Miriam and Vicky, a day that left me exhausted, exhilarated, amazed, bewildered, saddened, horrified and, n...

Although South Africa has 11 official languages (only! 2 in Canada) the predominant language for white South Africans is Afrikaans.  It's rare that we're in a public place that we hear English spoken although it's the most common language as everyone speaks it to some extent. It's surprising to find that some road and retail signs are only in Afrikaans. To my unschooled ear it sounds much like German, although it has its roots in Dutch. Among blacks, Zulu is spoken by most and it would probably be quite uncommon for South Africans to not speak 2 or 3 languages.  This kind of thing always makes me feel a bit inferior. We're spending a few days in Knysna (nize-nuh) which is built around a very large lagoon separated from the ocean by a small opening.  Our lodge is on a small island in the middle of the lagoon which is obviously a haven for water sports.  From our window we've seen kayaks, catamarans, paddle boarders, boaters, fishermen, sailboats, cruise boat...

Happy new year to all! Although this is our 3rd visit to South Africa, this week marks the first time without our tour guides, Scott and Sam.  On Thursday Ross and I set out in Sam's little Mini with our destination the 'garden route' as this area is called. The garden route winds along the southern coast of Africa and yesterday we dipped our toes in the Indian Ocean for the first time! We stayed the first night in a little town called Swellendam where Sam had arranged a lovely massage for me at the fabulous Rain Spa. The terrain up until then seemed rather bleak and 'ungarden-like'.  The hills were barren, dry fields, that appeared to be cultivated but nothing was growing on them. We eventually determined that perhaps they had just recently been hayed.  This went on for over 100km as we made our way east to another little place called Wilderness. However, we could see the landscape begin to change and eventually we were in an extremely lush, green environment. This...