Somerset Update

Things in Somerset are going well the past days. It is very cold at night and the wind is blowing. But, when the wind does not blow in spring, there will be a bad harvest its said, so it is rather good.
Not good is, that the waste men (Dt. Müllabfuhr) are on strike. They want an income raise of 18%. To underline their protest, they distributed the rubbish all over in the main street.

It was a mess and I was very angry about driving on the smashed glass on the street. The white people who are living in this area were very angry too and told me this is not the picture of their South Africa. It was an experience for me how the mostly black people did not care about the dirt all over. Even the township looked better these days. And especially when the wind came you can imagine how everything looked like.
Then my day is always quite packed. In the morning I have got the students of my school and it took me a while to understand the South African timetable. There are seven days on the timetable. Every day has got seven periods. So when I received it, the school started on day 3, but noone told me that. Every period was a surprise :)
Also, the times of the periods are different. Depending how long assembly in the morning takes, or how long it takes until every student has his meal after the 5th period. Lessons are shorter sometimes. The program ringing the bell is called Melekaja, the secretary, who presses the button for the bell. Once he forgot to press the button, so there was a very long period.

Then, around 2 o'clock I have a break, where I defragment the computers in the office, or things like that. The Afternoon class starts at 4 oclock, but half the class is already coming at 3.30 to just use the computer, and i let them. I am happy when I have motivated students and I of course support them. They really want to learn. A new experience.
Then I have also a very small student who is coming to class every day too. For me it was no problem and the other students also accepted him to be with us. His mother is a very good student and everytime she comes to the front to show the others something on the projector, the little boy is handed around among the other students. Its a very nice atmosphere.

We are now so far that everyone can start up his computer, log in; create, move, delete, recover folders; change the desktop; knows the windows file system and so on... Furthermore we did a little practical excurs to how a computer works and what are its components on the hardware side. So to be able to solve small problems in the future, everyone unplugged all cables of his computer, clapped his hands (so they had to put the cables down), turned around three times and then finally plugged everything in and started up. It had to work and it made alot of fun.
I really see a development in the students. At the beginning everyone was very shy towards each other and now we make jokes together, laugh and if someone is lost at some point everyone just helps each other. Its very nice.
The lessons officially ends at 5.30, but it never does. The students are so eager about typing wikipedia articles that we never finish before six o'clock.
Then I return home to Leoni and we have dinner together. She shows me some songs on the piano and we have very nice conversations about my experiences and she supports me with everything. I just mentioned that I would like to have some tea in school. So the next day she gave me a cattle, cup, tea, spoon, sugar... Just great! I discovered now a new hobby: Tea tasting :)
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So far