Ocean View/ Mandela Day

Alright, so now, the Worldteach program has moved on to its second phase, which is working at actual schools in a town called Ocean View.  One of the other volunteer's host families hosted a braai (BBQ) on Saturday night at their house in Ocean View, so we sort of kicked off the transition then.  When you are invited to a braai, the custom is to basically bring the equivalent of what you're going to eat and drink (or more).  Everyone ends up sharing everything, so its basically a potluck every time.  I brought some juice, chicken, and ostrich burgers :).  Anyway, now that was a party.  Karaoke (99% Whitney Houston hahaha), dancing, talking, eating, drinking, being merry, etc. etc.  His host family was very welcoming and it wasn't hard for all of us (volunteers, host family, extended family, family friends) to just have fun together.

FYI, a defining feature of Ocean View is that it is almost entirely a "coloured" community.  Coloured doesn't have the same connotation here as it does in America.  It doesn't apply to anyone who is not white, like it does in the states.  It is basically the label for anyone who isn't entirely black or entirely white.  You could be a mix of both.  You could be Indian.  It doesn't make much sense- it's a product of apartheid.  If you are coloured, chances are you speak Afrikaans.  Therefore, coloured people tend to have cool accents- complete with rolling r's and a slight variation in most vowel sounds (the sound aye is now oye e.g. eight is pronounced more like oyt).  I got to hear the accent all day long today because like I said, we've now moved on to working at schools in Ocean View.  I'm at Kleinberg Primary (in Afrikaans: Klein= small, berg=mountain), where I'll be for the next month.  It was my first day and it  also coincidentally happened to be Mandela Day.  The school got together for an assembly in the courtyard right at the start of the day and we sang the National Anthem (well they did- I don't know it!)  and then Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela, which was cute.  It was quite a sight to see all of the students together in the courtyard.  First of all, there are about 1000 students, about 40 to a class (I spent the day in a 1st grade class with 39 students!), which is chaotic, but there aren't enough funds to hire additional teachers.  Something else I noticed was that there was not one white child in that crowd!  Odd, to see, but I know that apartheid really wasn't that long ago and the racial makeup of many communities and schools will reflect that to some degree.

For anyone who doesn't know, Mandela day is Nelson Mandela's birthday and the tradition is for everyone to do 67 minutes of service to the community as a gesture of respect for Mandela's 67 years of fighting for a better South Africa/ world.  (When I got home from school, I spent my 67 minutes baking cupcakes with my youngest host sister for the Worldteach program directors, the principal and teachers at Kleinberg, and some of the people on our street.)