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^ The water buffalo portion of the mural.  I would add the picture of the whole thing, but you wouldn't be able to see the details so well.  My square is the darkish pink one directly to the left of the very top, right corner piece.  

I'm back!  The flights went well.  One short delay from JFK to Boston, but that's it!  Didn't actually get a wink of sleep until the hour-long flight to Boston.  I just watched movies the whole time on those really long plane rides.  Watching Invictus was particularly cool after just leaving South Africa...So I suppose this is the end of the blog.  I'm so glad I decided to keep a blog and I hope everyone enjoyed it.  So here goes:  On the day we had to say good-bye at Kleinberg, the sky was gray and it was cold and rainy.  How fitting!  We felt like we'd only been there for a very, short time and it shouldn't be time to go yet.  I said good-bye to my first grade class and gave them all a hug.  Their teacher and I suppose my colleague, told me that I was a born teacher.  I thought she was just saying it to be nice, but the principal told me afterwards that she doesn't give compliments like that easily.  The staff at Kleinberg really were fun, very friendly, and particularly generous.  During break every day, they would always share their food with each other and us, even towards the end of our time there when half of them were fasting for Ramadan.  The first grade teacher I was with brought in food for me even when she couldn't eat herself!  Another one of the teachers once bought me an entire package of Rooibos tea because I had mentioned in passing that I liked it...Now that is something a grandmother would do.  So nice.  The principal called all of the teachers to the staff room that day during break so we could have a real goodbye and give all of them a hug as well.  As for my six Grade 4 Help2Read kids, I will admit that I rushed through my meetings that last day with them because I didn't want to prolong the goodbye any more than I had to.  I really liked all of them.  I hope I actually helped them or at least built their confidence a bit.  Some of them began to sound out the words more often, rather than just looking at long words and freezing, like they did in the beginning.  I only had about 10 meetings with each them, so I can't really expect to have changed the world or anything, but I hope they got something out of it!  A few of them told me that I was a good/nice/'the best' teacher.  I attribute this mainly to my just being really nice to them.  Give them a smile, ask them how they are doing, and let them know how much you appreciate their effort, and you've won their hearts.  I think one of them was actually in love with me haha.  I wore I dress once and he looked up at me with this look of pure admiration and fascination and was just like, "You look beautiful."  I almost died.  It was the best- I told everyone about that.  He was also the one who said "Me last!" when I hugged them all goodbye so he could hold on for an extra moment or two.  I'll miss him and all the rest of them!
Saying good-bye to my host family was actually the hardest good-bye I've probably ever done because I probably won't see them again or a very, very long time.  We are talking years.  That family was made up of some of the best and most giving, loving people I have ever met.  Hands down.  Yes I cried and I will miss them dearly!
To sum it all up, my trip to South Africa was one of the best decisions I've ever made and I absolutely loved every minute of it!!

Almost done...

Tomorrow is my last day at Kleinberg and then the next day (Saturday) is my last full day in South Africa. It is such a strange feeling knowing not knowing when I'll be back.  It is just so FAR and so expensive to fly here.  I do want to come back one day though.  It is just so strange not having any idea how far in the future that may be.  Anyway, tomorrow, I'm going to give out certificates and little notes to the kids I've been tutoring in reading and also give a whole bunch of pencils to the kids in the first grade class I've been in.  There is a serious shortage of even the basic supplies at this school and I actually plan on trying to organize some fundraisers back home to help out with that, but for now, pencils it is.  Tomorrow will be the last time I hear their little morning prayer that they do and that I can't help but to have memorized- "Help us to do the things we should, to be to others kind and good, in all we do, in work or play, to grow more loving every day, Amen."  It is cute, especially with the accents.  I like it because it basically sums up how people should try to live their lives.  I will also have to prepare myself for a massive group hug.  People around here love to hug and it is just magnified in the kind of unconditional love environment of a primary school.  I've definitely been through ups, as well as downs at Kleinberg.  One of the downs was the day I was asked to watch the class for the whole day with another volunteer.  It was pure chaos.  Yelling, screaming, kids rolling around on the floor fighting.  Absolutely bonkers, but hey, that is how we all act when there is a substitute.  Still, it made me realize how assertive you have to be to be a teacher.  You really do have to call them out when they are doing something disrespectful when you are talking or else it turns into a zoo fast.  However, you really need to understand that the student's home situations are likely to be a huge cause of their chaotic behavior.  The teacher told me today that one of the more difficult girls lives in a small house with more family members that she can count and the reason she hits other kids all the time is because she is so used to constant fighting and hitting as means of solving conflict that she thinks it is normal in every situation.  When you hear things like that, you can't help but be more patient with the kids.  Furthermore, you also have to be endlessly creative to capture and hold the attention of a classroom full of students, especially 6-year-olds because if you change things up all the time, the kids stay engaged and aren't tempted to act up in the first place.  I have so much more respect for all of my past teachers.  However, (here comes one of the ups) it is hard to stay angry at the kids when they do spontaneous cute things, like a few days ago, when one of the really quiet little boys called me over to his desk in the middle of class.  His voice is so small that you have to tilt your head so your ear is facing him.  Plus, he mumbles, which cranks up the cute factor.  Anyway, so he called me over and said something along the lines of, "I'm gonna miss you when you go back to where you live."  SO sweet.  I thought he was just going to ask a question!  Yep, tomorrow could be rough!  I also can't wait to see the finished mural that one of the other volunteers has singlehandedly organized.  The mural is of the "Big 5" animals I mentioned in a previous blog- elephant, lion, rhino, water buffalo, and leopard.  It is a huge splash of bright colors and patterns.  I painted a square today and came home with pink hands.  Such a cool idea!

Long Weekend!

Just got back from a loooong weekend driving through the Western Cape.  On Thursday, I went on a safari at a game reserve called Aquila.  I highly, highly recommend it to anyone who makes their way to South Africa one day.  We saw hippos, lions, wildebeests, zebras, springboks, rhinos, and my favorite animal that we encountered- elephants!  The two of them walked right up to our vehicle and one of them held his trunk up in front of another volunteer's face for a moment before walking off.  It was amazing.  Also, the food at this place (we stayed there overnight) was PHENOMENAL.  We had a buffet dinner after getting back from the safari and we had really worked up an appetite because it was freezing out there.  When we left the next day (after a buffet breakfast and lunch), there was snow on top of the mountains by the reserve!  It was that cold- cold enough to snow in Africa.  :)
We did lots of driving around over the course of the weekend and had to really be patient with one another because we were in the car quite a bit.  We listened to lots of Bob Marley on the ride, which was cool and the scenery was beautiful and basically got increasingly beautiful over the course of the trip.  I think I've overdosed on gorgeous views here.  It wasn't quite the same sights we've been seeing though.  Before this weekend, I'd been exposed to city, suburb, township, mountains, and beaches.  Now, I've gotten to see more of the rural South Africa.  We saw lots of farmland, rolling hills, and cattle over the course of the weekend.  We even stayed at a wonderful little place called Honeywood Farm on Friday night.  The cottages were really quaint and nice and we got to eat a home-cooked dinner made by a very cute old couple.  You might have guessed from the name of the farm, but the husband is a beekeeper as well and sold us some very cheap, raw honey.  Not only that, but he actually let another volunteer and I take a ride on a couple of his horses the next morning!!
The next two nights, we stayed at this very environmentally conscious and very hippie-friendly hostel.  We did drumming one night and other than that, just relaxed in the sort of lounge area, occasionally chatting with people from all over the world who were staying there.  There were people from France, England, Germany, and probably a few other places the two nights we were there.  From there, we just kept on driving!
As we drove, I loved asking the program director, who is like a personal tour guide, what the town names mean in English (since many of them are written in Afrikaans).  There are lots of town names that end in hoek, which means corner or baai, which means bay.  Actually, we spent most of today in a town called Gansbaai (Goose Bay) doing something very exciting...SHARK CAGE DIVING!  Yep, today, I saw Great White Sharks up close and personal.  So huge.  I didn't get a great look at the first one that came by when I was down in the cage because it wasn't facing me, but I felt it!  It had chased the chum right up over the cage and was thrashing around like a maniac.  All I could see was its tail moving, but I did get a nice side view of the next one that came by.  Anyway, that was an exciting end to a beautiful weekend!