^ 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!!
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