More car antics...

Went to my first Parents’ Evening yesterday with Kath and Ron, volunteer houseparents, and also had my first trip in the back of a ‘bakkie’. That’s a kind of pick-up truck where I had to be locked into the back and sat on a mattress. Was kind of exciting, not bad comfort-wise and I got to stretch my legs out so didn’t get cramp! Am sure if would be different if I had many kids in there too. Slightly bumpy down the track but once we hit the N3 and higher speeds it was quite a smooth journey. The lights worked but the brakes made interesting noises. You quickly get used to the fact that all vehicles here at GGA seem to be on their last legs!

Schools are all the same, except here in SA they don’t talk about pupils, but ‘learners’ and there are no subjects, but ‘learning areas’. The deputy head gave a talk to all the parents about the National Curriculum for about 20 minutes, referring to an overhead slide which contained no fewer than 3 major spelling mistakes (and couldn’t even be thought of as ‘cultural local spellings’) Says a lot for a school when that’s the best they can present to the parents!!!

2 of our kids go to this school, it’s a specialist technical school which seems to be quite organised (except for the typos) and they are doing well there. Was impressed by the multi-cultural-ness of the parents from all ethnic backgrounds and everyone was friendly and helpful.

It was kind of odd being on the other side of the table for a change and not being the teacher, but I guess it was also odd for the teachers to have to talk to 2 English women and a Dutch guy, all white, about 2 Zulu children! If they thought it was weird, they didn’t let it show! I think they are used to GGA…

It was good to get off-site though. It’s strange being up here as we really are quite isolated. There are vehicles going down to Cato Ridge during the day for various errands, but volunteers are only supposed to go down to either Spar supermarket on a Friday morning if they are working that weekend, or to the Pavilion Mall in Durban on a Friday afternoon if they are weekend off.

Plus points: don’t get to spend money easily, you really appreciate any opportunity to get off-site even to take someone to the Dr…

Minus points: ‘cabin fever’ can set in quite quickly, there’s nowhere else to go up here, if you wander past the (non-existent) perimeter fence you risk being attacked, robbed, murdered etc so it’s not advisable. You don't feel afraid up here but it's good to be aware of the dangers and realities of this area which is so poor and rundown. We cover a fairly large site, but it can still seem small at times.

Which is why HJ and I are so desperate to get a car so not only can we go to church, but we’re not stuck up here all day every day. We’re in the process of negotiating for a Toyota, it might be the right one, might not, more details to follow when we’ve got a clearer idea about it… In the meantime, it’s bank holiday weekend here so all car rental places are out of vehicles which kind of scuppers our plans to go and explore… praying that somehow, by some miracle, we can get transport to go to church on Sunday. It’s our weekend off, we certainly deserve a bit of chill-out time!

But before that, it’s time to hit one of the biggest shopping malls for miles around and a little bit of retail therapy! There are various things I need to get for the house and I’m on the hunt for bargains! I love new supermarkets and shops, such an adventure!