St. Mary's Primary School: Day 1

The day began a little earlier than I expected when at 2:30, I woke up and started to get dressed because I was so nervous/excited. The situation was quickly rectified and I went back to bed for another 3 hours.

When we got to St. Mary's, they had gone above and beyond in making breakfast for us. Their auditorium was so cute, ala CDC or Kids Cab. Their principal, Mrs. Vivier, was so welcoming AND she looks a bit like Helen Mirren. The school put on a special assembly for us, including a procession where we sheepishly walked in, welcoming us in each of South Africa's 11 official languages, singing and dancing. There was even a performance on the recorder that made me rethink my stance on how the recorder was only invented so third graders could summon satan with Hot Cross Buns. What I really learned from the assembly was that art is universal. This was something I already knew, but that concept gets reinforced every day here.

I am Miss Thomson, for the record, because Miss Jaffe just doesn't sound right...

Miss Merkel and I are working with Mrs Gretchen Johnston's Grade 6 class. Gretchen has been working at St. Mary's for 13 years now! There are 39 students in her class and the age range is 12-14. An interesting thing about school here is that it is the first term of the year for them; they have a five week summer (their summer, not ours) break in December/January and then the new school year starts. Today, we got to see Maths, Afrikaans and Art class, along with running our own Q&A.

We couldn't help much with Afrikaans because we don't speak the language, but I did find my favorite phrase, "Ek is jammer" (I am sorry) in their textbook. After school today, the students gave me their seal of approval on my well-rehearsed, "Ek is jammer, ek kan nie Afrikaans praat nie," so my work paid off a bit!

We heard a lot of great questions during the Q&A. The kids all wanted to hear about the States, especially the currency and exchange rate. They were really interested in where Miss Merkel and I had travelled. They REALLY wanted to know what celebrities we knew (specifically Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and Kimora Lee Simmons), but unfortunately, we don't know any. The best question of the day isn't blog appropriate, so I'll be keeping that one to myself.

Day 2 tomorrow!!