School Visit and Baby Lion Cubs

---

After lunch Friday, everyone left the Manderson Hotel. A number of people told me that though it was their winter break, they would be prepping for school and practicing what they learned. We were headed out to visit a school near by. We to the primary school in King William's Town. A teacher from the school was with us all week. We were told that the Eastern Province is the poorest province in South Africa. Alex had asked if we could visit a school, since we would be in schools while working in the Western Cape province. It was an interesting comparison.
When we arrived, Noble remarked that the school (from the outside) looked like every other school in the country. The buildings are one or two stories and motel style. Most schools seemed to have one building with interior hallway. Not the classroom buildings though. All the classrooms had a door to outside. This was true in both provinces. The principal was there to greet us, commenting that he had come back from a meeting or something, but he seemed quite proud to share his school. When we entered the first building, which has a reception area, a few offices, a small kitchen and a teachers room, we were told that they had not had a secretary in 5 years (if I recall correctly). They have volunteers who greet visitors, because they can’t afford a secretary. We were told that only a small percentage of students can pay the fees for school. I never learned how they finance schools in South Africa. We were at a public school, but it sounded like there was tuition. However, the principal explained that they don’t turn anyone away because of an inability to pay. I was happy to see their vision and mission posted above the check-in area. We also saw trophies and school pictures, as you would expect. There were a couple of computers in the teacher’s room and the principal’s office was quite nice.
Then we exited out the back of that building and were taken to the first of two classroom buildings. They took us upstairs to show us the room that has been slated to be their computer lab. They had money donated to buy computers, but then had use the money to fix their bathrooms instead. It sounded quite sad. Two students died from hepatitis last year and they traced it to the school bathrooms. The bathroom foundation, among other things, had to be fixed. So they have an empty room with an alarm and an extra door for security, but very little in it at this time. I asked if we could see another room. I was really curious what a regular classroom was like. With a reading rug in the back and lots of items hung around the room, you could tell that a lot of learning went on in this Grade 2 room. There were wooden chairs that had been repaired many times and the principal commented, when he saw me looking at a poster, that even if they didn’t have technology at the school, that they were exposing the children to it (through pictures). I sense this is the reality there, but very sad in an age where technology is so important.
When we were getting ready to leave, I asked Nobubele, from the Department of Education, about the situation with segregated high schools that had been mentioned to me earlier in the week. She said that that situation only existed in large cities. In other words, you have to have enough students for three schools to have segregated schools. During our conversation, she had to walk back into the school to sign the guest book and the principal heard what we were discussing. With great pride, he said that they had every type of student at their school “except Chinese”. (Not sure why he picked Chinese as the example though.)

Saturday morning we headed to The Lion Park. It was a small, but nice place – sort of a cross between a park and a zoo. There was a birthday party happening while we were there and we saw quite a few Afrikaner children running around without shoes. We saw crocodiles, giant turtles & wild turkeys together, lions, tigers, cheetahs, alpacas, wild dogs, loose rabbits, lots of different birds and an old kudu wondering around.
When we arrived we were told that there were 4 lion cubs and that we could interact with them, but should keep in mind that they have teeth and claws. The white lion cubs were in a large pen that people could go in to. The cubs were exactly 10 weeks old the day we were there and as you can see they were quite big. Their hair is not soft, but holding them was amazing. At the time, I wondered if anything the rest of the trip would top that. Alex wrote a great blog post about the experience (explaining that she’s not a cat person and how she felt as my hand was chewed upon and a paw pushed up on my chin), I will not try to recreate it, so check it out if you want. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/De-Waterkant/blog-624908.html
After a lovely, relaxed visit, we headed to East London. We drove along the beach and stopped for lunch before heading to the airport. We had a nice flight, with very few people, to Cape Town. We then headed to Noble’s apartment, which is across the street from part of False Bay near a beach area called The Strand. Staying there saved Education Beyond Borders lodging expenses and was quite nice.
Sunday was a relaxing day, which included a trip to the mall and the supermarket to pick up supplies.

---

Photos

Sign in Lion Park Parking Lot
I found it interesting that many places had signs say "right of admission reserved".