Just A Quick One - Variety Show, Drakensberg and Saying Goodbye!

---

The Variety Show was on Friday 12th and was fantastic!! I'm so proud of those kids! Maryna filmed it for us and is going to send me the DVD so I can show you all 😊. I was however verrrrry disappointed with the staff (though you can't expect much better from them) as only four teachers turned up, and only 2 stayed til the end except for me, Samy, Kory and Jan. AND stupid lazy librarian Kenny Mafuleka - I had an argument with him the other week coz he started hitting kids in my class, and now he's giving me the silent treatment! He's running a cultural dance group and I wanted the girls to dance at the beginning of the show, which they were really excited about, but the stupid selfish childish man forbid them to!!! Arrrg these people!!!! But the show was amazing, the kids were great and the people who watched it loved it 😊 I'm so so proud!

It was a big rush to clear up afterwards as it finished at four and at quarter past four we had to drive to Durban!! It's a four hour drive and we didnt want to do too much of it in the dark!! When we got to Durbs we stayed in kelly's dad's apartment (AMAZING, he's like a millionaire or something!) for one night then drove to the Drakensberg the next day. Annoyingly I got sick AGAIN (I've lost count of how many times!) so couldn't hike on the first day (so I missed out on mountain baboons boo!), but the hostel we stayed in was cool! It's called the Ampitheatre and it even had a jacuzzi, sauna and rock climbing wall! We hiked the next day, only 22km ish. It was a there and back hike so after ten or so we stopped and there were three directions to explore...left following a mystery arrow drawn on a rock, right up a verrrry steep rope ladder, or straight through a cave. We went right first and the steep steep ladder led to an even steeper rock climbing path, so steep they'd had to put metal rods into the rocks to help you climb! Doomed if anyone fell! It was cool though, it led to some rock overlooking the mountain spring, which then led through into the same cave...naturally everyone dived in in their underwear rather than do the climb back down!!! We threw our stuff across to the rocks on the cave but Kory accidently threw one of Samy's shoes into the water, so she was forced to dive in first to the freezing cold water before it floated away! :D

Hiking was really fun but we pretty much fell asleep in the evening, and the next day we headed back to Durbs to stay with Kelly again. We went snorkelling in the Indian Ocean (Kory tried to make a sea cucumber vomit it's own organs but we failed), shopping in a masssssssssive shopping mall called gateway, and then went to see a movie :D it was fun to be back in civilisation for a weekend! Me and Samy also wandered along the beach and watched a man making sand sculptures and loads of dolphins diving up and down along the coast 😊

Then it was the last week at school!!!

The last day was the hardest, saying goodbye to those kids is honestly the hardest thing I've ever had to do. At 8am in Grade One they sang and danced for us, and they;d written a poem for us which Sanele read out and started our crying already! They then lined up and hugged each of us, and to be honest pretty much from then on I cried all day! During the afternoon we walked around handing out our contact details and saying goodbye to people...I cried sooo much saying goodbye to my drama girls and guys 😞 and the year seven boys...especially the boy who called me his 'tisha-mom'!! But Grade One was definitely the hardest, loads of THEM started crying too when we went to say our final goodbye in the afternoon. Some of them had madeus cards, and they were all telling us not to go 😞. Tiny little Asimbonge was cuddling me and said "I'm going to miss you" and started crying...and he doesnt even speak that much english! And apparently Mama told us that that night when Sanele went home she refused to talk to anyone, and Buhle wouldnt eat 😞 it's so sad, I dont want to leave them I feel like Im abandoning them! My little Sithoko didnt come to school in the morning and I was so upset that I wouldnt be able to say goodbye, so mama called her grandma and explained to her and they sent her in for me! I grabbed her and hugged her for so long! Her grandma had sent bananas and avocados as a thank you present to us 😊 but it was awful coz Sithoko was so upset all day. She wasnt doing her normal crying where you can tell its kind of for attention, but she was just staring into space and sobbing, and wouldnt let me go. And at one point she even said "dont go england" 😞 im gonna miss that girl more than I can even say, I wish I could bring her home with me! Im definitely going to sposer her school fees, starting as soon as I go back 😊. Her grandma rang me today though and let me speak to her on the phone which was AMAZING!!!! I LOVE YOU SITHOKOZILE!!!!!!!!! My lil crazy girl 😊

Saying goodbye really was the worst though, and then on Sunday night we had to go round the houses and leave Mama and Meinky and Walter, and Bongi, Si and Ruth 😞. And baby Zoe!! And then jan invited us to a Chinese evening at Fancy Stitch whch was really cool, the chinese people cooked us so much food! And we had a little farewell do then said goodbye to them 😞. I'm going to miss evryone sooo much, I really had the BEST time!

We've left Ingwavuma for good now though 😞 and we're here in Durban, at a cool backpackers called Tekweni. Tomorrow we're going to the aquarium at the beach called Usharka, where you can snorkel IN the quarium and theres a big waterpark so that will be fun!

Sorry this is so rushed but Im having to pay lots for the net!

Miss you all! Seven weeks ish left!! x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x

---