BeccaM

Lesley took me to Addo National Elephant Park about a week ago (I know, I'm still catching up on my entries). We stayed overnight in a safari tent and it was awesome! We spent Saturday and Sunday driving around the park and looking out for animals. We saw a good bit - elephants, kudu, buffalo, ostrich, warthog, huge ant hills. There was random wildlife before we got there on the sides of the road like wildebeest, cattle, donkey... It was a pretty awesome trip. Sorry about the entries being few and far between. Uploading the photos is a huge hassle. Sometimes I can try for an hour and get nothing! For anyone at home interested, I'll so some kind of slide show at my return party.... read more

Lesley, Breymore, Hilary, Candy and I went on a boat tour to St. Croix Island on Sunday, Valentine's Day. It was awesome! We were out for about 3 hours. On the way out we saw a cape fur seal just floating around enjoying the water. When we got to the island, there was a school of dolphins that just surrounded the boat. I was trying to take pictures of them, but they moved so quickly in random patterns. I took over 100 pictures and managed to get some pretty good ones. None of them posed for me, but I worked with what I had. The island was awesome as well. Lots of African Penguins standing around watching the boat load of people who were watching them. We sadly learned that the population of African Penguins on ... read more

I took some pictures of the classroom I was teaching in last week. Notice the lack of technology. Since I was thrown into the fire, I did have to rely and good old fashioned lecture and a chalkboard. I tried to have the kids do an activity but they're not used to that so I learned that I have to break down basic instructions to be even more basic. Something simple like tearing a piece of paper in half took multiple instructions just because they were so organized and not used to breaking away from the regular class structure. Things like "Ma'am, which way should I tear it?" or "Ma'am, should I measure the paper first?" I also did the dancesport on Friday. I figured since I'm not athletic than maybe I could dance. I hung ... read more

I'm at school now during a break. This school is awesome! They are very focused on the "whole pupil" as far as encouraging content, culture, language, sports (lots of sports), art...oh my gosh, it's amazing! They also don't call the kids "students," they say "learners." On Friday they are having an athletics day where everyone attends. "Athletics" covers all the track and field stuff from what I've learned. Everyone from the school participates - even the student teachers, like me, who will be records keepers. The idea of these types of events is to build community among the students and teachers. At first I thought, crap, I can't do sports and this is taking away from a regular school day but the community and team building is an obvious benefit to this school between students and ... read more

Welcome to my travel blog. I wanted a place to keep everyone posted on the goings on in South Africa while I'm there for the next several months. I'll have a little bit of everything from student teaching experiences, to trips around SA to photos and all kinds of good junk! I hope I'll be able to keep this blog updated as my internet sounds a bit "ify." Wish me luck and I'd love to hear from everyone while I'm away! Becca... read more