A Paper Due?

(I meant to post this before I left for Durban last week, but it didn't happen. The post on Durban will be posted in the next few days.)

This week in classes we actually had a few assignments due, the first actual work we’ve done all semester besides reading. In Senior Seminar we had a paper due on Tuesday about the ANC’s reasoning behind their non-violent, civil disobedience based Defiance Campaign and their addition of an armed wing after the Sharpeville Massacre. While the topic wasn’t terribly hard (we’d discussed most of the content in class), it was rough getting focused to write it. It’s been over two months since I wrote a paper! (and last semester I only wrote two proper papers, so the 6 I have this semester seem like a lot!) It was also a bit tough to find a time when I could borrow someone’s laptop to write the paper. I decided not to bring mine here and up to this point it hasn’t been much of a problem, but when it comes to the last few days before a paper is due, most people need to use their laptops. Next time I will just have to start my paper earlier. Most of the rest of the group had a literature paper due on Wednesday as well. The workload for my other classes except Poli Sci has continued to be quite light.
Besides classes time seems to be going by quickly. Several members of the group have been getting sick- Nikki, one of my flatmates & friends, went to the hospital for possible appendicitis(it turned out it was just some type of virus), but now she’s fine. A couple other bugs have been going around (once one person gets something, almost guaranteed someone else will- we’re near each other all the time), but so far I’ve managed to stay reasonably healthy (cross my fingers it stays that way!). The weather seems to have gotten even warmer. We had a couple humid days- the wind died down.
On Thursday night a large group of us went to a performance of Romeo & Juliet in a park in central PE. I believe the group putting it on was a community theatre group and they were quite good. You could tell the director had made some very deliberate casting decisions- Juliet’s dad was black, her mom white, Juliet was black, and Romeo white. There’s obviously nothing in Romeo & Juliet about race, but the director was obviously making a point about how race shouldn’t be a deciding factor in relationships. It’s been a while since I’ve read or seem Romeo and Juliet the full way through and I had forgotten some of the humorous parts with minor characters, so they were pleasant surprises. It was my friend Laura’s birthday on Friday, so a decent sized group of us went out to eat at a seafood place near our flats that night. I tried some prawn dish that was supposed to be a traditional Mozambique dish (it was a Friday in Lent, so I couldn’t eat meat) and it was very tasty. The service was quite slow (typical for a South African restaurant, but a bit frustrating when you’re hungry . . .), but the group had fun.
Saturday morning I woke up early to do our boat dives to finish up my scuba certification. The five of us got a lift from our instructor over to the PE harbour, climbed into our wetsuits, sorted out our equipment, hopped on to a small boat, and off we went into the ocean. We battled against the waves for 10 minutes or so to get out to the place we were supposed to dive from. To enter the water we fell off the side of the boat backwards (the boat was pretty small, we it was only a couple feet at most). I’m starting to get used to breating underwater, but there’s still several things to think about while we’re down there, so I don’t feel like I can fully appreciate everything there is to see. I did manage to see an octopus hiding out in some rocks and the back of a shark, so that was sweet! Octopus, shark getting used to breathing under water, but still thinking more about getting around In the afteroon we took our final exam- we all passed it just fine.
On Sunday I woke up early to work on my paper, and in the afternoon I went in to school to to work on my paper on a computer. It was Brooke’s birthday, so a group of us went out to eat at Nando’s for dinner (it’s a South African chain restaurant, not fast food, but not a proper restaurant- it’s run like a Famous Dave’s or Noodles & Co. in the states). I went to the student mass on campus again. The music was still amazing and I even recognized a few faces, which was nice.
After the confusion with the adults at the Haven last week, on Monday I returned to working with Siya. It was really hot outside today and many of the volunteers and kids were quite tired. I could tell Siya was tired- he seemed rather crabby and even had a couple temper tantrums, but when I would hold him for a little bit he’d stay really still and quiet. For the last half an hour of our time, the whole group had a meeting with Sandra where we could ask questions. Many of us asked about the history of the kid we had been working with. I learned some of Siya’s rough early life story and how he came to the Haven. I was shocked to discover that according to Sandra he is actually around three years old. This might explain his rather developed physical/large motor skills- he can walk, run, throw a ball, and go up stairs a bit better than Lisa, the other nursery child. His language skills, however, are way behind what they should be for a three year old. Sandra told me that if I wanted to really help Siya, I would have to be stern with him and not let him get away with everything. While his is at a more advanced stage of HIV than some of the kids, he probably still will live for several years. If he grows up much more and has not learned that he cannot get anything he wants, he will be spoiled and bratty.

Tuesday morning I played and worked with Siya again. I tried to be a little stricter with him if he misbehaved. If he did something he was not supposed to (such as pick up the broom in the kitchen) I would tell him no and promptly stop him from doing it- usually by taking the object he wasn’t supposed to be touching away from him. I think he’s finally getting used to me; he communicates more with me now than he used to. Most of the time his communication is pointing or hands in the air for up, but he did say a few words to me- ball, thank you, and a couple I couldn’t quite catch what they meant/referred to. We sang pretty much every song we could think of- from “I am Special” to “This Little Light of Mine” and “The Hokey Pokey”. A couple of the older kids knew the words to some of the songs, but most of the time it was just the volunteers singing. After the songs we played a couple group games. The carer Zola taught us a game called Fire on the Mountain that was really fun to play with the kids. We found a bunch of English books in the play school, which was exciting. For the last couple weeks we’ve just been using the four or five that are scattered throughout the building (we found a large bag of books in Afrikaans one day, but they weren’t much help . . .). In the new collection, I found some books suitable for very young kids- ones with more pictures than words on page and think pages that little hands can help turn. When I read a couple of these books to Siya, he seemed a little more interested in reading, which is great news.

Today we head off on a group excursion to Durban for a long weekend. Our schedule looks fairly busy, so I’m sure I’ll have lots to write about for next week. Until then, I hope your weekend goes well!