Kalk Bay

I am quickly becoming the biggest fan of Kalk Bay. About 45 minutes away from Cape Town, it is the loveliest drive. It takes you around Devil’s Peak, through the lovely neighborhood of

Rondebosch and then through the forests of Tokai. Some wine farms dot the drive along the way to the coast towards Muizenburg, just south of Cape Town. A magnificent road called Boye’s Drive snakes and weaves up through the mountainous nature reserves of the peninsula, providing you with sweeping views of the small coastal towns along the way. Kalk Bay is a small town that feels light years from Cape Town. Still chock full of tourists, it has a slower pace than the city, lots of cafes, amazing French pastries, and galleries exhibiting the treasures of local African craft projects.

My aunt Lynne’s former husband, Keith, and his wife Christina reside there so I’ve had many opportunities to visit this area. Sunday, I went on a day trip with friends Christa and Ardine. Here are some photos documenting the day.

The city breathes, lungs expand

Autumn. Fires. Cold swimming. What relief is in the air. The fires devastated about 300 hectares of the 25,000 hectare Table Mtn National Park, so all in all Cape Town was quite lucky. For me, just a blip on my radar when I opened my windows early morning on Wednesday to go to work. A lovely crisp autumn air tinged with woodsmoke...mmmm....until I heard the helicopters madly flying overhead. The fires were well under control by the time school started but later in the day the wind rose and they flared up - I saw an amazing forest of trees just by the highway crippling in a blaze. Such sorrow. But for the mountain, regeneration. It now sits still, blackened and ready for the autumn rains to bring on new life.

I've been swimming regularly during the heat for the past couple of months, growing strong frog legs and have started to condition my body to the cold water of fall. Yikes, when I say condition, I mean feeling my lungs bulge (or are they shrinking) in my chest, aching as I gasp each breath to swim forward. I've been trying to hike quite a bit as well and have attained a lovely expansion in myself from that as well.

And with these shaky cold-water breaths and hiking shod feet, I am starting to find my place in the city. I am constantly astounded by how international Cape Town is - full of people from all over. And more often than not, running into them more than the "locals". I've met a lot of ex-pat Ghanaians, Kenyans, Nigerians, Germans, Dutch, Italians, Americans & Canadians - funnily, not as many Brits as you'd expect. But I've also met a nice handful of people who are local. Mostly ladies, each unique, helping me to acquaint with the city in different ways...via eating, cooking, hiking, winter coat-shopping, moon gazing, dancing. My calendar is starting to become regularly full and I must admit that because I'm connecting with most of these people, I'm becoming more full as well.

On the horizon... I've finally made a site-visit to a paper making group based in Khayelitsha, but I'm uncertain of how that will pan out. It is in dire need of help and about $10,000! It was started in 2000 and the studio was given equipment and the physically disabled participants taught the skills necessary to make paper. Minus, the skills to operate a business successfully. I wouldn't go so far as to say the place is a dump, but it is in need of many helping hands. Financially, it's not viable - no one makes a salary or even a regular wage so most participants consider themselves volunteers - however the original point of the project was to create jobs!!!

I'd be considering myself superwoman to be able to un-trench them. So right now I'm sitting with many letters to write, funding to procure and mustering a second-wind to assist with this "lost" cause situation. These lost causes are frequent - people with money/skills starting projects for "the needy", eventually leaving them for other demands and the project collapses.

In the meantime, I'm trying to make sure that's exactly what doesn't happen with the library I'm restoring (pictured below). I'm color-coding everything, creating a log, and hoping to involve the ever-handy presence of the 7th Grade prefects. Right now, however, I don't think we have enough books in the various reading level ranges for each student to take out a book. So finding more books is also a problem - I'd ask my fellow-Americans back home, but know the cost of shipping would far outweigh the benevolence of donating old books. Current thought is to have Americans donate used books to a local school or library with corporate backing that would then match $2 or $3 for every book donated to go to African schools. Then, everyone wins. Anyone have some networking strings they could pull?

If only you could see the smile on my students' faces when I lend them a book to take home. No one would be driven to drink at the end of a long week, only driven to give books! I'm all ears, so if you have any ideas, there's more than one eager teacher here willing to carry them out.





















p.s. top 2 photos not taken by myself, found on www (don't worry, Dub, I wasn't that close!!!)

St. Paul's at Sea Point

Yesterday the school took the whole day off to visit the pools at Sea Point, along the coast and just around Signal Hill from the school. The pools are filled with the salty sea water just beyond but create a safe place for kids to romp and play without breaking any toes or twisting ankles on the rugged sea landscape. They all had a blast though it's turning fall and, of course, it was the first real chilly day of the season. But you'll see, not too cold for an ice cream or to play a frantic, rough game of rugby!!! I also enjoyed the day as a time to get to know some of the teachers a bit better. Here, I'm pictured (clockwise) with Mrs. Groepe (Gr. 7), Ms. Kahaar (Gr. 5), Mrs. Abrahms (Gr. 6), and Mrs. Richards (computer) - truly a bunch of hilarious, lovely ladies as you can see!

A nice picture of some of my toughest boys too - Jermaine, Vuyo and Dion (top).

Photos of Surroundings

Here are some photos from a couple of hikes I've been on in the last couple of months with arrows showing you where I am in the midst of all this! Two plain arrows show my flat from Lion's Head view and Table Mtn view and a labeled arrow to show where I teach, just below Signal Hill.

More fam photos

My Gran came to visit for a couple of weeks and had the chance to spend some quality with her great-grandchild, the famous and fabulous, Beccalina. We saw a lot of Bec + Georgia and also met some distant relatives, Audrey and Ron Van Der Honert. A lovely photo here of Audrey with her rare, prized Agapanthus from a Kirstenbosch seedling given to her decades ago.

full o' shuga

So it’s 10:46 on a Tuesday night and I’m still up. Perhaps high on the sugar of the colorful chuckles chocolate candy or because I am officially in love. Gasp! Not with just one person, however, multiples of small children in the most heart-fully pure ways.

I have never taught anyone to full-on read before, minus my sister with the occasional late night bedtime story a couple decades ago. It is grueling, it requires tapping into any entirely new level of patience I never knew I held within. And honestly, I haven’t been doing it quite long enough to see the results but it is soooo exciting!

In my most recent blog lapses of slight negativity and frustration, I forgot to update you on my teaching experiences. It is going well at the school. The organization that put me there is M.I.A. but I’m glad because they were more of a hindrance than a help. The faculty and staff at the school totally make up for the shortcomings of the organization that brought us together. Very supportive and very appreciative and their energy and encouragement make all the difference for what I’m doing.

I had started out teaching full English classes to all classes in grades 4 & 5 and found it to be a disciplinary nightmare. After a few weeks of feeling discouraged with my reach in class sizes of 45 and realizing more than half the students were “below average”, I spoke to the principal about taking on smaller groups instead. So now I work with Grades 3 - 5 and teach groups of 8 learners at a time, seven times a day. I‘m dealing mostly with those who are below average and/or who are recent immigrants. I am also working with a couple of groups of accelerated students to provide them with a challenge.

I was amazed to find that some of the students who were quoted “below average” actually can barely read at all, at ages 9 and up. I’d be pressed to say about half of a class of 45 is below average. Incredible. Incredibly difficult and profoundly heart breaking. But what is mending in the whole situation is that I am here for a whole year and have enough time to give a little TLC to these few students and maybe, just maybe, push them up a notch or two on the scale.

So another awesome factor of success at St. Pauls Primary is that my students like me! Part of which contributes to this so-called love affair for I feel we’re building a connection with one another. I’m not entirely swooney, I promise! But they all seem to find their time special, coming to a small group and getting stickers as rewards (have any cool stickers? Send them my way!) and more-than-likely getting the one-on-one attention they’ve been needing for years. I went against school regs and sent a student home with a book because he doesn’t have any at home - you should have seen the high-five he gave me!

It’s patchy for me, how to do all this. No one has taught me how to teach. Especially English. Especially South African English where I’m constantly adapting my accent to better teach the students the language they must learn to know. It’s very different to teaching art, as well. When teaching art you know it is necessary - but unfortunately, even I cannot say it is the milk and bread of education. Without literacy, how can one be prepared to take on the future of adulthood? So teaching art, fleetingly, as a workshop suffices. You might be disheartened that your students don’t know their primary colors, but at the end of the day, so what - all that matters is that they have this very moment to be creative. With reading, it’s ongoing, it’s endless and if someone else doesn’t reinforce it at home it’s close to a loss.

At the very least I am finding ways to pull my creative side into the classroom - singing goofy songs and holding my tongue while talking to demonstrate the importance of vowels. For now, I’m still going by the books a bit, however, try to refine my students’ basic understanding of phonetics before going any further. Teachers out there, if you have any tips, I’m all ears! And in the meantime, I’ve also dipped into another side project to re-organize the library. It’s quite full of Afrikaans books but I have found very few books in English and most of them are way out of date - say 1950s to 70s. Even found an American book talking about “Negro Segregation.” Yikes - so it’s quite a project to tackle (lots of mold), but once I can assess what we have we can begin asking churches and wealthier schools for donations.

Friends, family - please do note this picture of valentine’s cards and notes! I have never displayed my cards before, but my goodness it seemed in order! Thank you for your lovely heart messages and sweet tokens, they have found me well and are filling this already cluttered space with a hint of home for me.
PHOTOS: So to start with there are 2 pictures of views of Cape Town from the school property.
Then 4 images of students and teachers from Monday, a day where school sport was celebrated at a local competition amongst other Primary Schools. St. Paul's came in 2nd - I was just amazed by their running abilities - in bare feet too! Then a couple images of home-life to see as well.

Bumping Along

I began this blog to keep record of my experience with different people and places that I encountered on this journey. However, the ways in which I change and move and shift will alternately continue to influence the way I experience my time here. So, bear with me - a little view of Shannon looking at herself! And typically, it’s a bit of a long side-track - just warning!

I fear as I’ve been settling into my new life in Cape Town my writing has taken a slide. I keep finding myself running into me, over and over and over again, which is not so interesting in written form. When you’re by yourself it’s easy to keep bumping into distracting mirror images and it’s difficult to jump those hurdles as well. Perhaps that’s why it feels so crucial to give myself this time to see who I am without a million reminders of myself - there’s rarely anyone but myself to commend or blame in any situation.

You see this image of the butterfly clinging to its former self? I find it quite poetic and comparable to what I just said, though I’m not going to begin digging into that one! I’ve been watching this pupa grow itself. The chrysalis has been carefully webbed to the outside of my porch window for weeks now and I’ve been careful not to open the window fully, so as not to crush it. I saw the wings start to form but have lost track as I’ve been so busy. Just today the butterfly appeared, fully grown, fully formed, hanging onto it’s old shell.

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The cocoon not being so obvious, nor the winged development, how have I grown or been challenged whilst here?

I have had to grapple with the reality of my ambitions; I have had to work quickly to adapt to teaching environments where planning hasn’t been possible. I have had to think on my feet and go with my gut.

I’ve learned to drink sparkling water, enjoy hot English mustard on my sandwiches, and to stomach a fried egg on toast.

Slow down - I have also learned to relax, slowly but surely. I am only teaching 3 days a week right now, with 4 days off and I am enjoying every one of them. I am busy, but not so busy. I don’t have a shower so I have to take baths at night and even there I have at last learned to shut off my brain and to enjoy the bubbles!

I’ve found that becoming vegetarian and giving up beef eons ago has made my stomach roll at the smell of beef - what a shame in a place where most cows grain-fed on lolling hills.

Big one - I’ve learned to drive a manual car! What a mission, as South Africans so often say! What is it about learning and re-learning that becomes so much more difficult with age? I know in this case it was mostly out of fear - fear of rolling backwards, fear of not being able to pull myself up, fear of not being able to simultaneously manage a clutch and an accelerator, fear of not being able to have control. Could this be a metaphor of self-change? Learning how to shift more easily, with more grace? It has felt anything but graceful, it is a bumpy ride, it is a car lurching and stalling, it is the power of being able to start on a steep hill, it is the empowerment of being able to succeed on my own.

I am finding how hard it is to be more flexible and to let go of what it is I think I want - sometimes we don’t get to choose and it’s more important to go with the flow. This is by far my biggest struggle. But flexibility, that’s a laid back Cape Town mentality for you, so I guess this is the place to learn!

Doris, who comes by to clean Margie’s flat every week, and I have been talking about Xhosa, her mother tongue. She keeps reminding me that to learn it is about embracing the mistakes - and not to be afraid of making the wrong sound or to not enunciate my “clicks” clearly enough! Good lesson for the English schoolteacher. You don’t learn if you’re afraid.

And I am still learning how to take the opportunities that present themselves to me and turn them into something from which I can learn. Presently I’m trying to determine how I can provide art to the students at my school, how to build a program that will last, how to fund it, etc.

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Other notable sensations and lessons being learned in Cape Town:

• The smell of bush fire permeating the air - learning to discern the clear, unadulterated smoke of a bush fire from that of dirty, tar infested house fire.
• An internet signal so sensitive it’s affectedly weakened by the wind.
• Wind so strong, 40+ miles an hour, that I have to pause and hold on to poles for support when walking some days.
• Cape Town at night along the N2 hwy, a bubble of glittery dots, a fantastical looking harbor nest.
• An old blue car being towed backwards by 2 horses, flanking the car on either side outside of Khayelitsha.
• Gecko with 2 tails - perhaps from shedding one when I scooped it from my living room back to the garden (they shed their tails as a defense mechanism)? Bizarre sight to behold!
• The taxi drivers are all on strike - no one really understands why and yet it means children don’t go to school and people cannot go to work…
• The bottled water at a nice restaurant usually costs more than the cheapest glass of wine.

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