Cousin’s Club in Swaziland

Two of my cousins, Beth and Margel, took a ‘Spring Break’ trip to the continent in March. Beth and I grew up together through celebrating holidays and family vacations, but I hadn’t seen Margel for at least 10 years, so it was a ‘Cousin’s Club reunion’ of sorts. It was an awesome opportunity to reconnect and to spend time together. Beth and Margel arrived in South Africa on Friday 10 March and spent 4 nights in Cape Town enjoying all that the city had to offer. Then, on Tuesday 14 March they flew to Swaziland to hang out with Doug and me.

We tried to jump right in with our adventures in Swaziland on Wednesday, but the weather didn’t cooperate and instead of going to Malalotja Game Reserve to do the canopy zip line tour, we went souvenir shopping, instead. We went to Swazi Candles for lunch.

I’ve been subbing for spin instructors on vacation at my local gym, so on Wednesday evening Beth and Margel joined my spin class. Here’s a picture of the spin studio; just in case you’ve wondered what a spin studio looks like in Swaziland. Yup. The same.

On Thursday, the sunshine returned and we went to Malalotja. As with every blog entry about Malalotja, I have to say how much I love it. It’s one of my favorite places in Swaziland and the day that we had didn’t disappoint.

We got into our gear

And drove to the start of the canopy tour; passing the beautiful views along the way

Margel and Beth also saw their first zebras and blesbok

Our guides

Nice helmets

Margel zipping

Beth zipping

Ridiculous spider

Views from the zip line

Bridge

All done

This chameleon cracked me up. It was clear he was trying to hide from us, but his hiding spot was a little too small

After the canopy tour we hurried back to town to meet Keri and Lauren at the Pick-n-Pay to do a big grocery shop prior to our trip to the beach. It wasn’t really a blog worthy event, but I thought some might be interested in what the grocery store looks like (so I included the picture). Yup. The same.

On Thursday night we took the cousins to our favorite restaurant, Mantenga Lodge. Of course we had the traditional dish, iyasha inyama and thoroughly enjoyed an evening on the patio

On Friday morning we went to Ngwenya Glass Factory to squeeze in a little souvenir shopping before joining forces with Keri and Eric and their visitors (Pete/Dawn and Dave/Lauren) and heading to the beach in Sodwana Bay, South Africa.

Margel’s shorts were a tad too short for Swaziland, so she wrapped herself in the traditional Swazi wrap featuring the King

Then, it was off to the beach

We stayed at Mseni Lodge (where we’ve stayed twice before) and got settled into our respective houses before having dinner at the Lodge. Our 5-person bungalow

Mini-kitchen

Doug and Paisley

Margel and Beth

On Saturday morning, Doug and I went scuba diving and everyone else went to the beach. The beach at Sodwana Bay is one of the most beautiful beaches, ever. Completely isolated and you can go the whole day without seeing another person

In the heat of the day we escaped from the sun and went to the local craft market

Then, in the late afternoon, as the sun was setting we returned to the beach. Cousin’s club

Surfer Doug (note the moon setting)

On Saturday night we had a braai and roasted marshmallows (over the braai) to make s’mores

On Sunday, after a few more hours of beach time, we had pizza on the roadside before returning to Swaziland. This is the second time we’ve stopped at this particular pizzeria. The owner is from Italy and built a wood fire oven literally on the side of the road and makes awesome thin crust pizza

On Monday morning, Margel and Beth, embarked on their Kruger National Park adventure with Bongani

To see all of the animals, check out Beth’s Facebook album. They saw the big five on the first day! https://www.facebook.com/stampingonthelakefront

On Friday, on Beth’s last day with us, we went to House on Fire for lunch and finished up souvenir shopping.

House on Fire

Baobab Batik

On Saturday morning, Beth headed to the airport to fly home and Doug and I took Margel to Mozambique for the weekend to see our friends, Dan and Teena. Without Beth to motivate our picture taking, we didn't take any pictures in Maputo! Sad. Okay, or for the rest of the week. Sigh. Margel and I climbed Sibebe on Monday and went mountain biking in Mlilwane. Then, on Tuesday, I left for a 3-day work trip and Margel volunteered with Teen Club at the Baylor Clinic. So, she wrapped-up her time in the Swaz with Doug before flying home on Thursday.

A good time was had by all and I'm looking forward to a reunion with the full cousin's club over the 4th of July in Midland, Michigan. That's not a typo: Midland, Michigan. Look out.

Vusumnotfo: Ongoing Training, Monitoring & Evaluation

As a supplement to the training that I’ve been doing with rural pre-school teachers, I have been visiting them in their classrooms every other week to observe and to support them in implementing the ideas taught during training. As previously mentioned, the main ideas taught revolve around assisting the teachers in understanding what a 3-5 year old child should be able to know/do based on child development, how to plan and how to teach said concepts, and finally how to assess whether the child has mastered said concepts. It all goes back to ‘vision, assessment and planning.’

Due to the fact that rural, community pres-schools in Swaziland operate in a ‘resource limited setting’ in every sense of the definition, I have had to be particularly scrupulous when sharing ideas for activities or strategies for instruction as to not recommend things that require ‘materials.’ In the instance that I do use materials, I am sure to make them ‘reusable’ so that the teachers get a lot of use from them.

I have really enjoyed working with the community pre-school teachers and have gained some credibility with them because I magically appear in their classrooms (in the middle of NOWHERE Swaziland) every other week. The pictures below are just a compilation from my most recent trips.

Nkosingiphile ‘labeling’ the parts of the body on a pupil volunteer

Constance, showing off her ‘phonics’ hangar

Planning tool in use! Hooray!

Since writing is a challenge for some of the teachers, I developed a tool that they can use for planning that requires them to move tiles around, as opposed to writing. The color coding represents ‘standards’ (like Identity of Self, Sharing, Counting, Classification, etc.), special events (like a field trip, sport’s day, graduation, etc.) or non-teaching time (like school holidays, professional development workshops, etc.). The goal of the calendar is to ensure that at least one ‘standard’ is taught every day and that the order in which they are taught is given some consideration.

And since it is pre-school and children learn through play, it is always nice to capture the fun stuff, as well

Outdoor games

Smiles

These boys have made a racetrack out of blocks and are using the smaller blocks, turned on their side, as cars. Boys will be boys; even without a car or track in sight, they have figured out a way to play

This is a tippy-tap; because many of the schools don’t have running water, this is a ‘faucet’ that can be operated by stepping on the wooden pedal and causing the 5L jug to ‘tip.’ There’s a hole in the top of the jug, next to the cap, so the water only flows when the jug is brought to a ‘pouring’ position with the foot pedal. Genius. Genius, I tell you.

Some of the classrooms that I visit have 10 pupils from the community; while others have 40. I’m not kidding. Here’s a group that can barely fit if they sit down; therefore, during ‘lessons’ they have to remain standing

In contrast, this class only has 8 pupils; therefore, they have all of the space in the world and using magazines is no problem (because they can share a couple of magazines between them, as opposed to needing at least 12-15 magazines for the class with 40 pupils. I’m including these pictures because anyone who has visited us has been asked (by me) to bring over ‘US Weekly’ and ‘People’ magazines. Most people make fun of me because that’s what I miss…pop culture. Oh well. But, I just want you all to note how helpful these recycled magazines are in assisting children in identifying the parts of the body.

Thank you Mr. Smith and Mr. Depp

Thank you for providing endless hours of entertainment for a 4 year old working on the fine motor skill of cutting

The teachers are just as resourceful as the pupils…no babysitter? No problem.

Last, but not least. You gotta love the 2 year old who is too young for pre-school but who comes and sits in the doorway, anyways

I have two more ‘monitoring’ trips and one more ‘training’ trip before our departure in early June. I am hopeful that some of the things that the teachers have learned from me will ‘stick’ and that they will carry-on in my absence. That quotation, ‘everything I needed to know I learned in Kindergarten’ is kind of true…