The KIDS!!!!!!!!!!!!! I love these kids!
In Surf, we only get to see about 20 kids a day and there's a lot of repeat day-to-day so you get to know about 30 4th-7th graders really well. They are supposed to be the kids that have done really well and behaved at school and therefore they get to surf as a reward. That is what is supposed to happen. It doesn't. The program is underdeveloped, incredibly unorganized, and not nearly as efficient, effective, or rewarding (for us and for the kids) as it could be. I've got a ton of ideas about how they could revamp things to make everything work more smoothly and really be a reward for the kids. It'd be easy but I'm almost positive the organization here will have none of it. Anyways...that's not what I wanted to share...
The surf kids just end up being the totally wild, rambunctious older kids that are so energetic after school they are dying for a fun way to blow off steam. We provide that to them. And it is SO important. I didn't quite get why until I'd been here for a couple weeks. School and the programs we offer the kids are the ONLY structure most of the kids get throughout their day and week. They don't have meals at specific times. they don't know when their parents are going to be home. They do not have a bed time. At all. (It's not like kids in the US with parents that aren't strict so they get to go to be a bit later if their favorite show is on). Sometimes they don't sleep at all. A family of 8 may be sharing 2 twin beds and they have to take turns and someone is always up making noise (And let's be honest, can you imagine sharing a twin bed with multiple people everynight?) They can't really hang out with friends all that much because after sunset it is unsafe for them to walk even 10 feet outside their front door.
To give you an idea: One day after surf, we dropped off all the kids back at their homes in the townships (Capricorn and Lavender Hill). It was about 5:30pm. We were going through a really rough area known to be almost exclusively gang-populated. Tim (the founder of the volunteer organization) was afraid to drive any further because even though we are well liked by the community, there is a shooting in that area prettttyyy much everyday and sometimes innocents are caught in the crossfire. The gang leaders are not too worried about it. But we had to drive through it to drop off Roxy (one of my favorites). We got two 'houses'/miniscule shacks away from her home and Tim asked if she was safe to hop out there so we could turn at that corner and hightail it out of there. She shyly told him "No. It's not safe.". We had to do a U-turn and pull the car door directly up to her house door so that she could hop out and get inside as quickly as possible.I don't really understand how there can be such a big discrepancy from day to night. But the townships are fairly safe during daylight. But once it starts to get dark, it's lock up your doors. Rape, and robbery, and even murder are daily occurrences. And assaults on children are common. Awful! I know.
So anyways there is no activity or structure in their home-life so these kids are starved for structure and routine and activity when they are with us. They don't enjoy the weekends or their holiday breaks. If you ask them, they are SO EXCITED to be back in school. Surf is great in that we are just there to play with the kids basically and be as good of role models in our short time with them as possible. They are happy to be there and it is all purely voluntary.
However, I was wishing I could spend more time with the kids and make better use of my time in general. I was excited when I got assigned to the Surf Group that got to go to school 2 days a week instead of 1 (and had to wash wetsuits less often...its not great).
For my first trip to school I went to Christian David Primary. It is the more run-down of the 2 schools we work with. And run-down is putting it nicely because it really wasn't ever fixed up to begin with. There are about 8 classrooms (grades 1-7), an office, and a tutoring center (our home base). There are bathrooms in the back that are just huts with toilets in stalls without doors and a sink that is really more like a outdoor faucet most of us connect our hoses to in the US. There is no soap, there is no electricity, there is not toilet paper. Yep. Gross. And Wow.
Most of the classrooms also have no electricity. The tutoring center and office do have a couple working outlets and one light each. The floors are wooden with large holes where you can see the dirt below. The school is completely gated up because it's right in the middle of the township. The classrooms have some books and paper and some art materials and some of the educational posters that usually cover the walls of any elementary school classroom that we are used to seeing. But they are extremely outdated (the one about the internet named some random like "starlight search" engine (pre-google)), not always appropriate for the age group, and contained a lot of typos. The teachers are a complete mixed bag. The principal is awesome! Super dedicated and knows what's up. Some of the teachers are really sweet, care A LOT about the kids, and are happy to have our help and support. Some are HORRIBLE! They yell and scream and send any kid who is being 'naughty' out of the class. Not to the principal's office or another class or anything. Just outside to wander around the little dirt patch of a yard and pop into other classes looking for something to do. They get kicked out for the whole day too. What good does that do?!? And they are just the talkative ones. Not evil. One teacher literally kicks out the most challenging third of her class EVERYDAY. So these kids basically are not going to school. Oh! Best of all, she hits them! Like really hits them! And encourages them to hit each other ("or they'll never learn to fight back"). It makes our job a lot easier :)
Despite these bare basic surroundings, I LOVED my day at school!!!!!! It was so awesome to get to hang out with the kids for the whole day. We run their PE program. One class at a time. We played Simon Says, Dodgeball, and Red-Rover. So fun! We also run the tutoring center where we take any kids that are behind in school and give them personalized attention throughout the day. This was my favorite part for sure! I kind of expected it would be, but I was very surprised at the type of help I was giving. A lot of hugs for one thing. Like every time a new kid sees you they want a hug.
One little girl (in 4th grade) in our first period asked if we could read a story. She picked out a book that said 5+ on it. I opened it up and wasn't sure if she was going to read or expected me to. She didn't say a word. So I began the story. It was about monkeys doing different actions (sitting, swinging on a tree, jumping, etc.). A few pages in, I began to trace the words with my finger and asking her to act out the actions. She had no idea where on the page I was reading from. She got very excited when she saw the word "and" and I pointed to it for a second and she said it! She had a huge smile on her face and was so proud that she knew a word. I started to pick out the propositions and really basic words. She had some trouble, but gave it a shot. She proudly yelled "and", "the", and "it" by the time the period was finished. I was excited for her and sent her back to class. Later in the day, she came back with a friend and got the book out and pointed these 3 words out and read them aloud. She was showing off and her friend was excited and impressed and wanted to learn them too.
I was stunned. Like totally shocked. I knew they'd be behind the equivalent American grade levels but I was not prepared for how far behind. They couldn't read! Our 10 and 11 year olds could not read. Basically at all. It's crazy. Some didn't even know how to say all the letters of the alphabet. And I'm not talking about the little little ones. We did some math and that was tricky. They knew the numbers a bit better. But still had trouble with simple arithmetic. Like 3+1, 8+0, 7-1. They just counted (rehearsed from memory) and then worked from there. And getting them to want to stick with anything for longer than about 3 minutes was a feat worthy of a Nobel Prize (There, I earned one! Sort of..)
We had one laptop computer at the school. One computer. In a school in today's world. That's nuts. Software on it is pretty limited but there is some typing program and a few games, educational and otherwise. They couldn't sit still for the 'educational games' for sh**. So we played solitaire and turned it into a math game. Three were at the computer with me figuring out what you could play on a 9. So we did a lot of 9-1 and 9+1. I could see them starting to figure out the answers a little more quickly once we added the motivation of a game. Never thought about Solitaire as a math game before this, but it worked! But the game was more than math because you should have seen these little fingers trying to work that mouse. I've never seen anyone so unfamiliar with the drag, point, and click. It was so unnatural. The concept just didn't come easily that you were moving the mouse to move things around on the screen. Getting them to do File>>Open was like a 6 minute task.
I want to tell so much more....not sure I even got any of the best stories out but gotta go. Too much time at the internet cafe is unforgivable here.
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