Michael and I have spent the last few days helping the Sparrow Village kids with their final exams... I cannot believe that this coming Monday is their last school day! We have been by their side for the past 4 months combating Math, Science, Technology, Life Orientation and sometimes even Afrikaans.... It is quite sad to see the kids neglecting Afrikaans in their studies - they have simply reverted to memorizing the poems or materials in their books. I have found that majority dont even understand the stories they are required to know... And the greatest difficulty is that they are required to pass Afrikaans in order to excel to the next grade.
In South Africa the children only need to score above 33% in any exam to pass. They only need above 33% overall to pass the class... But in any subject this seems to be a challenging task for the kids. I found out this week that in Sparrow Village's 18 years of history not one single child has graduated from high school. Not one. This fact alone is heartbreaking! When we see and help the little kids you can tell they have such a great passion and desire to learn and read and write... But somewhere along the line those feelings disappear... lost in a void forever. Michael and I have done our best to encourage the kids and make them proud of their academic achievements. I can only hope that those small leaping smiles endure through the years and see them through to graduation... Our supervisor has great hopes of advancing the academic standards at Sparrow Village but seems quite discouraged at the thought of carrying the burden and fighting the resistance to change. Sometimes it takes one leader... and sometimes it only takes one passionate student. I have high hopes for Sparrow and its little ones. I am hopeful that 2011 will be a time of prosperity, growth, and happiness....
I am quite excited for the next few weeks to come. My Mom will be in South Africa visiting for a week and Michael and I have the pleasure of entertaining her for the weekend. It will be nice to see a familiar face! :) We also have lots of tourist activities planned for our last two weeks which include elephant interactions, beer tasting, a trip to the Apartheid Museum and Gold Reef City... This past weekend we went to Lesedi Cultural Village where we experienced the cultures of the Xhosa, Pedi, Ndebele, Zulu and Sotho. The village tours were followed by cultural celebration and dance around a fire pit and a delicious buffet meal in which we ate lamb, oxtail, ostrich, and crocodile... We had a great time and enjoyed being out of the house for an afternoon. (p.s. we ate dried caterpillars at Lesedi - Mike's idea! Tasted like saw dust and chewing wasnt a problem, swallowing proved very challenging for our reflexes... haha)
I will be sure to post some more blogs in the next few weeks highlighting our adventures.... With every day and every trip we are that much closer to finally come home after all this time!!! We cannot wait!
