Wednesday, August 5, 2009
August 3, 2009
Yesterday my interview at Kiddies never happened. The principal didn’t show up because she was doing some kind of teacher training. She has teacher training for the rest of the week… At the beginning of my internship, showing up to find that the principal had forgotten about the interview was frustrating, now it happens so regularly that it doesn’t faze me… Today I went to Sackhingomso, the very first crèche I ever visited, and the one where I am most familiar with the children and staff. It was actually really stressful. Now that I have gone to most of the crèches I have something to compare Sackhingomso with. The same three little boys that fought over seats at specific place at the lunch table my first day visiting, were still at there old habits today. I could see even clearer the habits of the children after visiting so many times. The children were extremely difficult today. I underestimated the severity of the rock incident with the boy who wanted my water bottle. The same boy who was throwing rocks at me over the water bottle that I wouldn’t share with him tried to attack me again today. I was sitting in the chair just observing the kids and he came up to me and tried to rip my sweater off. Then when I told him to stop, he proceeded by biting my leg really intensely with his teeth. That’s when I got loud and grabbed him and asked him what he was doing. He obviously did not understand me but Constance, the teacher, knew exactly what was going on because he is one of the regular troublemakers. The later on a girl with down syndrome bit me in the leg again. I can still feel the bite marks in my legs as I am writing this. She is really crazy sometimes. Every time someone walks in the door she runs up to them screaming and she is often really aggressive with everyone else. Sometimes she will ask me to feed her and then she will throw her lunch on me. Everything I touch or do at the crèche, she must mimic, and if it is not the way she likes it, she flips out. The kids were just overall really violent today. There were other instances where kids were literally fist fighting over toys… It was a crazy afternoon.
Monday, August 3, 2009
August 3, 2009
It is about time for another quarter report on my progress. I am doing a much better job at recording my interviews. However, it is still a struggle. I have gotten smarter and am now doing most of my work on my laptop because it is more reliable than our work computers. Most of my coworkers have finished their internships and returned home. It is kind of lonely in the office. This is probably why I am getting more work done because I have no one to talk to. My mentor, Isabel is still gone. She returns this week so my goal is to get everything recorded before she gets back I have been working more closely with director’s wife, Jane Keen. I like her a lot. She does a really great job at checking in on everyone and figuring out where she can assist. We had a lot of confusion last week because the oversight over the intern’s projects has been lacking. Another girl is doing similar research and our interviews were overlapping. This was really frustrating because we were asking the same questions and the principal has a lot of work to do and I felt as if I was wasting both of our time. Jane straightened everything out so now everything is on track. My last interview is today with a crèche called Kiddies.
This past weekend my roommates and I went to Kruger National Park to try our luck at seeing the Big 5. The Big 5 are historically the most dangerous animals to hunt; they include the elephant, the rhino, the lion, the leopard, and African buffalo. We flew to Johannesburg early Friday morning and then drove almost 8 hours to get to our rest camp on the park known as Olifants, which is in the northern section of the camp. We needed to get to the park by 5:30 because the gates close to the park so we were running very close on time. When we got to the airport there were no automatics available so this delayed us for an hour and a half. Then we drove into a pothole and had to stop somewhere for someone to put on the spare. We got there well before 5:30 but then as soon as we got onto the park, Liese got a speeding ticket. It was her first ticket. She had to pay a $60 dollar ticket. She was not happy. The night we arrived we went on a night drive and the next day on a morning drive. The morning drive started at 4:30am; Sarah and I were knocked out underneath the blankets they had provided. We would only wake up when we stopped to see some wildlife. We had to checkout at 9am so then we went on our own little safari in our rental vehicle and drove the southern part of the camp. We saw elephants, giraffe, impala, hyenas, vevet monkeys, spring hare, waterbuck, zebra, crocodile, hippos, a jackal, wildebeest, warthogs, and some exotic birds. We once were almost 5 feet away from an elephant. We sat and took some pictures briefly. We later read in our guide book that we should have kept driving because elephants have tendency to stump vehicles. We ended up on seeing 3 of the Big 5. We saw no cats.
The second night we stayed in a hostel in this small town right outside the southern side of the park called Hazyview. That night I slept with all my valuables in my sleeping bag: my Garmin, cell phone, and wallet. I am going to be so ready to hostel my way through Europe by the time I get there. I am getting a lot of practice with Liese and Sarah. On Sunday we drove back to Johannesburg. Before doing so we had to switch out the rental so we were not driving on a spare anymore. This was drama filled, as our insurance did not cover the tire and they charged us a fee to fix it. When this was all over we got on the road to Johannesburg. We visited Soweto, the most developed township in South Africa. It is home to many of the apartheid activists. It is very different than the township I work in. I did not see any farm animals just roaming the street and there were no shacks in the area we were in. We were pretty brave because we decided not to take an organized tour and drove the rental into the township. We visited the Mandela home. One of the interesting facts I learned while was that US intelligence contributed to arrest and capture of Nelson Mandela. This was a pretty quick tour because the home was really small. After this we went to another museum in Soweto where we learned mainly about the student Soweto Uprising in 1976.
Later we met up with friend in Johannesburg who was letting us crash on his floor. His name is Nick; Jessica introduced us in Cape Town. He graduated from Duke and is currently doing a Fulbright. He has done some amazing things after undergrad. He decided to spend a year in Haiti where he was working with medicine and now he is doing some research for a year in Johannesburg. He plans to go to medical school after his travels. We went out to a nice dinner and hung out afterwards on one of the really busy streets close to his house.
This past weekend my roommates and I went to Kruger National Park to try our luck at seeing the Big 5. The Big 5 are historically the most dangerous animals to hunt; they include the elephant, the rhino, the lion, the leopard, and African buffalo. We flew to Johannesburg early Friday morning and then drove almost 8 hours to get to our rest camp on the park known as Olifants, which is in the northern section of the camp. We needed to get to the park by 5:30 because the gates close to the park so we were running very close on time. When we got to the airport there were no automatics available so this delayed us for an hour and a half. Then we drove into a pothole and had to stop somewhere for someone to put on the spare. We got there well before 5:30 but then as soon as we got onto the park, Liese got a speeding ticket. It was her first ticket. She had to pay a $60 dollar ticket. She was not happy. The night we arrived we went on a night drive and the next day on a morning drive. The morning drive started at 4:30am; Sarah and I were knocked out underneath the blankets they had provided. We would only wake up when we stopped to see some wildlife. We had to checkout at 9am so then we went on our own little safari in our rental vehicle and drove the southern part of the camp. We saw elephants, giraffe, impala, hyenas, vevet monkeys, spring hare, waterbuck, zebra, crocodile, hippos, a jackal, wildebeest, warthogs, and some exotic birds. We once were almost 5 feet away from an elephant. We sat and took some pictures briefly. We later read in our guide book that we should have kept driving because elephants have tendency to stump vehicles. We ended up on seeing 3 of the Big 5. We saw no cats.
The second night we stayed in a hostel in this small town right outside the southern side of the park called Hazyview. That night I slept with all my valuables in my sleeping bag: my Garmin, cell phone, and wallet. I am going to be so ready to hostel my way through Europe by the time I get there. I am getting a lot of practice with Liese and Sarah. On Sunday we drove back to Johannesburg. Before doing so we had to switch out the rental so we were not driving on a spare anymore. This was drama filled, as our insurance did not cover the tire and they charged us a fee to fix it. When this was all over we got on the road to Johannesburg. We visited Soweto, the most developed township in South Africa. It is home to many of the apartheid activists. It is very different than the township I work in. I did not see any farm animals just roaming the street and there were no shacks in the area we were in. We were pretty brave because we decided not to take an organized tour and drove the rental into the township. We visited the Mandela home. One of the interesting facts I learned while was that US intelligence contributed to arrest and capture of Nelson Mandela. This was a pretty quick tour because the home was really small. After this we went to another museum in Soweto where we learned mainly about the student Soweto Uprising in 1976.
Later we met up with friend in Johannesburg who was letting us crash on his floor. His name is Nick; Jessica introduced us in Cape Town. He graduated from Duke and is currently doing a Fulbright. He has done some amazing things after undergrad. He decided to spend a year in Haiti where he was working with medicine and now he is doing some research for a year in Johannesburg. He plans to go to medical school after his travels. We went out to a nice dinner and hung out afterwards on one of the really busy streets close to his house.
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