03 Feb 2006
03 February 2006
Dumela,
Well, the month of January has come and gone with the blink of an eye. Nothing of great importance or excitement happened. School started for us. And the first few ensuing weeks gave gone from chaos to more chaos. Some of the schools have settled down but don’t run at an efficiency that I would consider acceptable.
Last Friday, our host school held an Inter-school track (what I mean by track is the dirt soccer field) meet. (I was told that the school competes in track and field. They have various running events and no field events!?) The day started off overcast and kind of rainy. The day ended prematurely due to excessive wind and rain. The day began by walking over to the field by taking whatever path that the students liked. Once arrived, and after a few directions, the 80 m race began. Separation of the runners is not done by grade but by age (1993, 1994, & 1995), this is due to the fact that there are 15 year olds in grade 3 and 12 year olds in grade 6. After the 80 m race, it was the 100 m race. I am pretty confident to say that the 100 m was double the length than the 80 m, but who is counting really. Either way the kids were enjoying themselves. After the 100 was the 150. This event probably added another 10 m at most, but again who’s counting. With the start of the 150 came cold rain. And since half the kids didn’t bring a coat, the event had to be cut short so less of the students got sick. Tomorrow, 04 February is the area track meet. 25 students from the host school will compete against other schools (I guess, don’t really know what will happen.) in different track events. I think there is a good chance that a few of them will be victorious, too. The thing that still amazes me is the running full speed over rocky dirt and fields with thorns and broken glass in their bare feet. Some have shoes but a majority doesn’t. If you are running 800 m and you step on a thorn, you stop for a second, pull out the thorn, and sprint off to catch the others that didn’t stop.
The races
After the track meet we took a little weekend trip to see our friends and watch two of them, Andy and Mark, compete in a 30 k race (Mark and Andy finished the race with smiling faces!) in Kimberly. Kimberly is a big city (think Madison WI not New York City when thinking of the term big city). It has several malls, a movie theater, and stores that are open on Sunday (this is a HUGE novelty, normally nothing except the grocery store for a couple hours is open. When I say nothing, I mean ghost town nothing.) Kimberly was built because of diamonds. They used to mine diamonds in one location, which hasn’t operated since 1914, and is now called affectionately ‘The Big Hole.’ As one can see from the pictures, the name is right on. There were a lot of diamonds dug up here. It wasn’t too exciting of a weekend. Just hung out with some friends and did things like we were used to back in the States. Did make a purchase of Monopoly South African Style with all new properties and using the Rand instead of the good ol’ dollar.
The Big Hole
The Big Hole
Facts about the Big Hole
Quantity of total diamonds removed from Big Hole in Total
The little host brother is getting big. He has learned to sit up, but has not learned what he can eat and what he cannot. Anything that he can grab goes straight to his mouth. He is a good little eater though.
Big boy
Go Siame,
Thabo
Dumela,
Well, the month of January has come and gone with the blink of an eye. Nothing of great importance or excitement happened. School started for us. And the first few ensuing weeks gave gone from chaos to more chaos. Some of the schools have settled down but don’t run at an efficiency that I would consider acceptable.
Last Friday, our host school held an Inter-school track (what I mean by track is the dirt soccer field) meet. (I was told that the school competes in track and field. They have various running events and no field events!?) The day started off overcast and kind of rainy. The day ended prematurely due to excessive wind and rain. The day began by walking over to the field by taking whatever path that the students liked. Once arrived, and after a few directions, the 80 m race began. Separation of the runners is not done by grade but by age (1993, 1994, & 1995), this is due to the fact that there are 15 year olds in grade 3 and 12 year olds in grade 6. After the 80 m race, it was the 100 m race. I am pretty confident to say that the 100 m was double the length than the 80 m, but who is counting really. Either way the kids were enjoying themselves. After the 100 was the 150. This event probably added another 10 m at most, but again who’s counting. With the start of the 150 came cold rain. And since half the kids didn’t bring a coat, the event had to be cut short so less of the students got sick. Tomorrow, 04 February is the area track meet. 25 students from the host school will compete against other schools (I guess, don’t really know what will happen.) in different track events. I think there is a good chance that a few of them will be victorious, too. The thing that still amazes me is the running full speed over rocky dirt and fields with thorns and broken glass in their bare feet. Some have shoes but a majority doesn’t. If you are running 800 m and you step on a thorn, you stop for a second, pull out the thorn, and sprint off to catch the others that didn’t stop.
The races
After the track meet we took a little weekend trip to see our friends and watch two of them, Andy and Mark, compete in a 30 k race (Mark and Andy finished the race with smiling faces!) in Kimberly. Kimberly is a big city (think Madison WI not New York City when thinking of the term big city). It has several malls, a movie theater, and stores that are open on Sunday (this is a HUGE novelty, normally nothing except the grocery store for a couple hours is open. When I say nothing, I mean ghost town nothing.) Kimberly was built because of diamonds. They used to mine diamonds in one location, which hasn’t operated since 1914, and is now called affectionately ‘The Big Hole.’ As one can see from the pictures, the name is right on. There were a lot of diamonds dug up here. It wasn’t too exciting of a weekend. Just hung out with some friends and did things like we were used to back in the States. Did make a purchase of Monopoly South African Style with all new properties and using the Rand instead of the good ol’ dollar.
The Big Hole
The Big Hole
Facts about the Big Hole
Quantity of total diamonds removed from Big Hole in Total
The little host brother is getting big. He has learned to sit up, but has not learned what he can eat and what he cannot. Anything that he can grab goes straight to his mouth. He is a good little eater though.
Big boy
Go Siame,
Thabo
posted by aliberatinsa at 11:25 PM
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