school and surf

the time in the school has been great. im actually just physically exhausted tho after work. i have surfed 3 times in the past 2 days and climbed lions head again and been doing surfing and swim lessons and working in the computer lab. im drained. i bought a new wetsuit 2 nights ago because as i have said before, the water here chills the bones and the one's at salty's are peppered with holes and the almost freezing water and me aren't friendly together. i got a really nice one from reef but after wearing it in the water im afraid it is too big in the calfs because the water kinda rushes in and its a bit loose. anyway it still made the time sooo much better. the waves were great yesterday and decent today. im getting back into the swing of things. salty's is so nice to come back to after a day of surf and chill out, but yesterday instead of watching a movie and falling asleep, which i would have been fine with cuz i was exhausted, we decided to drive into cape town and a full moon hike of lions head. it was so beautiful and nice but im so exhausted still. the new guy, thomas, sophie and i went for a morning surf this morning and it was a bit small but we were just about the only ones out there so we had all the waves to ourself to mess around on. it was so nice. then we went to placement and worked with the 5th graders in the computer lab with math again and then took some of them swimming. im too exhausted to write much more but i will upload pictures of the school and my other happenings soon. 

first day in the schools

today was our first day at the vaaloek school. we worked with kids, ages 10 to 11, on math using the computers which is very hard for many a reasons. 1 there is a huge difference in learning and comprehension between the kids that all come from the same class so the simple addition that mara was doing years ago ie 6+2=? was like translating greek for me - not even the symbols make sense- while for others they were done with their math games in 5 minutes when it was supposed to take 30. 2 the kids dont know how to use a computer or a keyboard for the most part. a girl today accidentally hit down the shift key while typing a 2 and made an @ sign and freaked out thinking she had done something wrong. they don't know that clicking on a red x will get rid of a window or that you can do other things with the computer all they know is that if they hit numbers and then enter it will be red and wrong or green and right. it just seems like there should be a program for learning about computers. i was astounded at uneven levels of understanding was between the kids.

anyway in the afternoon we took some of the kids for their surfing lesson and i was so surprised with the skill level of the kids in the surfing program. like some of them were really good and damn fearless. the water in cape town is truthfully just crazy cold. bone chill cold. i think its terrible in the hole-filled wetsuit that i borrow from the program. the kids however use never donated wetsuits sans holes and want to stay in the water forever and they will. i hope i can record some of them surfing they have really come a long way because most of them were apparently just learning how to swim 6 months ago. so impressive. 

also its my mama's birthday and it makes me kinda homesick but ive got good company to keep my mind off it. too bad the bodyboarders are gone; they were good at that. the church group of 20 gossiping children keen on playing with the dogs and not much else that now takes the bodyboarders' just give off a different vibe :)