Dear Mr Mason,
I hope that you have had a lovely Easter!
I have been living in Zithulele for over two months now and am having a really fascinating time.
Zithulele village is centred around Zithulele Hospital and is very remote with the nearest town (Mtatha) over an hour away. The Oliver Tambo District, in which the hospital lies, is one of the poorest rural areas in South Africa and unemployment is at 38%. As a result, the village is also home to a number of charitable organisations ranging from Axium, a charity providing after school lessons to local students with potential, to Grace Vision, an NGO screening and treating a variety of eye conditions. This leads to a very interesting dynamic between the local and NGO communities as the notion of integration is constantly considered and striven for.
I am spending most of my mornings working alongside local teachers in the village preschool. I often lead the morning circle before working with smaller groups of children on different activities such as introductions to numeracy. A Montessori curriculum is being gradually introduced into the school and most of the teachers have just completed their qualification for this. I have also been spending time in the Independent School, initially established as a retention strategy for long term hospital and NGO staff. At the school, I have been teaching English, maths and music to students aged from 5 to 8.
My afternoons are divided between giving piano lessons and the library, where children attend every afternoon to participate in a range of craft activities. Recently, we have been cataloguing the library books using the Dewey decimal system in order to prepare local students for this system at university.
My timetable is very varied so whilst my project is based around music and English in early education, I have also had the opportunity to work with some of the teachers on English language and IT skills as well as visit local homes to talk to mothers about how to educate their children. In addition, I have spent time reading with children on the paediatric ward at Zithulele hospital and have helped organise a spelling competition for local schools!
I live in a house with four other Project Trust volunteers. The house is owned by Jabulani Rural Health Foundation, the charity I work for, but is rented from the Church due to its placement on Mission land. We can walk to Lubanzi beach and have already spent weekends at Coffee Bay, Hole in the Wall and Mtatha!
In the next few months, I am hoping to improve my Xhosa in order to communicate more effectively with my students and to play a more active role in planning and giving lessons in the Preschool and library.
Thank you so much for your ongoing support of my project. I look forward to updating you further with news of my time here!
Best wishes,
Annabel
