VCE

Good morning from South Africa!

This morning I had training for a VCE, (Volunteer Community Engagement, I think?) program. We, as international students, have been given the opportunity to visit a local primary school once a week to interact with the children and teachers by doing activities with them for an hour. I chose to go to Kayamandi Primary School, where I will be partnering with students from 4-6 years old. Each Friday the other students in my group and I will leave around 8 a.m., spend an hour with the children, have a little time for reflection, then head home by noon. We will do a reflective journal writing, prompted by a topic and due at noon. Depending on the prompt, I plan to make this reflection my actual blog post for Saturdays, so stick around for that.

I am very excited to meet the children and teachers and everyone I will be working with. It will be nice to fill my time learning about a culture different from my own. I expect it to be challenging, not only because these are children, but because we've been told that most cannot speak more than a few words of English. The Kayamandi students' natural tongue is isiXhosa, which is a class I almost took. Thankfully there is Google, so I may try to teach myself a little conversation language before next week.

I can't wait to share my experiences with you all! :)