Happy Freedom Day! No school because it is a national holiday, their version of 4th of July, minus the fireworks, hot dogs, and campfires. Actually, I’m not sure what they do today, just a lot of closed shops.
This last week has been relatively uneventful. We went volunteering on Monday and Tuesday. It had been a few weeks since we had last volunteered because of Cape Town and Spring Break so they were excited to see us as we were to see them. Within that time a new kid came to the Haven. His name is Sedriano and he has stolen everyone’s heart already. He is a little over a year old and is scared out of his mind. I don’t blame him. When I went to go get him, I could see he had been crying. He wouldn’t do anything all day and eventually fell asleep in Colleens arms. It was so sad. Tuesday was a little better. He walked around and we almost made him smile. That was a breakthrough. I’m not looking forward to leaving these kids. We only have four volunteering days left and I’m not sure they have fully grasped that concept. We tried to tell them on Tuesday that we were going to leave for good soon. The older ones, I think, got it, but I’m not sure about the little ones. These kids haven’t had this much one on one attention from the same adults for this length of time. I hope they handle it ok. I already know there are going to be some of us that are going to have a hard time dealing with that.
Wednesday was Election Day. Not a big surprise which party is going to win it. In South Africa, the voters vote for the party and that party president becomes the president of the country. In the US it is vote for the person not the party; here it’s completely the opposite. Jacob Zuma is the new president and I can honestly say I am scared and curious about the next couple of years for this country. Just a few weeks ago, Zuma was going on trial for corruption charges, he has some rape charges that I’m not sure what has happened to them, and he has made some stupid comments about AIDS (showering will get rid of the disease) in a country that is experiencing the epidemic worse than most other countries (one in five adults have it). Only time will tell what happens.
A crisis that is running through our group, the marine biology kids anyway, is the stupid grading system here. We had a lab write-up about our sandy shore lab. I have written scientific papers like this one before and I know I did really well on it. I got a 50%, which apparently, in this messed up grading, is passing. The highest score was 67 and the lowest was 14. Needless to say we all freaked out. We got no direction about what was needed or wanted in the paper. A grad student graded the papers, which is not a good idea because she had specific ideas about what the hypothesis was supposed to be and if you did not have that there was no way you could have done well on the paper. The professors here are suppose to be grading us using the CSB/SJU grading scale so as not to have any mix ups. Well, someone forgot the memo. I don’t understand who uses a grad student to correct papers for a study abroad group. Some of the lowest scores were done by those majoring in biology who have done a million of these papers before, try to figure that one out because I can’t (if you can’t tell I’m a little mad). We also have a few med-school track students who can’t afford a C on anything and that is were the best student is going. The rest of us are going to fail for sure. We’re trying to talk to our director to try and get this figured out and we better or I’m going to rip my hair out trying to figure out this next one.
This weekend, a four day weekend, has been very productive yet extremely boring. I’ve gotten most/all of my homework for the next week done and have been trying to find little things that need to be done. I walked along the beachfront and bought a few souvenirs and took some pictures. It was a gorgeous day. Since it is now fall, the number of hot sunny days is dwindling. I took the opportunity to go to the beach and jump into the ocean for possibly the last time (sad, I know). I have been watching movies on TV for the rest of the weekend. I think I have filled my film quota for the rest of the year this weekend. Not all of the movies were good I just had nothing else to do. I think I drove my roommates crazy. They have a political science paper due (4000 words, not fun) so they, along with everyone else that stayed in the flats over the weekend, have been working on it all weekend and I have done nothing but watch TV and wander around. Oh well, that’s what they get for taking that class.
Peace.
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