T-Minus One Week

One week to go. Cannot believe that I will be flying out next Friday! My time in South Africa has been incredible and it will be hard to leave, however it will be nice to see my family and friends again.

Family Fun Night with some of my

4th graders

This past week we had Pendla Family Fun Night on Tuesday which involved us spending all day at Pendla and making meals for all 500+ students and their parents. The volunteers from Missionvale and House also helped out which was nice. Then from 4-6 the parents and students came back to Pendla for prizes (raffle), dinner, and to perform a song or dance. Us Pendla volunteers hadn't prepared anything but the teachers wanted us to perform anyways. So we go up there and sang "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz and Claire played her Ukulele. For completely winging it, it turned out pretty well actually.

On Thursday, we had to present our final seminar projects to the class. We all had to write up or make a creative project that encompassed/expressed our experiences here. Since I have been blogging more than I thought I would, this being my 30^th post, I just used my blogs to create the project. I included the ones about orientation at NMMU, the service sites, President Zuma, the Wade's, Cape Town, Drakensberg, scuba diving, and more. It was neat to put them all together and present to the class. Other student’s projects ranged from writing out their experiences, drawings, videos, and pictures. All were very nice ways to recap the semester.

Swinging to class

Today, we all had our final service learning workshop. We turned in our final reflections, journals, and decided what to do with the funds we raised. For Pendla we have decided to buy new cabinets and fix up the schools kitchen which is in a very poor condition. We hope to buy some chalkboard paint as well and set up a website. We will see how far we get.

Finally, we had our Political Science final today. Essay format...answer 2 out of the 4 questions kind of thing. Went well, but happy that it's over. Learned a good amount about politics but I'm not running to change my major, if you get what I'm saying.

Tomorrow our friend Zeno's family is throwing a braai for some of us. I can't wait, it's going to be super fun. Then next week it's the music final and peace studies final and the semester is over. Bada bing bada boom.

Also, congratulations to all of my friends who are graduating college tomorrow! CSB/SJU won't be the same without you!