Internship has begun!

So much is happening at once its really hard to put everything into (organized, coherent) words and sentences. I'm experiencing emotions I didn't know I had and pushing my patience to new levels every day. Today was the first day of my internship in the local Opuwan secondary school. On Saturday doing our guided tour we were informed that one of the high schools was really serious about their studies and the other one not so much. Luckily I'm in the one that is supposedly "the better one" however it's still early days and ultimately who am I to judge. School starts bright and early here and at 7 we were thrust in front of the outdoor assembly to introduce ourselves, much to the excitement of the kids. I had requested a grade 9 class as my younger brother is in grade 9 and I thought it would be both interesting and easier to pick up on any similarities and/or differences within  the classroom. What I had not expected however was that the ages of my grade niners would vary from 13 to 21. First (of many) internship culture shock! As the day progressed I rotated with the kids through two Otji-Herero lessons, accounting, entrepreneurship, mathematics, a science exam and what would have been an English lesson. I say what would have been as when we arrived at the English block the teacher shooed us away as she was "too busy to teach". As the kids knew exactly what to do I assumed this was a pretty regular occurrence (upon reuniting with my colleagues they had indeed also each had a few "free" periods). The main difference for me was the subject choices the children had with subjects such as home economics, accounting and development studies I feel there is a lot of emphasis on the building of life skills. In terms of level of education I felt the science exam was pretty advanced for their grade but unfortunately I cannot comment on the level of the Otji-Herero. However during mathematics the level variance between the kids became quite apparent with some whizzing through pitagoras theorem and others getting stuck at squaring 5. My highlight of the day was definitely being called a genius for knowing what 12 squared was off the top of my head. Thank you grade 7 maths teacher for aiding my slow journey towards mensa.

We're done for the day but the kids still have a study hour from 3-4 and two more for those who live at the school. A lot of kids come from neighbouring villages and live "on campus" so to speak. The living conditions didn't seem too great and one of the girls mentioned that they are fed at 6PM and not anymore meaning by the time they finish their 8-9 study session they go straight to bed as you can't study on an empty stomach. That comment made me a little sad but for the rest the kids seemed in good spirits, smart, motivated and fun. I'm very intrigued to see how the rest of the internship carries out. More tomorrow, brain fried for today!

Over and out, Tiger Laylay xo