School, and a Terrible Loss

The two aspects of the title of this post are not related at all. I know some of you are curious about how school is goingfor the kids, and it is going well, but before I post on that I want to share about the loss. Earlier today Pinkie Thlabiwe, who was the coordinator of the Counseling Program in the Dept. of Educational Foundations (where I teach) was killed in a car accident. This is a terrible loss to everyone around her. I had only known her since I arrived here, but she was clearly a wonderful woman who worked very hard and gave a great deal to the department. As the coordinator she had been a great help to me and was very supportive; I had definitely come to think of her as a friend. In addition to being notified by the department chair, I have received phone calls from two students and my teaching assistant already this evening, so it was clear that she was cared about by many people. From the details that these people have shared, it seems that she was in South Africa today, registering for a Ph.D. program (she had received her Masters from Ohio University some years back). Apparently she had taken public transport (which I take to mean some kind of combi or small bus) that was involved in the accident. Pinkie had shared with me several days ago that both her mother and father had passed away in the past few years, and that she was an only child. I have asked about her children and apparently she has three grown or almost grown children, who now have no mother and no family on their mother's side at all. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

This is a scary phenomenon. AIDS and car accidents are the leading causes of death here, and in the month and a half that I have been here, the university has posted death notices for 4 students and two professors, 3 of the students from "illness" and one student and the two professors from car accidents. I am not sure how this compares to death rates at other universities, but it seems incredibly high to me for less than two months time.

Ok - on to school. The tone of this may not be as positive as it should be because of my sadness over Pinkie's death, but school is going very well, better than I had hoped, I think. Eden is very happy. She loves her teacher, Mrs. Van Nikeirk (or something close to that) from South Africa. She seems to have made several friends and fit right in. There is one other American girl, from California, one girl who Eden said was from "Wales, Mozambique, and South Africa" and a girl that just started today who is from Canada and speaks only a bit of English. She doesn't know yet where the other kids are from. She told me that several of her classmates are fasting for Ramadan, which is a whole new experience for her, coming from Catholic school. She takes French in addition to "cultural setswana"; she said the French teacher spoke exclusively in French, which of course Eden had no clue about, but she just seemed to go with the flow. She hasn't really found anything she doesn't enjoy about it yet, other than the potential of being embarrassed by her parents... I am delighted with all the multicultural exposure, and mostly just delighted that she is happy.

Hope is doing well, better than expected. Given that her very first day of school was about a zillion miles from home, and that it was not the first day of school for anyone else (this is the beginning of the third term of the year here; the new school year starts in January) I thought she handled it like a champ. Her teacher is Mrs. Moss, who is British. There are 15 kids in her class, a pair of twins from India I met; I'm not clear on the other nationalities yet. There have been no tears, and she wakes up in a good mood and ready to go back, which is a huge relief. I think Eden's excitement about it helps a great deal, but I also think she is feeling genuinely comfortable there. Last year in preschool it seemed like she never did come out of her shell all year, like she just never really found her stride. So far, it seems like this will not be the case this year. She does ask interesting questions about how to start being someone's friend, so she is trying to figure out how to engage people socially, which I think was the problem last year. But as I said, this seems to be coming along much quicker this year. She stated she did not like P.E. ("the teacher was mean"), but seems fine with the rest of it.

School starts at 7:00 a.m. and dismisses at 1:00 except on Fridays when they dismiss at 12:15. This means we get up at 5:30 to be out the door at 6:30. The kids have adjusted to this much better than Ted or I. Ted stated this morning that he doubted he and I would get adjusted to the time schedule all year. They pack snacks and have two snack breaks during the mornings. In the next couple of weeks the after school activities will start, which are optional extracurricular things. All in all I am just incredibly proud of both of them. What we have asked them to do - leave their home and start the school year in a completely new place within a totally different culture and totally different school structure, and jumping into a new grade level 2/3 of the way through the year - they have just been amazing in their ability and willingness to adapt.

We have pictures of the kids in their uniforms which I will have Ted post later. He is in class right now, and the professor (Dean Kashiwagi, who is another Fulbright) has gone back to the U.S. for a few weeks. Dean and Ted have become friends, and he actually asked Ted to run the class tonight for him, which is a review for the exam next week. I am anxious to hear how it went...

We hope all is well with all of you there. Thanks for reading this - it means a lot to us.