Just now

When I first arrived in South Africa, my cab driver (an African himself) warned me never to make plans with an African. "We have no sense of time", he said. In South Africa, "just now" means sometime in the future, with a very unspecified time frame.For example, I've been heading to the internet cafe "just now" since my last post. So, if you are actually anxious to hear from me, I'm very sorry. You'll have to learn to live with African time as I do.

Wow! I has been quite a week. Last Sunday was really my first day of my summer program. We began the day with a walk along the coast at the lovely Soetwater Environmental Center, where we had a very brief orientation to South Africa and introduction to the program. Afterwards we met our host mom, Jacqui, and were taken to Gumstone, our  home for the next two months. Staying at Gumstone is such a treat, not only because Jacqui and her family are so generous, but also because it means we can walk to and from the Masiphumele Library every day for the Careers Indaba. South Africans are currently on their longest winter break ever due to the World Cup, so  the library hosts the Careers Indaba to give the high school "learners" from Masi an opportunity to continue working on their studies and to begin to think about what the future might hold. Every day multiple speakers some to talk to the kids about their profession and outline the steps that the learners should take if they would also like to be an engineer, a business woman, or a teacher. As volunteers, our role is mainly to serve as peer mentors for the kids in the hopes that they will begin to think about the world outside of South Africa. When I talk about the learners, I'm using the term "kids" loosely. The are all between grades 9 and 12, but their ages range from 14 to 26. Many of the kids even have children of their own, which seems even sadder to me because I've found South African children to be generally less mature than Americans across the board. Of course, I may be a little biased seeing as the American kids I know are all so impressive! We have one more week of the Careers Indaba and then it is back to school. I will probably be following around a woman who supervises all the primary schools in the townships nearby so that I get to experience, but I'm not entirely sure yet. I'll find out just now...