I usually try to blog about what’s new
and exciting, but then I realized that what has become “everyday” to me is
still interesting for others who don’t do this everyday. So, I figured that I
might as well write a “day in the life” post. Voila – a detailed summary of my
life on Thursday, February 28th, 2013. Enjoy!
06:40 – Alarm goes off. Snooze.
07:00 – I actually got out of bed and
get ready for the day. Nothing interesting here; I promise, morning routines
are similar in dorms all around the world.
07:10 – Breakfast! I walked down to the
dining hall, where I met up with a few of my friends for breakfast. Today was
cereal, tomatoes, scrambled eggs, and toast – a rare occasion. Usually they
serve beans and toast. It always feels very “UWC” at breakfast to look around
the table and see people from so many different countries – today, there was
Swaziland, Lesotho, Uganda, Zambia, and the States.
08:00 – My first class on Thursdays is
Geography. It’s a cool class – definitely interesting to take it at a school
with people from so many different countries. It adds a lot of different
perspectives (I often end up answering “America” questions). Our teacher is
from Kenya, so it’s interesting to have an “expat” teacher as well. Although to
be fair, I think all but one of my teachers are expats… anyways! Today we were
discussing how migration impacts the origin and destination countries,
specifically when immigrants don’t integrate into the main community.
Fascinating stuff, right there.
08:40 – My favorite class… maths! We
just discussed the proofs for a couple of theorems, and then had some work
time. We’ve never had work time in class before, but there’s a first for
everything! Doesn’t happen very often though.
09:20 – I walked across campus to the IT
center, where my siSwati class is held on Thursdays. We don’t really have a
room – we’re a migrant class J
Anyways, we went through some vocabulary, did some translations, and turned in
an essay. siSwati isn’t that hard of a language, but we go at a pretty good pace,
so it’s just a lot of stuff to remember.
10:00 – Break time! Headed over to the
cafeteria to grab a snack, and then over to the IT center to just hang out.
10:50 – Went over to the Mbabane
Government Hospital with the director of community service at Waterford.
Normally, I work on a project that takes a kid with disabilities out to parks
and such, just to sit with him, so that he can see something other than the
hospital walls. I like the project, but there were four WK students, and one
kid, so I didn’t feel like I was doing much. I had thought of trying to do
something else at the hospital, but didn’t quite know what, so we were going to
see where I could help out.
11:05 – Arrived at the hospital. We
miraculously avoided the string of “talk to so-and-so’s” that often happens in
these situations, and got the head nurse of the pediatric ward, the head
doctor, and a woman in charge of this certain room all in a circle to talk to
us at the same time! We discussed running art classes for the sick kids, repainting
murals, planting flowers, and that sort of thing, but I was looking to do
something more related to medicine. Eventually, one of the nurses suggested
that I could help with “re-hydration.” It’s this part of the hospital where
dehydrated babies and children are brought in, and they need to be rehydrated.
Simple enough, but there’s a lot of milk to mix and then for babies to give it
to them, and you need to monitor how much they take in, and always a lot of
paperwork. Not exactly medical, but it’s the closest thing I’m going to get
when my highest certification is lifeguarding and CPR/AED, so I’m really
excited, and I think I’ll be doing a lot more good than I was before. I never
really looked forward to my old community service project, but I’m already
giddy, just thinking about finally getting to start this next week! Sometimes
I’m reluctant to stick my neck out, but in this case, I’m really glad that I
did!
12:30 – Back to school. I went to my
room really quick to grab some money and the slip from the post office, as I
had a package waiting at the post office from the States, but you have to pay
to pick it up. Since we’re at school, we can give the slips and the money to
the office and school, and they go pick everyone’s up together.
12:40 – Lunch! Rice – if you get sick of
rice easily, this might be an issue for you. Thankfully, I like rice, so we’re
good!
13:20 – Double French. Our teacher is
from Cameroon, and he’s pretty chilled, and there are only six of us taking it
higher level, so it’s a small class. Today, we just discussed the differences
between friendships and romances, which was actually pretty interesting.
14:40 – Double English. Our teacher is a
rotten, old, grumpy, nasty man (that’s all proclaimed by him – I think he’s
hilarious), and he was really tired, so we read a little bit of this play, and
then got out early. (The play is Boesman and Lena by Athol Fugard, if anyone’s
interested. It’s about the Apartheid).
16:00 – Went to the SOS Children’s
Village, a local orphanage, to set up a small computer lab. I set up six
computers, and starting next week my friend and I will be teaching computer
classes to Form 1s (12 year olds) once a week. My friend’s excuse for not
coming this week? Practicing his Swazi dancing to perform for the king next
Friday. Legitimate reason, in my opinion. I’m definitely excited to start
teaching classes next week though!
17:30 – Dinner! Salad and potatoes. We
ate fast because there was a lightning storm, and if it gets bad, you can’t
leave the building, and we didn’t want to be stuck at the dining hall. It got
bad right after we left.
18:15 – Back at the hostel, worked on
maths for a bit with my friend from Lesotho. The power was out for a while from
the lightning, but it’s so normal here that we just grabbed the solar lamp and
kept going.
18:45 – Ran back over to the library in
the rain. Typical Swaziland – it was hot and sunny this afternoon.
19:00 – A spoken word poet from South
Africa who ran a seminar on writing poetry. It was pretty interesting, and if
nothing else was some good brain food and medicine against writer’s block for
later. I jotted down some thoughts that I think will wind up as some sort of
writing eventually.
20:45 – Back to hostel, just catching
the tail end of “prep time,” when you’re “forced” to do your homework. As you
can see, I usually find something more interesting to do, like poetry sessions.
21:00 – Chilled in the common room for a
while, just chilling with the amigos.
21:30 – Bed. I go to sleep PATHETICALLY
early here. But, I’d rather be awake for what goes on during the day, instead
of staying up at night for no reason, and missing what happens during the day.
If there’s something exciting that night, I’ll be up. Otherwise, you can find
me asleep J
And that’s just a typical day in the life! Reading through this, I'm realizing how awesome it is that this is normal life here :)
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