Schools & Presentations {Wednesday, March 4}

The people here are very welcoming. Last night Rev. Louwrens (pronounced Laurens) invited us to his house for a dinner/Bible study with their small group. Rev. Louwrens has five children... Two high school girls that I like hanging out with. They remind me of my small group girls back home! Dinner was another curry meat and rice combo... they seem to like their curry here. Luckily I'm doing fine with it.

We are having a more typical Book of Hope internship experience here in Kosi Bay. We visit three schools every day, meeting with the teachers and doing presentations for the students. Most schools we visit are primary schools- grades R (kindergarten) thru 7^th. Sometimes we go class to class (probably 40 to 60 kids per room) or split the school into two groups and do assembly presentations. Throughout training we learned different dramas and games geared toward specific age groups. Every presentation is structured with an intro, interactive illustration/game, drama, testimony, and the closing explanation and distribution of the Book of Hope. The kids love it.

We are getting to know our translators pretty well. They are awesome. Thabani is my age. He just graduated metric (high school) in 2007 and his favorite musician is Chris Brown. Tombencane is a 33 year old woman who studied child psychology at a university here. She likes to talk to me about my classes in psych. The c in Zulu actually makes a clicking noise, so to pronounce her name you have to make a click in the middle. I think I can finally say it right after like 5 days. She is getting married in May. In the Zulu culture the man must pay a bolla (pronounced bowl-a) to the bride’s parents for his bride. The most common amount is 11 cows. One cow costs 4000 Rand ($400 US dollars). The engagement process takes a long time because the bolla is so expensive.

Themba is our last translator. He’s a ton of fun. On Sunday he invited us into his home for coffee. We of course said yes, as it is extremely rude to turn coffee/tea down here. He showed us his entire wedding photo album while we waited for our “coffee”… which actually turned out to be a full meal and hot chocolate. It was pretty interesting. He’s loud, funny, and very metro. He has these European looking snakeskin shoes that he likes to wear with tight jeans and sweater vests. Probably not what you would think for a Zulu guy huh. Haha.