Although I had enjoyed a stunning three weeks abroad on my own I couldn’t wait to get home to my husband and family.  The plan was to land in Cape Town at lunch time on Saturday giving me a day and an half to prepare myself for school.  But that didn’t happen did it!  Because my grandson was to have a birthday party that night my amazing husband decided to whisk me away for a Romantic Reunion and save me from the invasion of a dozen teenagers!

The following morning we went to see my daughter in her new flat and then to lunch with friends!  The last thing on my mind on Sunday evening then was school! Isn’t it amazing thought that when you’ve been doing this job forever you just walk straight in and it is as if you haven’t been away.  The only thing I forgot was to bring back the freshly washed chairbags!   “You see girls,” I said.  “You should never be in a muddle on your first day of school.  You should get everything ready the night before!” They all agreed but were very forgiving nevertheless. Within five minutes we were back into the swing of things.  The girls clearly had a great holiday and were ready for action.  They were excited to begin writing in feint lines and I am proud of how well they are coping.   We also began our sum cards which are not very easy to set out, Moms and Dads and there were a few glitches about skipping a line and muddling plus and minus but it won’t be long before these little geniuses have that sorted too.

Mandela Day was the big event of the week.   Sadly the day dawned rather cold and overcast and rain was imminent when we all went out to sit in formation on the netball court and sing to Madiba.   The photograph of the children with a drawing of Mandela’s face is awesome.   Go to the school’s webpage to see this. http://blogs.sunvalleygroup.co.za/

The Grade Ones were about to go and do their 67 minutes of community service and we were ready and armed with our black bags for a litter clean up. One of my princesses piped up  “We can’t go out in this weather. It’s too cold. I might get sick.”  “No,” I replied, “We’re doing this for Madiba – we must be strong and brave!”  “Yes,” replied another “We’re not that kind of princess!”  We’re certainly not – we’re the hard-working kind! But the heavens opened and the rain came down so our 67 minutes had to be postponed after all!   Even tough princesses could melt in the rain. Instead of the litter clean up and gave the girls a brief lesson on the life of Nelson Mandela and showed them a clip from the internet planning to stop it if it was beyond their understanding. But they were riveted and had many questions to ask. They were horrified to hear that apartheid meant segregated beaches, busses and classrooms.   I also showed them a clip of Johnny Cleg dancing with Mandela and that got some of them up and dancing too.

On Friday we got stuck into a cooperative activity.  The girls brought boxes of all shapes and sizes and designed a city.  The idea was to build the kind of buildings they would see in their community. I was delighted to see how well they worked together and how creative they were with the limited materials they had.