I really hate making titles...

Thursdays are by-far my favorite day of the week. Going to Youngsfield might be one of my favorite parts of South Africa thus far; I just wish I was going more than once a week. Last week I realized when I asked Abdi to write his name that he didn’t understand lower-case letters, and he had confused letters that looked alike like “b” and “d”. I taught him how to spell his name, and encouraged him to say each letter out loud as he wrote, hoping this would help him remember the difference between the two. Well yesterday he was so excited to show me that he remembered how to write his name! I know it’s just a little bit of progress but I was really excited. I tried to teach him the rest of the alphabet but I’m unsure how much he’ll remember for next week. I’ve been brainstorming good ways to teach him because I have no idea where to start…I was under the impression that I’d be tutoring kids who were a little older and completely forgot that there would be a language barrier to combat as well. If anyone has any ideas let me know, I think I’m going to make flashcards for next week with letters of the alphabet?

Classes are proving to be pretty interesting. We’re finally learning about Zimbabwe in my history class! And my TA for that class is actually from Zim, so he’s going to co-teach the next few lectures. I’m such a nerd, we got our readings for the week and of course, they’re all about Zim, and I was really excited I read them all yesterday. In my religions class I have to write a paper on a religious conflict, so I decided I’d do something with Cyprus seeing as how I have all this research in that area already…and have traveled there it seemed kind of convenient. Anyway, we had to talk about our topics yesterday and my professor definitely has no idea what’s going on in Cyprus, which is surprising because he seems to know a lot about a ton of different places, and the conflict would definitely fall under his studies. Regardless, he wrote my topic as “Cypress” on the board, I think he’s going to learn a little when I hand in my paper, starting with the spelling…And my African Studies class is just awesome. It’s focused on South Africa (mainly Cape Town) today and we really just about the inequalities and racial tensions that still exist. The class is only with international students so it’s nice not to feel subconscious when talking about the more depressing issues in South Africa.

And it’s the weekend!!! Tomorrow we’re doing a wine-tasting and then going to the Soweto Gospel Choir concert at Kirstenboch Gardens (it’s something UCT organized). So it should be a really fun day, I’m pretty excited!

Cheers!