Why be calm when you could be anxious?

Sadly, that is the motto of my lifestyle sometimes.  A lot of the time.

I could have been calm about starting my internship at Thandokulu Secondary School last Wednesday, and spent energy asking God for the strength to contribute there, to connect with teachers and students, and to help students learn.  I did a little bit of that on Tuesday night, but a whole lot more worrying.

"What if I'm not comfortable with the math topics they are going over?"

"What if the cultural divide is too hard to cross and my explanations don't make any sense to students who speak Xhosa as their first language?"

"What if students laugh at me?"

"What if the minibus taxi breaks down on the way there?"

You'd think after 20 years of worrying I'd realize that none of the anxious thoughts running through my head can change the outcome of the next day's events.  But, as I'm sure my fellow worrywarts know, it's a tough habit to break.  Maybe there's some chemical release in your brain when you worry about something, or maybe thinking about possible bad situations makes me feel more in control of them - I'm not sure.

The point is, none of my anxious thoughts had any effect on my first day at Thandokulu.  Some of them materialized, others didn't, regardless of how much I agonized over them on Tuesday night.

The minibus taxi did not break down, and I arrived a little bit early.  The teacher I'm shadowing, Mr. Buti, was not expecting me to be there on Wednesday, so I spent the first few hours of the morning sitting in his office, looking at math textbooks and eventually planning a lesson for the next day.

During my first experience in a classroom that morning, the students laughed at me.  Mr. Buti and I stepped into a Grade 12 classroom to supervise students taking a test while their teacher stepped out for a minute.  Soon Mr. Buti left too, and I had no instructions whatsoever.  Thankfully there were a couple of students who would "shush" everyone else when the noise level started to creep up.  I assumed they were taking a math test, and when a boy near the front raised his hand I figured I could help clarify a math problem for him.  I looked over his shoulder where he was pointing, at a paragraph entirely in Xhosa.  The whole class (minus the "good kids" who shushed everyone - that would have been me in high school) laughed at me, but quieted back down quickly.  I didn't know that it was a timed test, and let the students keep working after the bell, so that their teacher had to snatch their papers away from them when she got back.

Feeling like a failure, I went back to Mr. Buti's office again to wait for his first class, and I almost cried.  Once I calmed down I realized that the joke was probably more in good fun than I originally imagined - a "let's play a joke on the sub" kind of thing, not a "white girl doesn't know anything and shouldn't be in our school" kind of thing.

Finally around 10:30am I got to observe one of Mr. Buti's classes, and even helped some students with their classwork.  The rest of the day I spent in class, and even ended up presenting a problem at the board with a Grade 12 class at the end of the day.  I'm still struggling with figuring out guiding questions and hints to give students instead of just working out the problem for them, but hopefully I will improve over the next few weeks.

On Thursday I presented some optimization problems in three Grade 12 classes - the application of Calc I was right up my alley, and the way the students paid attention, responded when I asked if things made sense (sometimes in the affirmative, others in the negative), and asked relevant questions was so refreshing.  I hope I am genuinely contributing to these students' experience - that I brought a valuable perspective, that they'll at least now how to start an optimization problem if they come across it.  They certainly have just as much, if not more, to teach me.

I'm not sure what the next few weeks will hold - standardized exams start tomorrow and last until June 14th, so I'm not sure that there will be much for me to do at Thandokulu.  If there's any way I can be useful I'll stay, but if not I might end up somewhere else.  This kind of uncertainty probably wouldn't fly in an internship in the US, and it drives the control-freak part of me crazy.  But another part of me thinks, "Eh, okay, we'll see, it'll be fine!"

So I'll leave you all with one half of my brain singing Bobby McFerrin style to the other half, trying to waste less energy on worrying and re-direct it to trusting.  *Cue whistling here*

So much to soak in

That's the best way I can describe my first five days in Cape Town - it's so much to take in.  Not quite too much, but soooooo much.

The chaos of downtown, the heartbreaking faces of the beggars who I know I'm not supposed to give money to, and the inspiring, humbling stories of the protesters memorialized at the Crypt in St. George's Cathedral.

The devastating poverty of the townships, and the barren space in District 6 where so many people used to live before they were forced to move out far outside of the city.

Beacons of hope in the townships - beautiful works of art and music at the Langa township community center, the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) office in Khayelitsha, Tafelsig clinic in Mitchell's Plain, and the food bank and education programs at the Manenberg People's Centre.

The breathtaking beauty of Table Mountain, and how unbelievably gorgeous the beach is with the sun glittering on the ocean in the front and shining on the mountain  in the back.

And the gorgeous Xhosa voices lifted up at Sivuyile National Baptist Church on Sunday morning.  I think that is a nice place to end this first blog post - with praise to God, for the wonderful experience He's blessed me with in just a few days. :)