(origineel bericht op be-more.nl)
Homeschooling A.
Hello everyone!
Last week I had to teach A. at homeschooling. This girl is 13 years old and autistic and she has some sort of learning disability we think, so I was a little bit afraid of what was going to happen because no one actually told me what I was supposed to do during this week. So the first day I was kinda trying to figure out what to do. Eventually I got the hang of it though and we ended up having a lot of fun. In the beginning though I assumed she would be able to read and make some easy math exercises, but once I started working with her I figured out that she was not able to read at all. So one of the things I did with her this week was the alphabet and we ended up making all the volunteer names out of letters we cut out of magazines. We were both looking for the letters in the magazines and she would cut them out and glue them to a bright pink paper. It was really a lot of fun. And every time A. saw an ad in the magazine that showed a men and a woman that were half naked or kissing she got all shy and giggly, it was hilarious. Besides teaching her how to spell and do math all the homeschool kids also do arts & crafts. This means they make bracelets and key chains out of beads and elephants out of fabric for about 2 hours every day. And we volunteers happily join them. It is actually really relaxing to do and the things they make are really nice. I’ll put some pictures up on facebook so you can all see the pretty things we make. Also these bracelets are sold to volunteers etc. for about 50 rand, and the money they earn with that is saved up to go on camp with all the kids once in a while. The kids that make the bracelets also get 10% of those 50 rand for themselves. They can save up this money by putting it in the bank with mom, and then they can take it out whenever they want to buy something. Just to teach them how to handle money, for later.
Besides teaching A. I also had to help L. and S. with their homework once they got back home from school. L. basically works by herself, so I just had to check if she did everything she was supposed to do cause apparently she sometimes doesn’t. S. needed a little bit more help with math, so we did the 12 times table together, which was a nice learning experience for me too (haha). On Tuesday it actually took us 3 hours before he was finished with all his homework, which is a very long time trying to get a hyperactive boy to get to work, but nevertheless I did have a lot of fun that day with him.
On Wednesday we had a volunteers day. This means that all new volunteers go around to all the projects of be-more and see whatever the other volunteers are doing at those projects. It actually was a really nice day, however we didn’t get to see all projects because at some there were no volunteers this month, which was a shame. Of course palm tree is the best project, haha! No, but seriously of the projects that are comparable to palm tree, this is definitely the nicest project, just because it’s so small. Most people however seem to think this about their own project 
Then during the weekend I did another ‘weekend trip’. This time I went to the ‘wild coast’ with three other people of be-more. It was a very long trip there, we drove for about 5 hours. I left on Friday morning at about 6.20am, and once we arrived at the wild coast we went for a couple of hikes right away and I have to say the views and nature there are amazing, really gorgeous. We watched the sunset from a mountaintop somewhere which was spectacular. We slept in a backpackers that was called ‘jungle monkey’ where we were called on stage to play the jahdrum (or whatever it was called), it was seriously funny even though I wasn’t very good at it… The next day we drove to the house of our tour guide and did another hike and boat trip over a river. Then we slept in our tour guide’s house, which had the most beautiful view over the ocean I’ve ever seen. The next day we watched the sun rise from the beach and on top of that saw some dolphins swim by in the distance. All in all, it was just another amazing weekend.
Tonight I’m sleeping with the babies together with Eva, should be fun
I hope I didn’t make you all not too jealous,
Hugs and kisses!