Kuyga's Finest

I had been a little disappointed over the last couple weeks at how unfruitful all my efforts had been in this area. I felt like things just weren't working out and that nothing was really amounting to anything, people weren't turning up for classes that we had organised together and last week I went to Kuyga school to start our first Junior Youth group there. I walked in through the gates to find a ghost school, no kids, no teachers. I asked some construction workers where the kids were only to be told that the teachers were on strike. I left, disappointed again.

One week has now passed since that day, I was going back to Kuyga school to hopefully start the JY group with Zintle and Sibakheh and the grade 5 kids. I decided not to get my hopes up. In my head I kept thinking of all the things that could go wrong. I would turn up and the principal would have changed her mind and said we couldn't do it. There would be no kids willing to stay after school for the class. The school would be on strike again. In my head I had prepared for the worst but as always I went to the school with all my equipment, with the first lesson planned out and a load of prayers under my belt.

I was told school finished at 2pm so I aimed to gett to the school at 1.30pm to give myself time to prepare and remind the principal that I was doing the class. I got into Kuyga at around quarter past 1 and as I approached the school I noticed that there were kids leaving. Why were kids leaving? I get inside and see that the whole school has been dismissed and all the teachers are signing out of the principal's office. Turns out school finishes at 1pm not 2. I walk inside and one of the heads of staff looks at me "Oh we forgot about you, hold on let me go see if the grade 5s are still there." She leads me to one of the class rooms where there are something like 15 kids sitting at their desks, their teacher leaves and asks me if I'm going to be ok, I say yes. I haven't been able to get a hold of Zintle or Sibakheh so I decide to start and then see if I can find them.

These poor kids are staring at me, completely confused as to why they can't go home. I stand in front of them as they, being the good students they are, sit at their desks quietly waiting for me to give them orders. "Hi I'm Martha, I'm from Australia and we would like to start a junior youthh group with you guys." I can see that they are stiff, not this atmosphere I want for this group. "Guys I'm not a teacher, if you want to move around go for it, if you want to sit on the floor or the desk feel free." So that helped. The kids loosen up and I introduce the first activity. In order to get to know these kids I ask them to trace their hands and in each of the fingers write something about themselves, either what they want to be when they grow up or what things they like, anything that relates to them. I show them the one I did at home and then start distributing the paper. Note to self bring more yellow paper, it's the favourite. Everyone starts the activity. They sit, talking amongst themselves but mostly quietly tracing their hands, sitting and thinking abotu what to write, deciding what colour to use. I walk around them trying to read their names which I've asked them to write in the middle of their hands. These kids in this class are the Afrikaans kids, I can tell because they write in Afrikaans 'werk, soker, rukbe'. I assume as I am late that this is the only grade 5 class left and in my head I am glad because 15 kids is more than enough. Sibakheh finds, Zintle has gone home sick, and so the 2 of us carry on with the lesson. I really want Sibakheh to take charge as this is hers and Zintle's group, I am just here to help and I need for the kids to see that. I can see that she still has work to do in terms of confidence controlling a large group. After a few minutes a lady comes to the door "Aren't you going to take the other kids?" Other kids? "There are the rest of grade 5s in the other room and they are getting restless, are you going to take them when you are done here?" Now in my head I'm like are they Afrikaans or Xhosa and how many and OMGB I tell her that we want all the kids in one group so she goes and gets them... All 30 of them. They all come streaming in the room and I can see the shock and confusion on the faces of the Afrikaans kids. I take the kids to the back of the room and introduce myself and jy. I explain the activity and hand out the paper for them to start. As they begin I go around to some of the Afrikaans boys "Do you ever hang out with the Xhosa kids? Are you friends with any of them?" The response everytime is no. I ask them why? "I don't know we just don't." I wonder if there's going to be a clash having all these kids together but I figure that these kids are all 11, 12 and 13 years old. They have everything in common except for their background. Why shouldn't they get along?

All the kids are now working on their hands. Sibakheh is going around seeing to everyones needs while I find groups to talk to about Breezes of Confirmation which is thr first book in the jy series. I also go around and try to pronounce peoples' names. The kids laugh at me when I get it completely wrong. I ask them to submit their hands to me so that I can look at them. I also want to take them home and practice all the names as well as see what these kids see in their futures. As the group starts to finish what they are doing I pull out the soccer ball and a game of soccer begins. With still around 15 kids in the classroom colouring and decorating I get another chance to talk to them about Breezes. Then I do something that I know all kids love, I pull out my camera.

YOH! Are these kids posers or what? They love the camera, they made me take individual photos of them and they always had to see how it turned out. One of the boys begged to get a photo with me which was hilarious. Most of us ended up migrating outside. While there I talked to the group about or service activity and asked them to think of things during the week. I also asked them to come up with potential names for the group and come back next week with their ideas.

My fears when first staring the group were that the kids wouldn't want to stay after school for the class and that when I introduced the book and explained that there were lessons involved they would not want to come back. My goodness was I wrong, I couldn't get these kids to leave. They just would not go home. I did a big farewell to everyone, we all put our hands together in a circle and cheered "junior youth group!" I asked them if they were all excited about coming back next week and they all said yes. It was such a good feeling, such a relief. After I said goodbye I went inside to clean up and get my bag. They all followed me inside. I'm looking at these kids like you can go now. Nope, instead they stayed, helped me clean up even packed my bag for me. Then around 10 of them escorted me out of the school and walked with me and Sibakheh to her house. I said goodbye for the 12th time and this time everyone went their separate ways home. We filled Zintle in on the class and talked about how it went.

I was buzzing all the way home, I'm so excited and I can't believe we have so many kids. And the best part was that I'd didn't matter anymore, Afrikaans or Xhosa, they were all one group at the end. I hope it stays like that and we can show these kids that theuy don't need to be separate.

Things I have to do for next week, buy a netball so the girls can play their sport of choice and make sure my camera has a full battery.

A couple things I'll share based on the hands activity. So many of these kids said they want to be a doctor. The sad part is that with the education they are getting at this school it is going to be very difficult for them to achieve that goal. Another interesting one was "I like to wash my body" not sure how to take this but it came up a few times. Netball and soccer were the 2 main sports and so many kids said they love school and doing their school work. The 2 comments that absolutely blew me away were "I like to help people" and " I am proud of myself." These kids are like 12, remember that. We brush off this age group so easily but they are so much greater than we give them credit for. And I think at least 60% said they love their families, also something nice to see.

I can't wait till next Tuesday, I'm so pumped about this that I was tempted to say I'd come back on Thursday and we could have class twice a week. I might actually suggest that next class.