Wow wee another week gone. Mon to Fri was very busy. I hardly went to any lessons this week as we had a lot of prep to do for the ISSSA Athletics tournament which was held at the University of Botswana's athletics stadium on Friday and Saturday. ISSSA stands for Independent Secondary Schools Association and organises a lot of tournaments such as swimming and athletics and MaP is one of the schools that takes part. Bruce is part of the organising committee so i was helping him with admin school jobs and ISSSA prep. For the latter it consisted of going through all the schools final team list to check they had the right ages in certain age catergories and that they were not cheating by having someone too old, i checked by cross referencing with the whole schools list which had the date of birth on. A long task but i did find a few schools which were guilty of it (i guess this shows just how badly people want to win this tournament-it is a big thing here!) I also had to help get the athletics kits ready for the MaP students. They also all got a small sports bag which has the MaP logo on it with a water, energy drink, banana and energy sweets. There are 60 people in the athletics team so that meant there were 60 bags i had to fill but as most of you know i like organising stuff so i actually found it quite an enjoyable task (better than photocopying!)
Friday was the day of the first athletics and so Shambs and Bruce had to go with the team so i stayed behind and ran the PE lessons with the cover teachers. I was with the girls and we did football which consisted of a lot of screaming with a few girls actually kicking the ball rather than running away from it! After my lessons Bruce had arranged for the school transport to come pick me up at 12 and take me to the athletics so i could help out there but as you can guess this was 12 African time so it turned out to be more like 1!! It never fails to amaze me how relaxed everyone is here! I arrived just in time to see the best event-the relays.Now the student dont just cheer a bit every now and then like in England - here it is full on screaming, chanting, singing shouting, stamping. So much better than in the UK! There were 12 schools competing so the relays were done on time not position (as there were two heats for each age category). I can proudly say MaP won half of the relays and the ones they didnt win we came second or third! Now i dont know how we did overall in the tournament as it occured on Saturday but i was away (i will come onto that) fingers crossed we won!
The Weekend:
This weekend i went to Botsalano Game Reserve with Virginia, Clara (her daughter), Sally (a teacher and friend of Virginia, Denise (another teacher and friend of Virginia), Safiya (Denise's daughter) and Samantha (Safiya's friend) . So a girls weekend! Botsalano is a reserve just over the SA border and is not that well known as they purposely do not publicise it much to try and reduce poachers as there is a high numbers of rhino. So you just turn up, get a campsite to yourself (its that empty) and then drive round the park in your own cars (although you do need 4x4!) Just driving to our campsite we saw a lot of wildlife. The first time it was further away but we had another drive that early evening and then one the next morning and in total we saw, (are you ready?), wilderbeast, warthog, impala (which we saw pronking, when they jump vertically in the air), springbock, waterbuck, kudu, RHINO!! (these were very close to the car-between 10-20meters) and about a pack-10-15 (thats probably not the correct terminology) of giraffes which were always chilling about 2 minutes drive from our camp and we got as close as 10 meters to some of them! We could hear a lot of jackal at night and you could hear the giraffes at night as well walking around.
It was a really fun, chilled weekend and i am really grateful to Virginia for organising it as otherwise i wouldnt have been able to go visit it! Right i will upload the wildlife pictures now-there is a problem with wifi so pictures of the camp may be up early this week (we managed to persuade Dean to let us take one of the school cameras with the long lenses!)
hope you all have a good week!
J xx
Sunday, 17 March 2013
Monday, 11 March 2013
Camp Konka Pics!
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| Tamara on the Zip Line |
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| climbing part of the assault couse |
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| we made it! |
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| ZEBRAS!! |
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| Tamara on the drums! |
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| Õn the 4x4 ride up the VERY steep hill |
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| getting excited about the bath |
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| Breakfast time! |
Sunday, 10 March 2013
51 days till my birthday (yay) 50 days till I leave (oh)
This week was all off campus so made a nice change and a good way to mark my halfway week. From Monday to Friday I was on the year 7 trip to Camp Konka (although you don't actually camp you stay in dorms). This was just outside Rustenburg in South Africa and was an activities week. Sort of like PGL in the UK. We left bright and early at 6.30am with 104 children, four teachers and two TAs (Tamara and I.)
Now normally there is always one bit of drama on these trips and for this trip we had it 20minutes in at the border! Every child that needed a visa had been told in November (and then reminded every month after that) for one Chinese kid, for some reason, did not get a visa and failed to mention this to any of the teachers until we got to the South African immigration. The immigration officer, already very annoyed at having so much work to do so early on a Monday, decided to threaten the bus driver with prison because he, the officer claims, was trafficking a child into SA. Clearly ridiculous! By the way while this was going on Tamara and I were trying to get the kids through as quickly as possible and all we kept hearing was the word prison and were very confused! The immigration officer then changed the drivers punishment to 2000 rand fee. The bus driver started arguing so he then raised it to 10,000 rand! Anyway it ended up with the kid getting the fine and he got sent back so couldn't come on the trip!
So on we went through South Africa, we stopped at a mall for lunch and I tasted one of Mugg and Bean's legendary muffins. (If you are ever in South Africa you must try one!) We arrived at camp konka early afternoon. Tamara and I had our own room, it was similar to the dorms the girls were staying in (sort of 6 small buildings in a circle each with 8 beds and a bathroom in them) but sadly (hahah not so sadly for us) we had to leave our room and move to the poshest ones they have on sight, as one of the girls rooms had a cockroach in so they had to take ours! We even got a bath!!
So everyday we had breakfast at 8, then the students would have activities until lunch. After lunch they opened the tuck shop where the kids spent an obscene amount of money everyday on sweets and fizzy drinks and ice cream. On the last day there it would seem it was the end of the world with the amount they were buying! After lunch there were more activities until 5 and then supper at 6. The activities ranged from team games to zip lining, to rock climbing to paintballing. On the last afternoon they all did the obstacle course which included crawling through muddy water and jumping into a pool of muddy stagnent water which actually smelt. But they all loved it! The teachers and Tamara and I would often go and watch them do the activities, often get involved (I did zip lining) or just chill, read our books and enjoy the biscuits Mrs Kaan brought with her at 10am and 4pm aka cup of tea and biscuit time! So all in all we didn't do that much! In the evenings the students had another activity like drumming or night hike. On Wednesday eveningthey had a disco which we had to oversee, at one point we went to have a look at the dancing as they had all formed a circle around one kid that was dancing but then they turned around and started chanting teachers, teachers, teachers and so all Tamara and I could do was dance, although we escaped quickly!! Serves us for being nosy I guess!
One of the best things was the change from Maru a Pula food! We had chicken korma one night (actual chicken with no bones!!!). The teachers and TAs and our own table inside with special desserts each night, it was great! They also took us on a 4x4 drive which consisted of a hill so steep it seemed vertical! I also saw my first zebra on this drive which was fab!
On Friday we left in the morning and I waited with the cricketers at Wimpy in Zeerust for the other cricketers in the other years to leave MaP and come pick us up and go onto ISSA (International School South Africa) where they had a tournament at the weekend. Because of the delay they had at the border we were in Wimpy for four hours!! But I explained the situation to the waitress and they didn't mind luckily! When we got to ISSA the boys went for practise and I went and had a look round the school which is really pretty and has lots of greenery but I got stung by a wasp ouchy :( . There was also an athletics and swimming tournament happening so more MaP students arrived by bus later on. Athletics was that evening which gave a nice atmosphere under floodlight and then swimming was the next day. I travelled home with the athletes and swimmers Saturday afternoon and have had a nice leisurely day today! So a very busy week all in all but very very fun!
Now normally there is always one bit of drama on these trips and for this trip we had it 20minutes in at the border! Every child that needed a visa had been told in November (and then reminded every month after that) for one Chinese kid, for some reason, did not get a visa and failed to mention this to any of the teachers until we got to the South African immigration. The immigration officer, already very annoyed at having so much work to do so early on a Monday, decided to threaten the bus driver with prison because he, the officer claims, was trafficking a child into SA. Clearly ridiculous! By the way while this was going on Tamara and I were trying to get the kids through as quickly as possible and all we kept hearing was the word prison and were very confused! The immigration officer then changed the drivers punishment to 2000 rand fee. The bus driver started arguing so he then raised it to 10,000 rand! Anyway it ended up with the kid getting the fine and he got sent back so couldn't come on the trip!
So on we went through South Africa, we stopped at a mall for lunch and I tasted one of Mugg and Bean's legendary muffins. (If you are ever in South Africa you must try one!) We arrived at camp konka early afternoon. Tamara and I had our own room, it was similar to the dorms the girls were staying in (sort of 6 small buildings in a circle each with 8 beds and a bathroom in them) but sadly (hahah not so sadly for us) we had to leave our room and move to the poshest ones they have on sight, as one of the girls rooms had a cockroach in so they had to take ours! We even got a bath!!
So everyday we had breakfast at 8, then the students would have activities until lunch. After lunch they opened the tuck shop where the kids spent an obscene amount of money everyday on sweets and fizzy drinks and ice cream. On the last day there it would seem it was the end of the world with the amount they were buying! After lunch there were more activities until 5 and then supper at 6. The activities ranged from team games to zip lining, to rock climbing to paintballing. On the last afternoon they all did the obstacle course which included crawling through muddy water and jumping into a pool of muddy stagnent water which actually smelt. But they all loved it! The teachers and Tamara and I would often go and watch them do the activities, often get involved (I did zip lining) or just chill, read our books and enjoy the biscuits Mrs Kaan brought with her at 10am and 4pm aka cup of tea and biscuit time! So all in all we didn't do that much! In the evenings the students had another activity like drumming or night hike. On Wednesday eveningthey had a disco which we had to oversee, at one point we went to have a look at the dancing as they had all formed a circle around one kid that was dancing but then they turned around and started chanting teachers, teachers, teachers and so all Tamara and I could do was dance, although we escaped quickly!! Serves us for being nosy I guess!
One of the best things was the change from Maru a Pula food! We had chicken korma one night (actual chicken with no bones!!!). The teachers and TAs and our own table inside with special desserts each night, it was great! They also took us on a 4x4 drive which consisted of a hill so steep it seemed vertical! I also saw my first zebra on this drive which was fab!
On Friday we left in the morning and I waited with the cricketers at Wimpy in Zeerust for the other cricketers in the other years to leave MaP and come pick us up and go onto ISSA (International School South Africa) where they had a tournament at the weekend. Because of the delay they had at the border we were in Wimpy for four hours!! But I explained the situation to the waitress and they didn't mind luckily! When we got to ISSA the boys went for practise and I went and had a look round the school which is really pretty and has lots of greenery but I got stung by a wasp ouchy :( . There was also an athletics and swimming tournament happening so more MaP students arrived by bus later on. Athletics was that evening which gave a nice atmosphere under floodlight and then swimming was the next day. I travelled home with the athletes and swimmers Saturday afternoon and have had a nice leisurely day today! So a very busy week all in all but very very fun!
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| prefects seem to rule the school at ISSA- extreme rule! |
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| main school area with cricket field in background |
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| One courtyard of ISSA |
Sunday, 3 March 2013
Weekend pics...
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| Made a friend at the museum! |
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| Look I saw some lions!! |
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| Tall girl problems when you're in certain combis... |
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| Naledi Feeding. Lady on my left is one of the women we give food to. The food in front of us is for four women not just her. |
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| Ice cream for P6 aka 60p!!!! |
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| Add caption |
March already?!?!
So the start of this week I went on one of my services-Naledi Feeding. I thought I would tell you a bit more about it.
-Naledi is one of the most disadvantaged areas and the main one which gets aid, this is unfortunate for the other areas that also deserve the aid!
-We give food to 17 houses and it includes, sugar, bread,onions,tea,tomatos,flour,this maize thing that is very popular here, soap.
-Food is for old people, they have to be above 65 but the rest of the family rely on it too-little kids run up very smiley and are very grateful for food. This week we found out one of the women that we give food to passed away (she was 93) and so now we have the difficult decision as to who to give the food to. The whole family relies so much on the food but we cant keep giving to that family if there is no one over 65.
-3 years ago the only road which winds through Old Naledi was tarmaced
-Dulex painted the majority of the houses different colours so they aren't all grey concrete colour
-The only way they can get water is to walk to the various taps which are at the end of streets
I also went on another sevice. We went to a government primary school and helped the students with their homework. The classes are all really big so there were about 12 of us and and we each had about 5 kids we were helping! The children were all really smiley and friendly and really appreciated our help.
On Thursday it was Makgassa Service. This time, instead of helping the students read I was helping with computer skills. This is really basic stuff on Word Docs. I showed one student how to do Word Art and he gave the biggest smile, was so sweet.
In PE lessons this week we did basketball for the boys , netball for the girls and have now moved onto football for the boys (which they are very happy about) and basketball for the girls. I helped sort out some more medals-the ones the students won on the swimming trip which was last weekend. They were then given out in assembly with lots of cheering! Bruce has also given me a project-the Sports department is in charge of running a 'Health/Wellbeing Week'in term two so i am just starting to brainstorm ideas. Its going to involve a lot of activities which teach the kids about healthy eating, exercise etc.
We have had a few massive thunderstorms this week, Ultimate Frisbee was cancelled because of it. One with very loud thunder which lasted about 3 hours!
This Weekend:
-On Saturday Adjoa and I went to the Gaborone Museum (which i found out about due to my lonely planet book-nice work auntie Gill, Uncle Steve!). This was free (brill) and really good! It had the history of Botswana-for example did you know the first settlers that came to Botswana were in AD 200. Some of their hunting techniques include building a MASSIVE hole (this took months) and then creating a sort of fenced path and then sheperding a load of wild animals into the path and then they were forced to go down it (as they were surrounded by a fence on either side) leading them to the massive pit. This could get the tribe around 80 animals in one go. The museum was very empty and a little spooky as a lot of the lights were not working. but it was very fun nonetheless! Afterwards we walked through the craft market and i may have picked up some more goodies and then we had pizza for lunch (where we found out one of the deals on is buy 2 large pizzas and get 4 free, which is insanee!) That evening we played basketball on the courts and made a bet for biscuits, whoever could get a 3 pointer, free shot and lay up in first won the biscuits and i lost :( I will challenge her again and win!
-On Sunday, Tamara and I went to Riverwalk Mall, there was a really nice market there which we had a look round and then we went for lunch at braii place.
Now for a few random stories:
-Adjoa had her hair done. This is when the attatch an extension to the root of your hair and then plait it to your natural hair. Alot of the girls have it done here. It took 3, 2 hours sessions so in total it took 6 hours!
-I learnt today (me and Tamara went to Braii Place for lunch-they do burgers and various other meat dishes)that its really common here for you to ask to take any food you cant finish home with you, like in the US. She was really shocked that we dont do it in the UK and i dont know why we dont, it makes a lot of sense!
- I forgot to say that when we were camping on the boarders trip one evening we all went to the heated swimming pool. There were quite a few white people in the pool but as soon as all the students from MaP turned up and got in, aka about 30 black kids, they all got out. Now i dont know whether its because these people were going to leave anyway or they just thought it would get busy but a lot of the MaP students were saying that there is still a lot of racism in South Africa even if it isnt always obvious and they were certain that was the reason why. Which i thought was a little shocking.
-Naomi one of the Form 5s here has just qualified in the Youth Olympics, representing Botswana and I was chatting to her about it and she said how her swimming costume, to reduce resistance is 6 sizes smaller than her normal size!
The week thats coming up I am off campus. From Monday to Friday I am going on the form 1 trip with Tamara to Camp Konka is South Africa. It is like PGL, they do a lot of activities liek canoeing, kayaking etc. On Friday on the way home i am getting off the bus at a mall with the form 1 cricketers as there is a cricket tournament from Friday to Sunday which i am going to. They need a TA to stay at the mall with the students while we wait for the cricket bus to come by and pick us up and take us to the tournament. This weekend has been my last free weekend until week 12 aka my last weekend in Botswana before my tour, which is a little weird-its all going very fast! So next weekend is cricket, weekend after im hopefully going to Madikwe Game Reserve, weekend after is Basketball Trip and then the weekend after that is the long weekend when I am going camping. Then its the free weekend and then its the start of my safari tour!
Well i hope you all have fab weeks, i am looking forward to mine! I wont have any internet for a week so thats why I wont have replied to any emails anyone sends me.
J xx
-Naledi is one of the most disadvantaged areas and the main one which gets aid, this is unfortunate for the other areas that also deserve the aid!
-We give food to 17 houses and it includes, sugar, bread,onions,tea,tomatos,flour,this maize thing that is very popular here, soap.
-Food is for old people, they have to be above 65 but the rest of the family rely on it too-little kids run up very smiley and are very grateful for food. This week we found out one of the women that we give food to passed away (she was 93) and so now we have the difficult decision as to who to give the food to. The whole family relies so much on the food but we cant keep giving to that family if there is no one over 65.
-3 years ago the only road which winds through Old Naledi was tarmaced
-Dulex painted the majority of the houses different colours so they aren't all grey concrete colour
-The only way they can get water is to walk to the various taps which are at the end of streets
I also went on another sevice. We went to a government primary school and helped the students with their homework. The classes are all really big so there were about 12 of us and and we each had about 5 kids we were helping! The children were all really smiley and friendly and really appreciated our help.
On Thursday it was Makgassa Service. This time, instead of helping the students read I was helping with computer skills. This is really basic stuff on Word Docs. I showed one student how to do Word Art and he gave the biggest smile, was so sweet.
In PE lessons this week we did basketball for the boys , netball for the girls and have now moved onto football for the boys (which they are very happy about) and basketball for the girls. I helped sort out some more medals-the ones the students won on the swimming trip which was last weekend. They were then given out in assembly with lots of cheering! Bruce has also given me a project-the Sports department is in charge of running a 'Health/Wellbeing Week'in term two so i am just starting to brainstorm ideas. Its going to involve a lot of activities which teach the kids about healthy eating, exercise etc.
We have had a few massive thunderstorms this week, Ultimate Frisbee was cancelled because of it. One with very loud thunder which lasted about 3 hours!
This Weekend:
-On Saturday Adjoa and I went to the Gaborone Museum (which i found out about due to my lonely planet book-nice work auntie Gill, Uncle Steve!). This was free (brill) and really good! It had the history of Botswana-for example did you know the first settlers that came to Botswana were in AD 200. Some of their hunting techniques include building a MASSIVE hole (this took months) and then creating a sort of fenced path and then sheperding a load of wild animals into the path and then they were forced to go down it (as they were surrounded by a fence on either side) leading them to the massive pit. This could get the tribe around 80 animals in one go. The museum was very empty and a little spooky as a lot of the lights were not working. but it was very fun nonetheless! Afterwards we walked through the craft market and i may have picked up some more goodies and then we had pizza for lunch (where we found out one of the deals on is buy 2 large pizzas and get 4 free, which is insanee!) That evening we played basketball on the courts and made a bet for biscuits, whoever could get a 3 pointer, free shot and lay up in first won the biscuits and i lost :( I will challenge her again and win!
-On Sunday, Tamara and I went to Riverwalk Mall, there was a really nice market there which we had a look round and then we went for lunch at braii place.
Now for a few random stories:
-Adjoa had her hair done. This is when the attatch an extension to the root of your hair and then plait it to your natural hair. Alot of the girls have it done here. It took 3, 2 hours sessions so in total it took 6 hours!
-I learnt today (me and Tamara went to Braii Place for lunch-they do burgers and various other meat dishes)that its really common here for you to ask to take any food you cant finish home with you, like in the US. She was really shocked that we dont do it in the UK and i dont know why we dont, it makes a lot of sense!
- I forgot to say that when we were camping on the boarders trip one evening we all went to the heated swimming pool. There were quite a few white people in the pool but as soon as all the students from MaP turned up and got in, aka about 30 black kids, they all got out. Now i dont know whether its because these people were going to leave anyway or they just thought it would get busy but a lot of the MaP students were saying that there is still a lot of racism in South Africa even if it isnt always obvious and they were certain that was the reason why. Which i thought was a little shocking.
-Naomi one of the Form 5s here has just qualified in the Youth Olympics, representing Botswana and I was chatting to her about it and she said how her swimming costume, to reduce resistance is 6 sizes smaller than her normal size!
The week thats coming up I am off campus. From Monday to Friday I am going on the form 1 trip with Tamara to Camp Konka is South Africa. It is like PGL, they do a lot of activities liek canoeing, kayaking etc. On Friday on the way home i am getting off the bus at a mall with the form 1 cricketers as there is a cricket tournament from Friday to Sunday which i am going to. They need a TA to stay at the mall with the students while we wait for the cricket bus to come by and pick us up and take us to the tournament. This weekend has been my last free weekend until week 12 aka my last weekend in Botswana before my tour, which is a little weird-its all going very fast! So next weekend is cricket, weekend after im hopefully going to Madikwe Game Reserve, weekend after is Basketball Trip and then the weekend after that is the long weekend when I am going camping. Then its the free weekend and then its the start of my safari tour!
Well i hope you all have fab weeks, i am looking forward to mine! I wont have any internet for a week so thats why I wont have replied to any emails anyone sends me.
J xx
Saturday, 2 March 2013
Food Pics
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| The Food Menus, posted up in the caf Please note, the meals often sound better than they taste. |
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| Yeah im not gonna lie, fish burgers are not fish-its probably about 1% fish (maybe some horse who knows!) |
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| The dreaded setswae and samp meal (featuring dessert aka an apple) |
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| a 'sick plate'. this is when if you are not able to make it to dinner because you are sick/out someone can ask for a sick plate aka a take away dinner. This was our dinner one night... |
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| the cafe (back left is where you collect your food) |
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| Adjoa enjoying our lovely sandwiches we get at breaktime |
Food, Glorious (well not really) Food!
So I thought I would do a post on the more mundane aspects of Maru-a-Pula life this one being on food!
SO...
For every meal we come to the 'caf''. They have that hot oven thing to store the food in and then thats where they serve it from, the plop the food on and then you get your dessert from another dinnerlady (this is almost always fruit-changing from banana, apple, orange, nectarine and occasionally watermelon!) and then you pick up your cutlery and then sit down to eat! After you have eaten you go in the washing up area and wash up your plate, cutlery and then pop it on this massive rack to drip dry.
Breakfast is at 6.10am. There is always bread, jam, cereal (it varies from cornflakes, rice krispies and bran flakes) and then a savoury option. This varies daily from cheese, sausage, corn beef, scrambled egg, chicken and mayo. I don't usually pick the savoury option. I have the cereal and bread. The milk is rarely cold, often on the luke warm or air temp side which is never fun! There are two sort of sandwich toaster machines which students use to toast their bread in the morning.
Breaktime-9am (there is also a 10 minute break at 11am). At the first break bread, jam, peanut butter and butter is put out for the students to make a sandwich with. On Wednesdays there are ACTUAL sandwiches which they put out with either tuna or cheese in. All the teachers get sandwiches every day which we (the TAs) thought was very unfair that we didnt get sandwiches and we have finally won the right to also get sandwiches everyday so now we go collect a plate from the back of the kitchen, score! Its the little things guys ok!!
Lunch: this is at 12.45. This is busier as some day students have the caf food as well.
Dinner: this is at 6pm.
What i have noticed:
-Lunch is normally when the food is slightly better as they are serving more people. For example, dessert at dinner is 99% of the time just fruit, any time we get cake or crumble its always at lunchtime. There are meals like hot dogs and just sausage rolls and salad and this is always for dinner or at the weekend.
- They toast EVERYTHING. Some dinners are wraps with fish (weird combo i know) and people toast their wrap, they toast their bread at break, bread is often put out at dinner as well for the hungrier students so some will make a sandwich and toast it with whatever is for dinner. e.g. when its spag bol they use the meat and put that in a sandwich and toast it. When I asked the girls why everyone is so obessed with toasting they said it makes it taste better and I now completely agree. For some reason it really does! (although i dont do the spag bol sandwich, that's just weird!)
- Quite a lot of people here, and not just students as i have noticed it when we have eaten out, put SO much salt on their food. They also really love ketchup here! They put it out when we have spag bol for example
- With the meat its often very tough and with chicken its always the parts like wings, pieces with the small bones in.
- Tuck Shop-this is by the field and mostly sells unhealthy food. crisps, chips, chocolate, sweets, fizzy drinks, brownies, doughnuts, pies. There is no healthy option, trust me i have looked!
-Bean Bag Cafe-this is by the front of school and is a kiosk which sells burgers, chips etc. They also have salads but I only found out from Tamara, i have not seen a kid walk away from that kiosk with anything other than a burger/cake/chips!
View of Food:
- Alot of people here grumble about the food. Yes some meals are not that great-you could argue they are more snacks than meals but i think generally it is pretty good.
- There is one meal that i just CANNOT eat-its a traditional meal. It is setswae and samp. Setswae is similar to crispy duck. Its the same texture but it is VERY salty. Samp looks very like mash potato but do not be fooled! Its basically a variety of beans all mushed up, so think baked beans kind of half mushed up. As most of you know i hate baked beans because of the horrible texture and this is the same texture and I just cannot eat it. So i just buy food from the Bean Bag Cafe when we have it, which is about once every 2/3 weeks.
Also..
-they call satsumas here, naartjie (they all find the word satsuma here very amusing)
-some of the food to begin with i found quite spicy (which Adjoa found very funny because to her it had almost no flavour-she says at home she has chilis in everything) but now its actually ok, im getting used to it!
-ketchup here is called tomato sauce-one waitress actually had no idea what i was going on about until Tamara said tomato sauce!
What I miss:
-Cheddar cheese-the only cheese we get here is that weird almost orange plastic like cheese. I especially miss cheese when we have spag bol!
- Chicken breast/chunks of chicken-oh what i would give to eat chicken without bones in!!
- Roast dinners. I dont think i need to say anymore!
-Fruit Juice. Especially in the morning
-Indian takeaways
-good fish-fishcakes especially!
- fresh loaf of bread, not the stupid sliced bread
- ham. good old ham!
-Grapes!
NB: obviously quite a lot of this i could actually get from a supermarket but that is a lot of effort and there is limited space in the sports office fridge. Besides what am i going to do with chicken breasts?! its not like i could walk into the kitchen and just fry one up the dinner ladies would probably kill me (they can be a little scary sometimes!!)
SO...
For every meal we come to the 'caf''. They have that hot oven thing to store the food in and then thats where they serve it from, the plop the food on and then you get your dessert from another dinnerlady (this is almost always fruit-changing from banana, apple, orange, nectarine and occasionally watermelon!) and then you pick up your cutlery and then sit down to eat! After you have eaten you go in the washing up area and wash up your plate, cutlery and then pop it on this massive rack to drip dry.
Breakfast is at 6.10am. There is always bread, jam, cereal (it varies from cornflakes, rice krispies and bran flakes) and then a savoury option. This varies daily from cheese, sausage, corn beef, scrambled egg, chicken and mayo. I don't usually pick the savoury option. I have the cereal and bread. The milk is rarely cold, often on the luke warm or air temp side which is never fun! There are two sort of sandwich toaster machines which students use to toast their bread in the morning.
Breaktime-9am (there is also a 10 minute break at 11am). At the first break bread, jam, peanut butter and butter is put out for the students to make a sandwich with. On Wednesdays there are ACTUAL sandwiches which they put out with either tuna or cheese in. All the teachers get sandwiches every day which we (the TAs) thought was very unfair that we didnt get sandwiches and we have finally won the right to also get sandwiches everyday so now we go collect a plate from the back of the kitchen, score! Its the little things guys ok!!
Lunch: this is at 12.45. This is busier as some day students have the caf food as well.
Dinner: this is at 6pm.
What i have noticed:
-Lunch is normally when the food is slightly better as they are serving more people. For example, dessert at dinner is 99% of the time just fruit, any time we get cake or crumble its always at lunchtime. There are meals like hot dogs and just sausage rolls and salad and this is always for dinner or at the weekend.
- They toast EVERYTHING. Some dinners are wraps with fish (weird combo i know) and people toast their wrap, they toast their bread at break, bread is often put out at dinner as well for the hungrier students so some will make a sandwich and toast it with whatever is for dinner. e.g. when its spag bol they use the meat and put that in a sandwich and toast it. When I asked the girls why everyone is so obessed with toasting they said it makes it taste better and I now completely agree. For some reason it really does! (although i dont do the spag bol sandwich, that's just weird!)
- Quite a lot of people here, and not just students as i have noticed it when we have eaten out, put SO much salt on their food. They also really love ketchup here! They put it out when we have spag bol for example
- With the meat its often very tough and with chicken its always the parts like wings, pieces with the small bones in.
- Tuck Shop-this is by the field and mostly sells unhealthy food. crisps, chips, chocolate, sweets, fizzy drinks, brownies, doughnuts, pies. There is no healthy option, trust me i have looked!
-Bean Bag Cafe-this is by the front of school and is a kiosk which sells burgers, chips etc. They also have salads but I only found out from Tamara, i have not seen a kid walk away from that kiosk with anything other than a burger/cake/chips!
View of Food:
- Alot of people here grumble about the food. Yes some meals are not that great-you could argue they are more snacks than meals but i think generally it is pretty good.
- There is one meal that i just CANNOT eat-its a traditional meal. It is setswae and samp. Setswae is similar to crispy duck. Its the same texture but it is VERY salty. Samp looks very like mash potato but do not be fooled! Its basically a variety of beans all mushed up, so think baked beans kind of half mushed up. As most of you know i hate baked beans because of the horrible texture and this is the same texture and I just cannot eat it. So i just buy food from the Bean Bag Cafe when we have it, which is about once every 2/3 weeks.
Also..
-they call satsumas here, naartjie (they all find the word satsuma here very amusing)
-some of the food to begin with i found quite spicy (which Adjoa found very funny because to her it had almost no flavour-she says at home she has chilis in everything) but now its actually ok, im getting used to it!
-ketchup here is called tomato sauce-one waitress actually had no idea what i was going on about until Tamara said tomato sauce!
What I miss:
-Cheddar cheese-the only cheese we get here is that weird almost orange plastic like cheese. I especially miss cheese when we have spag bol!
- Chicken breast/chunks of chicken-oh what i would give to eat chicken without bones in!!
- Roast dinners. I dont think i need to say anymore!
-Fruit Juice. Especially in the morning
-Indian takeaways
-good fish-fishcakes especially!
- fresh loaf of bread, not the stupid sliced bread
- ham. good old ham!
-Grapes!
NB: obviously quite a lot of this i could actually get from a supermarket but that is a lot of effort and there is limited space in the sports office fridge. Besides what am i going to do with chicken breasts?! its not like i could walk into the kitchen and just fry one up the dinner ladies would probably kill me (they can be a little scary sometimes!!)
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