Day 9

Friday marks the end of our full week in Macassar High and we are amazed how quickly it has flown by. Timings on Friday’s are different in that school finishes at   1:00 pm not as on the other days at 2:00 pm. The school operates a seven day, six period timetable with lessons being thirty minutes long. This means that the same day, e.g. Monday, will not always have the same lessons on. Every one seems to cope with these arrangements and the tannoy system is used to inform and reassure educators and learners when events dictate that the sequence of the lessons on a day has been reversed! Today is a normal day in school with no visits out so we should be able to immerse ourselves in lessons.

The school closed yesterday because the school had to supply official and supervisors for the championships. This is one of the downsides of being a small school as well as from the underfunding challenges and issues.  Over half the staff had to take part in the athletics either as officials or supervisors.  We catch up on yesterday’s news and congratulate the learners on their outstanding athletics successes from yesterday. We had stayed in touch during the course of yesterday when we realised that we would not be able to see the athletics match held locally between Macassar and nine other schools as part of the Western Cape championships.

Macassar came second overall and everyone is so upbeat. The expectations had been high because Rodney and Audrey (the sports coaches) had done so much training with the 130 students who took part but nobody in essence thought they would do so well. Macassar even had the glory of wining the final event of the day, the senior boys relay. Rodney and Audrey joke that it must have been Miss Rachel Atwell’s training last year when she came over to Macassar that had the impact. There is an element of truth in that as part of the PE syllabus have been rewritten on the basis of the partnership links between the two PE departments. Whatever the debate there is no doubt that the learners are delighted. It is Macassars’s best results for many years. We later earn that 56 of the 130 competitors been chosen for the next round.

We learn that the school is to receive 45 computers in a couple of weeks time to replace five year old machines in one of the three iT suites. This is partly due to the proactive approach made by Mr Abrahams in securing resources for the school. We also hear that another seven learners have enrolled in the school. We wonder if the athletics and IT news has had an influence!

Later on in the day the staff are taken on a tour of by two police colleagues of the school who show us two contrast of South Africa south of the Stellenbosch area. First we see the large township of Khayamandi lying adjacent to the rich University town of Stellenbosch which we will see in more detail tomorrow. We are also shown a couple of vineyards and one in particular which is being built from a former plum farm. Both serve to illustrate the dilemma and vast contrasts of the country in keeping investment for economic growth and the poverty which many South Africans live in. We enjoy our day and look forward to our last weekend in South Africa starting tomorrow.