Jan 9 - Volunteering at St. Anne's

After a nice relaxing free day Sunday, for those of us who didn't want to visit with the sharks that is, it was back to work this morning! Gloria, Sarah, Ciara and I have been spending our work days at St. Anne's home for abused women& children located in Woodstock, a neighborhood nearby Observatory where we are staying. The facility does not just provide shelter for the women and their children, but it also provides therapy services for mothers and children (social work and occupational therapy), life skills training for mothers and daycare for the children where the four of us have been spending our time! St. Anne's is a truly amazing place because it acts as a safe place where these women can get back on their feet and learn to live on their own and create a better life for themselves and their children.

(Outside St. Anne's Home)

There are two classrooms in the creche, daycare, an infant room that usually has 3 or 4 babies ages 3 months to 8 months, and a preschool room that has 8 or 9 children ages 2 to 5 years. I have spent most of my time with the preschoolers, which is where I spent my day today. Today was the first day we've been here that the preschool room had school. When Gloria and I went into the classroom, the children were all sitting on the floor and Chantal, their teacher, was having them recite the days of the week, months and seasons. Gloria and I joined in, but when Chantal asked what season the year starts off with, the kids laughed that we thought it was winter! We had to explain to them that in America, January isn't a summer month, it's a winter month. They all thought that was funny.

(The Infant Room)

After their lesson, we read a few books, played with play doh and did some puzzles before it was time for snack. Each day the children get apple slices for snack & I think it is so sweet that before the children can eat their snack or lunch, they say a little prayer thanking God for their food. After snack, we went and played outside on the playground. Gloria did a good job tiring the kids out playing monster while I sang songs with some of them. Some favorites that I've taught them are "5 Little Monkeys" & "We're Going on a Bear Hunt." After running around outside for a bit shorter than we have in the past, we went inside for lunch and then nap time. Today was a very easy nap time because they were all exhausted from running around outside. While the kids napped, we ate our lunches packed for us by Ivy & went to the infant room to spend time with the younger kids. For most of the time we were in there, the babies were sleeping, so it was a very relaxing end to the work day.

(Nap Time in the Preschool Room)

Because of safety concerns for some of the children, the pictures I have posted of St. Anne's are not of the children's faces, only ones of the facility and the back of their heads.

We had some down time between work and dinner. Some people went to the outdoor market to shop for more souvenirs, some just hung out at home and I, your blogger for the day, was lazy and took a very much needed nap! Once everyone got back from their shopping and other errands, we ate a delicious pasta dinner made by Ivy & then Mariana, the grad student traveling with us, gave her presentation on post-apartheid education in South Africa. It was a topic that we had touched on in our class during the semester, but she went into much more detail. It was shocking to hear about the wonderful ideas the government has to create more equality in the school systems but how little of it has been practiced.

After her presentation, we talked about our plans for the upcoming week and most of us ate some banana bread for dessert, a snack I have been waiting for since Jess mentioned the nearby bakery on our first day here! All in all, today was an excellent Monday :)

-Nikki