Friday, February 09, 2007

Coming out of hibernation

Technically the title for this post is not quite correct.

It is the middle of summer here and we've had some very warm days.
College has also been up and running for about 3 weeks and a lot has been happening.
So much that I have in fact not been getting a lot of sleep!
So I finally have a quiet hour to reflect on everything that happened.

First of all I spent a large portion of my holidays preparing a computer laboratory in Room 9 in the dorm. The laboratory is connected to the internet. It consists of 5 computers running Suse Linux SLED10. (Have I mentioned that I am a linux enthusiast? It was quite a triumphant feeling everytime that I deleted Windows off a computer and put free software onto these machines.)

Then the high school students began to arrive. All 20 of them. And a whole bunch of new ones. Guys like Joseph and Thabo, and Natangwe, Dimitrio, Tella, Diitsetso, Rehabetswe. It always takes some time to get the new guys used to the culture at Helderberg, but these guys are nice guys and we are having a lot of fun with them.


This is Dimitrio. He is from Oranjemund. Mnn... what else should I say about him. I'm worried that his mother might read this blog, and then he will be in trouble :-).
Diitsetso. He is the social guy. He still needs to understand that holidays are the times when he goes home. School is for work. Fortunately his brother, Tella, is looking after him.

This is Tella. He shares a room with Diitsetso. Did I mention that they are twins? Tella got 86% for his first Mathematical Literacy test. He looks serious, but he is a lot of fun. They come from Bloemfontein.

Joseph is from Port Elizabeth. He is a really cool guy. He has a good sense of humour. I don't think it is possible to get him angry. And he is almost always one of the last ones to be ready for school or church.
Rehabetswe's name has immediately been rehabilitated to "Rehab". I feel a bit sorry for him. His brother has been at the dormitory for two years. Rehabetswe is in Grade 10 and his brother is in Matric. The two have quite different personalities and we often feel a bit surprised when Rehabetswe does not respond in exactly the same way to things as Regaugetswe (the brother). They come from a town in North West called Hartswater. They must have very good parents because they are such nice guys. (Regaugetswe will probably growl at me when he reads this).
Natangwe joins us from Windhoek. He completely dislikes the idea that he has to attend worship every night, but he has fortunately not given us too much of a hard time because of it. I like him because he seems very accepting of people and he has immediately made many friends.


We do of course also have a few old students. I'm not quite sure what Peter and Bulumko are doing here. They might be practicing for a special item.

Soon after the high school arrived, we took all our Resident Assistants and Assistant Deans on a camp. We coined the term, RAD. We had a lot of fun at a place called Breede River Escape.
We subjected them to five hours of leadership training seminars. They subjected us (the deans, and Ps. Letseli, to other more heinous forms of torture.)


Jody taking a plunge.



Baptism by flower and stones.

PS! I hereby give every citizen of Salisbury House and Anne Visser house to use whatever means you will to revenge yourselves upon these two perpetrators of crime.

A lot more has happened. But I will have to write more later as I have another appointment.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I support hunting down the criminals and re-enforce my un-involvement! TJ

Anonymous said...

TJ, you are such a goody-good that even if you were involved I doubt you would take responsibility