End of Exams!

Tuesday was the last day of tests for the term!! That evening, we had a movie night--the LRC's and I had our wires crossed, though, so we each brought a movie to the hall.  So we watched both.  Whatever, we were there til 9:40. We watched John Carter (dumb), then THE PRINCESS BRIDE! Hilarious! They loved it.  Even though it was hard to follow for them.  They were cheering super loud during Inigo Montoya's big duel at the end!  And every time Fred Savage interrupted they laughed a lot. One thing about watching movies with these kids is that they don't hold back with their laughing and cheering.  It's really exciting to watch movies with them.

Yesterday I got to be with the learners all day, after two weeks of them being ... sequestered in their classrooms, studying and testing.  The grade 8's and I had rehearsals for their plays in the morning.While I was with the grade 8's, another teacher was supposed to be planning a debate with the grade 11s, but she was ill, so the LRCs (the student council) played music videos in the dining hall for them.  Before lunch, we watched a movie. During the moments of my downtime in the morning, I finished up entering their grades into the computer program, and got questions from all of the teachers for a quiz in the afternoon, to replace the debate.

After lunch, I played Karaoke Bob, and we had a trivia contest between all the classes (because "they couldn't handle a day without a test! I'll ween you off of them slowly"). It was pretty fun, I think, even though initially, the three participants from each class were very reluctant to get on stage.  They actually did quite well once they were there! We had a lot of fun. And I lost my voice reading the questions.  It turned out well for being thrown together in 2 hours. The only thing is that we should have had desks for the teams to stand at for the final round.  The first two rounds were set up like Rulloff's trivia rounds--8 questions and they answer the questions in their books, then their answers were tallied.  One class was knocked out each round.  The final round was between the two classes still standing in each grade.  Three strikes and out.  8D won, and 11C and 11D ran out of questions, so we declared it a tie and went to dinner.

After dinner, the LRC's again had their wires crossed with mine, and they were making a list of kwaito performers (I will get a video of that next term--they are super good and dancing!), when I was planning to only have grade 8 dramas and songs that they had been preparing for art class.  But it all turned out for the best, and we blended the two lists together.

Class 8B performed a hilarious, yet quite classy drama about HIV.  They practiced a lot together as a class, and they were seriously impressive.  Seriously.  So good! 8D's drama hit the fan earlier that day, so they only had to perform 1 song, and even that was pretty embarrassing for them.  I was actually really glad they felt embarrassed by it, because they got to see what it looked like when 30 people worked together and what happened when they didn't.  8C almost had the same thing happen, and were on the verge of being embarrassed in the morning, but I gave them a talking to.  I told them that even though some people had put in a lot of hard work into the drama, they wouldn't be able to do it. So they should just sing songs.  Instead of backing off, though, they pulled a complete 180 and got a whole new drama written, rehearsed and costumed/propped in the morning.  It was pretty excellent! Their acting was much quieter, but it was still impressive! I was really, really proud of them for working together when they were down to the wire.  8A closed the program with 4 great songs and dances about HIV.

The rest of the evening, between the grade 8 performances and after the official end, we had boys (and one girl!) dancing kwaito.  I let them just dance for a while, and right when all hell was about to break loose and every learner wanted a chance to get on the stage, I sent them home for the night.  Things wrapped up around 21h10 (9:10pm) with a less than stellar performance from the LRCs.  Everyone went home happy.  I quickly edited one class's report cards, adding their grade ranking to the report and passed out for the night.

That is the kind of day I love.  Busy, fun, and filled with learners. I had missed them so much during testing, and everything about me showed it.  But after a day like that, I'm back, baby! A great and uplifting way to end the term.

And next week, all of the WorldTeachers are headed back to Windhoek, and then a bunch of us are travelling all over!! Exciting! All the way up to Lake Malawi by way of the Kavango River Delta and Great Zimbabwe, and back by way of Vic Falls! Should be a fun and relaxing break!