Auburn House School

View from on top of Table Mountain to the crashing waves on rocks below

A Great Experience in South Africa

This story is about the feelings I had in a Montessori school in South Africa. This wonderful school I went to is called IMG_2976Auburn House School. In that school there were very nice people and I felt like everyone wanted to be my friend. It made me feel so happy.

One of the nice people I met was Iman, she is a kind girl who is my best friend. I am writing about Iman because on the 10th of April I was sitting on the playground and she sat next to me. Iman was very kind so I was kind back to her. One day me and one of my friends that I met on my first day (Haajir) walked over to Iman and asked her why she looked sad. She told us that some of her friends were not her friends anymore. I felt so bad that they weren’t her friends anymore so Haajir and I decided that we should do more things with Iman since she was all alone for at least three days. We then always worked with her or sat with her at lunch. I will always remember Iman because she is a really kind, loving and sweet friend!

On my first day of school I was very shy. Luckily, I knew the teachers so I thought that one of the teachers (Miss Cherry) would show me were to put my stuff. Instead, it was a girl named Bella who showed me where to put my stuff. She had lots of friends but I didn’t play with them because I felt very shy and didn’t know many of the kids she was playing with. So I decided that I would go sit on the steps by myself and wait. After awhile, I walked over to two girls one of them had braids (they call them plats in South Africa) and the other had a ponytail. They told me about the game they were playing. I became friends with them and started playing their game. It took me a couple of days to figure out what their names were. At first, I thought their names were Sydney and Taylor and then I thought their names were Sadhiv and Hacha but then I finally figured out their names were Haajir and Sadhiv. We all became BFFs (best friends forever) after that.Sign for Auburn House School with Table Mountain in the background

There is this language that we studied in class called Xhosa. One of my teachers, Miss Pili, teaches Xhosa. Xhosa is a native language to South Africa. It is actually a pretty fun language to learn. I liked learning Xhosa better than learning Afrikaans, which is another native language in South Africa. Some funny things that usually happened during Xhosa is that Miss Pili would always put funny things about one of the boys in my class on the board. One time she said he was dancing, singing and laughing. One time, Haajir and I were sitting down at reading time and reading a book about Xhosa words. We were trying to figure out what the word for fart was in Xhosa. We wanted to know because this same boy would always fart in class. No one in the whole class knew the word so we wanted to find out what the word was so that we could tell Miss Pili. The next day we did just that and we told Miss Pili what it was and she wrote down on the board and Haajir and I started laughing so hard while everyone else was looking puzzled.

The difference between the school I went to in Denver and the school I went to in South Africa is that back in USA after our teacher took attendance, we always had to sing The Pledge of a Allegiance but in the school we went to in South Africa we did not have to sing it. Another difference is that in Denver at the elementary school I went to there was only one grade in each classroom instead of three different grades in one classroom at Auburn House School. Some of the things that are the same are that we would always eat our lunch and then after that we would walk to the playground.

The five best words that describe South Africa are: friendly, amazing, best school, beautiful and lots of traffic. It is amazing because of Table Mountain. It is friendly because at the school I went to in Denver the cafeteria ladies were very strict and in South Africa there weren’t really cafeteria ladies who would boss you around. South Africa is beautiful A game of chase, mackenzie and quinn run on the green lawn of Kristenbosh Gardensbecause of all the sites you can see and all the nature with mountains. There is a lot of traffic every morning when we go to school and that is why it took 40-50 minutes to get there every morning. Some days I felt like I would vomit in the car because it was jerking around. The reason why my last word is the best school is because when I entered the school I felt really nervous and I felt like a lot of the kids were staring at me but then when I got to know it I felt like I could just walk around and be normal at the school.

On my last day of school I felt so sad and I remembered that I might never see my best friends or my teachers again. I was soo so so sad I even felt like crying. Since I came to South Africa I never wanted to leave but since I have I am glad I got the experience of being in the school.

 

 

Heart made out of lichen on a rock

Saying Goodbye

Today is our last day in Cape Town and the girls’ last day at Auburn House School. It is hard to believe we have already been here three months and that our time in South Africa must end.   We had lots of tears today at the school as we said goodbye and now at home it is sinking in that we really are leaving and the tears are flowing again. I asked one of the teachers today that if she knew ahead of time how painful it would be to say goodbye, would she have agreed to accept our girls in for the one term. She laughed and said “No!” and then went on to say how special they are and how wonderful it has been to have them be a part of the environment. I asked myself the same question this evening as I sat with each of my daughters comforting their tears. My emotional answer is ‘no’, I would rather avoid this difficult goodbye and protect my daughters from pain. The wise, balanced answer however, is ‘yes’. In spite of the pain they are feeling tonight, I would still enroll them in Auburn House School for the one term because if we had not, we would never have been a part of this wonderful, welcoming community of parents, kids and staff.Sign for Auburn House School with Table Mountain in the background

By the time our last month rolled around, the girls’ friendships were in full swing and each day at pickup time, more and more kids would ask us to arrange times with their parents for play dates. We knew we would never be able to coordinate each one in the short time we had left. This led us to the idea of hosting one big play date for all the kids in the Junior Primary (grades 1-3) who could make it to a park near the school on our last Saturday in town. In my experience, these things are typically hard to coordinate and often require more than two weeks notice, so I was blown away by how many parents and kids were able to come. I only wished we would have thought of this sooner because in that one afternoon we enjoyed easy conversations, made friends with the parents and understood why the girls so quickly fell in love with the community at Auburn House School.

I write this post tonight to say thank you to the principal and teachers for opening your doors and allowing the girls the opportunity to learn in an environment different from their own. They had a taste of two languages, Afrikaans and Xhosa (well three if you count the differences in terms between our English and the South African English). Perhaps you also saw the opportunity for learning and potential benefit of more diversity that a couple of girls from the United States could add to your classroom as well and for that, we are grateful.

We take our new friends with us in our hearts, the medicine of Table Mountain in our bodies and the warmth of community at Auburn House School in our spirits.