Girls Club

I (Sara) have had a number of girls clubs since the beginning of the year.  I do girls clubs with the high school boarding students, but my Grade 7 club is definitely my favourite.  The idea is to bring girls together in a safe, nonjudgmental environment to discuss life skills lessons.  For most of the year, I tried holding the club at school during a free period on Fridays.  Unfortunately, the learners often have to clean classrooms on Fridays, which interfered with my club.  A few months ago, I began holding the sessions at our house after school in Fridays.  The girls love the fact that they get to take over our house and evict Matt to the hospital office.

While we still do a short life skills lesson at the beginning of the session (e.g., friendship, goal setting, values), the main focus has shifted to baking.  Needless to say, the baking gets a bit crazy.  Imagine a group of 12-15 girls huddled around a small table, yelling at each other in Zulu, fighting over who gets to add the flour or beat the eggs.  “Too many cooks in the kitchen” does not come close to capturing the chaos.  I’ve had dough all over the floor and tortillas on the walls, but it’s been so much fun.  Luckily, the girls are really great about sweeping the floor and doing the dishes afterward.

School doesn’t officially end for a few more weeks, but we had Grade 7 graduation this week.  Most of the girls will be moving on to the high school to do Grade 8 next year (the boys are less studious, to put it mildly).  There have been many trying times in their classroom, but I’m really going to miss these girls.  While our first year in the Peace Corps dragged on and on and on, this year has gone by so quickly.