Day 228

Mother and two children.

These people were sitting in front of us yesterday and I took several pictures of them.  They sat close together, touching, and I noticed this about most of the groups, people's private space is much smaller than with white people, it is rather like the Xhosa in South Africa.  Everyone touching, and people sit just about on top of each other.

I remember my first year of teaching at a black school, Jongilanga High School in Kwelerha, outside East London.  One day I was sitting at the teacher's desk at the front of the class, marking books while the students were completing work at their desks.  One kid came up to ask me a question and as she did so she kind of leaned on my back, like my own child would have.  And then she saw something,  a picture in a book, perhaps, because I showed and drew a lot of pictures to explain unfathomable English words, and she exclaimed over it, and a whole lot of students then came up to have a look for themselves, and in the end I felt as though I was at the bottom of a rugby scrum, everyone leaning on top of me!  It was quite shocking for me, and also an honour, in a way, because I felt as though I had been accepted, they had forgotten I was this strange white teacher, the only one at the school, and I was now one of them. 

I ran 3.34 miles (5.37 km) today (thanks Brent!), still ostensibly training for the Fun Run.  I took 46 minutes, which is 8 minutes 33 seconds per km. 

I am rather sick of  "Land of the Silverbirch" as my tune, so ran for some distance to a reggae song "We'll be together..... with a roof right over our head....Is this love, is this love, is this love, is this love that I'm feeling?" which was good for the first km or two, but then I needed to speed up and found that all the hymns I ever knew, which are also good as lullabies for getting babies to go to sleep, are great for running!  "There is a green hill far away, without a city wall (Emma thought it went, 'without a city hall') worked really well.  And carols too came into my head.  Amazing, all the words that are stored in there, countless verses of hymns from my school days, where at assembly we would sing a different hymn each day. 

There were wonderful waves predicted for the beach today so although the weather was cool and cloudy, I went to take advantage of them.  After an hour in the water, enjoying huge waves, some quite scary, I scanned the few people on the beach for a kind face, and decided to ask a sweet middle-aged woman who was sitting alone, if she would take a photograph of me with my boogie-board for my blog.  On the way there I stood in a hole some child had dug and suddenly collapsed on the sand, although no one saw, I don't think.  So by the time I got to her I was fairly covered in sand.  Neverthless, I stood and smiled for ages, and then she said I should check because she wasn't sure if it had taken.  So I pressed the little button which allows you to see the latest photograph on the camera's memory and sure enough, there I was.  So she said, "Let's just take another for good measure", and I agreed. 

When I got home I discovered that the camera had been set on video, from India Day yesterday, and so there are two videos of me standing with a forced smile for about a minute each time!  A seagull comes into the frame and goes right across to exit on the other side.