Sihle

People always tell you that you shouldn't pick favorites but sometimes you just have to.  Sihle is one of my favorite boys at St. Theresa's home in East Durban.  He is the only boy in Cottage 3 that always has homework no matter what.  Sometimes it is Afrikaans, maths, history, or Life Orientation which usually involves cutting out pictures of food or words from magazines and pasting them on a piece of paper.  Sihle is  13 years old and is in grade 6 in school.  He is very smart for his age and always likes doing homework, unless he is sick or not feeling well.  Homework time is from 3-4pm at St. Theresa's and most of the boys say they are done by the time I get there at 3:30pm but Sihle always has homework he is still working on.  One Monday in February, the Auntie who works in my cottage said that Sihle told her that he didn't have any homework but then when I came in he said he needed help.  I was flattered that he wanted me to help him with his homework even if it is simple things like cutting out pictures or looking up Afrikaans words in the dictionary to find their English meaning.  

Sihle is always dedicated to his homework and speaks English very well.  Most of the Theresa's boys speak very good English and usually that means they speak English at home.  Sihle's home story is one of the few that I know from the boys in my cottage.  St. Theresa's is a home for boys who are either orphaned or don't have family members that can take care of them.  Some of the boys come right to St. Theresa's but others, like Sihle, have been to other homes before.  On Monday of this week, I talked to Sihle about what he did this weekend and he said he didn't go home because there were too many people at the house.  When I asked him what that meant, he said that someone died in the parish that him and his family go to and his whole family was at a funeral service.  I asked him who his family included and he said his mom, his grandfather, his uncles, and his aunts.  He said that when someone in their church parish dies that everyone knows, they bring everyone somewhere to have a service and celebration of the person's life which could be as long as a couple days.  Sihle didn't seem too sad about not going home because most of the boys don't go home besides holidays.  It's hard to talk to these boys about their family lives because I don't want to step on their toes by asking but I do want them to be able to talk to me.  Since I always help Sihle with homework, it is easier to ease into questions about the weekend or family as opposed to the other kids that I don't regularly help in the afternoons.  

The favorite thing I help Sihle with and is unique to just him is helping with his spelling words on Thursdays.  Every Friday, Sihle has a spelling test so Thursday afternoons I quiz him on the words to make sure he knows them.  There are about 45 words per week and vary in difficultly depending on where they are in the term.  Since Sihle speaks English very well, his spelling is quite good as well.  Each Thursday we start with the first column and I read him each word from his exercise book and he writes down the word on a piece of scrap paper.  After the column is finished, I mark the words and he studies them before I test him again.  We usually repeat this process twice in order for him to get 100% or maybe just 1-2 wrong.  We repeat the same process for the second column and then we do one final test with all of the words.  It is great to see him get so excited when he gets all the words correct and is confident in himself.  When he gets one wrong, he can be pretty hard on himself but I encourage him to write the word out a couple of times and focus on the difficult ones more than the easier ones.  Right before I leave to go home,  I wish him good luck and he tells me that he is going to look them over one more time when he is in bed before he goes to sleep.  Since I have been helping him, he has been doing really well on his spelling tests and only getting 2-3 wrong per test.  I told him my goal for him is to get at least one 100% this term and he is excited about the challenge.  Sihle told me that he has to write in cursive and in pen and his teacher is strick about their writing so he has to make sure it is legable.  One week he forgot his exercise book at home and had to write the test on a single piece of paper.  He told me this wasn't allowed and the teacher gave him a naught (0%) because he didn't write the words in his exercise book! I told him that this was ridiculous and would never happen in the States but I encouraged him to remember his exercise book every Friday so this didn't happen again.  He hasn't forgot it since!

Sihle is a dedicated and extremely motivated learner who I know will be successful in life.  He has talked about becoming a teacher when he grows up and I think he would be great! Sihle is strongest in Maths and English but does well in every other subject.  I look forward to working with him at St. Theresa's and helping him continue to learn and grow through out the year.  I pray that each of the boys at St. Theresa's Home will be successful and happy throughout their whole life and they will be confident in who they are and know what they can achieve in the future.

South African Fact: St. Theresa's was started in 1925 by the Augustinian Sisters and houses about 80 boys ranging in age from 4 to 19 years old.