7.Kgathi ya Moshate 26-05

Grade 9 (111)

Before I start today’s story let me share an interesting experience from the previous school. At the end of the day I left Kgaba and navigated my way out through all the dusty back roads. I noticed three elderly gentlemen sitting on rocks at the side of the road with a old bicycle on its stand. They look so content with life that I had to stop and talk to them. I hauled out four oranges and joined them for a half hour trying more to listen to them than talking. I wonder what their reaction was to this white man stopping to talk. I am sure that it was not an issue for them as we all celebrated African Day.

Well, it was an early start to get to Kgathi ya Moshate Secondary driving the 40 km into town. In general I tend to look up the location of the schools on Google Maps on my phone. This gives me a good idea of where the schools are located and I make mental maps of key landmarks. Most of the time I am spot on but this morning I was lost. I was so close and resorted to asking one of the locals for directions. The schools was literally down a small driveway one row of houses to the east of where I was.

I was made to feel very welcome and before long I was busy with the demonstration under the trees. The downside of working outside is that one is dependent upon the elements. Today the challenge was cloud cover which interfered with the Solar Panel experiment. It was a pity as I had to resort to explanations rather than demonstrations. To see the car moving using solar power is encouraging.

There appears to be a growing trend of not solving the Wind Turbine challenge even after demonstrating Bernoulli’s principle and the small fan experiment. Maybe it is down to a lack of the ability of apply their knowledge as there was certainly no shortage of suggestions.