Astounding

My first stop in South Africa was to visit my friend Claire and help at her school. I met Claire five years ago when she worked at Tiger Kloof, a Round Square school here. Claire’s daughter Warona has down syndrome. There was no school in town for children with learning differences, so Claire started one.

The two busses into Vryburg each day stop at Steers, a South African burger chain. Claire met me at the bus and then we went into Steers where she and her husband were meeting with their architect. On the computer screen was a property map with the layout for a school with over 400 students. Claire’s school is less than a year old and already has over 120 students.

The school is named Tshiamelo Inclusive Educational Centre. Tshiamelo means ‘place of goodness.’ About 30% of the students have a learning difference or disability, but most students don’t. This is a new concept in South Africa. Tshiamelo is also an English-medium school. There are only two other English-medium schools in town. The rest of the schools teach in either Africaans or Tswana. Tswsna is the lingua franca of Botswana, but most Tswsna speakers live in north west South Africa.

Claire is married to KJ, a white man from the Netherlands, and has four children. Their family moved to their current home just five weeks ago. The school had outgrown is old location and is now located at their home too. They are renting the property with an option to buy and hope to start building new classroom buildings on the property within a couple of weeks. In the meantime, their garage houses two classes, their dining room houses another, and classes are squeezed in wherever possible.

Did I mention that Claire doesn’t draw a salary from the school and has a paying job working for a solar energy company. Astounding!