Life in the township

On the second week of our stay in South Africa we got the field work phase of our project underway.

NSN has adopted a few public schools around Pretoria. This means that they assist these schools financially in various things from acquiring study materials to general maintenance. The mobile learning project will be piloted in these adoption schools.

So far we have visited one of these schools in the Mamelodi township area, where we did the inquiry for the students of a local Secondary School. Luckily quite a few students were willing to fill out our inquiry form even though they had just finished their last exam before summer vacation. It was very interesting for us just to meet them and to get to know them a bit.

We also got an introduction of the school facilities. The school was in a surprisingly reasonable condition compared to the township area surrounding it. Especially the computer lab was quite up to date, having relatively modern PCs with Internet access and was protected by a thick steel door. The school library functioned as one of the three public libraries available for the use of half a million people and 58 other schools in Mamelodi. Considering that the library has that many users, it was very modest.

Driving through the township gave us a better picture of the living conditions in these poor regions. Having lunch in a thereby restaurant was a great experience which introduced us some of the specialities of a township kitchen and food culture.

First touch of Africa

18 hours of traveling way behind us, and after just five days in South Africa we’re already starting to feel at home. For that we owe a big thanks to the hospitality of the family we rented our apartment from.

Then to the reason we’re here for, the project with Nokia Siemens Networks. The goal is to motivate local students to learn mathematics by implementing mobile learning into their studies. As a result the students should get solid mathematical skills to become future professionals in the fields of technology and science. Our input is to meet the students and make a pre-evaluation about their attitudes towards the concept and mathematics.

All in all life has treated us well. Our apartment is everything we wished for and even beyond. Enjoying a cold drink by the pool, while bathing in the sun isn’t that horrible after all. Weather has been great, despite a few afternoon showers. But compared to the snow storms back home, we’ve got absolutely nothing to complain about. Our rental car is not the fastest possible one, neither the most fabulous piece of design, but we’re getting places and still alive and breathing…