Seventh Week

Monday: This week we’re going to have another teacher for the afternoon classes. But our new teacher Helen was not at school today, so Clare took the lessons today. We spoke about alternative medicine and had to choose one subject to talk about in class.
Tuesday: Today I head a presentation about applied kinesiology, the topic I’d chosen yesterday. I liked that and think I could learn a lot by doing a presentation about it.
Wednesday: After this Yoga-Class I was very exhausted. Perhaps it was a bit too much for me, or I just pushed my self too hard. Anyway, I can work on my flexibility, but as Catherine said: I shouldn’t exaggerate but feel better after class!
Thursday: We were playing new pieces again in today’s rehearsal. Amongst others, Joe chose a piece including a lot of different Swiss folk songs. I felt privileged that he chose this composition also because of me.
Friday: James, the owner of the school, told us today, that Diana, who had been working in the English Centre for eleven years, had been fired! This lead to a lot of discussions and speculations in class and at lunchtime Charly, Charles, Michel and I went to James to ask him about the matter. But the only thing he could say was that the relationship between employer and employee is confidential and that all the services provided by the school before will last. Encouraged by Michel, I discussed with my morning-class teacher, Ali, about my situation in class. Although I am in the highest level of normal English classes, I feel I could be a bit more challenged. Ali promised to look for a solution for my problem, and by the way it wasn’t the first time we had talked about that. In the evening I went to Catherine’s house to the second social Salsa dancing, this time organised by the salsa-teacher herself and again with lots of people. A good occasion to talk and have fun with a lot of Kiwis and some other students!
Saturday: At 10 o’clock, the bone carving workshop started. Stephan, originally from Germany, helped us to create our own, personal bone-carving. This was a really interesting thing to do. First we started to draw our ideas for a bone carving and naturally we had help from Stephan and he also gave us a book with the traditional Maori-Carvings and their meanings. After that, Stephan gave us a bone (from the leg of a cow) and we had to draw our idea onto the bone. Stephan lead us step by step trough the creation of a bone carving. After five hours of work, sawing, milling, grinding, sanding and polishing, I finally realised my personal idea of a bone carving. The idea of these pieces of jewellery is, to wear them ourselves and give them away as a present one day. The person getting the present should never forget us, and because we wore them ourselves, we also give them a part of our personality. The whole workshop and environment, together with this traditional background, let me feel like being in a spiritual place. And my bone is not only a machined piece of cow, but a very personal object.
Sunday: This morning I wanted to go biking and exploring the Nelson area, but then I decided to go to church with my host family. It was a very special worship practice, a little boy with cancer in his spine was healed by the community and a guy in the late forties was baptised. After the worship I was talking to a lady who will go on a trip to Europe, She told me, that she will amongst other countries also visit Switzerland. I told Jude in the morning that I wanted to go to Cable Bay, and after the worship, she offered to drive me there. I wasn’t prepared at all, but I spontaneously decided to walk from Cable Bay to the Glen. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me either, so I can’t give you a visual impression of the beautiful landscapes I saw. But I can promise you: It was worth it! Though I had bad shoes for walking. The way was almost never flat, and climbing hills with shoes which have absolutely no profile was a bit hard, and especially the wet meadows were extremely slippery. And near the end I lost my way. That’s why I had to descend a very steep hill with a lot of prickly bushes. But I finally arrived in the Glen after only one hour and fifty minutes, even though the walk is supposed to be three hours (That's what's written on the panel). Now I had to find a way to go back to Nelson. I tried it with hitch-hiking and before I left the little hamlet, a lady stopped and offered to give me a lift. Although she said she was a bit sleepy and wouldn’t talk much, we talked all the way to Nelson and I found out, that she’s originally from Canada and had been an English teacher at Nelson English Centre for a short time a couple of years ago.