My final school year at
Lilanga High School, Mpumalanga Province.
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| me and my friends at school during lunchtime. |
My name is Sthembile
Phumzile Shabalala, I am 18 years old I live at Diepdale which is situated in
the Mpumalanga Province. I am the last child in my family but the first one to
be in University, which is a very good thing. I am doing my first year at
University of Mpumalanga doing Bed Foundation phase teaching. Children are very
close to my heart I love children more than anything.
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| Sthembile Shabalala 2015 Matriculate. |
I matriculated at Lilanga
High School, located at Diepdale (Mpumalanga Province). Diepdale is more of a
rural area, but it is developing as the primary basic needs needed by a person
to survive are available (sanitation, electricity, clinics, schools). There are
less job opportunities, young people tend to leave the place after completing
their matric to the city, for a better and interesting life.My class teacher was my
Physical Sciences teacher Mr Magasa who originated from Zimbabwe. He was a very
good teacher, he treated us all equally, treated us as his children. My
principal was Mr Mkhatshwa Z.L, a very humble, caring, loving person he cared
about the well-being of every learner that went into our school. He was the
person that inspired me to do good every time, he inspired me in lot of things.
He used to say that “success is not inherited but generated” and that kept me
going. He was my favourite in the whole school.
I was doing the Science
stream, my subjects were Life Sciences, Geography, Physical Sciences,
Mathematics, Siswati Home Language, Life Orientation and English First
Additional Language. My favourite subject was Geography I loved and enjoyed
Geography more than any other subject. Wanted to be a Geography teacher when I
finished high school but that life brought me to Foundation phase teaching
which I still find interesting to be in too.
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| Knowledge is Light |
My final school year was not
that good, have bad memories. A very tragic scenario happened, I could still remember
the day and time as if it was yesterday. It was on the 21 August 2014 we were
attending afternoon classes as the grade 12 learners. The classes went on just
like any other days, we were attending Physical sciences we were attended by
the subject teacher, Mr Magasa but he had to leave the class before it
adjourned due to some emergency that needed his attention. So we were left with
some guy who was helping us with Science subjects, Thabiso. Ten minutes after
Mr Magasa’s departure, a Consumer Studies learner, being careless and childish
sprayed our class windows using some spray that was much like of Teargas, (Teargas it a spray used by police to manage
or control people during violent uprisings/strikes) but the spray he used
was not teargas because it had side effects. The spray affected all those who
were inside the classroom we all started to cough some started to cough up
blood, it was real bad. We all could not breathe properly, we suffered from
chest pains.
We called Mr Magasa and the
principal they took us to the local clinic, when we arrive at the clinic they
called ambulances to transport the learners to hospital. It was very hurting to
see our classmates lying there helpless and in pain. They gave us some pills to
drink they were five of them and we had to drink them at the same time with lot
of water.
We went back homes (us) the
learners that seemed to be less affected by the poison and those who were
highly affected went to the hospital, not knowing what will happen during the night.
I got home was feeling okay, I ate and took a bath went to bed. In the middle
of the night I was so feeling cold yet I was covered with three big blankets
you can even think of, went to the bathroom to pee and I could feel that
something was real wrong, I could not walk properly on my way back from bathroom
to my room I mistakenly hit the door. Early in the morning my mother took me to
the school for principal to transport us to the nearest clinic, when I arrived
there I found lot of the other learners having the same problem as mine. Principal
with the help of the other teachers they rushed us to the local clinic, when we
arrived there they told us that there is nothing they could do to help us they
referred us to the nearby clinic at Mayflower. When we arrived they called
Ambulances to rush us to the Hospital so we were admitted to Embhuleni Hospital
were some got treated and they were released on that very same day, pity I had
to stay behind with some other learners for the doctors said we were too weak
to be released he still wanted to keep us under his eye to monitor our state. We
were released after a week and we were still weak but we were managing.
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| Lilanga High School |
There was no much of
educational technology used in my school, the school had no computers we did
not do computer as a subject only the administrators used computers neither the
teachers did not use any form of technology when conducting their classes. The teachers
did own some laptops but they were not using their laptops when conducting
their lessons since the school had no projectors.
The link of a google map showing the location of my previous school where I matriculated.
