Diversely unique spelling bee

JUSTISIA SHIPENA
Hambeleni Kamati

ISWB made history on 27 February 2020! We hosted the first ever Spelling Bee, involving only government schools who offer Portuguese in the circuit. What an electrifying afternoon!

The two schools competing against each was ISWB and Duinesig High School. The two schools showed amazing sportsmanship and the competition was tackled with enthusiasm and a lot of support from both schools. Josefina Shatuumbu from ISWB stated that “This is my first spelling bee and I feel pretty confident since I believe this is going to be a fair competition and I look forward to know if I stand a chance to win.” Ms Hilya, a teacher from Duinesig agreed stating that her learners were knowledgeable, facing their fears with confidence and putting their words into action. She was super proud of her students.

The first round took a while since all the contestants had to spell a word in one of the three languages. There were thirty words, all synonyms. Unfortunately, some contestants misspelled their words and were eliminated.

The next round was more challenging. Here, the contestants spelled words in the language of them choose and the words increased in difficulty as the afternoon progressed. One by one the contestants were eliminated until only the winners remained.

The winner in the Portuguese category was Leonardo Ramos. There was an intense battle between Blessing Lifuna and Kundayi Muganga, both experts in spelling English words, but in the end Blessing Lifuna [ISWB] was the winner. The Afrikaans category was clinched by Helvi Shuudifonya [Duinesig] who impressed everyone with her amazing spelling talent.

Angelina Costa, from the Portuguese Embassy and a judge, thanked everyone for the spirit in which the competition took place. She expressed her hope that it would become an annual event and thanked Adriana Texeira (Portuguese teacher) and Elizabeth du Brito for organising this successful event.