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On a slightly more miserable note, This post falls under the: 'I'm tired and I want to have a rant but my best friend's gone out for the day so I'll have to do it on my blog' category.

I share a room with 3 other people. Most of the time it's really fun, you get a really close relationship, it's nice to have someone to chat to at the end of the day when you're lying in bed. But there are two flaws: Even with the best of people, when you eat, sleep and work in the same place, you begin to see an awful lot of the same people and the smallest things about their personality can begin to grate on your nerves. I'm sure I really irritate some people, but one of my roomies is currently irritating me more than usual. The other flaw is a personal one: It turns out, I'm a very light sleeper. I seem to wake up and very little. This is where today's rant stems from.

The roomie in question is quite loud generally. I had night-shift last night so I really really wanted to sleep today because I was exhausted, something about doing nothing all night except staying awake really takes it out of you. Anyway, I manage to sleep through from 7.30am to maybe 1.30pm. 6 hours isn't too bad, but I would really like more. I'm woken by her phone ringing, it's our other room-mate who's in Joburg. It's not so much the phone ringing I was annoyed at, it was more that she sat on the top bunk having a really loud conversation at my equivalent of 4/5 in the morning instead of going outside.Then she calls someone else to arrange a skype or something. ARGH. Then she puts the fan on. This has become a bit of a battle subject recently in our room. There is a desk fan and this roomie like to put it on and leave it on all night under the impression it keeps the mosquitos off her. Judging by the amount of twitching, swearing and slapping that goes on, I would confidently say, it doesn't work. It used to just blow the mozzies into the bottom bunk where I was and they couldn't work out how to get out again, but now I have a net. The problem we have with the fan is that it is fairly noisy and she is the only one who feels any of the moving air because of the way she directs it. It's maddening. You're trying to sleep in a hot, sticky room and you can hear a fan, you can hear the air moving, you just can't feel it. It makes you feel even more hot and sticky. But when we ask her if she could not use the fan, she lies on the top bunk twitching and muttering and huffing and tutting.

So I might have stolen the blades out of the fan!

Bashed Up

Ok, first off, Hello to the PT volunteer who is reading and is coming out next August! And thanks for emailing me, it made my day!

I'm currently trying to organise a holiday for me and Sarah. It's chaos. We're in the middle of the summer holiday here, but we both have about 6 days off together by chance in the beginning of January, so we wanted to go to Mossel Bay and do some/all/part of the following:

• Learn to Surf
• Sandboarding
• Go to Wilderness
• Diving
• Skydive
• Paragliding
• (I just discovered this looking for prices for something else) Quad biking on a Game farm.

But because it's the middle of holiday season, everything is chock-a-block full to the gills! So I'm not entirely sure how well this is going to go!

In other news, me and one of my roomies went swimming in the very green pool yesterday (not 'eco' green. Literally green, it's a bit gross actually) and I wanted to show off my upside-down-balancing-skills, so I tried to do a handstand on the bottom step of the pool. Unfortunately I forgot that if there's a bottom step, there's probably a next step quite close to it. I put my hands on the bottom step,  swing my head down, and smash my face into the next step up. It wasn't overly hard, i.e. I didn't lose any teeth, but I did get a fat lip. I decide to float on the top of the water for a bit, just relax and all, when my roomie decides to swim underneath me to freak me out. Didn't work but I wanted to swim under her to freak her out, and I scraped my chin on the floor of the pool. The floor of the pool has an anti-slip thing which means it's textured as if someone glued sand to the bottom: very rough. So now I have no skin on my chin and thank goodness  my lip went down otherwise I would have seriously looked like I got in a fight. Also, can you imagine people thinking you got in a fight with someone then having to explain it was all self-inflicted due to stupidity?!

Honey Bees and Teenage Girls

It's only ten to eleven, but I thought I'd write a quick little paragraph about the behaviour of the girls I'm working with tonight. Last night I was with the same girls and it was insanity. They wouldn't go to bed, they started swearing at us in Afrikaans and English, then throwing empty cans and bottles at us. They were smoking in their bedroom, and we think they were also taking drugs. Some of them didn't sleep all night, but thankfully they calmed down enough that they were just chatting quietly in their room and sometimes playing music. Tonight, we were expecting the same as last night, only worse, due to the fact that it is Christmas day tomorrow and what kid doesn't get excited for Christmas? So I was a little apprehensive all day. I didn't want to have to battle against the kids, for so little. But I get to work and find that two of the girls have absconded. The two girls that had been causing most of the trouble last night. The girls that are home are all well behaved, the atmosphere is calm and fairly peaceful. At one point, they even want to paint my nails (I held out and my nails are still their natural colour!). There was such a difference in the house because just these two girls weren't there.

And it got me thinking, this is going to tangent, but I promise it gets there: In England, my parents keep honey bees, and a few months before I came here, my dad was asked to take a hive of bees that the owner couldn't keep because they were so aggressive. The bees would follow people and try and attack them or dive-bomb them. Having them live in our garage made life interesting. The thing with honey bees is that if the queen bee is aggressive, bad tempered and violent, all the other bees take on those characteristics and also behave aggressively and violently. If you change the queen and replace the angry queen with a calm queen, the bees will change their personalities to fit the new queen and they will also behave with a calm manner.

The girls here are so much like the bees in their behaviours. Calm and fairly respectful girls will become disrespectful, moody and bad tempered if the older or stronger (personality wise) girls are around. It's quite bizarre!

It's now 10 past midnight, and as much as I envisioned myself live blogging (without internet connection) all night, I've come to the conclusion that it is going to be a night like any other, although I might have to let Santa in through the front door later as the houses don't have fire places and therefore no chimneys. The thing I think I'm most excited about isn't actually x-mas day and presents and what-not (I opened all my presents already cause I thought it would be mean of me to be opening presents on x-mas day in front of other volunteers who didn't have any). But I'm massively excited about the surprise I have planned for Sarah! For her birthday in November, I bought her a massive mug because all the mugs in Back Kitchen are quite small, but she dropped it within the week and it broke. So for Christmas, I bought her another mug, but this time I bought a plain white one and decorated it with orange nail polish and I got her some pens-she's always complaining about having only 1 pen, and some coffee. I persuaded one of her room-mates to give me a key to her room and as soon as I finish my night-shift, I plan to sneak into her room and put the coffee and pens wrapped up on the end of her bed as if Santa's been! If she wakes up, I'm in trouble, but I'm seriously considering just saying I'm so tired I forgot which is my room and hope she doesn't question how I got a room key! I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow!

Just let Father Christmas in through the main gate. He said he likes homes with lots of kids cause it saves him time. 40 kids in one place means he doesn't have to do 40 different chimneys, he's getting old and his knees aren't what they used to be. Also he says to tell folk that all the mince pies and full fat milk aren't good for his diet, could people please leave out a nice salad next year?

So it's the end of Christmas and it's been possibly one of my best Christmases ever! But that might be down to the fact that whenever you have a lot of people or a massive plan for the day, it's so much easier to get disappointed. If you have no plan for the day except to have a picnic with friends, you can't go wrong! I also went swimming in the pool at Home, weirdest thing to be swimming outside or wearing shorts and a t-shirt and burning my feet on the floor in December.

Sarah loved her gifts, she didn't know who the stocking was from and she thought the mug was awesome. And she got me a silver voucher worth R100 to spend on food at the Neighbourgoods market...I like her style! It also means we have to go back to the market!

So that was my x-mas, I hope all of your x-mas' were equally awesome.

Also, I got an email from my Dad and a letter from my Mum both saying that they know people who are following my blog, like properly following. My Dad said he was on tour with someone who knew when I'd posted before he did, so if you know me or my family or you just like my blog (maybe there are people out there!?) please do write me a comment, or if you want to email me (plumthing101@hotmail.co.uk) cause it's always a nice surprise. You don't even have to have a google account to write a comment, and you can do it anonymously-but that's boring!

Eyes and Ears Open Folks!

I plan on writing a blog post tonight while I'm on my night-shift, what's happening and what-not. It probably won't be fantastically interesting, but it'll be my x-mas post. I also planned on going for a picnic tomorrow afternoon, but the weather currently isn't looking fantastic. I was told it was over 35 degrees yesterday (I slept through it!) and then at maybe 2am there is a massive thunder storm, there aren't even clouds in sight, but that be SA for you! Anyway, the weather today is very cloudy and a little bit cold (although the thermometer on my watch is saying 24 degrees) so we've decided that if it is anything but glorious sun tomorrow, we'll make a den in our room between the bunk beds using our bed sheets and have a special party in there!

Drumming on the Streets of Cape Town

So, another double post, this time because when I tried to type up a post yesterday at the gym, the computer was a bit funny and wouldn't let me format it properly. Also, if it doesn't read well, it's because I have a massive headache and I'm exhausted having only slept 5/6 hours last night, and up and about all day and now it's 23.30 I'm on night-shift again and I'm trying desperately to stay awake.

OK, first post first: I got 3 surprise parcels in 2 days! 2 came on Wednesday, one from America and one from Manchester, England. I had no idea that either of them were coming so it was wonderful to have another volunteer hand me two parcels and them both be for me and not for me too give to another volunteer! The one from America was from a family my brother went to stay with when he went on his football exchange (and then the whole family came to England for a week last year and there were 10 people living in the house!). They sent me some American sweets, salt water taffy takes some getting used to, and games to play with the kids along with a lovely card, so thank you to the Burnetts (and apologies if I spelt that wrong, I'm typing this without internet so I can't check!)

My other parcel that day was from my Parents, and contained lots and lots of things for me to do with the kids like those hand tattoos of animals that make your hands into puppets, and tiddlywinks! And I also got a letter from each member of my immediate family which was basically the best bit of the box! I wasn't expecting this parcel because I got one from them less than a week before that contained home-made Christmas cake, a Christmas pudding and somewhat-squidgy-due-to-the-35-degree-heat chocolate, so to get another parcel, I was happily surprised!

The last parcel, came on the Thursday and was from my amazing Cornish Grandparents. It had 5 DVD's to play with the kids: Brave, Up, Ice Age 4 (love people that read my blog!), Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas and Shaun the Sheep. Shaun the Sheep was already opened due to the fact my Nanna is addicted to the show and only buys the DVD's so she can watch the episode's she's missed. She thinks we don't know, but we do. (Love you Nanna!) It also contained a badge. But not just any badge, oh no, this badge is a very special badge as it has the flags of my 2 favourite places in the world on it. It is a metal pin badge with a crossed Cornish and South African flag. It is the most beautiful thing in the world! The reason you can buy those two particular flags together is that a lot of Cornish miners migrated to the South African and American mines when all the Cornish ones closed down (story for another time).

That's the end of my first post, but I would like to make it known that Sarah just brought me two slices of peanut-butter and mashed banana on toast and two mini-chocolate-muffins to my night-shift. (Epic love for you as well Sarah!) Me and one of my roomies took her a toastie with egg and stuff and a cup of coffee when she hurt her foot and had to do night-shift last week, so when I said I had a headache, she brought me that and we watched some Shaun the Sheep!

And my second post is about what I did today (and most of the reason why I'm so tired!) We, me, 2 roomies, Sarah and one of her roomies, went to Neighbourgoods Market today! It's a market that runs every Saturday from 10am til 2pm and sells really really good food. Like really good food. And clothes and other in-edibles, but a lot of food. The food might have only been so good because I haven't eaten anything like it in 4 months. Raw vegetables have never tasted so good. The food at the Home is nice, a bit repetitive sometimes, but nice. But the vegetables are always sweetened or cooked so long they're mushy, so having some raw cabbage was heaven!

We then caught a mini-bus taxi to Cape Town to have a look round Green Market Square. We sat at a cafe, and got some drinks (I believe it was 36 today). Sarah wandered off to the piercing shop to see if she could change a ball for a ring or something and I went to have a look at some of the stalls while the other 3 were still at the cafe. Before I've even finished one row of the market, than Sarah comes hobbling over as fast as her ankle will carry her and is chattering something about a drum circle up the road, so we both set of as fast as we possibly can, me falling over the flip-flops on my feet, her trying not to damage her ankle further, to the sound of drums. We see the circle set up on the side of the road, literally, some people were sat on the pavement on chairs, other's were perched on mini drums on the road, drums resting on the kerb. There's a free drum, so seeing as Sarah didn't want to dive right in, I just started drumming. It was amazing. I have no other words to describe it. Sarah came and joined in as soon as another drum became available, and suddenly, we'd gone from Neighbourgoods market with so many tourists, to the people the tourists taking pictures of us drumming on the side of the street! It was so surreal. We completely forgot the others were still at the cafe and sat drumming for at least half an hour! But it was so worth it!

And me and Sarah are getting Djembes! We went to the drumming circle at the Home on Thursday, and we spoke to the guy who was leading it, and he said he could get us a Djembe each from a market, then he strips them down to check for woodworm and stuff then puts them back together and tunes them up and we can have them for around R800 (about £60) which is the same price you can get them straight off the market, I've found. We'll probably have them by the end of January!

Toms.

We had our Christmas party today. And it was lekker lekker! We played games for young kids, pass the parcel, and games for older kids, ninja. We also did a massive secret santa which was a bit of a hassle because there are so many volunteers here a lot of people picked someone they didn't know! So most of the presents were just general gifts but because Sarah is here, the person who had me asked her what I liked, so I got a bar of chocolate, some donuts and a 2l bottle of coke that was decorated with swirly patterns and it said: “Cornwall is the best” on the side!

We also got a present from the Home. Now, this is going to seem like it's going off on a tangent, but bare with me. In England a year or two ago, there were a brand of shoes that became really popular really quickly. Toms. I think the whole 'thing' that made people buy them, was that they had a 'one for one' scheme that meant for every pair of Toms bought, another pair would be donated to a poverty stricken child in a 3^rd world country who can't afford shoes. All the volunteers here, have as of 19.00 today, become one of those children that get donated shoes!

I should explain before anyone gets all angry that 1^st world teenagers got the shoes: The home that I'm volunteering in got a massive donation of Toms for the kids. The 3^rd world kids that can't afford shoes. But the home I'm volunteering in also gets a lot of donations including shoes. Also, the Toms came in a range of sizes with enough shoes to fit every child, unfortunately, although they gave a pair of shoes for each child, they gave too many shoes in higher sizes so there becomes not enough shoes for all the children. Because all the kids would fight if only some of them got nice new pumps (any parent of more than one child I'm sure will agree that if you give one kid something, all the other kids want the same or better) they've had to not give the Toms to the kids, only if kids need school shoes, they might get a pair. I think it's hilarious that the western teens get some of the shoes!

So I guess what I'm saying is:

Thanks for the shoes guys!

Nag Skuif

13/12/12-14/12/12

OK, so it's roughly 4am and I'm on a night-shift. I thought I'd write a post about what work we get to do on our night-shifts. It is really quite boring! If you're in a house with the younger kids, you get to change nappies and wake kids up to go pee. There are some kids you need to wake up in the older houses, but it's not so much of a mission. Tonight, I've been placed in the boys house (because it's the holidays, there is one girls house open, two boys houses and one house for the younger kids.) And it is wildly exhilarating, if by that you mean it couldn't get more boring if you tried. If you're lucky, it's 10 hours sat on a mattress listening to kids sleep. If you're not so lucky, like me tonight, you get a rather small sofa cushion to sit on for 10 hours.

On night-shift, you aren't allowed to sleep, obviously. But I'm fairly certain I'm one for very few volunteers that doesn't actually sleep. Some people are annoyingly blasé about how much they sleep, others pretend they don't sleep. I don't want to sound self-righteous or whatever the term is, but I think we all came here to work, and if we get placed on a night-shift, then we have to stay awake. There is a reason that there are volunteers on night-shift: Because of their pasts, some of the children have trouble getting to sleep and it reassures them that they are safe and there is someone watching out for them and making sure they come to no harm. Also there needs to be someone awake so that if anything happens to any of the children, a volunteer can either call for help or deal with the situation. The fact that some volunteers sleep irritates me. If you wouldn't sleep on day-shift, why should you sleep on night-shift.

I dunno. It's 4am and I wanted to have a rant, and I'm very bored having already watched 3.5 movies, read a little and played on my room-mates Nintendo DS

In other news, I bought a mosquito net yesterday. It's absolutely huge, and it was quite expensive, but last night, I caught (and killed) 3 mozzies in 15 minutes, only to go back to bed and have another one in my ear within 5 mins. I've been so pleased to have the lower bunk and a bunk bed since I arrived, just because I've been able to get so creative with it, but trying to install a 2 meter high circular net into a 1 meter high square space was certainly challenging! Especially as the net can't touch you're body, otherwise it doesn't work. It took me 2 hours, a lots of string, twine and thread and an awful lot of sweat (perhaps due to the 35 degree heat of the day) but it is up. It's just a shame that I'm spending the next 3 nights sat on a mozzie infected corridor. Hey ho, that's life!

6 bites on my left hand, 7 on my right...we're not even going to count the ones on my feet!

14/12/12-15/12/12 11pm

OK so this is now a double post in one. I didn't get round to posting this today so I'll try and post it tomorrow. Tonight, I've been placed in the girls house. The younger kids are downstairs, and I think there are less than 10 of the older girls here tonight. I know one of them has run away. This is quite a frequent occurrence, not just for this particular child, but for the kids in general. Unfortunately there isn’t a lot the home can do. With some of the children they can cancel home visits if they abscond too much, but if a child has no home to go to on weekends or holidays, and their pocket money has already been stopped, what else can you do? The kids that abscond usually come back the same night and when they come back, they have to sleep on the sofa or the floor of whichever room and house the night-shift leader is in so they don't disturb the other children and so that someone can keep an eye on them if they are intoxicated to make sure they don't hurt themselves or someone else.

But on a much better note, I just spent maybe half an hour sitting with 3 of the girls having them help me learn Afrikaans. It's really nice getting the kids to help me and one of the girls was telling me how nice it was of me to try and learn Afrikaans because usually the volunteers just assume the kids can speak English and leave it at that. She helped me pronounce the work 'bietjie' meaning 'little'. It looks like it would be difficult to pronounce coming at it from an English perspective, but you have no idea how hard! The combination of 'tjie' is actually pronounced 'kee' and when there are two vowels next to each other in Afrikaans, you often pronounce both of them e.g. 'lees' meaning 'read/reading' is said 'lee-uhs'. So bearing that in mind, try saying 'bietjie' out loud and enunciate the 'i', 'e' and the the 'kee' sound separately. Hard isn't it? Turns out you pronounce it 'bee-kee'. Who knew?!

14/12/12-15/12/12 4.30am

I just had to change a couple of kids nappies downstairs and wake up some kids to go pee. I had to wake up a new girl, I think she arrived yesterday and it was a bit strange. For one I didn't know her name, the other volunteer who woke her at 12 didn't think to ask and the child care worker didn't know it, but it's all OK, I asked her so I know it for future reference! It was also weird because she didn't wake up easily. No one wants to be woken up by a stranger to go to the toilet. Last holiday I had to wake up a little girl and my tactic to get her awake was just to gently pick her up and carry her to the bathroom. By the time we were in the bathroom she had woken up enough, then I would just carry her back to her bed. But because this girl is new, I didn't want to encroach on her personal space. It must be horrible to be taken away from all that you know, whatever bad situation made you leave. Also, I think I would be pretty freaked out if I woke up in a random strangers arms!

One of the older girls woke up earlier as well. About an hour ago. It was the same girl who was helping me with my Afrikaans. She had a nightmare and wanted someone to sit with her and just chat for a bit to take her mind off it so she could go back to sleep. I think it's moments like that, which make me so happy to be here. I love it here anyway obviously, but when a child gives something back to you it can be wonderful. And it's also a good reason to stay awake! If I'd been sleeping, she might have woken me up, but she might have just gone back to bed and laid awake thinking about her nightmare.

The children often ignore the volunteers and are quite disrespectful sometimes and part of me thinks that it's because they know the volunteers will disappear in a few months so why should they be nice to us or get to know us, so when a child asks me for help or even just a chat at 3am, who am I to deny them? And it depends on the child's age. The older kids always talk in Afrikaans so when a child talks to me in English and just makes that effort it's lovely. For the younger kids I think it might be a little more physical. One of the children I work with regularly always used to give me the most bone-crushing-breath-removing-painful hugs I have ever experienced. I think it was partly to get a reaction out of people, but also maybe because I don't think it registered in his mind that this gesture was causing people pain! Over some time, I showed him how to be more gentle. He could still squeeze me when he gave me a hug, but I would only hug back when I wasn't in pain. If he squeezed to hard, I would say 'gently kiddo, gently'. And it worked. He started be only giving me gentle hugs, but now if I'm there and he hugs too hard, I can tell the volunteer to stop tensing up cause it only makes it hurt more and I ask the child to be more gentle and it almost always works. I'm so proud of him!

Afrikaans.

Me and Sarah are teaching ourselves Afrikaans. We are getting a little help from kids, child-care-workers and the two volunteers who speak Flemmish. Our plan is to be as fluent as possible by the time we leave so that not only can we communicate with the kids and staff here, but we will have our own secret language when we get back to England (because oh yes, we are that easily amused!)

It isn't actually all that hard. I've been surrounded by the language for 4 months now which helps and I've picked up quite a lot from helping my kids with their reading and spelling and thankfully, the grammar is basically the same as English, so sentence structures and all that are the same. I'll try and keep you updated as to how it's going. Currently I can count to 12 do the days of the week and months and I can greet someone! Not bad for 2 days learning! I have my first night-shift of the holidays tomorrow night, so I'm going to ask the night-shift leader to help me if they're in my house.

Maybe by the end of my year here, I might be able to write a post in Afrikaans!

Muizenberg

So we went to the beach today! Me and 4 other volunteers drove to Muizenberg Beach after the braai and water fight with the kids! It was windy. Very windy. Cape Town can get very windy in the summer I have been informed, but I wasn't expecting the beach to be that windy. Actually the problem wasn't the wind, it was the lovely but very fine sand that was on the beach. It was so smooth and fine, but this meant the wind whipped it up and threw it in your face. So me and Sarah sat under a blanket like the weirdest blanket monster you have every seen, trying desperately to not be blinded. Also, both me and Sarah have several patches of open skin on our feet and legs. Sarah because of her Foot and Mouth and eczema, and me because there is at least one mosquito in my room, possibly more, and my damn room-mate thinks that if she puts a fan on, it will blow away any bug in our room. This would work I imagine if you were on the top bunk, but because I'm on the bottom (with all its multiple advantages!) I'm effectively in a rectangular box that only has 1 side open, so if you put a source of wind at that one open side, any bugs that go near said wind source or fly into my bed, just cannot get out again. But then again why would you if you had an endless supply of fresh food?! Anyway, back to original point: I have lots of very itchy bites on my hands, arms, feet and legs and because I have dry skin and no self control (it feels so good to scratch) there are several places where I have scratched the skin off my legs, feet, hands and arms. :(  

A Pensive Wander Through My Mind!

I know I've written very little about what happens in the holidays here, so given that it is now the longest holiday of the year, I thought I'd write some of what goes on!

I mentioned in a previous post (Holiday Times) that most of the kids go home for the holidays. As I understand it, the kids don't go back to the place that put them in Home in the first place. There is a wonderful team of social workers here that look for other options for the kids. This may be relatives such as older siblings, aunties/uncles or grandparents that could potentially give the children a permanent home. Some children have foster families that they often spend weekends or days out with and I think some of the kids also have South African (local) volunteers that are also potentially becoming foster parents. And one of the ways the Home can test the 'compatibility' of the relationship between the child and adult is to send the child to live with whichever care-giver it is almost as a trial run. And this is what happens in the holidays.

Some kids don't even have these options. No suitable family members and no volunteers or foster family. Luckily kids are allowed to spend time with friends from school. One child I know spends most weekends staying at a school friend's house and thankfully is able to spend most of the holiday with that family, because the other option is being left at the Home. There are only 20-30 kids that stay behind every holiday, but this isn't all as sad as it may seem. These kids don't have a free day for the whole holiday. Seriously, I've seen the holiday plan and it is mental! They get to go to a musical, there have been cable car tickets donated for Table Mountain, so some kids get to do that, they're going to a crocodile park, camping, movie nights, climbing Table Mountain. All sorts!

As an international volunteer, you can sympathise with the kids sometimes. We won't see our family for up to a year. I haven't spoken to my parents, brothers or friends for nearly 4 months, and I won't for another 8 months. I won't get to spend x-mas or my birthday with family around me like I have done every year of my life. But unlike the kids, I'm doing it optionally. And I can technically go back any time I want. I could pick up the phone and phone my Mum or Dad or friends right now (well I could if I had enough airtime!). I could go to the internet cafe and skype my family. But, and this is going to be a slightly harsh 'but' so if you are related to me, please don't disown me (!) I don't actually miss any of my family or friends. Except my Granny. I miss her a lot! I have absolutely no plans to phone or skype in th forseeable future because I'm doing fantastic without them (sorry guys!). But I think it's probably different for those left behind. For me it is a whole different life (that I will never be able to live again after this year-this fact terrifies me) but all my family and friends have to live their normal Manchester life and day to day routine without me. For my brothers, they have never had to do that. My parents haven't had to do it for 18 (I imagine long) years. It must be tough, I don't envy them! But what an interesting experiment it is! As much as I really really never ever want to leave this life here, I can't wait to get back and see how much things have changed while I'm away. I'm almost certain that I'm now the shortest child in my family (although thankfully not the shortest person-thanks Mum!) even though I'm the oldest. In pictures, my littlest brother is looking awfully lanky and out-of-proportion like teenage boys do when they grow suddenly. I want to see how the kids I used to look after have grown, and how much they've learnt at school. .

I think I've also changed a lot already in such a short time. There are things I do or don't do now automatically. I would never think to call it a BBQ. It is a braai, always and forever. Lekker has become a part of daily language. I'm also proud to say I sometimes think in Afrikaans. Just the odd word that I've picked up here or there. There are behaviours as well. I automatically clean my plate and cutlery after I've eaten (we obviously don't have a dish washer!) and now I've got a technique for washing my undies without injuring myself, I just listen to my ipod and get on with it. It's quite relaxing, I might carry on doing it in England! I would also never even think about going out on my own after dark, it's just to dangerous. I think one of the biggest changes is that I've become so independent from family and at looking after myself, but I've also become slightly dependent on other people in general. And I actually love living with other people. I love that if I'm bored, I can just wander over to another living area and find someone to chat to, or play cards with. I also love that I can see my best friend's bedroom door from my bedroom window (in a none-creepy-stalker way obviously).  

Remember when England had that Foot and Mouth Epidemic?

Sarah's foot swelled up yesterday morning and she could barely walk. Sarah has terrible skin and is prone to fungus infections and the like so she just thought her eczema was flaring up due to the detergent the laundry uses here. She goes to the doctor after being told it could potentially be SCURVY! Only to find that she hadn't got scurvy, she has Foot and Mouth disease! Foot and Mouth. As in the thing that cows get killed for. Foot and Mouth!!!! She caught it from one of the kids she was working with, better than catching ringworm. And apparently it is very contagious so if she shares cutlery with anyone for a week (starting last Tuesday) or shares a bed with anyone (if only to watch a film) or basically touches or breathes on anyone, they will also get it. Which, in short, means that I also have it! Due to the fact, we regularly share cutlery, beds and what-not!

Ahhhhhh well!

Let it Snow/Things that Bite in the Night

This has got to be the hottest I've ever been in December. Thankfully, the weather has cooled off a bit today because yesterday it was 30 degrees, very sunny and very little wind. Bleaurgh! Because most of the kids are going home this holiday, the Home has x-mas a little early. So there was a lekker party yesterday where some of the kids performed songs and dances they'd prepared, there was a HIV/aids talk from one of the volunteers, and the kids got presents! I'm not entirely sure how the system works and who provides the presents, but some of the kids got LOADS, and others got only one or two. I think one of the supermarket chains provided a lot of presents, or they sponsored the party because they had representatives giving the kids the gifts. I've noticed that whenever there is any sort of event at the Home that gets sponsored by an outside company, they only want pictures of the younger children because they're young and cute which I find infuriating. Also because some of the older children were much more excited to receive their presents. No matter, x-mas is nearly over here now. On Friday most of the kids go home so the Home relaxes a bit. There is the Chirstmas concert on Wednesday which I've been asked to sing at-also performing is Zanne Stapelberg! I was supposed to be singing with one of the the kids who is very very talented, but he's too old for the Home so he had his leaving party last week and he leaves on Wednesday which unfortunately means that he isn't able to sing at the concert, so I need to talk to my boss to see if she still wants me and the other volunteer to sing, hopefully we can!

In other news, as the weather heats up, things start breeding. Things like fleas. Yes I have fleas. Although I am proud to say I was the last person in the room to get them. That counts for something, right? And apart from the bitey bitey fleas I had a mosquito incident last night. I'm on my laptop at about 11pm and I hear the zzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee noise of a mozzie. The noise stops and I do the famous mozzie twitch. The one when you think it's landed on you so you make your whole body spasm to try and scare it off. I ehar the whine again, and this time, it flies in front of my computer screen so I can see it (one of my room-mates is asleep so the light is off) I try to grab it, but I miss. This whole debacle goes on for at least 10/20 minutes. And then, I catch it! Now I know I'm safe from the bitey bitey, itchy itchy, I trun on my ipod and try to go to sleep. Just as I doze off, I hear another zzzzzzzeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. THERE'S TWO OF THE CRITTERS!

Singing like a Bass

Tonight there is an event at the Home, and I've been asked to sing. Bleurgh. I love singing, I'm just not so keen on the solo part, more on the in amongst 50 other voices part! But I was told I was singing about 10 days ago, so I sing tonight. In theory, we are just background noise while the VIP guests arrive and mingle, but we've been warned that it is also entirely possible that people will arrive, not have anybody to talk to and we'll be the focus of attention.

It is a very formal event I believe, so we will have to dress up. After having a limit of how many clothes will fit in my rucksack and the weight limit airlines place on baggage, I haven't got any concert blacks (obviously). I have some clothes that I consider smart, and several combinations of smart clothes as well! I have also brought a skirt with me-the only skirt I own, bought about 2 months before I came here by my mother for my birthday (I don't wear skirts). And naturally my room-mate wants me to wear the skirt and warns me that if I don't, I will probably look under-dressed. This is fine for me, I have perfected the under-dressed look! And I would prefer to feel comfortable and look confident than add to the nerves and uncomfortableness, I feel when singing solo, with a SKIRT.

I might have also lost my voice a little bit, so here's for sounding husky and singing like a man!

8 legged updates:

We found a huge spider in the kitchen again on Wednesday! This one sat on the bin so we managed to get it outside. The only problem is that I'm not entirely convinced it was the same spider as before! The other one was big, fat, brown and hairy. But the one we took outside seemed more spindly and white and not hairy. But just as freaking huge!

In other news, one of my room-mates got a parcel from home that included her Nintendo DS. Holidays start on the 7th December for about 6 weeks (Summer holidays happen in December here what with being in the southern hemisphere and what not!) And both me and her have around 12 night-shifts over the holidays, and we're on opposite shift systems so I can use her DS when I have my night-shifts! YAY!

Update: Uses for a bunk bed

So I found another use for my bunk bed! And this is a good'un. When I was ill, my bestest friend ever, Sarah, came and watched a movie with me on my laptop in my bed. But because the top bunk is so low, we couldn't sit upright so we had to lie down with the laptop balanced on my stomach. This is fine if you are one person, but it's quite uncomfortable is there are 2 of you and neither can see properly (I have a Dell and the screen turns a funny colour when you view it from a wonky angle). So I decided there had to be better, more comfortable and more practical ways and places to out the laptop where we could both lie down and see properly. As previously mentioned I hang my washing off the slats, and if I can hang my washing up, why can't I hang my laptop up? And that's what I've done!

It took some planning-obviously. And I had to buy some twine, but it took me a couple of days to make it and now it's fully functional!

Basically I just deformed a wire coat hanger so it was a little bit bigger than the base of my laptop and wove/knotted/braided some twine across the bottom. Then I made a harness for over the keyboard because to be able to see all of the screen, you have to have it tilted down (if anybody has been lying in bed texting and dropped their phone on their face, you'll see why I wanted to make sure my heavy heavy laptop was properly secured...that thing could flatten my face). And it also can slide out of the whole thing-with a little difficulty, so if I need to take it outside to check emails or anything like that, I don't need to cut it down! It doesn't look fantastically pretty, but it works awesomely, so much so that I think we have planned to watch Madagascar or Despicable Me tonight! (On that note, if anybody wants to send me the new Ice Age DVD for X-mas, you will make me and Sarah VERY VERY happy volunteers!)

The Monster in Back Kitchen.

I want to tell you about a small phobia I have. I am absolutely terrified of spiders and I hate it! I hate that I can't deal with any spider related situations. It sucks. I still have to ask my Dad to remove spiders from my bedroom in England (I would ask my Mum, but she teases me about it!). So I was a little bit worried about the size and the teeth on the beasties here, one of the volunteers from my organisation got bitten on the toe a couple of weeks ago and had to go to the hospital to get pills to make the swelling go down! Spiders bite here. And jump. So far I've only really seen little'uns and a couple of bigger ones but nothing uncommon for an English spider. I found a lime green one on my shirt collar a month or so ago which was creepy but sort of cool!

Then last Monday there was a spider on the wall outside our kitchen, but this was no ordinary spider. Oh-ho-ho-no. This spider was as big as my hand. And I'm prone to exaggeration when it comes to spiders, but I swear on my life, this thing was as big as my hand laid out flat. It was a monster. But it was sort of OK because we knew where it was and it wasn't moving and it was outside (my bedroom, bathroom and kitchen are all close together but you have to go outside because they're all individual rooms. My bedroom door leads straight outside). Then one of the kids tried to catch it in a coke bottle (I honestly don't think it would have fit through the neck) and it ran off into a tree, and I stopped sitting under trees!

And today I saw a monster...in the kitchen. We were trying to compare it to something a standard size that most people could relate to, and yes we're to technology dependant for our own good. But we decided it was definitely as long as an Ipod Classic. And it was hairy and horrible.

A Warning

I'm going to post an entry later. I typed it yesterday so it's a bit out of date reading it, and the subject matter is scary. But I'm at the gym now and the post is saved on my laptop.

Church for the Athiest

I went to church today! It's the first time I've worked on a Sunday since I arrived so it's my first time going to a church here. I imagine most people reading this are imagining me living maybe in a mud hut, almost certainly the scene is very orange with dust/dirt on the floor instead of grass and the only vegetation is small and bush-like probably orange (or dead). You're also probably imagining African Church to be like what you see on TV with lots of gospel music and people randomly just standing up and singing. Oh and the population in your head is entirely black.

So all of that is NOT what it is like here. The area I'm in is very westernised (I'm sat in a Virgin Active for crying out loud!), there are lots of trees. Loads of grass. I live in an actual building made of bricks. The church the children go to is also very 'western' and the population is majority white. But it was still a very interesting experience. I got to sing "Away in a Manger" and "Silent Night" in Afrikaans and I had to explain to the children why I didn't take communion (I think that's what it's called, the bread and wine?) and then explain to some very confused children why I didn't believe in God without pushing my beliefs onto them. I personally don't believe in a God and sometimes I disagree that they're never given a choice between religion and science, I think they're not taught the science theory at school. But sometimes I think it's good that they have something to believe in. A greater power if you will especially after what some of them have been through, it's nice that every night they pray for their sister to get better or their Mum to get better so they can got home and they truly believe it will help. I almost envy their faith then.

Noodles in a Thunder Storm

On Sunday I was horrifically sick :) When I got up in the morning everything was fine, but by about 3pm I was feeling pretty rotten. From then on I was vomiting roughly every 2 hours for about 12 hours. On Monday morning I was supposed to start work at 6am on my new shift system, but luckily I have amazing room-mates who offered to work for me if I needed them to and as I still felt sort of awful at 5.30am I woke one of them up and asked if she could work my morning shift for me. My next shift starts at 2pm so I went back to sleep, thinking that if I don't throw up before that shift I won't have been sick for 12 hours so if I felt better I was planning to be to work (I was brought up that if you are there to do something, unless you are dying, you do it! Except for school. School is compulsory so I tried to get out of going to that. A lot.).
Anyway I get up at 12.30 planning to have a bath then maybe try and drink some water, still not entirely trusting my stomach to hold down solid food, and go to work. I see one of my room-mates as I'm leaving the bedroom and she tells me I have to go back to bed as the volunteer manager has got another volunteer to replace me for that day and maybe also the next. I feel I could go back to work that day, but maybe it's a good idea for me not to. I go and sit in the kitchen for a bit when I get a call from the volunteer manager who tells me off for being out of bed but says she appreciates me wanting to go back to work and if I take the day off (and spend it in bed) then I can work the next day providing I'm better of course!

So I spent a long day yesterday in bed watching films on my laptop. I have discovered although my bunk-bed is useful for many unexpected things, watching films with a friend, it is hopeless at. You can't sit upright to watch so you have to lie down, but because the bed is unnaturally narrow, it's a bit of a squeeze. But I'm working on developing a laptop hammock so I can hang my computer of the bed to watch movies! In my head, it's an awesome plan that works really well and my laptop will never fall out of it. In reality it will either break the laptop or my face!

New Shift System for Lucky Little Me!

Next week I get to to work the long week short week shift system for 2 weeks instead of Monday to Friday! I'm really excited :) It means I start work at 6am instead of 1pm but I get to wake the children up in the morning and help with that routine which I've never been able to do and I get the same amount of days off next week (2) but the week after, I get 5 days off! I'm predicting boredom! But it will be nice I think!!

I think that's all for now folks! I'll probably remember something I wanted to say when I get home but hey, that's life!

Table Mountain-Attempt #1

Yesterday me and two of my room-matesgot up at 4.30 am to climb table mountain. We left at 5am and were starting to climb by 6am. By 8am weare having a discussion as to whether we can actually make it to the top without the rescue helicopter! We decided we couldn't and came down another way.

Table Mountain is very steep. You start by climbing steps, but the steps are made from boulders. They're steep enough that you are exhausted after 3 or 4 but not steep enough to warrant climbing!

Once we were almost down, we started to think about climbing Lion's Head, the mountain/hill next to Table Mountain because we'd been told to do that one first as it's slightly easier. We could see some of the path from where we were and it didn't look to steep and most importantly it wasn't steps!

So we got a taxi to the base of Lion's Head. The path was considerably steeper than we thought it was but we took lots of breaks and it was definitely easier than TM. But then occasionally we found ourselves taking big boulder steps, but it's OK because the ground is less steep now so you just have to watch your feet because it's getting rocky. Then we come upon The Chains. This is part of the route that is optional (2 of us did it and the other one walked/climbed the other route) I've attached a picture of me about to start it, but it's just a wall with some metal pegs and chains nailed into it to help you pull yourself up! It was difficult mainly just because my legs are short and there were a couple of times I thought I wasn't able to reach and if you look down, you can see almost straight down a very steep mountain! But I did it!

From that point on you are basically rock climbing. It isn't straight up, but you have to pull yourself up in some parts!. But we all made it up and down and I was very proud of us. And we went to 'Mr Pick-Wicks' for a milkshake to celebrate!

And I only just realised that it's bonfire night tonight...I've been trying to explain the history of it to the other volunteers who aren't English and they don't get it. But it makes a good story so I might tell it to the kids in my house!

What a Week

I feel like I haven't posted in ages. I've had a bit of a horrible week. Well up to Tuesday it was horrible. Wednesday, things to a dramatic and unexpected turn for the better but I'm waiting 'til everything is finalised and everybody is informed before I can post it!

But I got a parcel from home yesterday which was exciting! And much better than could have been expected! It included my first ever voting paper which is fun...it's a shame I'm 6ooo miles away and can't vote!

There are also plans for tomorrow that start at 4.30am and involve Table Mountain and don't involve the cable car! But I'll write more about that if I recover!

Bunk Beds

So I'm going to wager that most people have slept in a bunk bed at some time in their lives, be it when they were a kid with their younger sibling, on a school trip or maybe a summer camp. I'm spending this year sleeping on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed and there are down sides and upsides. One downside is that you can't sit up in bed because the bed above is so low. But on the upside, the slats of the bed above are really useful!

Uses I've found so far:

1. Attaching ID sized pictures of family, friends and chickens (thank you dad!) so you can see them when you go to sleep and when you wake up.
2. Hanging a bag full of loose change. A Rand is worth so little, the cents you get as change just wigh you down but I'm saving them for changing into R2 pieces for pool games!
3. Tying spare plastic bags out of the way and they don't rustle.
4. Drying you towel off the side gives you privacy as well as a dry towel!
5.  If you have lots of spare coat hangers, you can hang them off the slats and put your clean-but-still-wet-from-washing clothes if you don't want to hang them outside (like undies!) 

 That's all I've found for now, but I've got 9.5 months left!!!

A week of horrors!

This week has been so long! Nearly all of the children had concerts at school every night for a week and a half. They started Wednesday the week before and the last one was Thursday just gone so because they were all going to bed later than usual they were all knackered (it also doesn't seem to be common knowledge here that kids probably shouldn't eat fizzy sweets and chocolate just before bed so they don't get a burst of energy!). We also had to tell them all some bad news last Friday (I'm not going to say what the news was on the blog, but don't worry, no-one's died or anything that serious). We have been told a lot about 'stressful incident leads to observable behaviours' so I definitely saw that this week. Children who were usually fairly well behaved were acting out and the children that often misbehaved were on a new scale. The children who are the ones you rely on to be fairly independent and just get on with their own stuff became really needy and wanted you to be with them the whole time. It was so stressful.

On top of this, all the Child Care Workers-CCW (Tannie's one per house and paid version of the volunteers but they're here full time-basically the person who tells me what to do when in the house) on shift went for a teambuilding day thing. But it meant there were no CCWs on shift at all. I haven't worked in other houses so I don't know what the situation is like there, but the house where I work, the kids don't listen to what any of the volunteers say. Ever. It's really frustrating. So if there's no CCWs for 2 hours then the volunteers have 2 hours of trying to stop 12 kids from going too wild. All this considered, I think we did quite well! I mean, one child flicked a fork-full of food at another child's head and 3 boys climbed onto a small 1st story roof. But other than that! And all 12 kids were alive and in the house when the CCW got back! Only we have to do it again next week when the other shift goes for their teambuilding. YAY.

But I think next week will be better! :) 

New Happenings

Not a lot has been happening here of late. It's mainly been lovely weather (yesterday was miserable). It's a child's birthday next week so there's a party for them today which should be fun!

And I've been speaking to some people trying to get some things organised that have to potential to be very exciting but I'm not going to say what or who or when until it's been approved by all the necessary people and gets the go-ahead...but I'm very excited!

Suddenly it's Summer

The last couple of days here have been really nice! All of a sudden it's gotten really really sunny and today the cool breeze has gone (the last few days have been really sunny but the wind has been very cold) so I think we might finally be in Summer! This does however mean I won't be bored inside, I'll be bored outside so I won't be using my computer as much to type up blog posts-or emails! So from here on, the frequency of my updating may decrease until we get back into Winter! Just so no one thinks I've forgotten them :)

Oh, and it seems that putting up x-mas decorations far too early is a phenomenon on a global scale. Yesterday, the shopping centre where the gym is was nice and normal...today there were baubles and ribbons everywhere, what is this?!

More Hand Washing Injuries...

The title says it all really! I did the exact same thing as last time! I basically suck at washing my clothes by hand. Although I've now found out that I'm not the only one injuring myself in hygeine's sake, one of the other British volunteers did almost the same as me yesterday as well! But not one of the Project Trust volunteers...I think they're being lazy and taking it to the laundrette!
Bah

Holiday Times

Because it's the holidays here, a lot of the children have gone to stay with family or friends, but there are still about 40-50 kids still here so there is a holiday programme so they don't get bored. And today was the volunteer day. So the volunteers had to prepare 2 hours of activities for the kids to do then get the kids to do said activities!

It was all very fun! I'm gonna be honest, I had no idea it was happening until half an hour before becasue someone borrowed the holiday plan from the area where I live and the notice about what was happening was put up in one of the other living areas so most people hadn't a clue, but once it got going it was really fun! I got to look after one of the younger kids who wasn't really allowed to join in for some reason so I took her round all the different activities and when the other kids had gone I let her play: things like appple bobbing and 3 legged races! Then at the end we had a 'food festival' thing. Basically it was just bags of paint powder (you add water then it becomes paint-only we didn't add water) and on the count of 3 all the kids threw the powder in the air...and at each other...and at us :) I think it was supposed to be like in India when they have a food festival and throw colouored flour. So it was all very fun...and now I look like I have a wierd skin condition because I had yellow paint powder on my hands and it stained my skin slightly so my hands look jaundiced!

Gymness updates

I thought I'd write a quick post seeing as I'm at the gym! Why waste a good opportunity! I haven't been up to much lately actually so this is going to be a really sort and probably boring post, but since I hit the 1000 veiws mark this week and my veiws per day has increased significantly (although it's probably just my parents checking every day from each of their multiple gadgets-they've gone from being technophobes to totally dependant!)

Yesterday I went ice skating at Grand West casino which was really fun, but once you've been skating in circles for 2 hours one leg is really beginning to ache! I'm also thinking about a holiday in January to go travelling because that's when the summer holidays are here.

Oh and the final thing is I've scored 3 nightshifts next week! I'm so excited! I've got loads of films downloaded from other volunteers and I have so much sewing and stuff to do! There is no chance of me accidentally falling asleep at the wheel so to speak!

Whales in Hermanus

Yesterday I went Whale watching! Its was really good fun :) It took us an eventful 2 hour drive to get to Hermanus in which we had to go through a police road block, went the wrong way and all fell out the car several times excitedly thinking we had seen a whale only to find it was actually a rock, or a boat or a wave. But once we finally made it, we did actually see whales! There were maybe 6 or seven there and most of the time all you see is their spine and then tail as they breathe and dive but one of them started breaching (jumping) and it jumped probably 3 or 4 times once after the other and once that whale had jumped, another one seemed to want in on the fun so we got really lucky!

Then on the way back, we decided to see if we could make it up Signal Hill to see the sunset. We didn't make it, but Cape Town looks beautiful at night all lit up!

First Hand Washing Experience!

Ok, so I'm posting this so everyone can laugh at me! And if it hadn't happened to me and had happened to someone else, I would probably be laughing at them!

At DCH we get our laundry done for us, but we can't hand our underwear in because everything gets washed with the children's clothes so I guess it would be unhygenic or something. Anyway, this means we either have to take our underwear and whites and anything we value and don't want to be shrunk or changed colour etc to the local laundrette, or wash it my hand ourselves. Seeing as I'm a volunteer I decided to try and hand wash because it's cheaper, even if it does take longer! So I'm sat in the bathroom with my bucket of soapy water and everything I need to wash and (after I've left it to soak for a while) I start scrubbing it like we were shown on Coll. Maybe 20 minutes later I've finished scrubbing it and my knuckles are SORE. I change the water and don't add soap this time so hopefully if I leave it to soak again, I won't have to scrub the soap out (yes I'm that lazy). And I leave it again. Basically the final result is some mainly clean clothes and I now have no skin on 3 of my knuckles. Maybe I did it wrong, but I know one thing for sure...I'm going to the laundrette next time, it might be more expensive, but I get to keep all my skin!

My day-to-day routine.

Every day here so far is much the same, not that I'm complaining! I work a Monday to Friday shift but most volunteers work the 2 week shift (you have a long week and a short week and over 14 days, you only work 7 but you have to be at work at 6am). I work from 1pm until 4pm then I have a 1 hour break while the kids have their outside time. I then work from 5 until 9pm which involves an hour or two (depending which child-care worker is on duty) sat in the corridor outside the childrens rooms partly to make sure they stay in their own rooms and go to sleep, and partly so they feel safe that someone is making sure they're ok. Then at 9 the nightshift arrives and I get to go chill :) Most nights, I'm pretty knackered so I just have something to eat then go to bed, but sometimes on a Friday or Saturday a bunch of us go out to the Beer Garden-an outside pub type thing or to Stones or Rabbit Hole both neither pubs or clubs but a sort of combination.

Life in South Africa

Today is our first hot hot HOT day here in SA. My watch tells me it's at least 30 degrees outside, but I'm not entirely sure that's true, it sure is hot though! Everybody is just lying around on blankets in the shade-some of the kids have been allowed in the pool I think, but the volunteers aren't allowed. Some volunteers went to the beach, and the rest of us are jealous of them! We don't have access to DCH's cars, but we can hire some if we want, so there are 2 cars that have been hired by different groups of volunteers. One car is in Cape Town because one volunteer has a friend from Japan staying so she's been taken to see the penguins I think, and they managed to get 7 people in the other car!

There was a massive sports day yesterday which all but the youngest kids went to (and all the volunteers). DCH hired out 2 coaches for around 150 people-each coach taking around 50/60 seated-and we were wondering how they were going to get so many people into so little space, but we forgot we aren't in England with their rigorous health and safety laws and what-not, so a coach which had 50/60 seats could actually fit around 100, especially if the small ones were sat 3 to a seat!

Other than that, not much is happening! I go to work every week day and I absolutely love it! I've taught the kids in my house some songs, so whenever I'm there they want me to sing 'That song with the rabbit' And I've had to stop wearing my watch because the kids love playing with it so much, making it beep or turning the backlight on, they've nearly run it out of battery!

First South African post!

Wow, I've made it! I'm actually in SA! We arrived Friday 31^st in Johannnesburg and stayed in a backpackers there for 2 nights. We got to visit the Hector Pieterson museum as well as the Apartheid museum and a township called Soweto. On the Monday, we separated and all went to our individual projects which for the 6 of us meant flying to Cape Town where we were picked up by another volunteer and taken to DCH. I started work on the Wednesday and I absolutely love it! I'm never coming home!

I'll do a longer post when I've signed up to the gym which has free internet! :)

See you later alligator.

So I'm off! Well I will be later today, but I thought it might be a bit hectic so I'm writing this now in case I can't later. I don't fly until tomorrow but my friend in Nottingham is giving me a lift to London so I'm getting the train there today :)

So thank you all for all your support-and reading my blog! And I'll try my heardest to blog from South Africa! :)

1 Day!

Goodbye meals.

I actually managed to get BOTH brothers to come out with me for a meal! And it was really nice :) It was a little awkward at times, me and my youngest brother usually get on really well and talk lots but the other brother doesn't get on with either of us. He's usually polite to us when other people are around but he doesn't talk, he just glares or gives us monosylablle answers so I thought this meal might be really difficult but once we got there it was quite nice...almost 'normal'!. And we had an actual conversation that he started! Hopefully when I get back from Africa we'll be able to talk more because I really want to get to know him and be friends with him!

I'm going out for ANOTHER meal with a close friend, I've know her since we were about 5, tommorrow in Didsbury which will be really nice, then my other friend is staying over on Tuesday night, I hope and then I'm off! I'm getting a bit nervous now!

4 Days!

No Time Left

This time next week, I'll be in Jo'burg! Which leaves me thinking: ARGH! How has this year gone so fast?! I'm nearly packed, I have my passort and visa, I have a plug adaptor and I've had all my vaccinations. I'm slightly ashamed to say I haven't even thought about money and how I'm going to get it out of my bank-there's a charge everytime you take money out so I'm trying to find a way to avoid it. However I might have found a solution so I'm calling my bank in a minute to find out more :)

I'm taking my little brother out for a meal tomorrow. It was supposed to be me and both brothers, but the 15yr old is having a mid-teen crisis and refuses to be associated with our family in any way, so walking through the middle of Manchester with his "nerdy big sister and chavvy little brother" is too much for the kid's brain to handle!

6 Days!!!!

A Poem:

I recently re-discovered this poem when it was read to us at the end of our training on Coll by one of the desk officers. It is called "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost and I think it fits in quite well with the year ahead:

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

11 Days.

Completely backtracking.

Yup, after speaking to a parent, she pointed out that I would be able to write about the day-to-day aspects of living in South Africa, even if I didn't write about the kids and what I was doing in the home. So I have decided (as long as internet isn't too expensive) that I WILL keep posting in my blog and if I can write about the kids then I will and if not then I'll just write about what it's like to live in South Africa from an English point of veiw!

I have also decided to take my laptop (that is now about 3/4 years old) despite warnings of thefts and what-not. The crime rate is S.A  is quite high so we've been told not to take anything precious in case it gets stolen or just lost or damaged. One of the returned volunteers I spoke to said she'd had all her stuff of any value nicked, but it meant that she learnt to live on a rubbish phone and that was it, so she had nothing worth nicking (I should point out I currently use a nokia 3310 and swear by it!). So bearing all this in mind, I wasn't going to take any electronics out, except for my brick of an English phone for keeping in touch and very possibly my ancient Ipod classic (which is also beginning to give up the ghost). But recently,  I've noticed how knackerd my laptop is and I've come to the decision that I'll back up all my pictures and files and leave copies at home, and I'll take my beautiful laptop to experience the world with me...and if it gets stolen, it can do some exploring by its self. And now everybody know I'm crazy ;)

12 Days!

OK OK so I might have changed my mind!

Now I'm not so sure I want to close down the blog! I quite like having the option to ramble about all stuff African!

Last night, I couln't sleep and for some reason (the "3am what if" brain) I couldn't help but think about some really silly stuff such as what if I don't like it or can't do my job etc. After a year of people telling me at first that I wouldn't be able to raise the money or that I wouldn't follow through with it and I'd get bored with fundraising and give up, then when I did raise the money, to hear that some people thought I'd be back in England before Xmas, I never thought I'd begin to doubt myself and my abilities. I never even thought about the what if I didn't make the £5000 (I am so thankful for the opportunities that I was given through out the year to help my fundraising) but I also never really thought of the what happens when I've got 23 days left in the UK and I'm beginning to say goodbye to friends and then I'll be pushed in at the deep end. ARGH!! I'm so nervous!

On a note of saying goodbye to friends, I have my last concert with the Halle Youth Choir on Friday :'( I've been on the choir for 5 years and I've made some truley awesome (if a little crazy-musicians, what can I say!) friends. They've spent the last year being persuaded to part with their money through neumerous cake sales and such, I'm so grateful to each and every one of them, everybody's been so supportive and put up with my crazed excitement and my one conversation topic (Africa). So if you can, listed to BBC R3 at 6.45pm (British time) to hear us singing Elgar's Apostles. See if you can hear the 'Jaws' moment in the Double Basses (I think!).

I don't know if I've mentioned this here before, but my Granny lives with us and has done for the last 9 months or so. She has mid/advanced alzheimers so she doesn't know who we are anymore but she is, as my friend puts it, a happy alzheimers rather than an angry alzheimers. The last 2/3 weeks I haven't really been home what with training in Scotland and a holiday in Cornwall, so I'd gone from being one of one of her carers to feeling like I don't really know her or connect with her anymore. She has good days and bad days, like anyone else but I feel like I can see how much she's dropped over the last 2 weeks, and it really worries me. When I see her every day, I don't notice as much. I realised I've prepared myself mentally for the possibility of her passing away when I'm in Africa, and I know if that happens in all likelihood, I won't be able to come home for a funeral. But I haven't prepared for if she's around physically but if she'd gone completely mentally. And I'm not so sure about how I'd react to that. It's hard, becasue when you live with someone and spend lots of time with them, you don't notice the small and gradual changes, but if I'm gone for a year I'll be so aware of those changes when I get back. So many happy thoughts to keep me occupied at night.

On a happier note, I've been learning some Xhosa. It won't be the language I'll be speaking, but I find it such and amazing language so I've learnt as much as I can! When I'm at my project, I'll be able to speak Africaans, which I've discovered is fairly similar to German (As Africaans derives mainly from Dutch, with a few 'forign' words from other languages) so I feel slightly more equipped with my German GCSE (Who knew that thing would ever come in useful?!).

Sorry it's late:

I've been super busy over the last two weeks, what with going to Cornwall, Coll and my friend paying a last minute visit from Spain! But here's your update at long last!

I have 3 partners: Isaac, Heather and Ashleigh. There are alos 2 volunteers down the road at Durbanville Creche: Georgia and Rebecca. When we go out, we spend 2/3 days in Jo'burg getting to know places and we get to go to the National Apartheid Museum as well as sorting out basics like getting an African phone. After that, we all seperate and go off to our projects where we spend all our time with our partner/s. At Xmas, there is a tradition of all the South African volunteers going to Cape Town and meeting up there, which I hope we'll be doing! And my friend Sarah who I met on selection (and spent a week in Cornwall with) has been moved last minute with her partner to SA! Which might mean we get to go travelling together which would be marvelous!

I've decided after some of the talks we had on Coll, to stop posting on my blog. I might start up again when I'm out there and I know more about the legal side of things and the confidentality of the kids/staff and what-not, but for now, I'm not going to post anymore so I don't break any rules or anything like that. Hopefully I'll do a last blog before I go :)

26 days.

Training.

AAARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH IT WAS SO GOOD!

I fly out on August 30th...42 days and counting!

I learnt loads of things about my project, and met my host! I met ALL my 5 partners and got told to buy a wedding ring! So overall a bit of a crazy week :)

My project seems even more super duper awesome than it did before and I cannot wait to get out there. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this blog though. I think I want to keep it going but I'm not sure I'll have time and apparently there's a load of privacy issues around the kids because I believe a lot of them have been abused and that's why they're in the home.

I'm pretty knackered now as I haven't slept for a week and I can't think properly because I've been travelling for 2 days but I'll do a proper post tomorrow with pictures and everything!

Busy busy!

I've not posted in flippin AGES!

I've got my training starting on Saturday which should be fun. That's when I meet my partner and learn more about what I'll be doing in Africa. Then I'm going to Cornwall with Sarah (who I met on selection and who's going to Rwanda) and we're staying with my Grandparents for a week or so :)

Yet another open garden post!

So we opened our garden up to the public today for a local charity. We made lots of cake and sold tea and cake to the visitors oh, and honey of course! In total, we made over £700... and after I'd deducted the honey money, I was left with a very nice sum of roughly £600! I was AMAZED!! I would like to say thank you to all the people who came and had a look at the garden, and a very special thank you to the people who bought some cake or tea or made a donation!

And I can also reveal I HAVE RAISED ALL MY MONEY FOR PROJECT TRUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I still need some more for my 6 weeks travelling and a llittle for visas and innoculations, but I've raised my £5000!

On another note, a close friend who is raising money to go to Rwanda is in a fair amound of difficulty trying to raise her final amount, she is having a dog race event in 10 days and needs a minimum of 4 more businesses to sponsor a race otherwise the whole night gets called off. It's in Nottingham, but companies from anywhere can sponsor a race, so if you have a business that could spare £100 for a fantastic cause, or know someone who could help her out, please get in touch and I'll put you in contact with her, Thanks!

My penny collection jar

 A selection of the cakes

 Cinnamon Buns

 Me and an awful lot of cake!

 Me and the Mother

 The Mother and a neighbour

 Some neighbours (also kids that I babysit!)

 My penny jar with all the £1 at the top!

Really rather quick post.

I'm aware that I haven't posted in quite a while, although this is more down to the fact that nothing interestin has happened than that I haven't been bothered!

Work at the Butchers is going really well and I'm really enjoying it which always makes things twice as nice. I made a penny collection box to put in there (took it in today) to match the one in the DVD rental shop and in the 4 hour shift I did today, I think nearly £5 went in, loads of people put in pound coins as well!!!! I'm going to take some pictures of all (3) of my jars and out them up for you!

As you can see from my thermometer, I have got over £3700 now, which means I happily hit my March deadline of £3000, so only another £1300 to go now and I have 3/4 months to get that :)




As a smaller, more personal note, a little girl I look after has just been accepted into a private school which means I probably won't be able to childmind her if she accepts the place and I wanted to tell her what an absolute pleasure it's been spending time with her, and how much me AND my family will miss our Wednesdays and Thursdays with her quirky and wonderful personality!

Just an update

So I'm really enjoying working at the Butchers! And I now childmind for two families on a regular basis (every weekday after school) I've had a couple more donations, I might be doing a wine tasting night if I can get a nice free venue! My old secondary school is split into 5 'houses' and each house has a charity week, where they choose a charity and have to raise as much money as they can for that charity, so that might be a little fundraiser. I'd also possibly go in and maybe do an assembly or speak at the morning teachers briefing, but I seem to have a radio silence from the teacher who's helping me organise :s

Other than that, there's not much else to report. I think we find out where exactly we're going sometime this month, so as soon as I find that out, I'll put up where I'm going and find some information on it!

I have a job!!

I HAVE A JOB! It's at the local butchers, and it's only 3 hours a day (7 on Saturdays) but it pays well and it's completely flexible around my childminding! So now I should be earning roughly £200 a week! Not too shabby for a unqualified 17yr old who's only in the country for 6 months! In fact, by my calculations, I should have raised all my money by mid May! (with no extra fundraising and a childcare dilemma I've currently got, working its-self out!)

Doughy Ideas

So what with the new found bread making skill, I'm thinking of selling freshly made brioche or croissants and selling it at morning rush hour at the train station! I have to work my way through countless rules and regulations and so on cause...well...folks like to make things difficult :)

In other news, I've made around £100 total from a penny collection jar I placed in a local shop, which means my penny jar at home is almost full (its so heavy I sprained my arm trying to lift it from a funny angle the other day!) so I'll try and get a picture up of that because it certainly looks impressive!

I've been babysitting a lot recently (last night, now, tomorrow AND Saturday) so that's bringing the cash in nicely! And after making a fundraising thermometer for my bedroom wall last Saturday (I wanted to make it big, but I over-estimated my height so now I'm going to need a ladder after I hit £3000) I reckon I've got around £2700, which is OK. Mum does keep reminding me that I've used more than half my time raising only just half the funds, so I'm beginning to panic. But I only sent my charity letters off a month or two ago and I've got this thing with Damson Restaurant going on, so hopefully that will help. I've also got a guaranteed childminding job every week day which I didn't have before Xmas.

Better get cracking!