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!