Damson in Kaapstad.: July 2014

The Internet has been really rubbish lately so this is a bumper post from the last month or so.

First off, I feel the need to announce a change of plans: I am no longer planning on taking kids to England. I'm kind of upset by this decision, but ultimately I feel like it's the right thing to do. My original idea was to take all 12-14 of the Stepping Stones unit which obviously wasn't possible so we narrowed it down to 6 kids (who where the only kids it would of been possible to take). Since last August when we picked these kids, 2 of them moved out of the stepping stones unit into the older houses and two of them we had to strike of the list as their behaviour became to difficult which left us with 2 children from the house I work in, and 2 children in other houses. I spoke to the social worker about it and she agreed that it would be much more beneficial to do something with all the children in this country. So the plan now is to take all of them to Jo'burg or Kruger and spend a week on a safari or something similar then a week volunteering somewhere. Most of them have never been out of the Western Cape and I really want them to do something positive for someone else which we can spend more time doing if it's in this country. So that's the new plan!

I wrote this part on the 28th June:

Friday was the first day of the 3 week long winter holiday for the kids. This meant the incredibly hectic task of getting all but about 40 of them back to their families. In the past when I've been working this day, I've only been involved with helping pack their bags, list all the clothes they're taking home, tidying the house and packing them onto the bussies. But because I was working with the babies, I was asked to ride in the bussie with the kids to take them home!

We had to cram at least 20 kids into the bussie with all their bags of clothes and food parcels. I had to sit with the two babies so I had slightly more room, but one of them fell asleep on me and dribbled all down my leg! The trip was a 6 hour circuit of townships starting in Khayelitsha (I think) and covering Macassar and Gugulethu. It was very interesting to see the differences between the kids houses. One child was dropped off at a bungalow type building on a very big lot with a VW Golf parked in the garage, whereas another was dropped off at a 2 roomed tin shack.

**Back to real time**

Last weekend was very eventful. On Saturday, me, Jasmine and Katie went drumming at the University of Cape Town (UCT). It was so much fun! There was the closing ceremony for the International Maths Olympiad so they had over 100 countries represented, I don't think I've been anywhere before with so many different cultures in one place, we saw the British team and we wanted to go over and say hello, but we thought introducing ourselves as the African drummers from Britain might ruin the vibe so we didn't!

There were maybe 30-40 drummers from Belville, Durbanville and Maccassar including some of the kids from the Home and we were stood on these plinths leading up the steps to the main hall so all he competitors were walking between us. Bevil (the guy who runs the drumming groups) was stood at the top with a whistle and whenever he blew a certain number, we had to play the corresponding rhythms. While the ceremony was taking place we go a break, then after it was over, we lined the street and we were playing on the streets while everyone walked past us and fire dancers were dancing round us, it was incredible! Then when all the crowds were thinning we walked to the hall they were all in and stood on the steps and had a bit of a jam session! I've put up pictures :)