Holiday times!

Saturday 23/8/2014

Well me and Sarah have gone on holiday again! I say this like our last South African Holiday wasn't over 18 months ago...

This time we've gone to Wild Spirit backpackers in Natures Valley, only just down the road from where we went last time. It is beautifully serene and laid back with seemingly nothing around for miles. We aim to go on lots of walks as well as maybe a kayak and Sarah wants  to go on a horse ride...last time I was on a horse I was about 8/9 on the Scilly Isles and the horse was called Nettle. I didn't like nettles.

ANYWAY! We had the usual hectic travel here, both complaining that neither of us could drive. We had to get an 8 hour bus at 6.30am from Cape Town which all went smoothly. We knew what our stop in Plettenberg Bay looked like after spending 4 hours waiting there last trip! But I'd never been to Wild Spirit before and Sarah's only ever driven there with other people, so once in Plett, we hadn't a clue. We wandered into Plett to get a mini-bus taxi, an idea the nervous control freak inside me wasn't particularly happy with but hey, as it turned out all the taxi's we needed had stopped running what with it being a Saturday. So we ended up getting a private taxi into the middle of nowhere then the backpackers shuttle the last leg. I've reminded myself how much I'm NOT a fan of travelling, but now we're here, everything is lovely and calm and peaceful...plus there's a Kudu potjie dinner followed by a drum circle round the fire so I'm happy now!

Also, one of the resident cats seems to be living in our dorm and we have bats in the walls!

The drive to the backpackers!

Sunday 24/8/2014

It's our first full day here and it's been fantastically chill. I had a massive headache last night so I went to bed a lot earlier than everyone else-around 10.30pm, but I still got to have some of that awesome potjie and take part in the drum circle.

Today we went on a fairly relaxed walk into the pine forest in search of Sun Rock. We didn't find it, but the walk was really nice and I got a wonderful vegetable pasty from the local farm shop.

In the evening, Sarah and I did some crafting with the craft man. Sarah made a really cool dream catcher complete with beads and feathers. I got to make a ring! It looks like looping 8s-actually I'll post a picture, easier to show than describe.

And supper was roast beef with potato wedges, home-made hummus, cous cous and salad, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

At the farm shop. The problem with being on a 2 person holiday is that all the pictures are selfies of both of us, or just one of us on our own.

The gorge we walked round on our search for Sun Rock

The locals

The ring I made!

Monday 25/8/2014

Today we went on a MASSIVE hike. It wasn't actually that big, only 4-5 hours but it felt epic! We had to do it backwards to avoid the tide, which we thought was fine until we got to the very end, but I'll get to that.

We were dropped off in Tsitsikamma National Park to go and wander down a narrow path surrounded by high walls of fynbos and carpenter beetles buzzing overhead. All was fine and great, it was very hot but the fynbos was so high, the path was in shade. The path changed pretty quickly into forest and the route got quite steep and rocky. Shoes we'd taken off at the beginning had to be put back on. Once we'd found the right path (after only 1 or 2 wrong turns) and made it out of the relatively dark forest, it felt like we'd been birthed out onto a beach. All of a sudden the forest ended and we were wandering, squint-eyed, on the incredibly bright, hot sand under the sun.

After a beautifully endless walk down almost the entire length of the beach, sans shoes, which was completely empty save the sea snails, we had a quick jaunt up the R102 (a fairly main road) next to a lagoon before we popped our shoes back on and plunged back into the bowels of the forest. This time we were following a dry river bed almost all the way until we couldn't and had to clamber up an almost vertical bank.

From there things seemed to go from great to ghastly, all of a sudden it felt like we were climbing the hard slopes of Table Mountain. It was a string of endless steps some of which were as high as my knees. We'd get to a bit that was slightly more level, and every time our hopes would rise in the thought the damn steps had ended until we rounded the next bend only to see them continue. Yoh, it was exhausting!

Once we finally got to the top, it was a pretty straightforward trip back to the road. From there we were told it would be fantastically easy to hitch back to the backpackers but after being rejected by 5 cars, we called Wild Spirit and got them to fetch us.

Fynbos path

Blissfully unaware of the horrors to come!

A birds eye view of the beach we walked along.

More selfies, from cliff tops!

Another HUGE local.

The beautiful lagoon...also where we went kayaking.

"Quick, take a picture, this isn't so hard!"

The view from the top of 'mount pain'

Tuesday 26/8/2014

Today was the day for the kayak. We got a shuttle down to the lagoon and pulled out 2 of the backpackers canoes. We happily paddled as far inland as we could, with the wind and tide behind us. When we got to a road bridge supported on a bank of rocks blocking our way, Sarah hopped out of her canoe to see if there was water on the other side. I decided this was an ideal time to see whether it was feasible to paddle with 2 canoes tied together. It is! I cheerfully floated away from the bank with Sarah's canoe, leaving her stranded with her oar. I thought it was hysterical...Sarah, not so much! Other than that it was a fairly uneventful trip, we saw lots of birds and even 2 bush bok who stayed round of about 5 minutes!

Life for the last month....

It has been quite some time since I posted anything, or maybe it hasn't and I just feel like a lot has happened! The internet is down again (it's beyond irritating) so I don't actually know what the last post I did was about, I think it was the drumming at UCT. So what's happened after that?

So Sarah arrived the day after which was great, her plane was delayed about an hour and we arrived at the airport about 4 hours before her flight landed because we had to drop 2 volunteers off who were going to Botswana and there wasn't much point driving back and forth, so that was the longest wait of my life! But she arrived safe and well. It was very weird at first having her back because I'd gotten so used to life here without her around, I'd become very close with two of the project trust group (one of who was one of the ones that went to Botswana so she missed the first week of Sarah being here). It did take some getting used to, but we're all settled now so everything's good, we're back to spending our days playing endless games of cards in the kitchen.

Jasmine and Katie made friends with some of the drummers from Mecassar, so a week or two after UCT they went to the drum circle at Mecassar, and the week after I went with! It was great fun, quite a small group and held in the pottery workshop which was quite a small room with a tiled floor and plain brick or concrete walls and ceiling so it got very loud. It was very different to the Durbanville circle, a lot more relaxed and chilled out. Durbs is almost formal, everybody takes it quite seriously and it reminds me more of a professional rehearsal whereas Mecassar had more of a jam session feel to it, it was nice.

And Mecassar led to me, Jazz, Katie and Sarah going to Strand the next day to meet up with two of the drummers. We had a really nice day spent wandering on the beach, Jasmine spending most of her time with one of the guys, Katie ending up with the other guy and me and Sarah being absolute children and playing with all the hermit crabs that were everywhere and the starfish and coral! Then we got a little bit stuck in Strand when our train was late, then stopped in Erste River, so we got a little bit stranded and 4 white girls on public transport is a sight here, but we managed to persuade a mini-bus taxi driver to take us back to Durbanville so all was fine in the end!

Oh and I went to Mzoli's for the first time! Mzoli's is a township braai/party that goes down every Sunday. Actually it apparently is open every day of the week but it's huge on Sundays. I'd never been interested in going before because whenever volunteers come back they're usually so drunk they're useless, but Jasmine being the beauty she is, managed to sell it to me without either of us really realising it, so I went along one week and had a great time! One of the guys we hung out with decided he really liked me and kept kissing my cheek however many times I told him no, which was great fun, and has resulted in lots of pictures of me and him that I'm pulling a face in to say 'stop taking damn pictures and help me tell him I'm not interested!' but Jasmine and Katie found it too funny. In the end we wandered off and when we came back he seemed to have found another girl he liked...I think he took my rejection hard!!

Unfortunately Jasmine, Katie, Rachael and Anna all left on Sunday. We did spend an awesome last weekend together (me, Jazz, Katie and Sarah), we took Jazz and Katie to neighbourgoods market on Saturday as neither of them had been before (shock horror!), then we went into Cape Town so they could drum on long market street one last time and they'd arranged to meet up with some of the guys they'd met at Mzoli's and Mecassar to say bye. And on Saturday evening we went to the Rabbit Hole (local tiny club/bar thing) because there we'd seen a poster for an instrumentalist playing and we wanted to have one last drink together (Me, Jazz and Katie). The instrumentalist by the way was called Wild Lettuce and was incredible...we only actually saw him do one piece because we didn't get there until 11pm as the other two were packing, but he was playing a combination of guitar, electric drum kit, electric cello (!) and didgeridoo!!!! He had the whole thing set up to record and play in loops so we heard him do the game of thrones theme song all by himself (and included a didgeridoo) and it was incredible...I just don't have words. Had I had enough money, I would have bought his album right then and there...as it is, I've found his website (wild lettuce music) and as soon as the internet lets me I plan on downloading any or all of his albums depending on how expensive they are!

On Sunday we had to take them all to the airport, so I was just an emotional wreck. I was fine until I had to say bye to Jazz, who I've been roomies with for the last 6 months. She started crying, so I was crying, then one of the other volunteers who came with to drop off insisted we watch them go through security then walk past the window to the gates. When they saw we were still there, Katie and Anna came up to the window doing whatever leprechaun snake dance it is that they do and I just broke down...it was a bit awkward actually. They don't actually fly home until tomorrow, they're in J'burg at the moment as a kind of debrief thing with project trust (me and Sarah were supposed to go on it last year but we refused and stayed at our project for the few extra days). So that was very rough. But I also moved rooms so I've not had the pain of having to stay in mine and Jazz's room without her. I now have a tiny room to myself in the babies house, I've put pictures up (if the internet has let me).

And that's about all for now...

Little add on: The internet has been so bad recently that I've just cancelled my internet from the children's home but Sarah found this amazing little cafe just 2 minutes away from the Home that has AMAZING coffee and free wifi, so I plan on living here :) It's a shame the other volunteers are also beginning to find it cause it's nice to find a German free spot, and we don't want the other volunteers taking advantage!

But onwards and upwards, have all my pictures!

Me with all the (now old) project trust folk, l-r, Anna, Jazz, Katie and Rachael.

On our way to Mzoli's

The face that screams 'stop taking pictures and help me!'

Mzoli's

Travelling South African style!

Getting my face painted at Moyos

Sarah and I on the Udu drum at Mecassar

Children on the beach in Strand

I would like to clarify, we did know (and like) this guy!

Life

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 :)

Drumming on the plinths.

Drumming on the streets...and trying to walk at the same time!

All the drummers at the end.

Me, Katie and Jazz.

Jazz, Katie, Bevil and me.

We wanted to see the sunset...missed it but got some cool moon pictures instead!

Me and Jazz being irritating and stopping Katie getting a good picture of the sign!

Rain.

We seem to be fully into rainy winter right now. It wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't just started working back in my house and having to wake up at 5.30am...getting out of a nice warm bed into freezing clothes, then having to walk across the home in the rain is not fun, let me assure you! But I'm liking working in the house. I'm not working with the same Child-care worker as I was last year, she still works in the house, but they've put me on the opposite shift as the new child-care worker is only 19 (younger than me!) and needs a strong volunteer. At first I thought working with her was going to be too chaotic and between us we wouldn't have any control with the children, but actually I've found I really love working with her. It is very boisterous and very different to what I was used to on the other shift, but we have a lot of fun and everything is a lot more relaxed. We only work 1 week day (Mon-Thurs) together so there's only ever one day a week when I have to do homework, showering, and reasonable bedtimes in the chaos and weekends are so much fun! I'm going to have to work a few weeks of Monday to Friday after the July holidays though as we need 2 new volunteers in the house and it's easier for everyone if I can help train them both, but once they're up to speed I'll be back to long week, short week.

Anyway, not the reason for me writing a post. It's 1.30am as I write so it's another nightshift post...YAY! The other day we had so much hail, it looked like Durbanville was covered in snow! I've put pictures on. Because my bedroom roof is basically a sheet of metal, you can hear the first rain drops fall, it's awesome! You can be lying in bed and you'll hear a few plinks of rain, then all of a sudden it'll turn torrential and you can't hear anything other than the rain. But it usually fades really quickly as well, then all you can hear is the frogs!  

Runinng on a musical theme.

On Friday I did another music party/choir/music therapy with Stepping Stones and Happy Feet but separately this time. When I was in Happy Feet, the child-care worker asked me to start drumming with them the next day. She's been asking me to do it for a while now but I've been putting it off. But Yesterday I actually did it! I've made myself a drum strap out of seatbelt material so we had them all standing in a circle, we didn't do a lot of complicated stuff just a lot of noise making! I had them drumming as loudly as they could, then quietly, then lifting their arms up really high or keeping their hands close to the drum, we did some screaming while drumming and quite a bit of copy cat work and listening hard so we could play all together at the same time...it was very fun!

Music Party!

The child-care worker from Happy Feet (the baby house-kids aged 18 months to 6/7 years) has been pestering me to run a junior choir with all the little ones for a while. I tried it a few weeks ago, but I didn't have enough songs in my head and they didn't have the concentration to sit still long enough to learn new ones so it didn't work as well as it could have. But on Friday I was working in Stepping Stones and we decided to combine my house with Happy Feet and have a music party! I took my speaker and laptop to the house and because it was raining, we had the kids shower as soon as they came in from school and they had no homework so we mooched along until Happy Feet joined us. When they did, I whipped out my 'Oomba Baroomba' playlist of songs I used to listen to when I was a kid and we had a massive dance party!

I had all the kids jumping around and doing a wobbly walk, then the child care worker had a box of sleigh bells and tambourines and triangles so we dished them out and had the kids shaking along to the music. Then we finished on one of the lullabies and I had all the kids lay down and rest for a few minutes (because I needed to!), which resulted in a pile of very happy but slightly tired children!

It was so good, I'm going to break my own 'no pictures of children' rule and give you these few gems!

Jump, Jump, Jump if you feel you want to, oooooooo

Everybody sleeping! You can only see my legs!

Horse rides :)

Annual Ball

Every year the children's home holds a variety of functions to raise money. One of these is the Annual Winter Ball, which I got to see last year but only briefly as I was drumming with the kids as the guests arrived. However this time I got to help with the whole event! It was kind of stressful leading up to it as there was a lot we had to organise: we had to roll 130something blankets, put 130something hot-water bottles into cases and then tie the 2 together with a ribbon and a thank you card as a present for the guests and folding menus etc. But then when it got to the evening itself it was actually really nice. We had to stand with a child each and give each of the women a small bag with a jar of honey and a small box of chocolates. The girls had to wear a pair of wings which had a tendency to get in the way.

"Auntie, I want to take my wings off. People keep knocking them!"

The guests were all given these semi-frozen blue (alcoholic) cocktails as they came in so the same child that came up with the gem about the wings turned to me and said:

"Auntie, can I have one of the slush puppies as well?"

 Then during the the evening we did get to eat the INCREDIBLE food, but only once everything else was sorted. So inbetween the starter and the main course we had to hand all of the women a blanket/hot-water bottle package. Each kid had to go round 6 tables so they had to give out maybe 30-40 packages each! And the volunteers had to run to everybody that bid in the auction and collect all their details. But it was a really nice evening.

Have some pictures!

The hall

Menu and honey bags we had to hand out

Me (left), Katie (centre) and Sinja (right).

The hot-water bottles and blankets we had to roll, wrap and give!

It's very disconcerting to have 2 lions behind you...even if there are fences in the way!

A Rooikat or Red cat. Check out it's fluffy ears! This thing was hissing and spitting at us.