I miss my kiddies!!

So I have given up on the hopes of being a faithful blogger. But I figured it would be good to give an update of what I’ve been up to! Well I just finished my last week at my first project. My last official day was on Friday, but I went on Monday as well as they were having a Christmas party that day! It was very hard to say goodbye to the kids, I was trying really hard to be brave, but I almost lost it once. But other than that, I managed to keep it together until the kids left. I didn’t realize how attached I was going to get to them. One thing I should have done earlier is told you a bit about each kid.

Well, better late than never!

Michaela: the cutest girl ever. She has epilepsy, but is so good about taking her medicine, never makes a fuss. Often in her own little world. Loves to dance, and loves to have pictures taken. She’ll always say, “And me, teacher, and me!” when I pull out my camera. Whenever I flip the kids on the playground, she’ll always try, but only go halfway, then jump off, but she loves doing that!

Tarryn: also the cutest girl ever, very different from Michaela, Tarryn’s has a small defiant streak that comes out now and then, but she's still very sweet. She’s very observant, if I get a small new scab on my foot, she’ll notice, and say, “Teacher, why are you sore?” Loves to be picked up and carried around. 

Kaitlin: very energetic, she doesn’t understand English very well, most of the time we have no idea what she’s talking about!

Nobless: more on the quiet side, she is a very good drawer. She misses a lot of school unfortunately, but is still very smart despite that! (The one on the left)

Payton: future head cheerleader potential, she always has her hair braided differently, her mom has some mad skills! Likes to talk about her cat, Leo. She loves to chew gum in class, and hide it under her tongue haha. Also a very smart girl. 

Nicole: definitely one of the smartest kids in the class. She is a very sweet girl, she loves to do my hair more than anyone else in the class, if we’re inside she’ll use a block as a hairbrush, or if we’re on the playground, she’ll use a rock. “Teacher, I’m going to make your hair nice” is something I hear a lot!

Shameerah: was very shy at first, but opened up over time, also loves to chew gum in  class. For the first month of practicing our California Girls dance, she wouldn’t dance, she would just stand there. Refuses to eat apples! 

Mushfeeka: always always has something coming out of her nose. She is also a very good drawer as well, misses a fair amount of school. 

Nawaaz: such a sweetheart. He told Ditte he was my boyfriend after a week or two. Very competitive, always likes to be first in line, will always let me know if someone is doing something they shouldn’t be. Always runs to me the second we get on the playground to do some flips. Loves to sit on my lap. 

Kholisa: a very nice boy, who unfortunately stopped coming the last month or so. He loved to repeat the same thing over and over and over again. Such a sweetie. 

Torique: also stopped coming about a month in because his parents owed R20 (about $2.50 CA). I would have loved to just pay the fine and have him come back, but it doesn’t work like that unfortunately. He was a sweetie though, I miss him!

Sange: such a little mischief maker, but I love him. Has a lot of energy, loves to compete with Nawaaz. Would always try to sit on my lap whenever possible, loved to climb all over me. Has such a adorable face when he really smiles, or when he gets embarrassed for doing something good. He loves it when I pretend there’s something under his arm, then sneak up and tickle him. He’ll then go around the class, bringing me kids with their arms up, so I can do the same to them. 

Lungesani: Sange’s cousin, but they live together. At first he seems a lot darker, but if you give him attention, he lights up. The other day, when he got a present, he started chanting his name, it was adorable. 

Ashen: the tiniest little boy, he gets very attached, would start crying if he was sitting on my lap and someone else tried to sit with us. Loves bread, loves to ask for it. Also loves to hide under the table if things aren’t going his way. He's so cute!

Grigory: makes the funniest face ever, he kind of spaces out a lot! We always try to give him more food when we can. Has a very short attention span!

Banza: such a cute child, was shy at first, but not after a bit. I always pretend to shake his hand, and then we tickle each other’s wrists, he gets such a kick out of it. 

Mani: a tough kid, but very sweet. Very honest, if he’s been fighting, he’ll say he is, but if he hasn’t, he’ll say “Teacher, I didn’t fight.” Loves to wrestle with the other kids. 

Courage: the mischief maker of the class for sure. He doesn’t really listen to me. He can be sweet if he chooses, which he does now and then. He doesn’t smile as much as the other kids, but when he fully smiles, he has a huge big smile! 

Inam: he was shy at first, but now is one of my favourites. The other day he was telling me about how he’s going to the big school in January, and I’m going to go with him. Got really shy the other day and then he gave me a hug and told me loved me and gave me a kiss, then ran away. Just such a nice boy, a really good heart. 

Yve: the FUNNIEST randomest kid ever. He loves to pretend he’s Spider-Man. He would literally just start yelling something, then slap his knees, and raise his hands. I wish I had recorded him because I got such a kick out of him. He looks so cute sometimes in ridiculous outfits, with his rubber boots, or his hat that I think might be made from an old pair of boxers and a shoelace? 

Kwanele: also a big mischief maker, but he’s a sweetie too. I think he is such a beautiful child. Loves to drive his car (a frisbee) around the classroom. Loves to throw sand on the playground, which drives me bonkers!

Exoce: he missed a lot of school, but he is a really good kid. Has a beautiful smile, is a generally very happy kid. His dad would always pick him up before nap time. (He's the one in the middle)

Iqel: this is the kid that would sit there biting my pants during class, or picking at my feet, or something haha, loved to sit in front of me, got very possessive during the last week or two, and would just follow me around the whole time!

So that’s my class! I miss them so much thinking about them, but they’re on Christmas break now, so I couldn’t even go visit them if I wanted. 

There's a couple other kids that I've spent some time with on the playground who also have a special place in my heart!!!
Here's a few pics of them :)

I am now on my week off, housesitting at a GORGEOUS house with Tim, it’s definitely the nicest house I’ve ever stayed at. It’s crazy having a TV again! It worked out really well actually because I’ve been really sick the last week (tonsilitis & bronchitis), so on Saturday I went to the doctor’s and got some medicine, then moved into this house, and  watched TV for six hours straight! I watched the Lakers play the Bulls (Bulls won :) ), watched a bit of Scrubs and Will & Grace, then watched something on the World’s Deadliest Animals! I’m feeling a lot better now, I just have a cough that I can’t seem to kick! 

Yesterday I got to visit my mom’s World Vision sponsor child, Lehagen. That was a really cool experience! I went to the World Vision centre in Atlantis, and then a woman drove me into the community where he and his family live, I actually got to meet his parents, and his two brothers as well! The children were very shy, and didn’t speak English really, but the father spoke English, so I was able to talk to him and use him as a translator as well. I thought it was really awesome that I had the chance to meet him face to face! 

Next week I will be starting my penguin project for six weeks, interested to see what that’s like!

So that’s a bit of what I’ve been up to! It’s been hard saying goodbye to my children, but also to my friends, as most of them are going home now for Christmas. It’s going to be weird being away for Christmas, not really looking forward to it, and there’s no snow!!! But apparently at Canal Walk there is a fake snow hill or something, I’m not too sure, I have to further investigate, but I may have to head over there and check it out! 

Two posts in one day!!

Hey everyone.  It’s Tuesday afternoon here, I am just writing a quick post before lunch, and I’ll hopefully be able to put it up this afternoon at Shabean (the local cafe we always go to that has free wireless).  This last week has been pretty crazy, there’s been a lot of crime going on.  Last week, one of the volunteers was mugged twice in three days, and one of our staff members was mugged as well.  That was scary to hear, so since that we have been trying to make sure that we walk in groups.  However, on Saturday we did have a scary run-in.  Me and about fifteen volunteers decided to go to Cape Town for Halloween.  Me and my four Blondies decided to go as Barbies, I was Super Gymnast Barbie, Lizzie was Hawaiian Barbie, Ditte was Cowgirl Barbie, Rachel was Referee Barbie, and Nancy was Pirate Barbie.  We also had a gay cowboy, a witch, an athlete, a few Greek Gods, and a few hipsters.  The night started off by us sprinting to the train station after supper to catch the last train.  Unfortunately, it left ten minutes before we thought, so we had to take two taxis into Cape Town.  We went and got some food, chilled at a Backpackers for a bit, then went to Joburg and Crew to dance for a few hours. A few people went home early, but at the end of the night there was still 11 of us.  Usually it costs about R250-R300 for a seven person taxi, and we would have to take two. But we were hanging outside the Pick and Pay Express gas station, and there was a taxi guy there who said he could take us all in the back of his taxi for R200.  So we all piled into the back of the truck.  He wanted the money up front, but we just gave him R50 to get some gas, and said we’d give him the rest at the end. 

So within two feet of moving, the back left tire was shot.  That was unfortunately right where me and Rachel were sitting, so we could really feel it.  I guess the load was too heavy, but he kept driving.  At that point, our biggest fear was if the car would make it all the way home!

Usually the ride from Cape Town to Muizenberg is about 20-25 minutes, but it felt a lot longer that night.  However, it was late, and we were really cold, so we figured it was just in our heads. 

The first warning sign was that we didn’t recognize the route he was taking.  But, there are a few routes you can take, and we thought that he was taking the back roads so that he wouldn’t get pulled over by the cops.

The second warning sign happened when he stopped the car in the middle of nowhere and got out.  We were like, “What’s going on man?” And he said, “Oh, pee break.” Two minutes later, he got back in the car and started driving again.  But we did notice that there were two other cars that stopped when we did.  At that point, Rachel put her memory card from her camera in her bra, just in case.  And I said at that point, “Why is this guy wrecking his tire for R200?” We thought about getting out of the truck when he stopped, but we had no idea where we were, and there was no one around, so if anything was going to happen, it just would have happened then.

The third warning sign was when I saw a sign that said Muizenberg and pointed straight, and we went left.  Again, there was nothing we could do at that point.

Five or ten minutes later, he stopped the car again, kind of at a dark dead end.  This time, we just got out of the truck, and said that we were just going to call a taxi, and that they kept stopping and we just wanted to go home. But, the two other cars that had been following us had stopped as well, and guys started getting out of those cars, as well as the two guys from our truck.  They had nightsticks, baseball bats, and knives.  They started yelling at us to give them our stuff.  Mainly people lost phones, cameras, IDs and credit cards, and some money.  I was very fortunate that I didn’t have my camera on me, I just lost my phone and my driver’s license.  After they got our stuff, they left us.  We had seen a sign that said Ottery, but other than that, we had no idea where we were.  Thankfully, Ross had managed to keep his cell phone (by shoving it down his pants and saying it was his cock when they searched him; a brave and risky move!!), so we called Tim and let him know what was going on, and then we found a security guard in a parking lot, and we got him to call the cops for us.  They came and took us all home in the back of their truck, stopping once to ask if a car looked like one of the ones from earlier.  

It was a scary incident, but I feel that we were lucky that everyone was safe, no one was injured, and they didn't try to do anything to the girls.

However, the same night, Tim’s car window got smashed and they stole his radio.  

Tim filed a case with the police station about our mugging, I think I have to go down there sometime in the next day or two to make a statement, because I remembered one of the license plates of the car that was following us.  I’m so mad for not looking at the license plate of the truck, but in the heat of the moment it’s hard to focus on things like that.  

This week is also quite scary as well.  Friday is a big gang holiday, Guy Fox, so the week leading up to it is dangerous as well.  There’s quite a bit of hearsay from different kids, teachers, and locals, but from what I understand, it’s initiation time for the gangs, so the new people have to go out and prove themselves to the gang.  Common things include: throwing rocks, filling socks with razor blades and throwing them, and putting razors between their fingers and cutting your face.  That’s all I’ve heard, but I think a lot of theft, mugging, and beating up is common as well.  So no one went to school yesterday, I went today, but I got Tim to drive me there.  No one is going on Friday though, some of the teachers aren’t even going!  And a lot of kids have said that they won’t leave their houses on Friday, and these kids are tough, so if they’re not leaving you know it’s legit. 

Regardless of everything that is going on, I am still loving it here.  I have moved into a new house, it’s me, Lizzie, Rachel, Ditte, Nancy, and Silvana.  It’s squishy, and not as nice as our old house, but it’s not bad.  Anyways, I have to go to lunch, but I’ll try and write again soon about all the good stuff going on here!

P.S. Going skydiving on Saturday with Lizzie, Rachel, Ditte, Nancy, and a few of Rachel’s friends from Cape Town. Can’t wait!!!

Safari Weekend!

All right, so the Safari Weekend! Ten of us went in total, it was me, Rachel, Ditte, Lizzie, Courtney, Jay, Sonia, Ryan, James, and Jamaal. We went with Somet and Zac, Christo’s parents (Christo is a local from Muizenberg, good friends with a few of the volunteers).  They gave us a really good deal for the weekend, they took both of their cars and drove us everywhere!  

So we left on Friday morning around 9 am, and drove for five hours, and went on a safari in the afternoon! It was really cool, we got to go in the classic safari jeeps, those things are tanks! There were a couple times that I thought  we were going to get stuck, but we made it through without a problem! The first animal we saw was the white rhino, we got really close to them, maybe 15 feet away? Then we saw a baby giraffe, she was only three months old! Some other animals we saw were the antelope, springbok, buffalo, wildebeest, zebra, lions, and elephants! 

That night we stayed at Beach House Backpackers, it was a beautiful hostel! We were all pretty tired, so we just had an early night.  The next morning, we drove for a couple of hours, and went to an elephant sanctuary! This was definitely one of the highlights of the weekend, it was phenomenal!  Our guide was really funny.  We each got to walk an elephant, holding hands with its trunk! I walked Jabu, he was such a cutie. Then they taught us about the anatomy of the elephant, we got to go up to the elephant and touch his ears & tail & bum & heel, we even saw his molars and tongue! We also got to ride the elephants, which was really fun.  What I really appreciated about the sanctuary was that they aren’t in this to make money, their sole concern is for the elephants.  Someone asked what would they do if all the elephants died and they weren’t given any more (They only take in orphaned or abandoned ones), and they said they would turn the sanctuary into something else then!

After the sanctuary, we went ziplining, which was a nice warmup to what we knew was coming next: the bungy! Ziplining was really fun though, it wasn’t scary at all! The lines we did varied from 41m to 211 m, some went faster than others, I brought my little camera with me on all of them, so I took some pictures and videos of it, it was good fun!

THE BUNGY.

At 216 m, the Bloukrans Bungy is the highest in the world!! 

I’ve been thinking about the Bungy for months, and have been pretty nervous about it, but for some reason on Saturday I wasn’t nervous at all! Out of our group of 10, only 4 people did the bungy: me, Ryan, Courtney, and James.

*Interesting fact: Ryan and Courtney are the only other Canadians that came on the safari, so 3/3 Canadians did the Bungy, but only 1/7 non-Canadians did it!*

They put our harnesses on, and then we had about half an hour to kill so we just walked around, then we walked out to the bridge, that was actually pretty scary.  The walkway underneath the bridge was wire, and it was bouncy, and you could see straight down, but we made it to the area and then I was good again.  They were playing some good beats, so we just started having a dance party. 

(You can barely see me jumping, 

but I'm in this picture!!)

At first they told me I was going to go first, but then they changed the order and said that I would be going last. So I watched everyone else go, just kept dancing.  They strapped me up, and I was fine, until I stood up and started walking towards the edge.  You can tell in the video, it flips like a switch, he had been asking me, “Are you scared?”  and I was like, “No, no, man, I’m good.” but in the video I think you can hear me say, “Okay, I’m scared now!” I think looking down was a mistake, it’s hard to push your body off a bridge and just freefall, it’s really not natural! They yell, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNGY!” and I jumped!!!! I wanted to get a good picture, so I tried to jump out as far as I could.  Once I started falling, it wasn’t that scary,  I remember thinking that I felt like Superman!! Once it catches, you go up and down a bunch of times, there’s this moment on your way up just before you start dropping again, it’s a moment of weightlessness, it’s very surreal! The only scary part was that I could feel the straps getting lower and lower on my leg, so I was flexing my legs as hard as I could, trying to keep them on (at that moment I had forgotten about the backup strap).  I started spinning pretty fast, it was cool to get a panoramic view! I can now say that I have jumped off the biggest bridge in Africa as well! When we got back to the hostel, I called my parents to tell them that: a) I had done the bungy and b) I had survived it!  

Sunday morning we went to a big cat rescue centre in the morning.  It’s similar to a zoo in that they have enclosures for each animal, but you can actually go into the enclosures! We saw the African wildcat (the animal I told you about before that me and Ditte saw), the serval (which came right up to me so I patted it!!) and cheetahs!! We were supposed to be able to pet the cheetahs, but the guide wasn’t feeling the right vibe, so we didn’t, but we did get about a foot away from them! They are such beautiful creatures, wow.  I did feel bad that they were in a small enclosure, being such fast animals, I didn't think that they had proper space to run around. 

After that we went to Monkeyland.  Monkeyland takes in orphaned monkeys, particularly ones that people have had as pets and then abandoned.  They have a huge forest, so they let the monkeys run around loose, but they take people on tours and point out the different species.  Some of you may have seen my Facebook picture with the monkey on my head.  I was a little bit behind my group, taking pictures of this little golden monkey.  Another gold monkey sauntered up, kept getting closer and closer, then he grabbed my leg, swung up onto my arm, and then jumped onto my head! Of course, my camera chose that moment to run out of memory space, so I quickly called Courtney, who took some great shots, then I took him off, as I knew my tour guide would get mad if he saw it! I was so excited, I have always wanted to play with a monkey, and that is the closest I’ve ever gotten! After the tour, we went for lunch in their restaurant, a monkey got in and was running around under the tables.  We went out onto the patio after and there were two monkeys sitting on the picnic tables, I took a lot of pictures there as you can imagine!

After Monkeyland, we drove a to Ooutshorrn, where we went to an ostrich farm.  I have very mixed feelings about this part of the trip.  On one hand, it was really fun.  Betsy the ostrich ate out of Ryan, James, and Jamaal’s mouths!  We fed ostrichs with our hands, and out of a pail (where 10 ostrichs are coming at your head!) I even rode an ostrich!!!!

That was really fun, my ostrich actually went pretty fast!! 

But on the other hand, I didn’t know it was going to be a slaughterhouse.  They showed us the incubator of ostriches that were only a couple of hours old; it was far too cramped.  They told us that most ostriches on their farm are slaughtered at 22-24 months old, such a short life!! And what I found out after that really got to me was that you can only ride an ostrich 10 times before it goes to the slaughterhouse.  That made me feel awful...even though it was going there regardless, I can’t help but feel partially responsible for it. :(

Sunday night we just drove home (5-6 hours), and then on Monday morning they picked us up again and took us out to Stellenbosch for the day! We went to four wine farms, which was cool.  The first place was really nice, it had a big fireplace and was really laidback.  The second place was called Graham Beck, which made me think of my Beamo (my brother Graham), it was good, but they brought out the wine way too fast! I’m not a big wine person, so I couldn’t keep up, I ended up giving some of the others some of my glasses.  The third place was a wine and cheese place, so me and DItte stocked up on the cheese, although I actually really liked one of the wines I had there, it was a dessert wine, called Summer Harvest, it was very tasty!  The fourth place we went was Spier, which is a very nice place, but me and some others had had enough wine, so we just went to the gift shop and looked around, got our faces painted etc.  

And that was my safari weekend!!!

Africa Update

Hello! So I am officially the worst blogger EVER. I am keeping a journal out here as well, and can barely manage to keep up with that! There is just so much to do out here, it’s hard to find time to sit down and write, when you could be doing so many other things! I am still going to Sunrise in the mornings, with my same class, they are so incredible. Yesterday we had a little mishap though.  I was outside on the playground, when Gregory came up to me, crying hysterically.  He’s not one of the kids that cry a lot, so I was a little concerned. I asked him what was wrong, but he wouldn’t tell me.  After about 10 minutes, he stopped crying and went to sleep on my lap, where he proceeded to sleep for the next hour! Everytime I tried to move him, he would just start crying again. We began to get more concerned, and so we examined him, and he had a huge bump on his head! So we took him inside and didn’t let him sleep during nap time, we think he got a concussion. He wasn’t at school today either.

Other than that it’s been good though. We’ve just been practicing for the spring recital this Saturday.  The kids are doing “Twist” by Elvis, and the girls are doing “California Girls” by Katy Perry ft. Snoop Dogg. Today we walked to Capricorn Primary School to have a dress rehearsal. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get into the gym to practice, so we had to walk straight back. It was quite the journey getting my 20 little hooligans all back in one piece! 

We have also found chameleons at Sunrise!! The other day, I found one and named him Cornelius, and held him for an hour. I wanted to bring him home, but then I realized that he would get tame, and then be too dependent when I had to go home.

There’s been a few incidents in the township. Well, I’m sure there’s been more than a few, but just a few that we’ve heard about. One event that frightened me particularly happened just outside of Sunrise, at 1 pm, about an hour after we left. A guy around our age was trying to steal a car, and a group of guys caught him, murdered him, and wired him up on a lamp post. 

Onto happier subjects, I have found a really good church here: Hillsong Cape Town!! It is incredible, I am really enjoying going there. The praise and worship is amazing, they have a lot of musical talent! And the pastor, Phil Dooley, is a really good speaker, he has a lot of energy for God.  The church is only two years old, so they haven’t had a building yet, but they just bought one! The building that they bought used to be the biggest nightclub in South Africa, how cool is that! In the meantime, we have church at various venues, usually at a conference centre, but last weekend it was at Ratanga Junction, a theme park! There was a morning service, and then a praise and worship service in the evening, they had Jad Gilles from Hillsong Sydney leading worship, it was really really good. 

As for free time, well quite a bit has happened! I went on a safari weekend, I’m going to make a separate post for that, just to break it up a little bit. Other than that, hmmm...

At the beginning of the month, a group of us went down to Boulders Beach and visited the penguins, they were really cute! Gone to Camps Bay a couple of times, went swimming in the ocean, it’s really chilly!!! I went to a soccer game at Green Point Stadium, that was awesome!! It was Ajax vs. Santos, Ajax was dominating for most of the game, but then near the end of the game, the ref made a cheap call, and gave Santos a penalty shot, which they scored off of the rebound, making it a tie game. 

It was really cool to be in a stadium where the World Cup was!!! BUT it did make me really angry that I didn’t get my act together and come here 3 months earlier! So I have decided that I am definitely going to go to Brazil for the World Cup in 2014.  :)

(It's not letting me post any of the soccer pictures, but if I get it working I'll post them later!)

I have started running here as well, there is an awesome route that I take that goes along the ocean from the Muizenberg train station to St. James. As you’re running, the mountain is on one side of you, and the ocean is on the other. Although I seem to have a habit of going at high tide; the last few times I have gotten soaked by waves! But that’s okay, it keeps you from getting too hot. :) I also see some nice seashells sometimes, and the other day when running with Ross, we saw a whale! That was very exciting for me, as somehow I hadn’t seen one up close yet! It was jumping and merrily flailing in the water, I didn’t want to stop running but I couldn’t look away so I jogged in place, staring at it, got a few funny looks from people, but that’s okay.

All in all, things are going great here.  The weather is really starting to heat up, I am already pretty tanned, kind of scared for how dark I”ll be in a few months! A new blonde girl, Nancy, has moved into House One as well, making us the Five Blondies. Us five, and Silvana, a new girl from Switzerland, are moving into the back flat of House Two next Monday sadly, as Mandy (the program co-ordinator) wants to privately rent out the house we are staying in right now.  I’m not looking forward to it, but it will be nice to get away from the fleas! We are all currently covered in flea bites! See, in our house we have two gay male cats, Simon and Bajangles. Bajangles is pretty loyal to Simon, but Simon is a frisky little cat, and likes to roam the neighbourhood, doing who knows what with who knows who!  We have also had about five different stray cats in our house, as they just come in through the cat hole in our door.  We’ve tried spraying our mattresses, which has helped a little bit, but we’re still getting bitten, so hopefully when we move, the bites will go away!

Anyways, that is a very brief sypnosis of what I have been up to, I will make another post shortly about my safari weekend, and hopefully write again soon!

Update from Africa!!!

Hello everyone! I’m sorry I have been so awful with my blog, I’ll try and write more regularly from now on, it’s just hard to find time to get to the cafe during the day, it turns out there is no internet at our house, so I’m just writing it offline now and then will hopefully post it tomorrow afternoon.

So AFRICA!!!!!

I love it.

It is so incredible here, I can’t even begin to describe how beautiful it is.  I’m staying in a tiny surfer’s village called Muizenberg, it’s about a 20 minute drive/50 minute train ride to Cape Town.  The ocean is about a five minute walk from my house, and there is a huge beautiful mountain that overlooks the town.  (below is the view from House 2)

It has been going amazing so far! My last flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town was good, I sat next to a guy named Muzwi who lives in Cape Town, so he told me all about it, and got me really excited! I arrived at the airport around 9:30 and just went to House 2, and went to bed that night, but it was 3:00 pm Winnipeg time, so I didn’t really sleep at all! It took me about 4 days to get adjusted to the time difference, but I’m used to it now.  Monday we had orientation, that was really good, I met all the other volunteers, such great people, I’m very blessed to have made such good friends already! Lots of Brits and Americans, a few Canadians and Australians, one of my really good friends is from Denmark, that’s really cool.  There’s this one guy named Ross.  He’s from Texas.  Very classic American.  Then there’s Rachel.  She’s from London, and is awesome.  Ditte’s from Denmark, Lizzie’s from LA, Smit lives close to New York, so we’re really from all over the world. 

In the morning, we drove through the township where we work, the poverty level is heart-wrenching.  Everyone lives in shacks, there’s no insulation and it gets VERY cold here, so you wonder how they stay warm at night.There’s stray dogs everywhere, pretty big ones too, but they’re so feeble, you know they don’t have the strength to attack you. We visited all the different projects, Sunrise is the childcare centre where I’ve been working, a different school is called Shack 10, and it is literally a shack amongst the other houses. When we walked in, Tim said that they had just done a lot of work on it and that it looked a lot better, and I couldn’t imagine what it must have looked like before. It really makes you appreciate how blessed you really are!    There is also Christian Davids, and the art project, and then surfing and football in the afternoons.  In the afternoon of our orientation, we took the train into Cape Town, such a  beautiful city.  We walked around for a little bit, and then went through the Company Gardens, that was really nice.  However, just as we were exiting the gardens we hear a man shouting in Afrikaans at another man.  He runs past us, holding a huge knife trying to stab the guy!  We all stop and stare (which probably wasn’t the smartest idea looking back on it), and then he starts throwing the knife at him, and we decide that we should probably keep on walking.  I was definitely thrown off by that, a stabbing in the middle of the day in a busy area of town, and no one was doing anything about it.  I definitely experience major culture shock the first couple of days, but now I’m settled in.  

Tuesday morning was my first day working in the township, it’s about a 30 minute walk from our house.  As a safety precaution, all the volunteers walk together in the morning to the township.  A few volunteers were mugged a couple weeks ago, so we like to stick together.  It’s weird, at home if I was walking downtown and I was scared of someone, I would look away and not make eye contact.  But here, if I’m a little uneasy walking past someone, I look right at them and say Hello or Good morning.  I’m not sure why, but it seems to be working pretty well so far. I have been working with this one class at Sunrise, and wow, I am in love with these kids.  Within a minute of walking into the classroom, all the kids are hugging you, yelling “teacher, teacher,” and trying to jump on you.  They adapt very quickly to new volunteers.  It’s been almost two weeks working there now, and I really feel like I’m starting to know the kids.  There are a couple of them though, it’s going to be awful to leave them, they really tug at my heartstrings.  One little boy named Nawaaz, and a girl named Michaela.  (picture on the left) Nawaaz is 4 years old, and the biggest sweetheart.  We have this routine on the playground where he’ll climb up to the top of the structure, then I’ll put my hands on my hips, frown at him, and say “Are you ready?” in a low voice, and he’ll be like “Are you ready?” and point at me, trying to frown, but usually smiling, and then he’ll jump into my arms, and I’ll swing him around upside down, he has the cutest biggest smile the entire time.  Oh, and he loves to grab my hand and then climb up my legs and flip, that’s quite popular with the kids, I remember I used to love doing that to my dad when I was little.  Michaela is the cutest little girl.  She’s in her own little world sometimes, and will just start dancing, she has some good moves!   She also has epilepsy.  I brought my camera to Sunrise one day, and out on the playground, she followed me for an hour.  First it started out, “And me, teacher, and me!” meaning she wanted me to take a picture of her.  So I took a ton of pictures, they always love taking pictures and looking at them afterwards.  So that was good.  But then it changed to “And you teacher!” and she wanted to take pictures of me.  If you give one kid your camera, then you’ll have 500 kids all over you, so I was trying not to give it to her, but she really wanted it so I gave it to her, it was so cute, she would lead me to certain areas where she thought would be a good background for a picture.  The best part was that she wouldn’t actually take the picture though!  She didn’t quite understand that you had to press the button all the way down, she would just quickly tap it.  She is so adorable, I can’t even describe it.  I was shocked on my first day though, the kids I work with are between 3-4, but wow, they are so much more mature than that.  They know way more than they should at their age.  Living in the township, they have to be very street smart.  A lot of the children live off the food we make them at school, they don’t get any food at home.  You can tell, they always scrape the very last of their bowls, some try and steal extra food as well.  It just breaks your heart to think of what these kids go through.  We don’t know a lot about their home situations, but some kids have knife scars on their faces, things like that.  It’s so sad, there’s this one girl who we know is HIV positive, and none of the kids want to play with her because of the sores on her face. Today she was wearing a turtleneck, and she pulled it up to try and cover her face so that they would let her join them.  It’s a very emotional experience, but I am loving every second of it.  The kids are having a concert on October 30th, so we’ve been practicing, we’re doing a dance to “Twist” by Elvis, it is so cute, I’ll have to record it at the concert and upload it, it’s adorable.  I love having dance parties with the children.  :) Their favourite song though, hands down, is “Baby” by Justin Beiber.  Somehow, every kid knows that song, but only the one line, so they’ll all sing “Baby, baby, baby, oooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh” over and over, it’s so adorable.  So I am loving working with the children, it’s so amazing.  We’re done volunteering around noon, then go over to House 3 and have lunch.  The surfing project runs in the afternoon, so usually a bunch of us will go down there and watch for a bit, hang out with the kids, and then go to the cafe or to get groceries.  But yesterday I decided to tag along and go to the soccer program, that was so much fun! Apparently it’s a lot different this week, because the older kids are on holiday from school, so there’s a big tournament going on and whatnot, so I’ll tell you how it goes when I go again.  But yesterday, the tournament went late so we watched the game, the kids were probably around 12-14, and wow, they were incredible.  The game was taking a long time, so we took the kids out to a field and just played monkey in the middle with the ball, then once the tournament was done for the day, we had a scrimmage.  The kids were probably around 9-13ish for the most part, and they are so good! They put me to shame, and I love it!  I think I’m going to start going to the soccer program on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons as well, it’s so much fun. The kids here are really so incredible.  The locals are awesome too, I’ve met some really cool people! Supper is at 7, and then usually we’ll sit around and talk, play a card game, watch a movie, or go to the melting pot (the local hangout). It is very laid-back here, so different from North America. 

On Friday, we had the day off, since it was Heritage Day, so me, Ross, Rachel, Ditte, and Julia climbed Table Mountain!! That was an exhilarating experience!  We took the train to Cape Town, then took a taxi from the train station to the foot of the mountain.  It took us about 2 1/2 hours to get to the top, but we stopped a lot, and we also had a half hour detour when we made a wrong turn!  It was really cool, you could feel the change in the air as the elevation increased, the air became more watery. I drank some of the spring water from the mountain, which I thought was really cool haha. It was so beautiful, I had to stop a lot to take pictures, I got some really nice ones though I think.  The view was so spectacular, especially when we finally reached the top!! I remember when the end was in sight, me and Rachel ran, I think I was screaming “Yes!” over and over, a lot of people were looking at us pretty strangely, but we were so happy to finally be at the top.  It was so beautiful to overlook the city, and to be at the same height as the clouds, we were even above some of them.  

The temperature difference was astounding though! When we were climbing the mountain, I was hot in tank tops and shorts, it felt around 27 degrees. At the top of the mountain, it was 8 degrees!! And very very windy.  So we didn’t stay up there for too long, the other girls were so cold, but me and Ross were determined to get a few pictures of us on top of the world! It was such a wonderful feeling, such a spectacular view. We took the cable car down the mountain, that was really cool, it only took two minutes to get down! And the floor spun around, so you were able to get a panoramic view as you descended. 

Friday night we went into Cape Town and went down Long St., that was really fun. On Saturday, Rachel, Julia, and I took the train to Claremont to do a bit of shopping, it is a lot colder here than we were anticipating so we all bought blankets that we carry almost everywhere. Saturday evening we just took it easy, my throat was really sore, I actually lost my voice this morning, I’ve had no voice all day, it’s awful! On Sunday morning we went to the market, that was lots of fun! I bought two nice bracelets for R20, two pairs of knee high socks, two South Africa shirts, and an amazing  African toque. After lunch, we went down to the beach where a big surfing competition was taking place.  They were trying to break the world record for the most surfers on a single wave.  Muizenberg currently holds the record at 110 people.  Unfortunately, we were only about to get about 90 people, but it was still really cool to see! On Sunday night, we just had a night in, watched 3 movies, one of which was Blood Diamond, I would highly recommend the movie! Most of the movie was filmed in South Africa and Mozambique, Tim was able to point out where each scene was filmed, which was really cool! This week we haven’t done too much, just volunteered during the day, and then hung out in the evenings.  Last night, me and Ditte saw the strangest animal! We were walking from House 1 to House 2, and a cat ran across the road, except it had the strangest fattest tail!  We went over to the yard to look at it, and its face looks exactly like a typical cat. But then it scurried away, and it jumped like a rabbit! So we’re going to google it, and try and figure out what it was. Anyways, we’re headed off to dinner now, I’ll try and write again soon though!!




*update: I googled the animal this morning, and it is called an African wildcat!!!!*