Computer, Surf and Fellow Brit

Day #28

This morning we were back to work on the various projects! I was back on computer again. 

It was nice today to have one of the boys who I've already taught, Tyron! He's a great lad and a pleasure to work with! He's really interested and keen to learn  so try's his best which makes it so much more enjoyable for me to help him. 

After him I had a girl who was just was not interested one bit! So it was really hard to try and get simple answers from her. Tricky but we got through it :)

Afternoon we spent first cleaning at the volunteer garages, our weekly chores then we went surfing which was really fun! Water a bit warmer and waves were good! Amazing to go surfing with Table Mountain in the background. 

I am no longer the only Brit. Connie from Cambridge, yes Cambridge of all places, arrived tonight! She too is on a gap year! The English are now less outnumbered! 

God Bless! 

Penguins in Africa ?

Day #27

Up early and off to the MyCity bus station with Moritz, we were heading to the city centre to meet our tour group to go on the Cape Point Tour. 

We did have a bit of a worry as we weren't completely sure where we where getting picked up from and it was 20 minutes late so Moritz who is use to German timing was a bit on edge. 

Our group was amazing. The tour guide was really friendly, chatty and an all round cool guy. It was his birthday as well. We had two German girls who were really friendly and good to chat to, we had a 42 year old Belgian who has been travelling the world so it was soooooo fascinating to listen to all his travels the rest of the group was great as well. 

Our first stop was Hout Bay. There we had the chance to go on a boat trip to see the seal island but I passed on the offer, didn't want a repeat of my last boat trip. Moritz went on thinking it would be fine, he came back not feeling very well at all. I found it quite funny!

Instead of the boat trip I had a look round the waterfront market and got the chance to get up close with one of the local seals. 

On our drive we got some amazing views of Hout Bay. 

After that we headed for Simons Town to visit the famous Boulders Beach, home to lots of South African penguins! 

They were everywhere!! Everywhere you turned there was a penguin. Bizarre to see then here in Africa but it was really cool at the same time. 

Next we headed further down to Cape Point Reserve/National park. Once inside we pulled over to get onto the bikes. We got to cycle through the park to lunch then down to the Cape of a Good Hope Point. We cycled on the roads so it wasn't too exciting but it was still good to change from being in the mini bus and good to stretch out legs. 

We all looked pros with our brightly coloured old school helmets! I like to think I pull of a helmet pretty well, haha! 

 

Had some great views on the way down, plenty of photo opportunities. Finally we reached Cape Point!

We hiked up to the lighthouse at Cape Point! Had a really good chat with Julia, one of the German girls and Johan the Belgian. Can't say how good our group was, everyone was really friendly, chatty and interesting to talk to. 

We saw lots of animals today; seals, penguins, ostriches and lots of baboons! 

Had a great day in Gods amazing creation! 

"Jump!!!!"

After the trek back down we all boarded to mini bus again and began our journey home. 

After the MyCity bus home it was good to walk into Saltycrax just in time for Dinner! Later that evening we had a games night! We played the game were you get 30 seconds to describe as many words as you can on a card. I was really impressed with all my foreign friends describing all these words in a language not natural to them! Good way to practise English, even I learnt a few words!! 

Can't express how good today was. The guide was amazing, Alexsi. The group were amazing!! Me and Moritz had a really good day, got to see a lot of Cape Town, speak to lots of interesting people and have new experiences! 

God Bless. 

Movie Night

Here's a photo of some of the other volunteers from last night to give you an idea of who I'm living with out here...

Day #26

I'm sorry for lack of excitement in today's blog and lack of pictures, will be plenty more tomorrow. 

Enjoyed a good lie in this morning and after breakfast went to Saltycrax to sort out tomorrow's your with Moritz. After that a few of us headed to the Laudry shop. 

For those of you who think I'm being lazy I'm not. I have already done a wash myself out here however here at the volunteer houses the washing machine isn't the greatest and drying the clothes isn't too easy. Therefore, when there's a Laudry shop at the top of the road who will do your washing and drying for 60 rand (less than £4), only a fool would say no! 

After that we went to the movie store to rent a couple of movies. It had been raining in the morning and was fairly cloudy but there was some blue sky in the distance. 

We headed back and watched Flight with Denzel Washington (what a legend!) 

After a late lunch headed to Chris' who lives just down the road to catch up and have a chat. Also got to teach him some lessons on FIFA!

In the evening we had a Braai for all of us new volunteers. Loads of really good food and a great atmosphere in Saltycrax! A great evening with good laughter and fun. 

After the Braai we all had a movie night and watched Django! Good day, chance to recover from a busy week.  Looking forward to tomorrow.

God Bless. 

Social

Day #25

Today we were off, free to do what we want. 

As I'm now in the pattern of waking up early I was awak after 7 so decided to go for a run before breakfast at 8.30. 

Today me and Moritz had decided to tag along with some of the girls and go to the Castle of Good Hope and District Six Museum. 

So we left to catch the 9.40 Mycity bus link to town. The MyCity bus link was put in for the 2010 World Cup and is really good. It's the best way to travel especially at rush hour as the buses have they're own route off the roads. I had to borrow a card from one of the other volunteers as that's what you use to put money on and pay for travel, like a London tube Oyster card. 

Once in town we eventually managed to find our way to the Castle. After getting tickets sorted we were In and ready for the guided tour guide. The tour guide was very funny and made the visit really fun and interesting. He kept calling me Mr.Liverpool and making British jokes aimed at me so it was a good laugh. 

Interesting to hear about the castle and it's history. 

Got to see all of the grounds, the torture chamber and the prisons. (Here's Moritz and the prison area)

After that we walked up towards the District Six Museum. On the way we were looking for a place for lunch and stumbled across one of Cape Towns most known and famous food spots. 

Charlys bakery is known for it's amazing cakes! Also it has some good savoury pastries as well. 

For lunch I had a beef sausage roll which was pretty good and a triple choc brownie which again was pretty good. The others had some amazing looking cakes as well. I will definitely have to go back again and try some more!

Next we headed to the District Six Museum which was just around the corner. The museum is all about the famous area District 6 and all it's history. In summary, this is an area in the central of Cape Town where around 35,000 people lived. Then the authorities decided that a restructure of the area was needed to make it more comofta or for white working class so a law was passed and all these people where removed from their homes, businesses, jobs, communities... And dropped in the Cape Flats in much worse living conditions. 

It was interesting to hear the stories of the people and exactly what happened when. I didn't realise how established this community was, I pictured it to be like a township with metal huts but these people were living and working in buildings, a built society and they were removed to the scraps. 

Saw a great saying...

Really like this saying. Hope and dreams is all we have sometimes and what better than a Hope in Jesus!! 

After the museum we stopped of at some shops. With some of my birthday money I bought myself some shoes. It was crazy how cheap they are over hear, cost me £28 for a really good pair of Nike shoes, made up! I know that after reading this Nat will be measaging me with a shopping list. 

We got back at 4.45 and then we left at 5 with all of the other volunteers. Once a week we have a social and tonight we were doing something very traditional to a South Africa... Ice Skating. 

We went to something like a Trafford Centre in Manchester but it was a Casino; it was bigger, better and less cheesy! I wasn't as good as I hoped at Ice Skating, I was the first to fall flat on my bum but I got into it and we had a really good time. 

After that we went out for a meal. My heart sank as we walked into a Cape Town Fish Market restaraunt but my eyes lit up to see a 300g Steak and boy was it good :) had a really good time with some good friends with some really good food. 

After the meal we went to a club there in the casino and also got the chance to watch some of the lads loose some money in the casino (Surprise surprise). It was crazy how big the casino was and the number of machines and tables. 

I had a really good day and a great night. Some really good people here and it's good to get to know them more and more. 

God bless. 

Fancy a swim?

Day #24

This morning we woke up to a thick fog but it was still fairly warm. By the time we drove to the school it had cleared up and looked like it was going to be a good day. 

Computers this morning again was really good. This type of project is really important especially for those kids who struggle or are behind because it seems like they get left behind. Had a tough time with Simangeliso, he really struggled to see simple number bonds and with basic adding and subtracting but we toke little steps and feel like we took a step forward by the end of the session. 

Again we enjoyed playtime with the kids and got to join in with the cool kids and play football, felt so proud! 

After playtime I had Luchiano. She was a lovely girl and seemed to get more to grips with adding bigger numbers together. 

After lunch it was my time to do the swimming in the afternoon. We started off with a relay obstacle course then took it to the next level and introduced an egg and spoon (a golf ball)! It just got interesting! They seemed to love the competition, boys verse girls and I'm glad to say boys won! But girls won the second race with the egg and spoon. 

Now time to get in the water. We started off by getting the kids to hold onto the wall and kick there legs, plenty of splashing! Then we did another little competition were we threw lots of things into the pool (coins, golf balls, cones, hoops...) and each team got 90 seconds to see how many they could find at the bottom of the pool. Boys won. 

I was the one in the pool with the kids so next we got them swimming around and I held two hoops which they had to swim through under water. They loved it. We try to focus more on the kids having fun as trying to teach them a lot is tough as they are crazy! 

Then we had a playtime in the pool,

I did get pushed in and wrestled a few times which was all good fun then we had some time to jump in and I showed them how to perfect the bomb! 

Loved my first swimming session and can't wait until next weeks one. The kids love it too. After they had all got changed me and Moritz walked them to the Taxi rank at the mall and got them all sorted out with transport home (we pay to send them back to Dunoon.) 

Really enjoying my time with Moritz, we're having some great conversations and becoming good friends! He's a cool guy. This weekend we've planned to go on a tour of Cape Point which should be cool. 

Another great day. 

God bless. 

Surfs Up

Day #23

Same morning wake up routine, going to be hard to get out of it after these 4 weeks! 

This morning again it was on the Computer project in one of the schools. Now having a better idea of what it's all about I could really get into it. I brought lots of coins so we could tackle money problems more realistically. Just like yesterday there was plenty of high fives and enthusiasm, who says maths can't be fun! 

Some of the names of the kids I've had over the past two days; Lee Ann,Tyron, Benedict and Samone... Liking forward to working with more tomorrow :) 

Had great fun at playtime. Some of kids in the school are from Dunoon so some kids recognised me from the football outreach. Also got to witness some intense skipping, these girls really flung the ropes round quite aggressively! I wouldn't want to be the one jumping in the middle, great to watch though...

Afternoon. It was surfing time. All wet suited up and boards in the van we set off. We had just over and hour to ourselves which gave the chance for some people to have a quick lesson then we all took to the water. 

The water was ice cold but you got used to it before long. Waves weren't massive but they did the job for first surf in Cape Town. It was really an amazing scenery with crystal blue waters, a strong sun and table mountain in the background. Wish I brought my phone to get a picture for you, it was quite special. 

In the evening for out meal we headed to Saltycrax just round the corner where we had a a amazing meal. It was a really nice night with some incredible food! 

Help yourself...

The dog just jumped up and helped herself to a seat at the bar...

A long day but it has been amazing! Loving my time here at Save! What a way to finish it but feet up in a hammock under the South African night sky...

God Bless. 

First day on the job.

Day #22

Alarm 6.40. Up, showered and bible devotion before breakfast at 7.30. Really good atmosphere as well all squeeze around the table and talk about the day ahead. 

Also you put down on the wall what you want for lunch. This is were I got a bit confused. I put Tuna salad down for my lunch expecting a sandwich, instead I got a tuna salad. You actually have to write down each little detail including bread! Did enjoy my tuna salad at lunch though :) It was gooooood! 

So at 8.15 (actually a bit later this morning as one of the project leaders slept in) we left for our projects. We dropped one group of in Dunoon to a crèche there then we headed further past Dunoon to another area and went to the local school. There we were going to be doing computer work with the kids solving different maths problems on a piece of software (right up my street).

So the 5 of us each got 1 child to have a one-to-one session with. We worked through loads of different maths problems from adding and subtracting to money problems. 

It was great to work individually with the kids (had a total of 3 during the morning) they seemed to enjoy it and we celebrated each correct answer with a big high five!! Interesting as well to see how they are taught to tackle problems here in South Africa and good to share other ways to solve problems from England. I am known to over complicate it sometimes as Kez knows too well but I controlled my mathematical excitement, kept calm, and we worked our way through the problems. 

In the afternoon, after my  tuna salad, u was suppose to be on swimming lessons (surfing tomorrow) however the settlement group were heading to do a soccer afternoon and they twisted my arm to go as I've been doing something similar past three weeks and they were short on numbers. 

It was a great afternoon, number were low for kids as they had gone out today but it was great fun to work with some of the younger ones. Great to build up friendships with the kids as we spend individual time with them :)

Yeah ha great fun, look forward to surfing tomorrow. 

When I got back after a quick shower I made the most of the late Cape Town sun chilling outside with Christopher. 

All together again for a big evening meal which was nice. Really good team spirit here and everyone is really friendly and talkative. 

Loving it in Cape Town! This project really keeps you busy and gives you the chance to do and see a lot. Going to be an amazing four weeks! 

God Bless.