South Africa bound

Welcome to my Blog, its open to friends family and Facebook stalkers alike. I hope I won't bore you too much, but it seemed appropriate to start a Blog as I have just flown out to South Africa and will be living and working here for a whole 12 weeks! I am going to be leading a project in a town called Barberton. The volunteers (who will be flying out next week) are going to be working in schools and I am responsible for looking at the sustainability and long term development of the project.

So I've only been here three days, but it has already been chaotic and full of fun. With far too many bags, I turned up to Manchester airport on Tuesday to find out my flight was delayed. Some may say I should have been warned, Egypt Air's reputation is not sterling. In fact I had been repeatedly cautioned by one particular travel agent to ' NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES' fly with them. But when you could save £300 quid you figure you can brave the storm.  It wasn't actually too bad, the hour delay allowed me to make friends with a woman from Pakistan who continually attempted to persuade me to start planning immediately for the future and be having children at least in the next twelve months. I didn't know this woman's name, but she was particularly interested in my fertility and I helped her carry her bags as she ran through the airport with no shoes on (each to their own). The plane was okay! Some were particularly anxious about there being no inflight entertainment and one girl took it upon herself to harass the staff. She did have a valid point how would she survive a mere five hour flight without a television? It was a moral and ethical dilemma. 

I had to change at Cario with 15 minutes to board my plane.  However, I did enjoy a spiritual and cultural awakening taking in the sights and smells of Egypt during my ten minute jog through the airport towards the gate.  I then caught my second flight which was eight hours, but the time passed swiftly and before I knew it we were landing. I was unaware as to how cold it would be and did not cope well with the drastic temperature change. It was 28 degrees in Cario at 10pm and at 7:30am in Joberg it was -3. Needless to say I was filled with a sense of dread, but managed to brave the ice cave to meet Katie in the arrivals lounge. When Sahil (the diva and last of our party) arrived we had a hearty breakfast and made our way to our hostel. True to our free souls and innate desire to explore we spent the entire day in bed and declined any attempts to coax us outside. We ate a lot of pizza and I tried to literally sit in the fire in order to keep warm (just in case you hadn’t figured, I love moaning about being cold). We spent the evening in the hostel lounge. A Brazilian tried to steal our pizza (which I was not happy about) and we got chatting to a jetlagged American. Sahil found it appropriate to keep playing 'you've got work bitch' by Brittany spears in the lounge in front of a very confused and angry audience. All in all it was a great evening and ended with me sleeping with a grand total of five blankets.

Yesterday we took a trip to Nelspruit and we have been working this afternoon on contacting our project partners and stakeholders. We will be staying here for the next couple of days and finalising our plans for pre-project week. 

Working hard

The trip to Nelspruit was not too long only about three hours and we saw some wonderful sites! It’ a shame it’s not rainy season as a lot of the nature is brownish in colour, but every once in a while you got a splash of green and it looks beautiful.  My only other experience of Africa has been my trip to Ghana last year, but South Africa and Ghana are worlds apart.  For one in South Africa you can actually read your emails, skype is not totally out the question, and you can readily access the mother of all foods, cheese. I lost nearly a stone last year in Ghana, but I fear that this may not be the case this year. This is our third night in a row of pizza. I loved my experience in Ghana and are looking forward to seeing how my trip in South Africa will measure up!

The hostel in Nelspruit

South African Landscape

Last night we hung round the bar and cozied up to the fire with a bottle of white wine, a beer and a cider. We got talking to a bunch of people and particularly befriended a group of Canadians. We learnt a lot from them. Apparently Flin Flon is a place and if you want to say you are drunk in Canadian you say I’m ‘right dicked’ (this rose many eyebrows). However, the night took a sinister turn when they decided to teach us how to use a pocket knife and one of them ended up slicing their hand open. We swiftly departed to bed while he rummaged around the room looking for super glue (apparently it’s a god send and excellent cure in sticking your drunkenly sawed hand back together)

This afternoon me and Sahil took a trip to Nelspruit and had a big day out in macro. I managed to buy a hair dryer for three pound! And a hot water bottle! So hopefully I will now stop moaning every day. We came across a cultural barrier when we asked one of the shop assistants for string and they had no idea what we were going on about. We spent at least five minutes trying to explain what string was in which Sahil contributed ‘it’s what cats play with’ and ‘you can tie a bow in it’. Once we finally located the mythical item we left the store and went to Riverside mall. 

Sahil having the time of his life in Macro

The provisions they have in South Africa are so different from what we had in Ghana. I was aware the countries would be different, but I was shocked at their resources. We even spent the afternoon in NANDOS. Last year I remember actually sulking in my room after I spent a lustful hour with my room-mates reminiscing about the taste of something other than yam and tomato. And today I got treated to Peri Peri chips and a chicken rap. Riverside had a bowling alley and a go kart pitch!

Nandos' glee

Nandos' selfie

Tomorrow I am going to Barberton. Where I will be staying for the next 9 weeks and meet my home stay family! I’m excited, but nervous. Will update soon.

Rea