Name: Rhanna Wills
Location: South Africa
Report Title: Halfway Through
Report Date: 08/05/2010
Half Way Through..
‘If a window opens and the prospect pleases float through it; that window may never open again.’- Mirabel Osler I am now half way through my year in South Africa and so far I think I’m living like the above quote, taking more chances than I usually would, trying out new, scarier and maybe even disgusting things, making new friends and trying to make the most of my year, which is what my advice would be to any person out there wanting to volunteer as the thought of going home and regretting that I did not do everything I wanted to terrifies me. Work When I’m talking about my work it may seem a bit muddled up when I’m writing about it but its simply because I’m usually doing more than one job at a time. In my last report the last thing I said was that I was doing dayshift which is 1-9 in the children’s houses. I did this for a while and enjoyed it most of the time although I felt like the kids at times could be slightly mean. You could be sitting there talking with them for ages then the next day they will walk straight past you and you feel a bit disheartened. Every volunteer has a house they prefer to work in, were they get along with the kids better etc and I’m no different. I liked a house that was a girls house with 2 little boys in it too, the girls were friendly and chatty and wanted me to work there and the boys even learnt my name despite it being a bit difficult and them being quite young. However when November came I asked to work in the Christmas project with 4 other volunteers, including Justine. This project meant that we were not working with the children unless we were needed and we basically just got ready for Christmas, decorating the whole Children’s home, sorting out decorations, sorting out donations and dealing with the public. Justine and I took on the task of sorting out the presents, ha what a mistake! There are more than 140 kids and each child is meant to get 5 presents (however this year we had to cut it to 3 as there weren’t enough!). Anyway how it works is that the children’s home puts a wish list on their website of what all the children wish for and the public kindly donate them despite some of them being quite expensive! However some children get more than others so you have to sort out all these presents making sure every child has what they wished for and 2 other presents. Possibly the most stressful thing that I have ever done in my life with staff members moving the presents around, other volunteers attempting to help when we had a ‘system’ going and the smallest room ever. By the end of it if anyone touched anything I would be like ‘leave it! don’t touch it!’ etc .. I must have been quite disliked at this point - ha ha. So I was quite glad when the Christmas project ended and the Christmas holiday programme started as there were only about 30 kids here over the holidays as most of them go home. The children’s home try and get as many events happening as possible for the children with trips to the beach, fun parks, parties and the list goes on - it seems quite fun although the most of them would prefer to be home with their families. The children’s Christmas party was so much fun! They had a DJ, bouncy castles, water slides, a talent show, food, games - it really was something else! The kids really seemed to enjoy it and so did all the volunteers so it was a great success! After my holidays I had to decide what I wanted to do for the next term. I decided that I definitely did not want to do nightshift and I felt dayshift a bit hard at times as you were rarely in the same house so the kids weren’t getting to know me and I wasn’t getting to know them. So after a lot of thought I decided I wanted to work in CHILLI - the house for the more difficult children - as I would only be working with them and although it could be difficult at times I would get to know them better. The CHILLI unit has a more structured plan than the rest of the houses - basically every minute of their day is meant to be planned with activities. They get a daily therapy session with people that come in. For example they get animal therapy with two horses so they can learn to trust again and they have people coming in giving them sessions about sex, attitude and learning that nothing is impossible. Every night they have a group meeting about what they did that day and what they achieved. They work on a point system to see if they are getting any better so they get points for simple things like going to school, doing their homework and tasks. I like the point system as it gets them motivated to do normal activities. I’ve grown very fond of the children in there and simply think that at times they are just misunderstood and lash out because they are frustrated. Its strange at times though as the children run away so at the moment there are about four children who are simply not there and they come back when they want to or are found by the police. No one particularly knows what goes on when they run away and I don’t particularly want to write about what people assume as its quite upsetting. I really hope that I work there for the rest of my Gap Year and hopefully I can because other volunteers don’t offer to do it because most of them a little scared. Even I was scared when I first got there, walking past with the barbed wire going around it and everything, but actually its really nice and, although its not the easiest thing, I enjoy it. Events Apart from the Christmas party and the Christmas project there has been some other events like The Valentines Ball, which was for the children above 13. All the children looked so lovely as they had ball gowns and suits on and they all looked stunning! It was really nice for them and it really makes them feel special - they get their picture taken when they first come in and there is a king and queen at the end of the night. They all danced all night and looked like they had fun and once again the volunteers joined in and had a laugh out of it as well. Especially Justine and I who watched two boys flirt and ‘try to get in’ with girls all night, motivating each other with pep talks - possibly one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen in my life. Bright and early the next day they had yet another Sports Day but not with any other children’s homes this time. They all trained everyday for a week or two for it and were put in to 4 different groups. This Sports Day was a lot more fun as the volunteers had more to do and even joined in a little although I sadly wasn’t there when the volunteer race was on - shame ha ha. The Sports Days are always lots of fun as the kids dance and sing and make noises with metal and wood and there is just an amazing atmosphere in the whole place! They all look the part as well with their colour on and my face paint. I felt sorry for my team as I did their face paint! You should have seen them, poor things but they didn’t seem to mind and even attacked me with paint face! However you don’t need an organised event to have fun with them. For example on Saturday it was really hot and we ended up having a water fight which was great fun - we lost. Badly! The children’s home also has fundraising events which I’ve been involved in. For example a themed kids party for adults which I helped to set up and organised the kids so they would sing or talk when they were meant to! We also had a golf day and we helped with the braii and getting people to donate money. Our Project also got number one volunteering project in Africa which was an amazing achievement! So my picture has been in one or two newspapers which is cool!
Travelling Justine and I decided to go up to North Drakensburg, an 18 hour bus ride and then work our way down. However this didn’t go quite to plan. We arrived at N. Drakensburg and realised our tent had been stolen so we had to quickly buy another one and wait around for our backpackers to pick us up. When we were there we climbed up the 2nd highest waterfall which believe me was extremely hard as its so high that its hard to breathe at points and you have to do some rock climbing for 200 ft, coming down chain ladders and the whole time it was pouring with rain, thunder and lighting! The expression that comes to mind when I think about it is ‘Blood, Sweat and Tears’ as I fell over. The whole team was sweating and some people had mini break downs half way up but at the end I was so proud of myself that I had done it as back home I would have said no way! Our second trip was a trip to Lesotho which is a little country that is extremely poor and depends entirely on themselves getting nothing else from outside countries. This was extremely interesting and so beautiful. The kids were lovely and we got to see their school, which was so little for so many children. I tried some traditional food which was – erm - interesting and some pineapple beer that I got dared to try and down. I failed - haha. We also got to see some wall painting which are disappearing by the day as locals try and ruin them - no-one knows exactly why as its such a shame - and we learnt about stone people which was extremely interesting. However the day ended with me slightly burnt. Whoops!! That night we relaxed in the bar’s Jacuzzi and got chatted up by some man who worked in a prison and had been shot 9 times. As you can imagine we got tired very quickly and ran back to our wee tent! The next day we went back to Harrismith and waited for our bus which was arriving at ten at night to take us to our next place. A few hours later as we checked our tickers we realised that we had missed our bus by a whole day! Looking at the arrival date rather than the leaving date. We were so upset and felt extremely embarrassed and worst of all were stranded in this little town! We phoned our Rep who did nothing to help us except laugh and say how stupid we were - as if we didn’t know this. We were so angry. Eventually we booked ourselves into a one star hotel, which is as bad as it sounds and waited for the morning to find out when we could just go home. Things got worse when we found out we couldn’t get a bus for 2 - 3 days unless we travelled up to Johannesburg which is just what we did not want so we booked ourselves in to our room again and never left until we had to go get our bus at 3am. I can safely say that more than 24 hours later when we saw our own bed in our room again we have never been so happy! People always ask if I’m disappointed that we never got to do it and I’m not. I still have 6 months to do stuff and we got reunited with our roommate Julia who we missed a lot! So not everything is a fail. We have done other cool stuff like going to see the penguins in Simon’s Town which I got a bit over excited about as I love penguins! I’ve yet to climb Table Mountain but I have climbed Lions Head which is meant to take 45 minutes – ha ha ha - took us twice that time! We’ve been back to Cape Town to meet up with our fellow Project Trust volunteers (Julia came as well obviously!) and we went to this amazing street party for New Years Eve which is possibly going to my best New Years Eve in my whole entire lifetime - it was that good! We also got to stay in Gordon’s Bay for a teambuilding weekend with the other volunteers, which was over Halloween so we all got dressed up and had a wee party! Lots of fun! And this weekend we are going to another music festival called RAMfest and you’ll be surprised to know that even Pendulum are going! Last Few Feelings. I love living here in South Africa, and although its taken me some time to get properly into my work, I’m really starting to enjoy it and creating great bonds with some of the children. I’ve made some great friends outside the children’s home as well, even spending my Christmas with a friend’s family which meant I wasn’t homesick over the Christmas period. I’m glad to announce that I’ve still not cried although I get days when simple things makes me miss home like getting ill and not having my parents to look after me, sounds pathetic I know but its true. For a couple of months I was even starting to think that I might stay here for another year or something but I never acted on it and now I have my flight leaving date - 22nd July! - which is so scary as time is going so fast but in a way I’m glad I never decided to stay as I think going home and going back to reality will be good for me plus I want to try and travel elsewhere and volunteer some more and see more! It’s lucky as I have the best 2 roommates that anyone could ask for and it’s nice to know that I’ve made life long friends while being here! My thoughts and feeling are changing all the time - one minute I can’t wait to go home, the next I want to stay forever. Even my appearance has changed all the time from hair colour - blonde to black etc. My weight is up and down from either to much carbs or lack of food etc. But no wonder - we get fed rice and potatoes most days with some other food which sometimes I don’t know what I’m eating but even now my body is starting to trick itself in to liking it! My organisation feel like I should only talk to my family about once a month but I feel like this is a personal decision and I talk to my family a few times a week and I’m still in daily contact with all my friends over the internet with the occasional Skype session or phone call! I still miss them a lot but I know now its not long until I see them again. For now I’m just looking forward to any exciting activities or experiences I might come across in my last 6 months here in South Africa.
