Elephants and more Elephants.

Molweni!
I've had a busy time since last writing! Everyday has been so busy, I'm not complaining but could do with a lie in!!

The school concert went well last Thursday, a lot of backpackers came to watch so the school managed to raise 1350 Rand (About 100GBP) which is a lot of money for the school, it will be put towards the feeding scheme and electricity. I had a little gril sat on my knee the whole concert, the poot little thing had no shoes and was so cold, by the end of the concert she was fast asleep on me (probaly because she had finally managed to get warm).

Friday we set off the Addo Elephant Park, we saw a herd of elephants as close as 10-15 metres away before we even got in the park! We stayed at the 'Aardvark' Lodge which was lovely, Sarah, Katie and I shared a mud hut, which was luxury compared to last week at Bulungula!! On Friday we went for a meal and drinks, was nice to see the other volunteers and we had a good laugh.
Saturday started early, so we were at the elephant park for 9am-ish. Had a great time there and during the day we managed to see lots of elephants very closely (some walked right next to our van), warthog, mongoose, turtles, all sorts of birds, zebra, dakkies, kudus ostrich and springbok. Got lots of photos, hope to get them on Flickr before the end of the month.

Sunday we packed up and went to the beach, which was stunning - clear waters and lovely, clean sand. Stopped off at a curio shop before finally ending up back at the volunteer house. We were all very tired so got showered and enjoyed a dvd before going to bed. It was a great weekend, with lots of laughing, lots of animals and not much sleep!

Yesterday was a bit of a struggle for us all because we were so tired!! School was ok, and sports on the beach went well, but the evening ended in another early night.

Today has been nice, the weather has finally settled and has been hot, hot, hot, which is brill!!!! Just how it should have been from the start!! We did paper mache masks with grade 2 today which they loved, all the older kids wanted to join in aswell. It was a bit sad because it was so obvious that all the children were not used to doing any sort of art or craft - things we take for granted as a child in the UK. They even appreciate a small piece of paper and a pencil, so when the paints were out we were bombarded! Its a shame we couldn't do it with the other children too.

Now the weather has improved the animals, creepy crawlies are starting to appear, saw two snakes today and huge (1 metre long) lizard thing!!! And that was just driving to and from school.

Going to the beach now to enjoy the sun, then getting ready for our 'dinner party' tonight. (Me, Katie, Sarah, Laura nd Howard are all sick of looking a mess and being in scruffy clothes so I came up with the idea of having a dinner party at our house. We are going to get showered, purfumed, nicely clothed, hair done and put some make up on, then have a 'posh' dinner with candles and wine) Woo Hoo!!

Hope you are all ok,
take care
love from me
xxxx

My Weekend..... (Cont).........

This is my continuation from yesterdays blog.......
Yep, so the village tour was brill, the local people seem to be as interested in us and we are of them. The children seem to like stroking my hair and feeling the hairs on my arms - weird!
Me and Katie spent some time with a local girl who must have been aout our age, she could speak hardly any English but seemed to enjoyed interacting with us and listening to us speaking.

Sat out to eat our evening meal around the bonfire, (by this time we were feeling more into the hippy vibe!!) actually saw 2 shooting stars while looking at the stars, they were lovely!! Never seen one before. We decided to get up at 4.30am to watch the sunrise so went to bed early. Unfortunately after getting up at 4.30am and walking on to the beach in the pitch black to see the gorgeous sunset, it was too cloudy and we saw nothing!!!!! Rubbish!!! Although having the whole beach to ourselves (and a few crabs) was nice and I managed to pick up some beautiful shells to take home.

Sunday was spent travelling back to Cintsa, over all the bumpy dirt tracks and roads and again I spent the journey with my arm out of the window waving at local people.

School has been going well, we have been doing a lot of work on lesson plans and trying to make thier lessons interesting. Also I've been paper mache-ing balloons so the grade 1's can make animal masks, also hoping to make a recycling band (all the insuments will be made using recycled waste items) before I leave. I read the grade 1's Mr Seus's ABC book and they really enjoyed it!!! Was nice to see them joining in and smiling.
A game reserve backs on to the school so we often see giraffes, zebra, impala, wilderbeast and more animals grazing on the grass, they come very close to the school fence, which is great (all the children don't think much of it but us volunteers are staring and taking photos - its funny!)

Off to Addo Elephant park at the weekend, so more adventures ahead!!

:-)

Bye for now,
Love H
x

My weekend of hippies, rocket showers and eco-toilets.

Molweni!!
Hope you are all ok!!
So much has happend since last time I wrote, I think I might forget a lot of it tho!

Had a fun weekend at Bulungula Backpackers, it was such a funny experience! It took 6-7 hours to drive there from Buccaneers, it was well and truly in the middle of no-where!! I thought I was in the middle of no where when I did the Vervet monkey Rehab placement but that was nothing compared to Bulungula!!!! We drove down bumpy dirt tracks for 2 hours and over hills for another hour, every so often we would pass a mud hut and children would come running out to wave at us. It was a bit of a scary ride with sheer drops at either side of the 4x4, (I later found out the man who was driving was 70 and had cateracts!).

Eventually we arrived at a big shack (it was pitch black by this time) there were people all over! Some community children came to help us with our bags which was nice (yep, mine was heavy as normal). In the main shack was the 'reception', 'bar' and 'lounge', it was filled with hippies, backpackers and the local community. (Bulungula is 40% owned by the community).

Next were were shown the toilets and showers, both an experience!!!! The toilets were eco-friendly, so were split into 2 parts, one for wee and one for everything else and each were painted different but all very bright and jazzy! (In one UV lit toilet a hen was laying eggs in a cardboard box).
The showers are called rocket showers because it's made of a pipe with a shower head on one end, parrafin is put in the bottom and lit to heat the water. The lit parrafin then makes a noise like a rocket whilst heating the water - I was a bit scared to have a shower at first and had to get help to light it, but when I did have one it was surprisingly nice except there was a window right in front of me so everyone can see you in the shower and there was only a curtain as a door! (I suppose hippies aren't big on privacy!)

Our room was a mud hut, but it was nice, it was lit but candle light only and painted brightly. We sat in the main lounge in the evening whilst having a strange stew for tea and talking to some local people and hippies!!

On Saturday we (me and Katie) got up and could really see where we were staying was so beautiful! It was a 2 minute walk to the beach and the sun was shining so we decided to go fishing!
A local fisherman turned up (he was so cute!) he spoke very little english and had an un-pronouncable name! He led us on to the beach and cast our lines for us, Katie was lucky and caught a fish immediately, but then we caught noithing for the rest of the time - Boo Hoo! Really enjoyed fishing tho, it was so nice to be on a gorgeous beach with hardly anyone around too!! We gave the fisherman the fish to eat and he seemed to really appreciate it, he said he would feed his family with it. Bulungula really helps the community because usually you would pay the backpackers to do an activity, but at Bulungula you pay the activity leader directly, so the fisher man also went home with money in his pocket.

In the afternoon we decided to go on a village tour, the villages are nothing like villages in England. There are small mud huts spread out over vast areas of land which makes up a village. the tour was really good, we saw shebeen (pub), shop, family home and old lady smoking 'Xhosa' cigarettes (dried up leaves). It was really interesting and I learn't loads about the Xhosa culture.




Sorry guys - I'll have to continue this next time - running out of internet time as normal!

xxxxxxx

Sun (at last), Old McDonald and Sport on the Beach.

Molweni !!! (Hello in Xhosa!)
Hooray the sun has come back to me!! Its a gorgeous day!! :-)

Had a good couple of days, had a socio-political talk yesterday which was really interesting, its amazing what has happen over such a short period of time in Sout Africa, although it is also very scary. There is stil a long way to go but at least SA is heading the right direction at the moment.

Iunda is a guy that helps us with playing community sport with the kids (no I didn't realise I would be doing sport when I booked it!!) Its only twice a week so its not to bad. Today we are going to tbe playing rounders and soccer on the beach, hooray the sun is out!! The kids love it so I don't mind, but I'm so rubbish at soccer and all team games really!!

Iunda also gave us our first Xhosa language lesson - its such a hard language to speak for us non-clickers! There are 3 different mouth clicks, one for a X, one for a C and one for a Q, I can manage the C and Q but the X click is hard!! Yep I'll try to demonstrate when I'm home!

Had a nice day at school, we were brave and took the mad, hectic grade 1's. I think we actually had more than the usually 18, so it was even more hectic - we decided to sing songs with them (I know - I can't imagine me doing it either!) We sang Old McDonald, ABC, Hokey Pokey, if your happy............phew it was exhausting! They have so much energy, but are so much fun!!!

Going now - I've got a rounders game to go to!!
xxxx

Across the lagoon

Hi!
Managed to make it across the lagoon this morning to Buccs to get on the internet - hooray!! Had two days in school now and the second was so hectic, we had group 4 first which went well, we did a 'my favourite animal' lesson which they seemed to enjoy. But then we got 18, 4-7 year olds which was so hectic! They are want attention at the same time, all the time! My name has never been shouted so much! They really are sweet though! I lot of them just want you to hold their hands or hug them - which is a bit sad. Many of the kids have difficult home lives.
One little boy is so funny! He thinks he a gangster! He raps the a,b,c and numbers, with all the hand movements!!! I think he must have older brothers that dance and listen to rap music - its funny!!
The weather is brill, so we've been out and about a lot.
I can't put photos on the internet here so I'll have to do it when I arrive back in Cape Town on the 29 Oct.
Bye for now
Love
Hanx

First day of school

Hi!!
Hope you are all well. All is going well here apart from we had 2 days of continuous, heavy rain! Everywhere flooded, we going soaked all the time (not good for my staighted hair!!) But this morning I got up and it had stopped - hooray!!
Yesterday the school volunteers moved into Vollie house accross the lagoon from Buccaneers backpackers, its a lovely house and the house kepper - Nomaqwes is lovely. Theres a group of 5 of us, me, Howard, Laura, Katie and Sarah, everyone's really nice, so thats good.
Me, Laura and Katie are working in Balugha primary school, it was our first visit today! It went well, the kids are aged 4 - 15 years old, they are realy welcoming and happy we have come to help. It didn't take long before we were getting jumped and climbed on, apparently I have to take a hairbrush tomorrow so they can do my hair!! They also loved my lipbalm, so thats nearly empty!
It well really well so looking forward to going back, they also performed a concert for us which was full of singing and dancing.
Best go only got 1 minute left, will update when I can.
Miss you all
love
Han
xxx

New Project !

Hi
Arrived at Est London ok, and the transfer to Chintsa was fine, and the backpackers is lovely!!! Really surprised how nice it is. Theres a pool, horse riding, activites each day, lovely food, beauty bungalow, shop, internet, dogs, lovely walks ot the beach and logoon and the most amazing views.
There are 3 of us sharing a bungalow/apartment and it is really nice!
We had lots of fun last night when a gecko decided to make it's home in our toilet, we couldn't get him out, so called him Eddie and left him hoping he would have found his way out this morning, but no! When I got up I had no option to wee on his head - poor thing! But I've now managed to get him out and free!
Time is running out, will update again soon.
Hope you are all well and thank you for all your emails!
Love
Han
xxxx

Cape Peninsula Tour

Hi again, managed to get a few minutes on the net before flying out.
Yesterdays Cape Peninsular tour was good (apart from the weather), we got to see so much and the crowd I went with were good fun.
Got to see False Bay, Cape of Good Hope,Seal Island, Scarbourgh, Simons Town, Hout Bay and much more! Along the way I saw wild baboons with babies running past our van and looking for food on the hills, hundreds of seals playing in the sea, hundreds of penguins and a hairy catapillar!! But the highlight was seeing some of the many whales that visit south Africa each year, they come here to mate and enjoy the warmer sea, they have a 1 year gestation period so return the year after to have the baby. I was lucky enough to see 2 from as little at 20 meters away! It was amazing, they are huge!!
Best go, off to the airport at 11am. Wish me luck with my new project!! I'm not sure I can remember any I.T to teach the children!!! Plus its an Xhosa school and the Xhosa language involves 3 different click sounds, which I'm struggling to say!! I just can't click!!!
Take care
Love
Han
xxx
P.s. Pictures of the tour to come on Flickr soon.
xx