Settling into life in Ingwavuma....

We have been living in Ingwavuma for almost two weeks now but sometimes it feels much longer than that! I think I should start with our first full week at school.

School life:
On Monday morning we received our timetables which was quite exciting because it meant that we were going to be some actual use at the school! I am teaching English to three classes a week for three hours each. My first lesson was on Monday afternoon with the grade 9a's and it was an hour and a half. I felt fairly confident until Katie came back from her first lesson with the grade 8's (she teaches them maths and science) and then I started to get nervous. It felt really daunting knowing that I was only about four or five years older than these children, even know they don't know that! I started by telling them a little bit about myself and we did a brainstorm of England...they tended to know the football players and that was it! Then we did an exercise from the textbook on a newspaper article and it slowly went downhill from there. They just chatted away and some of them have such an attitude. By the end of the lesson I felt like I wanted to cry and that evening I never wanted to teach again.
However, as the week progressed and I discovered that I had started off with a class with a bad reputation and the others were a lot better, it became easier and started to become more enjoyable. The 9b's are my favourite class so far- they ask questions, do their work and generally listen. The grade 8's are hard work because there is 45 of them which proves a little difficult sometimes when you need them all to be quiet. They are quite sweet though (except for Friday afternoon last lesson!) and want to do well. The standard of English is actually very good- it is one of the only schools in the area which teaches in English all the time and it is good for them to be taught by us because they can't say anything to us in Zulu, so it is improving their English just by communicating with us. We are slowly learning more Zulu though and trying to learn words with clicks in them! The staffroom, where we spend our free lessons, is in the primary school so I have befriended a few of the little Grade one's who all want to hold my hand and tell me their names. There is a little girl called Jobi in Grade two, who has bought my artificial flowers two days in a row. She wraps them up like they are a in a bouquet and then again like a present. The first one had a note in it saying “I love you, from Jobi”. It's very sweet and I'm not sure why she has taken such a liking to me but they have been great for decorating our room with!
So, what I have learnt from teaching so far is: do everything one step at a time; walk around the room so the students know I'm watching them; get them all to answer questions and not just the usual ones; getting them up at the front to act out role plays works really well and never give in to boys who want to go to the toilet when there is only five minutes to go! Oh, and always prepare enough to do! I'm finding the lack of help and support quite difficult at times because no one else is teaching English except the principal who is always busy. I do have a head of department who is supposed to teach English but for reasons I won't say, he is absolutely no use to anyone!! It gets a little frustrating at times. I have had a few moments which have shocked me- reading students stories about celebrations and reading things like “when my mum was alive” and “they gave the little children alcohol” and also some funny moments such as when I had to ask a very sweet girl what she meant by “We all went to the bitch and it was such a great bitch” and she meant beach! It's things like that I'm going to remember!

Home life:
Another teacher, Nhlanhla, moved into our house last week and he is lovely although I struggle to pronounce his name! We have moved into his old room because it has so much more space than our tiny one and more storage. We had a bit of an issue with lizards coming in though! I'm so glad we have mosquito nets! Not much else has happened at home really...we spend our evenings planning lessons, watching our favourite soapie “Generations” with Rose and cooking dinner. Last week it rained so much which got really annoying because we never knew what to wear as the weather became quite unpredictable. We have had to go to spar quite a few times to get odd things and I'm kind of learning to cook! We continue to make new friends in the street on the way to the shops or the school as people are so friendly! Other times we want to scream because people will stare and stare. We are adapting to the culture better now though :)

Our weekend in Kosi Bay!!
Ok, now to tell you about our weekend. I felt shattered after a horrible last lesson on Friday afternoon and so we were glad to be getting away! We went straight from school with Mr Mokonto to Manguzi. He lives there at the weekend with his family so he offered us a lift down there and back which was really kind as we didn't have to pay. After all the rain, Manguzi was quite hot and sunny when we got there which we were pleased about. We met Patrick (who is volunteering there) at KFC and walked back to his house. Manguzi has a lot more shops and is a proper town- it was nice to walk on a pavement! People blare music from their shops and there is a colourful market. It was a short walk to his house, which is opposite a Methodist church and he shares his house with another teacher, Nonto, and her young son Thapelo who is cute but really loud! Once we put our stuff in our room we walked into town and ate at this pizza place then went back to the house and watched the Lion King, Jungle Book and Anchor Man on his laptop and played with Thapelo. It was good to be back to some kind of normality!
On Saturday, the plan was to borrow Nonto's car and drive to the beach, however she still needed it so she arranged for her friend to take us in his Bukkie for 200 rand (about £20 between the three of us). We were a bit wary because this meant we were sitting on the back of his truck in the open air like we have seen so many people do around here. He was actually a very safe driver and it felt like we were having a real African experience! Although I can tell you that wearing a bikini top is definitely not enough support on the roads that are full of potholes! The trick is to not get hit by massive flying bugs like Katie did, because it actually really hurts! He took us to this backpackers lodge first that Patrick knows and we hired snorkels from the owner, Sylvia, who is lovely and she invited us over for a braii in the evening but we were unable to make it because Nonto needed the car then. Then we got driven to the beach which is right next to the Mozambique border. We had to purchase a permit there to access the beach because it is a protected area. There is a lodge there too. Then we made our way down the long sandy road to the beach which took FOREVER. It was really hot but it was worth it when we got there. We had to cross this lagoon thing to get the coral reef and we had to hold our bags above our heads because it got quite deep but there was no current. Luckily Patrick is very tall so he could carry the bag with important things in!! Kosi Bay is definitely the most beautiful place I have ever seen! I feel so lucky to have been there...
Learning to snorkel was hard and a bit scary to start with because you can't breath through your nose at all, you have to do it all with your mouth. It's almost like I was panting into the mouth piece but as long as you remember to keep to the same pattern it's fine. The water was not very deep and unfortunately the reef was destroyed a few years ago in a bad storm but there is still some life there. I saw a lion fish, some yellow and black striped fish, a huge orange fish, a multi coloured and an eel. It was really cool but a little scary at times. We bought some crocs in the 'Happy Supermarket' in Manguzi (it's actually really depressing in there) which was good because the reef is quite slippery and we didn't want to stand on any fish that might get angry! I'm glad I had the chance to do it. We didn't go to the part where there are waves because that's where the sharks live! There were a few others down there and we got chatting to a south African lady who was with a tour guide and they were staying at the lodge at the top of the beach. They were with an English family too. We spent the afternoon there and then started the journey back about three pm. The tide had come in so the two lagoons were harder to cross because they had got a bit deeper and there was a small current. At one point Patick was up to his neck and he had to carry the backpack so high above his head- I got a little bit panicky then but we soon got to the shallow bit. There was a little island with loads of cows on it for some reason! The walk back was SO hard- it was so steep and I was surprised at my own strength! We got back to the lodge and had a drink and a swim with the group staying there and got to know the English girl who now lives here permanently in Richards bay and she gave us her number just in case we ever needed a place to stay. That's what I love about the people here- you meet them once and they are so lovely. We got picked up in the bukkie, had dinner, then we watched another film and went to bed after an amazing but tiring day. I am really sunburnt on the top of my legs- it was so hard not to because we were constantly in and out of the water!
On Sunday morning we went to the backpackers lodge again mainly to use Sylvia's swimming pool because it was really hot. We bought drinks there from the hut next to the pool which was so cool and just sat in the pool chatting. We went home and had lunch and researched car hire company’s because we are thinking of doing that in the Easter holidays as the public transport here is really slow and maybe a little unreliable. We met Mr Mokonto and the weather got worse as we got closer to home but it wasn't raining. Rose was really pleased to have us home- she said she had been lonely and gave us a big hug and we sat down and had tea and chatted about our weekends. So all in all it was an amazing weekend! I did not want to go back to school today!

This weekend, Patrick is coming up to Ingwavuma to stay with us. We are really struggling with what to do whilst he is here because otherwise we would just do our washing- it takes a whole day! There is not a lot to do around here but I think we are going to show him the general area and the school. Now we are settling back into another week at school and keeping up with lesson planning. We have also joined the sports committee although they currently have no equipment to play with! I am also going to offer to help tidy up the library for Kenny the librarian because he has been so good to us and it is such a mess in there...they have barely enough books for the students! I feel so lucky to have had such a good, well resourced education and I will never take that for granted now I see what the students here do not have. I am thinking about home a lot but I am quite happy here now- there are ups and downs everyday but mostly I am just learning SO much. Love to all at home xxx

Our first weekend in Ingwavuma

s weekend we needed to be busy to be feeling happier. Bongi invited us to her house the other side of the school but we met at the shops and whilst waiting for her we made a friend who is a manager of the clothes shop 'Dunns'. It is very hard to know who to trust here so at the moment- “we don't have south African phone numbers yet” is our way out! We have been warned that we will get marriage proposals! The town of Ingwavuma is dusty and full of sheep and goats just wondering around the market stalls which are made of wood and look like they need a bit of tlc! The area is very Zulu and we have only seen one white person since we have been here which makes you very aware of being white because people just stare at you and some students at the school just shout “white person!” in Zulu out of the classroom windows at us. This was to be expected though, but I'm sure it will calm down soon as people get to know us and that we are staying here. However, most people are friendly and you have to greet pretty much everyone that you pass in the street. The only Zulu I know so far is “Sabona!” which is 'hello' and “unjani?” which means 'how are you?” because we have said them so many times! Some people do talk to us in English though and strangers will come up and shake your hand to introduce themselves which is actually really nice. Today we were greeted by a girl who said “Hello Miss Guess and Miss Donald” which is what we are called at school so she was obviously a Nansindlela student. It was really lovely to be recognised like that as it felt like we were part of the community.
So we spent Saturday morning at Bongi's house with her two year old boy Unati who is very cute and we talked about our problems and felt SO much better afterwards after learning a bit about the history of the school and the way it works. She found out for us that the high school timetable has been sorted and I am going to be teaching grade eight and nine English which I'm very pleased about but have not been able to prepare for because I don't have any of the books yet. When we returned home we did all of our washing which seemed to take up the whole day and then watched a film in Rose's room and chatted to Mienky about our homes. This morning we went to Bongi's church which was just such an experience! You could hear it from half way down the road it was so loud! It was mostly spoken in English with Zulu translation which is why we chose to go there so we could understand and because we knew Bongi. They made us stand up when they introduced us which was very embarrassing and they pronounced my name like “Icy” which I thought was quite funny. The choir sang for about an hour and it was just incredible listening to some of the young girls singing with the microphones- really emotional at times. People were singing along and dancing and clapping and waving their hands about- it was not like church in England at all! I really enjoyed the singing but the actual preaching was a bit scary at times! They have several pastors for that church but the 'Apostle' led most of it. His wife started by saying that if people were attending this church but had not bought the apostle's book then they were a disgrace! It was surreal- being in a place of worship and being shouted at for not buying a book! The service starts at 9 and finished at 12.30pm- luckily we went at 10 so it wasn't so long but the Apostle spent the service talking about the spirit being separate from the flesh and that we worship god with the spirit so the flesh is irrelevant. He shouted the whole time and then his Zulu translator did exactly the same afterwards- did I mention how loud it was! People cheer and shout “Hallelujah” and “Praise God” and get really excited when he is shouting the service. It was just mental but a great experience! For some of the service I got passed a sleeping baby which is what people seem to do- pass the baby around so the mother doesn't have to hold him the whole time. The children sit at the side and I noticed that some were even sleeping through the shouting. Towards the end some people of the other side started dancing and they quickly removed the chairs because they just dance around with their eyes closed not looking where they are going. It sort of turned into a mosh pit which was so weird and that's when Bongi asked us if we wanted to leave because it gets a bit much as people start throwing themselves on the floor and we said “yes please!”. I'm glad we experienced it though and luckily I’ve got some of the singing and preaching on video so I can remember what it was like and show other people.
Since then we have come home and had lunch and slept and it has taken me AGES to write this blog post, the day has gone so quickly. I have been bitten all over the bottom of my legs as I stupidly went outside whilst on the phone the other day when it was just getting dark. We are taking our anti malarials- some people say that malaria is here, some people say it is not but it's best to stay safe. Hopefully we will have a more successful week at the school and I'm quite nervous about taking my first lesson when I have nothing prepared. I think I'm going to talk about myself and where I am from and ask the students what they have been doing so far. I'm really hoping they will be cooperative- the grade eights we saw the other day were very pleasant and well behaved and as older ones they don't tend to focus so much on the fact that we are foreigners. Fingers crossed!
So yeah, my first week has been eventful and I have learnt so much. I have laughed, cried, been scared, tired, excited, amazed and surprised! We are hoping to go and visit Patrick at Kosi Bay on the coast next weekend which will be something to look forward to as it is meant to be beautiful there and it will be nice to be somewhere different. Missing everyone loads and if anyone is still reading this ridiculously long essay then you deserve a medal! TIA- “This is Africa” xxx

The start of our journey...

Katie, my volunteer partner at the school in Ingwavuma and Patrick, who is volunteering in Manguzi about an hour from us and I all got a greyhound coach from Jo'burg to Richards Bay which took ten hours! We were fortunate enough to sit at the front of the second floor of the coach so we had a great view. We were sat next to a family with a little girl who was the most adorable child ever- so easy to please and very content with being placed on our laps to be entertained. Her dad was afrikaans and the mother was an English South African and they told us lots of stories and asked a lot about england. Some of their opinions regarding black people were a little bit surprising to hear but then I remembered that they were brought up in a time when that was all they were taught and you have to accept that. I had to bite my tongue a few times and just listen.

The journey went surprisingly quickly and we were met in Richards Bay by Janice Hall- who has hosted 'gaps' before and we were to stay with her the night before beginning our journey to Ingwavuma the next day. Even though it was evening when we arrived, it was incredible humid outside and we nearly cried with happiness when she asked if we would like to go in her pool when we got to hers! We literally got changed into our swimming stuff and jumped into her pool after meeting her husband Mike, and his mum Jean (the sweetest 89 year old I've ever met!) with their sheep dogs Jess and Jamie. It was so funny when Jamie kept jumping into the water with us and running around the edge of the pool. We had a braii which was so good! The Hall's were originally from England but moved out to Richards Bay over fifty years ago and we could not have asked for better hosts. The next morning Janice showed us around Richards bay which was incredible as the water was so blue and we ran down to the water on the hot sand and even saw a monkey just chilling on the beach! I would love to go back there!

We started the two hour drive to Mkuze which seemed like the perfect place to put a Wimpy in the middle of nowhere! We had lunch there with Janice and then had to wait for Allan who is looking after Patrick at Kosi bay to pick us up and take us further into the mountains towards our placements. He brought a mini bus which was great as we each had a seat each and a great view of the journey. A highlight was seeing the Jozini dam which is so beautiful. Stopping there and seeing some school children just waiting and not looking at the view made me think “why aren't you looking at the beautiful view?” but then they are surrounded by this all the time and it's just home to them. We finally reached our point after Patrick decided to play some songs on the cd player such as 'Africa' and some Lionel Richie which was hilarious, at the town of Bombanana (I still think this name is funny) with a t-juction where Katie and I were being met by our principle to go left to Ingwavuma and Allan would take Patrick right to Kosi Bay/Manguzi.
After looking for a grey polo and lots seeming to turn up at the same time, our principle Linda Sikonyana (this is a guy for any confusion about the first name!) finally arrived and drove us up the mountain to Ingwavuma. It was really strange because we were in this really backwards place but everyone had their radio's on playing modern music. We drove past Nansindlela school to where we are staying which is in a teachers compound which consists of about four houses which is where two teacher families stay and the rest are teachers who leave their homes in the cities to live here when they are working. Matt, our country manager was already here and we all went down to the school before he departed and I was surprised that the school was fairly big and the buildings were in good condition. The primary school and high school are separated by a swamp with a path running between them and because it was evening and very quiet we could hear all these frogs screaming and it was such a tropical sound. You don't even notice it when the place is full of students! The path is a bit scary when there are students going either way because I'm worried I'll get pushed off into the swamp- better be a nice teacher to them! The principle and his wife invited us to their for dinner and we had pasta and watched TV with them and their four year old daughter who is very naughty and cheeky and showed us her dance moves. She was so excited to have us here! We had to stay in another house for that night because our one had not been lived in for a while and so they had no electricity. Katie and I shared a single bed in Rose's room (Rose is now living with us) and it was a fairly uncomfortable night as we hadn't had a wash and it was quite cramped in the single bed.
Our first two days at school were hot and full of meeting different teachers. I still can't remember anyone's name!! we were introduced to everyone at the staff briefing in the morning by the principle and everyone came up to us to introduce themselves which was lovely. In the mornings before the briefing starts, all the staff start singing a prayer and then one person says a prayer afterwards, which was really nice to hear in the morning. It is about half an hours walk to school in the morning and you see students on the back of 'bukkies' which are small trucks and the law not to sit in them as it is clearly quite dangerous has not been enforced in this area yet. The children at the school, especially the younger ones, treat us like we are famous and are always saying “Hi, how are youuuuu?” and following us. One little girl gave me an apple with both her hands after I sat talking to them at break time and we were taught in orientation that this is a sign of respect- I felt like a proper teacher getting an apple on my first day! Some of them asked to touch my hair which I thought was a little bit strange but it was because their hair is so different and they all said “it's so soft!” to me. We just sat in on a couple of lessons to get the feel of how the school works which was useful because I forgot what it was to be like in a school environment. It was very hot though- there has been a heat wave here and it has reached up to 35 degrees! One thing that really shocks me is that lots of the people here are still wearing their jumpers- I just don't get it, it's boiling! There are chickens and dogs running round the school which took a while to get used to at first but they leave you alone and are quite fun to watch.
Bongi, is a teacher at the school and is looking after us whilst we stay here. She is one of the most sweetest people I have ever met and looks after us so well. Katie and I were feeling really down and trapped here over Friday and Saturday and she has been so good to us, inviting us to her house and talking to us to sort our problems out. We felt like we were not needed at the school any more because it seemed that the person we were meant to be replacing for maths and science has been replaced by someone else so it was all a bit confusing about what we are actually doing. Also the house has really been getting us down as it was left in a horrible state. The people living here last year did not clean and so we were confronted by a kitchen and toilet full of huge cockroaches. They are the most horrible, disgusting creatures I have ever come across and it's not fair that we have had to work so hard to get rid of them. Finally after hours of cleaning, spraying and killing it seems that they are going away. We must have killed hundreds of them and we find them in our room. Sometimes it's funny because we scream at each other when we are concentrating on getting one and there is another one heading for our feet, but after a while you get so tired and just want to cry because they keep coming. Flip flops are no longer a shoe, they are a cockroach killing device! Hopefully our efforts will pay off soon.

We are living with Rose and another teacher who has not come back yet (people are very relaxed here) will be moving back in next week and apparently he is lovely. We make a special effort to clean up after ourselves and Rose has been amazing sorting out our electricity and replacing the broken cooker. I have seen the occasional lizard but they don't really bother us and I think they are quite sweet! Due to not having any running water, we have to collect rain water from a water tank and if we use the toilet, to flush it we put water into the tank. To have a bath, we boil water and put cold water into a basin which sits in the bath and you kind of have to lean over it to wash which is an art I'm still trying to master! So basically, we try not to waste any dirty water as it is used for flushing the toilet! Our meals so far have been basic and i'm ashamed to admit I have not cooked yet and Katie has done them. I really don't have a clue! I tend to stand by and kill roaches and then wash up! Mienky and another male teacher (I am terrible with names here!) are frequent visitors to our house which is nice because then it's never lonely here in the evenings.

Orientation Week- Johannesburg

So...I've been in South Africa for just over a week and already so much has happened!

I left Heathrow with four other volunteers on Friday morning and after a very long flight stopping in Abu Dhabi, we arrived in the city of Johannesburg at about 5am on Saturday morning. The first flight was very uncomfortable and cramped but the second was better however I barely slept the whole time so after 3 hours sleep before I left home it took me a couple of days to return to normal.

When we were landing in Joburg the first thing I saw was lots of colourful lights for miles which looked really pretty. We got through customs easily and then looked for the guy from the hostel who was picking us up. The heat hit us even though it was so early and I was in jeans and a hoodie! The journey to the Backpackers Ritz where we were staying was magical because the sun had just come up and the sky looked beautiful. We were surprised to see people already up and on their way to work and also people jogging. I felt like I didn't want to go to sleep because the whole world seemed to be waking up at this time. We got to the Ritz and were shown to our dorms as we wanted to get some sleep before our day started at about 9am. Emily and I, being the only girls at the time went into our dorm but quickly turned around because we scared ourselves as we didnt expect other people to be in the room for some reason and they were all so still...it was really freaky! Where it was so light it was so hard trying to sleep on my top bunk when I could see over the city and hear these really loud birds outside and I was just feeling a little bit over tired to even sleep. It was all a bit surreal! However, I did manage to sleep for a couple of hours.

We stayed in Jo’burg until Tuesday morning. I wont bore everyone with what we did everyday but when we had talks on culture, history and travel and just general meetings with Matt, our country manager, we went to a church hall just down the road from the hostel. In total there was eight of us- seven from England and one guy from New Zealand. My favourite part of the orientation was when we went to Soweto- the famous township which is just outside Jo’burg which I expected to be still full of tin huts and poor conditions. However, I was surprised to see that even outside of the wealthy parts, the majority of the houses have been rebuilt over the years and the conditions are much better for the millions of people who live there. I particularly enjoyed learning about the June 1976 student riots in Soweto where black students protested against the government law that they must speak Afrikaans in their schools which they were not prepared to do because they had their own languages to learn in already and the system started to become too much. In these riots some of the students died as the white police fired at the crowds and the museum was really interesting. It occurred to me how little I know of the history of this country and how I wish they had taught it in England at school because it's such an important piece of history. Going to the apartheid museum afterwards reinforced this as we learnt about the life of Nelson Mandela. It was a huge shock to find out that he survived the prison on Robbin Island for twenty seven years and still came out of it with his original beliefs about the apartheid system. The weather stayed beautiful throughout our time in Jo'burg with short storms in the afternoon which cleared the air and one of my highlights of the orientation was sitting on my top bunk with another volunteer, Sophie, watching an electric storm over the city which we kept trying to capture on camera and failing because it was so quick! There were a couple of people we met in the hostel who were lovely including a South African lady who gave us lots of good advice about the country and a couple of Dutch girls who had been studying here for sixth months and told us that it is not long enough to explore the country! On the last evening we had a braii- the south african barbeque- outside with everyone looking over the city which was really fun and we were all excited to be finally starting the journey to our placements.....

35 days

So...the weeks are going really fast and my big adventure is just around the corner! I'm feeling really excited now but also nervous and unprepared at times! I got my South African visa last week which made it seem so real and met up with Katie (fellow lattitude volunteer) and her family for lunch which was lovely.

I'm now going to be staying in the country for seven months, the last three weeks after my placement will hopefully be spent with my friend in Cape Town which will be amazing as I haven't seen her in 5 years! There's so many things I want to do whilst I'm out there- climb table mountain; go on safari (elephants are most important!); go to the Drakensburg mountains, travel down the east coast; go to swaziland...the list goes on!

The plan for teaching at Nansindlela was originally to be in the junior school where we would assist with classes and take those when a teacher was absent, I believe, but this has now changed... One of the teachers has left and they don't have a replacement for him yet and so he asked if we would take over his role in the high school....but there was a slight problem- it would be teaching the equivalent of A level maths and science! I didn't do either of those subjects and it would have been impossible for me, however, Katie and I still wanted to help so now we are teaching the younger grades and their teachers are going to take the older ones. So, I will be teaching grade 8 english, and grade 9 english and maths! That covers just over 20 hours a week- a full time teaching position. It's a huge challenge but I can't wait! It makes me feel that we really will be contributing something to the school and it will be so worthwhile :) Better start learning my maths again!

What I'm looking forward to...

• A new country and culture: one of the reasons I wanted to do this in the beginning was the opportunity to immerse myself in the culture of somewhere so different to where I live. England is just so boring sometimes and I can't wait to go into a colourful country and meet so many new people!



• Travelling: we are going to have so much opportunity to travel at weekends and school holidays and it's going to be amazing to just explore somewhere new!



• Wildlife: I think I mentioned elephants earlier.... There is an elephant park really near where we are staying too :D



• Teaching: I've had a little experience of this before and loved it- so although the full time position is a little daunting I know it's going to be a lot of fun! Also, I'm going to learn so much myself about the job and it's going to be great work experience if I decide I want to become a teacher after uni.



• Orientation week: We are spending 3 or 4 days in Joburg with all the volunteers from the UK, New Zealand and Canada and are going to Soweto and the apartheid museum which I'm really looking forward to. We are also doing a teaching course there.

Current concerns/worries...

• The flight!: I'm not the biggest fan of flying and we have a 7 hour flight to Abu Dhabi and then another 8 and a half hours to Johannesburg- it's going to be a long journey!



• Malaria tablets: I'm in the process of sorting out my prescription but apparently the ones I am going to take make you feel sick all the time and I am terrified of being sick. There are other brands but they all have horrible side effects so I can't really win :(



• The lack of electricity and no running water: we are staying in a house with some other teachers and it has no running water and limited electricity. I know this will make me appreciate what I have at home but I love my showers in the morning and will really miss them!



• Being homesick: I don't usually get homesick but I've never been away from home for more than a week! 6 months living in a completely different culture and adapting to a whole new way of life will take some getting used to and obviously I'm going to miss my family and friends.



• The language barrier: I don't speak Zulu. I think that kind of sums it up!



• Sunburn- lets face it, I'm quite pale and it will be quite sunny...

I wasn't sure what to write in this post but hopefully it's given a nice overview of how I'm feeling about it all. What seemed like 'just an idea' about eighteen months ago is suddenly happening! I'm looking forward to my friends coming home from uni for Christmas and seeing all my family before I go, this time is going to just fly past. Big thank you's to a few people who have supported me throughout :) xxx

10 weeks to go!

My trip to South Africa is not so far away anymore! The weeks seem to be going really fast and I can't wait to go! I have saved up all the money now which is a huge step because it was a lot to raise and I never thought I would do it with three months still left to go. On Friday I went to a pre-departure meeting in Reading and met the other volunteers and had a great day :) I found out the school I am going to which is called Nansindlela school and also the girl I am going to be with so it all seems very real now! Nansindlela is in the Kwa-Zulu Natal province of South Africa and the area is very rural and I think teaching at the school is going to be quite a challenge, which I'm looking forward to! Thanks to everyone who has helped me get this far, I really appreciate it!

Five months to go...

Update: flights have been booked; travel insurance paid for; CRB form sent off; 2 out of 3 injections done; new passport on its way and I have got a new full time job starting in less than 3 weeks! still lots more to do but I am getting there! :)

"Believe you can and you're half way there"

A year after I first started saving and fund raising for this trip I have managed to raise £1500, which is around half my total that I need to go to South Africa! I am hoping to raise the other half by writing to trusts, hopefully doing a sponsored swim and mostly through working full time. I am currently trying to find a job where I can work in the week so fingers crossed that I will find something soon (i have applied to so many places!!) Only 6 months until I leave!

18th Birthday :)

Just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who gave me money for my 18th Birthday! It is all going towards my South Africa fund and I am so lucky to have over £600 to put towards my savings for this trip!! It has really helped me out and I am nearly half way to my total, so thanks so much! I had a great birthday surrounded by family and friends, who I will miss lots when I am in South Africa this time next year :D

Update on fundraising...

Havn't posted anything in a while, but I am trying to keep fundraising in between other things :) Did another car boot sale a while back and had so many clothes to sell (big thank you to Lucy and Amy for donating their unwanted clothes) and am going to do lots more soon!

Car boot sale and setting up our stall at the May Day

I had a stall at the Bransgore May Day yesterday where I sold cakes (as usual thank you mum!) and had a game with Lollies where people paid to try and pick out lollies that had coloured ends to win them. Thank you to Mel who came and helped me all day, I really appreciate it! We didn't sell all the cakes and lollies so I sold them today at school. Thank you to everyone who helped me sell them including Lucy, Amy, Annie, Stocks, Heidi, Claire and others and everyone who bought them!! Made around £80 from the two days, so pleased with that.

I can't believe that this time next year I will be in South Africa, it doesn't even seem real. I know that these next 9 months will fly by though and soon I will be sat on that plane thinking.."oh no what have I done!"...only joking, I'm excited! ;) Big thank you to Linden who has been really supportive these past few months, and to the other's who are also going to South Africa (and Malawi for Dave ;)) next year!! xxxx