Week One

Hello everyone!

So today marks a week since I set off from London and so much has happened already.
My flight was good, long - about 11 hours then another 1 hr flight from jberg to durban but arrived safe and sound monday morning.
So far I have spent the week at the orphanage, wse are collected everyday from the volunteer house- which is big and has a pool (which is VERY COLD) and then we spend the day helping out with the younger ones mostly, as everyone of school age goes to school and talking to the older ones when they get back. We play alot in the morning, they all have so much energy! and then its lunch at 12, followeed by teeth brushing and then nap time- thats when we take our lunch! When we get back we mostly sit outside or on the sofas watchiung films, talking and playing. The older girls have been plaiting all our hair!
At about 5 where dropped back at the volunteer house and then its dinner, relaxing and usually an early night.
Yesterday was our first day off and we went on a township tour of the surrounding area. You have to get taken by a guide as it can be dangerous but ours was really good. It was great to see more of the area we are in and see the people. There is alot of poverty but also alot of smiles!
Included in our tour was a visit to John Dube's monument and school which is very important to south africans as he was the first democratic president of the anc (african national congress). In respect presidents now visit his grave upon election to pay their repects and let him know the country is still free. We also saw where Nelson Mandela casted his first democratic vote before becomming president.
We also visited Ghandis house, where he lived for 21 years before going to India, it weas very peaceful with lots of interesting photos and writings.
Our tour was finished off in a tradtional zulu tavern 'pub' where our dirver cooked us a traditional zulu bbq!

For our next 3 weeks here it is the childrens school holidays so we will have less children to look after but it means we can do alot more acitivties. We will be planning this all tonight, but our plans include the cinema and swimming.

Finally- on thursday we took our 1st cooking group. It is a volunteer tradtion that weekly you take a group to thr supermarket to buy food and then back to the house to cook it and hang out. We had a group of four teenage boys between about 11-20 and we  cooked burgers and chips followed by chocolate rice crsipie cakes- everyone was stuffed!

I'll update next week

Love


Mary xx

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