Week 6 :)

Another week down and just 7 more to go! I was going to start this post off with a bit of an introduction but I can't contain my excitement about SKY DIVINGGGGG! Yes, it really happened and it was totally awesome! After 7 weeks you'd think I'd be prepared for it but I have never been so scared in my life! When we arrived we got all kitted up, got a super quick safety talk, and then we were off, 9000 feet up in a tiny plane. I was first to jump. My legs were dangling out the plane and I looked at Miren (the most amazing volunteer with a heart of gold!) with an expression that said 'SAVE MEEE!'...she just laughed..a lot! Then that was it. My instructor prized my hands away from the plane and just jumped. I have never screamed so much in my life! But it was incredible, every single second of it! I don't know what more I can say but I haven't stopped smiling since :D

Although sky diving was definitely the highlight of my weekend we also did a spot of tree planting with Greenpop, a social enterprise which believes in sustainable living and aims to educate the next generation about the environment. We worked with their staff members, a group of primary 6 students from one of the local schools, a group of volunteers, and even a group of guys who came tree planting for their mate's birthday! Together we planted 40 trees, got a bit of a farmers tan, and ate a wee picnic in the car - such a good morning :) In the afternoon I also attempted a bit of surfing at Muizenberg and discovered that I have absolutely no sense of balance at all...I guess I knew that already though! Even although it was so much harder than it looked it was "totally rad!" (as Monique would say - a volunteer coordinator who is staying with us from KwaZulu Natal). In the evening we then had a braai (what they call a BBQ here) and I almost burnt off my eye-brows!

Now that I've caught you up on the weekend I'll try to catch you up on the last couple of weeks! 

Last Wednesday, the 23rd, we attended a reading for a book called 'Nobody will ever kill me' by Mbu Maloni, a 21 year old man who wrote about his experiences growing up with his mother in a township just outside of Cape Town. As Mbu read his story most of the audience couldn't hold back their tears - it was a heart breaking story about how he managed to overcome the difficult circumstances he was born into and his fight for a life which is better than the one he has had. Some of his friends and family were also there to support him and it was lovely to see how proud they were of him for achieving so much. The whole experience really helped us volunteers to understand what life is like for many of the children we work with at pre-schools, nurseries and after-school care programs, and everyone bought the book to help support Mbu, his girlfriend, and their newborn baby. Later in the week we also had an Apartheid workshop to understand the racial segregation of whites, blacks, coloureds and Indians in South Africa in the 20th century, the impact this segregation had on every element of their lives, and how this might shape the way they view volunteers who come in to their predominantly black communities to try and help. So overall it was a pretty educational week and it's always good to learn more about the people we work with! 

Last Friday, the 25th October, we went to the Africa Cafe for a 12 course dinner - I have never eaten so much food in my life...but I wore elasticated trousers, just like Christmas dinner, which was a good last minute decision to make! Every course from the dinner was from a different part of Africa and it was an all you can eat sort of thing so...if you weren't full after 12 courses you could just keep eating more!

Last weekend was also jam-packed with activities, from beaching and shopping on Saturday to climbing Table Mountain and paragliding on Sunday! You probably don't want to hear all about the beaching and stuff so I'll start with Table Mountain. When I told the girls in the office that we were climbing Table Mountain everyone thought we were insaneeee! I thought they were totally over exaggerating when they said it was hard work but OH MY GOD they couldn't have been more right! The path we took was called Platteklip Gorge and pretty much consisted of these giant boulders that you had to climb the whole way up. THE WHOLE WAY. My bum muscles are now amazing! As if that wasn't hard enough, it was 30 degrees that day and not a hint of wind to be found. To cut a long story short, we got to the top after 2.5 hours totally sweaty and exhausted but man it was worth it. The view from the top was just incredible! :) After catching our breath and taking some photos Cora and I then got the cable car down the mountain (it has a rotating floor so you get a good 360 view!) and then jumped in a taxi and went paragliding from Signal Hill. I'm not sure how to describe paragliding but we basically jumped of the hill (with someone who actually knew what they were doing) and did some twirls above the seafront which was awesome! I have a very nice flattering photo from the event...

The week after was pretty chilled and we just watched some movies and went out for dinner to say goodbye to some of our volunteers. The first movie we watched was called The Bang Bang Club and was about 4 photographers during the Apartheid. It is a true movie which is sort of based around this really famous photograph that appeared in National Geographic in the late 1900s. The picture shocked the whole world because it depicts a vulture that is waiting for a starving child to die.

The controversy surrounding the photo then arose when journalists asked the photographer, Kevin Carter, if he had saved the child from the vulture after he took the photo. To everyone's surprise, even his own, he just walked away and did not know what happened to the child, he just took the picture. This raised a lot of interesting debates about photographers hiding behind the lens, so in this respect it was quite an interesting movie.

As well as movie watching, skydiving and climbing table mountain I also went on project to TEARS, a cat and dog home, with our vet volunteer Miren. Although I went to take some photos for marketing I got totally distracted by the puppies (eeee! so cute) and a 3 legged dog which captured my heart!

Wow! Well I think that's it! It has been a busy couple of weeks but there's still lots to be done and more exciting plans for next weekend!

Until next time :)
Sarah

5 weeks down and 8 to go!

I can't believe I'm already 2 days into my 5th week in Cape Town! My time here is going by so fast and I still have so much fun stuff to squeeze in before I leave. This past week has been very eventful and there hasn't been a boring moment...it probably helps that there are 16 other awesome volunteers to talk to all the time! 

Let's see, I'll start with last Sunday, the 13th October, when we had our Canadian Thanksgiving dinner and ate a ridiculous amount of chicken, stuffing, Yorkshire puddings...and um...tiramisu (not very Canadian I know, but it was delicious!) All the food was cooked by our volunteer coordinator Irine (her cooking is out of this world!) and Alanna (who is slightly less amazing in the kitchen but tells the BEST stories about her experiences in Africa!). Not only did the Thanksgiving dinner taste amazing but it also helped to raise lots of money for The Happy Africa Foundation THAF. 

Later on in the week we also took advantage of our new volunteer Sam, a hairdresser from the UK, and persuaded him to give some of us a trim for charity. We ended up going all out and attempted some avocado and oatmeal face masks. I say 'attempted' because they started slipping off our faces so we had to lie on the ground as the others spooned the mixture on to our faces so it didn't fall off - I don't remember the last time I laughed so much! All the money we raised that evening also went to THAF so we had a great fundraising week overall :)

Every morning at 6 am we've also started jogging or doing circuit training at the local park. Originally it started with just 3 of us (everyone else thought we were crazy for getting up so early) but we've managed to persuade some other volunteers to join us and it has turned in to a bit of a boot camp! It was great training for the Colour Run at Sea Point on Saturday where we ran 5km and then threw lots of coloured paint over each other! IT WAS AMAZINGGGG! 

I'm not really going in a chronological order here but on Thursday I went on project in the morning and volunteered with our over 30's volunteer Ervina at the Children of Hope Preschool. Before I went everyone laughed at me because I said I was scared of children (Seriously. Kids are terrifying.) but as soon as the kids saw me they all grabbed a different limb and dragged me in to the preschool. So it wasn't nearly as terrifying as I thought it would be, well it was, but I think I handled it quite well...I only made 3 kids cry because I made them share their toys...but I soon made up for it when I had a kid sitting on each shoulder trying to do the monkey bars. I have to admit that the conditions of the township which the preschool was in came as quite a surprise. I guess Cape Town hides the poverty of the area very well and, as a tourist, it would be easy to ignore the signs of poverty so prevalent in other parts of the city. It was great to get involved in one of the volunteer projects though because I hear so much about them from the other volunteers when they come home. The next project I really want to go to is GAPA (Grandmothers Against Poverty and Aids) because the grandmothers just seems like the most amazing people who are making such a big difference to their communities.

So I think that's all of the events from this week, I just have the weekend to catch you up on now. As you can probably guess, I tried to go sky diving again, for the 4th week running!  I had a really good feeling that this would be the week that I finally get to sky dive because the weather was so lovely...but as soon as Sunday came around the wind picked up and sky diving was cancelled again. Needless to say that I have signed up for it again this coming weekend so fingers crossed! Even although I didn't get a chance to go sky diving I still had a great weekend. We went to the colour run early on Saturday morning before going to the Biscuit Mill in the afternoon for some lunch and then to the rugby to see Western Province beat the Lions for the second week in a row. On Sunday we then went to a lovely food and craft market at Hout Bay and I bought some soup. Those of you who know me well will know how much I love soup, so this was quite an important moment (as well as finding porridge in the local supermarket)!

Well that's another week down and 8 more to go! 

Sarah x

Week 2...and a little bit of week 3!

This was written a wee while ago...I just haven’t had time to post it!

I’m coming to the end of my second week here and South Africa is feeling more like home. Last weekend was slightly less exciting than we had planned but it was still an adventure! Instead of going skydiving on Saturday (because it was too cloudy) we went to this incredible food market at the Old Biscuit Mill...it was every foodie’s dream! We definitely made it worth our while and ate copious amounts of food from almost every stall! The music was great, the sun was out and my belly was full, what more could I ask for! 

Oh and we went to this incredible Ethopian restaurant for dinner where you eat with your hands on this big pancake thing which was incredible!

Then on Sunday...oh Sunday. Sunday was an adventure. Jacinta and I decided that we would check out the Cheetah Outreach Centre at Somerset West to hold a little cheetah cub and walk with the adult cheetahs! On Sunday we decided that a taxi was too expensive to get there and, despite ample warnings not to get the train on a Sunday because they’re unsafe and only come once every hour, we still decided to get the train. Oh boy. When we got to the ticket station at Obs the lady gave us the wrong ticket so we got on the wrong train, only to realise after two stops that we were going in the opposite direction from where we needed to be. So on the second wrong stop we got off the train and then we had to go back to Obs to return our ticket. But we would have had to wait an hour for the train back to Obs so we had to get a taxi back to Obs, exchange our ticket, and then wait an hour for the correct train we needed to get to Cape Town. Once we got to Cape Town we had to wait ANOTHER hour to get the train to Somerset West. Phwoof. 2 hours gone and still an hour of travelling to do. So then once we arrived in Somerset West we asked for directions to the Cheetah Outreach Centre but no one knew where it was...except for one man who didn’t seem too certain. With “directions” in hand we started to make our way to the Cheetah Outreach Centre and were so relieved when we finally made it...only after 4 hours of travelling by train and on foot to get there! I will spare you from all the details about the Cheetah Outreach Centre but we basically travelled for 4 hours to stroke a cheetah for 30 seconds who was on a lead and looked very unhappy in a small enclosure. We couldn’t help but feel disappointed by our experience but we were so relieved we had taken the train in the end because if I had paid 1300 rand for 30 seconds we would have felt a lot worse!  But oh well, it was an experience and I’m glad I went because I learnt to never, ever take a train on a Sunday. Ever.

Because I wrote this post a while ago I’ve also had a second weekend gone by which I haven’t told you about! So here it goes! On Saturday we went back to the Old Biscuit Mill and grabbed some more delicious food and then we had an afternoon full of rugby. We watched a national rugby game at Newlands and then watched South Africa vs New Zealand at the local pub. The kiwi game was so tense and SA narrowly (well...maybe not so narrowly) lost in the end. The locals in the pub were getting very in to the game which reminded me of my dad and sister screaming at the TV when Scotland have a match. Then on Sunday we finally managed to go Shark Cage diving after 3 weeks of willing for the weather to improve. I can’t explain how excited I have been about I have been about shark cage diving and I thought my sea sickness would subside after the adrenaline started to rush...but god I was wrong! I spend about 99% of the time leaning over the edge of the boat as my breakfast resurfaced and couldn’t stand up long enough to put my wet suit on and navigate my way to the other side of the boat to see actually see a shark. But when I finally decided to heave my wet suit on and jump in the cage I saw my first shark up close and personal...

Gotta run now but I’ll be back in touch next week...hopefully, if I’m not too busy having fun and being all sociable with our 11 new volunteers!  

I've arrived!

On Saturday the 21st of September at 4.45pm I said goodbye to my family in Aberdeen to begin my journey to Cape Town. 20 hours later I arrived in Cape Town at 1.10pm (GMT + 1 hour) where I was greeted by one of the smiliest members of the African Impact team in Cape Town! Phwoof, I'd finally made it.

So, as it turns out, I really had nothing to worry about. I managed to navigate my way through the airport with such ease that it even surprised me! I even made a couple of travel buddies on the way, one adorable South African lady who I met in London, and Thomas, a Norwegian film producer who I sat next to on the flight from London to Johannesburg. Even although Thomas inadvertently stole my pillow on the plane (which he felt terrible about later!), he did offer me some great advice about abseiling, surfing, shark cage diving, climbing Table Mountain, and lots of other activities to do in Cape Town. Most notably however, he told me a story about his wife's experiences as a student in Cape Town which, well, scared me a bit. So I'm glad I met him on my journey because even although my friends and family kept reminding me about how dangerous South Africa can be for women, Thomas's story has prevented me from thinking "...but that won't happen to me". So I guess that's a good thing really, it means I'll be more alert and much less likely to get myself into silly situations.

On a much more positive note, all of the volunteers are lovely and the volunteer house in The Observatory (or Obz as the locals call it) is really nice and safe! On my first night in Cape Town we went to a comedy gig at one of the local pubs to hear some comedians from South Africa, Mexico and NY. We took the usual comedy-precautions, like sitting at the back and avoiding eye-contact with the comedians, but the whole evening was great even though some of the jokes were slightly offensive...well very offensive but it was all taken in good spirits! On Monday I had my first day in the office as a social media and marketing intern and got to meet the African Impact team in Cape Town. It is pretty exciting hearing about all 70 volunteering projects and going through 100s of amazing photos from the projects to post on Facebook or the website. I have been in the office every day this week except for Tuesday when I helped the other volunteers at a 3 day camp for a girls soccer team. All of the girls were really shy at first but they soon came out of their shell once we started playing some ice-breakers to help us remember each others names. Learning 16 African names was not an easy task, and remembering the volunteers names was not easy for the girls either. I soon became Sierra instead of Sarah, Evalee became Tivalee, and Michelle became Mitchell, but I'm pretty sure I mispronounced most of their names for the best part of the morning too!

 

So that's it, my first week with African Impact is now coming to an end but there are so many exciting activities for me to look forward to this weekend. I'm super-duper excited about going sky diving on Saturday and checking that off the bucket list. I think stepping out of the plane will be the most terrifying part but once I manage that then there's no looking back really..! On Saturday afternoon we've also booked tickets to see the South Africa vs. Australia rugby match in Cape Town. It is very rare to have a rugby match in Cape Town so we are all really looking forward to that and painting our faces with the South African flag and all that! As some of the volunteers are leaving on Sunday we have also booked dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant and all of us foodies are really looking forward to eating with our hands and trying some spicy food. Sunday sounds a bit more relaxing but we're hoping to venture to Robben Island or check out the V&A Waterfront. Lots of pictures will be taken to keep you guys up to date and dad, I promise I'll text you before and after sky diving so you know I'm still alive! :)

 

Sarah x 

Less than 6 hours to go.

Well, today is the day. In less than 6 hours I'll be making my way to Aberdeen Airport to begin my 20 hour journey to Cape Town. Crikey. I've spent quite a bit of time travelling around the world with my family but nothing can really prepare you for travelling on your own. I suppose I'm also a bit guilty for paying absolutely no attention to anything useful when we're travelling and, well, now I find myself worrying about the sequence of events which follows the initial check-in at the airport. Yes, really. In this last week I have become a worrier of epic proportions. My mind is full of 'what ifs' and there's a small part of me that just wishes someone would ask me to stay. But even though I'm worrying about all the small details, I know I'm going to have the most amazinggg time when I'm there :) So I'm going to take some advice from Bobby McFerrin - "Don't Worry Be Happy"!



What a cheery wee tune!

To take my mind off worrying I've also been adding lots of exciting things to my "All the fun, exciting, and potential life threatening things my guide book and the internet say I should do in Cape Town..." list. So far my list stands at 16 but I'm hoping to add a few more ideas to it once I get there.  So here it is, the list...

1) Meet the locals and teach the kids how to juggle :) One of the best things about volunteering is that you get the chance to meet the locals and get immersed in their way of life. They are always so happy to see you and spend time with you and that's what really makes the whole experience worthwhile!
2)Shark Cage Diving (Sorry dad).
3) Hike up Table Mountain and get the cable car back down. As one of the new 7 wonders of nature Table Mountain is a must see! 
4) Go whale watching at the Hermanus whale festival. Ah this looks so exciting.
5) Walk along the Garden Route.
6) Visit Cape Point, the most south-westerly tip of Africa.  Some beautiful beaches there!
7) Visit the Kruger National Park and go on Safari!
8) Go swimming with the penguins at Boarders Beach :)
9) Check out the sand dunes at De Hoop nature reserve
10) Visit Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned.
11) Go kayaking, rock climbing and scuba diving
12) Check out the Kirstenbosch summer sunset concerts at the foot of Table Mountain
13) Get street food. Specifically some Bunny Chow (it's not actually bunnies...!)
14) Visit the Cango Caves.
15) Go on a sight seeing tour bus. It has to be done everywhere you go!
16) Visit a vineyard or two...

Well I'll sign off for now and speak to you again once I'm in Cape Town :)

Sarah x

Just 3 days to go!

So this is it. After many months of waiting, my trip to Cape Town is just around the corner. I have 3 days left to squeeze in a bit of last minute shopping, packing and goodbyes, and then I'll be off. On my own. I really am looking forward to my little adventure, but I'm feeling a bit more nervous than excited at the moment. And I have this terrible "I know I've forgotten something" sort of feeling. My family and friends all seem quite concerned about my occasional lack of common sense, my non-existent navigational skills, and my unrelenting desire to go shark cage diving...so I can see why they might be a little worried. So really my reason for starting a blog was to reassure everyone that I'm still alive and to tell you all about my 3 months in Cape Town as a social media and marketing intern for African Impact :)

I guess my experience of blogs starts and stops with my friend's fabulous fashion blog (Miss Millie Mae - check it out, she really is fabulous!). I've probably come across the occasional food blog when I've been busy searching for recipes but my knowledge of blogs and the blogosphere (can you call it that?) is pretty limited. My lack of knowledge about blogs therefore made it difficult to think of an appropriate bloggy-sounding name. I had originally thought that I would just call it Sarah's Travel Blog, but, well, it was boring. So then I looked for some blogspiration online. I found a blog name generator where you input your nickname, hobbies, important words etc and it came up with some, em, interesting options. Then I asked some friends for some advice and they came up with some catchy alliterations. But really, what I wanted was something more...poetic? So I searched for some travel songs and a website listing the top 12 travel songs popped up. I looked at the names of the songs and thought I should name the blog after the Iggy Pop song 'The Passenger' which I love. But then I came across the song '1000 miles away' by Hoodoo Gurus and it gave me an idea. So I looked up the distance between Aberdeen and Cape Town and found it to be 6,379 miles away. So there it is, the name of the blog then became 'Just 6,400 miles away...'. 

So I'll sign off for now and leave you with song number 9 on the best songs list. The Passenger by Iggy Pop...