First full week of work

After my first week of being on a scheduled working timetable, it is safe to say I am shattered.  It has been non-stop.  However it does feel like calm after the storm, when we first arrived it was all go, and everything happening at once, but this week has been a lot calmer and given all of us the chance to just settle in and get into a routine. 

On Saturday, Danni and I had a morning off so we went into town.  After doing some grocery shopping we were on our way back to the taxi rank when a group of men surrounded us, we tried to carry on walking but they wouldn’t let us past.  They weren’t trying to hurt us but they just wanted to know our names and talk to us.  Suddenly one man grabbed Danielle from behind and was hugging her, not letting her go.  At this point I nearly went mad, I was telling his friend to let her go and leave us alone.  After about a minute (which felt like 10) he let her go, I grabbed Danni and quickly walked away.  At this point I noticed that everyone in the street were just watching what has happened.  I was quite surprised that no one stepped in to help, but just stared.  I don’t know if it’s there culture but I don’t understand why a lot of men here think it’s ok to grab us just because we are white.  Although it was scary, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

After this eventful experience, when we got offered to accompany the kids to church we thought why not, highly unlikely people will notice us there.  Oh how wrong we were.  We arrived at an old disused warehouse and you could hear the gospel choir from miles away, it sounded beautiful.  I had always wanted to go to a gospel church for the experience.  We walked and immediately I felt the staring eyes again, which put me on edge slightly.  However I carried on walking in with the children, but people wanted to shake my hand, touch my hair and talk to me.  I saw where we were all sitting and headed for my seat, only to be stopped by the preacher who ushered Danni and I to two seats at the front on the stage.  At this point I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest.  After they finished singing the preacher turned to us, welcomed us and said something in Xhosa to which everyone cheered and screamed ‘HALLELUJAH’.  I genuinely thought we were about to be sacrificed.  The group of children from Bethany came up to the front and sung a song for the whole congregation, I was nearly in tears, I was so proud of them.  The fact that they were aged 4 – 6 and got up in front of 700 odd people and sang, I couldn’t do that and I’m 18!! After a 3-hour service of much cheering, people falling over and singing lots it was time for us to be escorted out.  Although I was a little uneasy at times, the whole experience was amazing and I couldn’t get over how amazing the combination of 700 gospel voices sounded together.

The girls and I have organised our first weekend off to which we will be travelling to Coffee Bay to lye on the beach, do some surfing and drink cocktails.  I can’t wait.  Will be good to relax and celebrate surviving our first month abroad.  We have also planned our Christmas holiday too, we’ve got from 23^rd December – 2^nd January off, so the plan is the backpack down to Cape Town for Christmas day, spend it on the beach with all the other Project Trust volunteers, have a Bri (BBQ) and do some surfing.  Then we are all going to hang around Cape Town till New Year and celebrate it there too.  Although the turkey and presents will be missed at Christmas, I can’t wait send Christmas on the beach with all the other volunteers.

Well that’s about it really.  Blogging may become less frequent because Internet is so expensive, but when I have the chance I will be sure to fill you in on everything J

xxx