Yo ho,
It's raining (again) and half the team are at hospital (again) so I have some time to write (again).
Things are pretty strange here at the moment. Although we have finished our orientation, this week there is THREE public holidays and one of the days we are going to a water park with 247 kids from the on-site school, so basically we're not working this week either. I think most of us are pretty gutted at that, by the end of last week we'd had enough of slowly slowly and want to get going working on the projects each day, however over the last three days we've had two unfortunate incidents in particular which have kept us occupied and actually helped bring the team together. I think as team we're hitting the ''storming stage', for those of you in the know about group social theory, which means relationships and roles are forming based on who we are on a day-to-day basis, not just when we're in 'hi nice to meet you' mode. So there's a few tensions and challenges arising. But like I say, we've had two incidents this week which have probably served to focus us back together. Every cloud.
Incident Number One: The curious incident of the dog in the night (I apologise for the copyright violation there)
This weekend we were offered a house nearby to stay in to get away from Gateway for a while, and to look after their dogs while the family went away. In practice this was a great idea. In reality it was still pretty good, up until we lost one of the dogs. Top stuff. Basically due to security concerns every house has security gates that need to be opened and shut whenever cars come in and out. Unfortunately dogs have a tendency to run out of open gates so we needed to make sure we kept a hold of them whenever we got in or out. On Saturday night we got back from a meal out and we managed to forget to close the gate behind us. We then settled down to a game of Monopoly (a recurring theme as you will see later). Two hours later when our friend was leaving, we noticed a) the gate was open and b) one of the dogs was gone. Error. Compounding this error was that the dog who had gone was old, deaf and partially blind. You couldn't write this stuff.
So about 11.30pm, when most of SA in asleep, we had to go searching for an old, deaf and blind dog. Oh and he was a black dog. Really useful colour for finding him in the pitch black. Oh and our car has only one working headlamp. It was amazing in the way that amazing is a horrendously bad situation.
So we looked for about an hour and I walked about the streets a bit which is stupidly dangerous in SA at night but hey, when a dog goes missing logic leaves the human mind. We rang (and no doubt woke) the owners who said it was ok and hopefully he'd be taken into the pound and that we should stay safe and not walk or drive around at night. Naturally we ignored that and kept looking for a while longer. Whilst this sounds very irresponsible, when you lose someone's dog who you are meant to be looking after, who has been in the family for years, and the family has FOUR small children, you don't think of yourselves and your own safety. You do your upmost to ensure the 'dog heaven' story isn't required the next day when the kids come home.
Anyways this bonded the team into a common sense of not so much panic but disbelief. The kind where you all stand around and say nothing. Close enough to each other because secretly you want to be comforted, and far enough away that no one thinks you're not devastated too. I imagine we looked a lot like penguins in captivity. Just standing around, moving slowly, seemingly doing nothing. Maybe penguins have all lost someone's dog.
About 1.30am we went inside and unsuprisingly no one could sleep. Except Jenny who had got food poisoning from her own cooking. But the rest of us were up. There was a LOT of silent prayer going on, but no one could speak enough to suggest a group sesh. It was one of the worst feelings in my life. I went from sheer anger at no one in particular, to disbeleif, and then to reflection about how this would overshadow our entire time here, even before it had truly begun.
About 2am me and Jonno happened to go outside, Jonno becuase he'd not gear locked the car (we lock gears here) and me becuase I hoped maybe Buzz (the bog) had come back and was trying to get in from outside the gate. As we walked out we saw Buzz run past. I don't think you can sense the relief. I'm not really a dog person, but I think I was converted in that moment. He was pretty tired and limping a bit, but he was Buzz and he was alive and the gate was now locked. The lift in mood in the team was so tangible you could spread it on a sandwich.
Incident Number Two: The one with the rain, steps and lack of torch.
This was last night. It seems to enjoy raining on Mondays which is annoying and it gets dark here about 6pm and when it gets dark there are no outside lights really so it's pretty much pitch black. We hang out in the admin block and although it's about 15m to our rooms, there's about 4 sets of steps in different directions and different sizes to get there.
Anyways, team bonding that night was called for so we whacked out the monopoly. I think we began about 9.30pm and me and Jonno had acheived world domination about 11.30pm. At this point, Abby pipes up and says 'I don't know why I'm laughing but I think I've broken my ankle'. What a line. We have a quotes book running. I have just realised that needs to go in it. In turned out that before we began Monopoly, Abby had slipped and hit her ankle on the steps. During the monopoly game, the pain had somewhat increased and her ankle swollen to the size of a small Zulu child. Apparently 'she didn't want to make a fuss and she'd deal with it on her own'. It amuses me because Abby and I share the same odd psyche (like it's proper freaky, the other day we had soup and everyone put the spoon in the bowl whereas the two of us put it on the plate. We also check our watches almost in synchronisation, check food status at the same times and are both as stubborn and self reliant as a particularly stubborn and self reliant donkey) so while everyone (including me) stressed that she should've just said earlier, I know I would've done the exact same thing!
Thanks to our collective medical know-how, we soon had it up on a chair and packed with peas. Note to readers, when using Peas to reduce swelling, don't use an open packed. It leads to peas everywhere. It did not look pretty so we did think maybe it could be a break, and she did seem in some distress. However we later found out this was more because she'd been holding it in for so long! We then rang our co-ordinator (phone off), our cell leader (not picking up) and our UK Oasis contact (no answer). Soon running out of people we got hold of an amazing lady called Di who works here. Unfortunately as it's holidays this week she was away on the coast. But she did direct us to the private medical centre. So at 12.30am we went to the medical centre, me carrying Abby through varying methods. The evil of having ample steps around is two fold: you are more likely to slip and hurt your ankle, and when you do you've still got those steps to navigate. Cruel world.
The medical centre was unsuprisingly very quiet so we got seen to pretty quick. I had to pay 300R up front (about 20GBP) to have her checked in, and then I was able to watch some of Arsenal - Derby with Jonno while Hannah stayed with Abby as she got checked out by the nurse (medically speaking that is). I felt very old I must say. I had to sign various forms on behalf of her, but when neither me nor Jonno knew the basic information about her, like her address, phone number, next of kin, d.0.b., the lady did ask how we even knew her. We laughed. She didn't.
Anyways, by this point Abby was doing better and swelling had gone down so we knew it wasn't a break. They discharged her with crutches and painkillers and strapping. She has to go back today for an X-ray (which I just found out was clear, there is no break anywhere. Bonus).
All in all this was another bonding experience despite the hard time when we thought it was broken. She wasn't amused when I told her that a broken metatarsal is 6 weeks out. But then Jonno corrected me and said that was the recovery time to play football. I love how my medical knowledge is based on Wayne Rooney.
So ya, aside from being frustrated that we can't start work in full, we're making trouble for ourselves, trouble that seems to arrive when we play Monopoly. We can't wait to begin work next week and by then I will be able to talk more about work things so you can know what we're doing!
Although everyone here keeps stressing that whilst we think in tasks, African's think in time and people. They say that just being here, talking to the kids, talking to the locals on site, listening to people about thier work and generally being from overseas to help them is makign a massive kingdom building difference. It's fair to say a lot of us are unconvinced. I'm on the fence. I see both sides. But come the end of the time we'll see who was right.
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Wednesday, 23 April 2008
23 on the 23rd
Greetings from Southern Africa,
Today is indeed my 23rd Birthday and coincidentally I am 23 today. Today has been a mixed bag really but an awesome day. We got up at 5am and spent the next 4 hours helping out at a feeding scheme in a local hospital where we bring soup (from the US Government) and bread (from the local commercial bakery) and go down to give it out to the locals who are queuing for medical care. It was the first time here where we’ve seen a relatively high level of poverty, but even that wasn’t what we’ll see when we head out to what are called ‘townships’ which are basically shanty towns that surround the big cities and towns. But anyways, it was really enjoyable. Amusingly Jenny my team mate asked me if I’d ever been up this early on my birthday before and I remembered that I year ago at that point I was on the top of Beacon hill will just my PJs and dressing gown on (thanks again to everyone who did that!), so although I was up early again, this one was a lot more meaningful.
So we finished there about 9am or so and I will confess to feeling somewhat blue at this point. I didn’t think I’d be sad being away from my parents (as opposed to my home, because I wouldn’t say I really have a home at the moment, but that helps because I’m not homesick, Africa is just my latest home) but I really was. My mum text me about 8am (8.11am to be precise) and I had to wait a while to read it because I thought it might not help the situation! But it was fine and it felt good inside to be doing something I love on my birthday. I said to our co-ordinator Becky that if I could pick my birthday activities I would be doing that I did today, so that’s awesome really.
So after the feeding scheme we headed to Esther House which is the project looking after abused women. We were quite nervous about this simply (well me and Jonno were) because it was full of older women who had been abused my mostly men and so we weren’t sure how we’d fit in at all. When we got there there was actually already another team hanging out there too. There is an American team working here at Gateway too and they were saying their final goodbyes to the women. So we hung out with all them for a while, and they helped us get to know the women a bit and the kids running around. We played some quality games and then did some Zulu dancing. It was amazing! I’ll tell you one thing, you know when you’ve found a major life calling when you enjoy doing things you’d NEVER do elsewhere. Anyone who knows me in England would say I would be one of the last to go join a group of American and African people, who all know each other, and get involved and dance around with them! But I did, and I loved it! Amusingly one of the American girls went up to my teammate Hannah and ‘come look, your boys are making fools of themselves’. We were and the Lord said it was good, amen!
So that picked me right up and then some kids warmed to me and we built a leaf pile together. Then when the leaves ran out it turned to sticks, then from sticks to general dirt. THEN they threw it all at me. They loved it. And it was also cool to chat to the Americans and learn from them about what good things to do and what they’d learnt in their time here.
However joy turned to sorrow soon after just because some of our team are feeling very homesick. It’s someone I’ve gotten to know the best and aside from Jonno, get on the best with, and me being me took it very hard. But I’d been trying to look out for her a lot over the last few days knowing she was feeling bad, partly due to my leader role and mostly due to the fact that I don’t think I could not look after someone in trouble if I tried!, and when she went off on her own without telling anyone, I shared a bit of my thoughts and understandings of her with the others in the group. It was really good to be able to share a bit of my heart for people and them all with them directly. We dispatched Jenny to go find her (she had just gone round the corner of the building to sit in the sun) and then we had a bit of a group hug and pray. But it was quite challenging as it was clear more than one of us were finding things hard but it was a special time to come together as one team in that time of pain. We had talked a lot and hard times and so it was important to put into practice what we’d talked about when those times came along. I’d had guessed a while before I came out that given that my birthday was 8 days in it would probably be tainted with home sickness so that foreknowledge helped me really.
In the end a few of us stayed home while me and three others headed out with Becky to a little waterfalls nearby to chill out and get away from the prison grounds. Unfortunately Becky’s car began to breakdown to we did a quick turn around and went to the Mall instead lol. Top stuff. So we had ice cream. I had too much ice cream. That is bad. I still feel ill and I’ve got half the team cooking Lasagna for me as I speak! But that was fun, and the guys who stayed here picked up a lot. Plus I bought Monopoly and Jenga because they are both team favourites so we can play them together in the coming months.
So yeh that’s my birthday. Last night after cell social everyone sang me happy birthday and I got free ice cream (add that to today’s and the coke float I had before the free ice cream and you see why I’m feeling ill!). Plus various people from church had bought me little cards and gifts or text me today. In actual fact it meant more that they ‘d done that than my friends texting me because the people here don’t know me really so had made a special effort (not that I’m not grateful for my friends’messages!). Kat won the sweepstake on how many texts I got on my English sim. It’s amazing how many people text me ‘I don’t think you’ll get this but…’!
So other highlights include:
- Drew blood for the 8th time in 8 days. I’m quite impressed. I cut my hand open last week when a glass shattered on me while washing it up. I cut myself a lot doing team building, as well as my shoulder and thigh – was a quality day thought! And the other day I went down to hang with the school kids because from 2-4pm they just play on the field. Me and Kat invented this game where they have to crawl through each other's legs (because stuck in the mud is REALLY tiring when you have 20 kids running around and it's 25degrees heat), but me and Kat had to demonstrate. Trust me, crawling through the legs of 3-7 year olds whilst maintaining any concept of child protection is taxing, and indeed blood inducing, as I ripped up the skin on my elbow. Top stuff.
- We sat in some meetings about the finance and strategy aspects of the 9 projects run here and i managed to make a lot of doodles in that time AND expand a algebraic expression ((x + 3) to the power of 4) for the first time in 5 years with my equally geeky maths friend Abby. We're so cool we're basically frozen.
- OOOh, my address. Lots of people are asking for this so here it is. Post would be much appreciated! English chocolate is the best, it's got that non-melting stuff in it here so it doesn't taste so good.
Phil Sital-Singh
Oasis Team
Project Gateway
PO Box 101-071
Scottsville 3209
Pietermaritzburg
South Africa
Right well it's Lasagna time soon and I've been banned from the whole dining room so I'm expecting something suprising. When you ask 'where has my opened birthday card from you guys gone? It was here on the table' and they reply 'None of your business, don't ask those questions', you know something is amiss. I think it's someone else's birthday too and they're recylcing the card. Definitely the likely option.
Today is indeed my 23rd Birthday and coincidentally I am 23 today. Today has been a mixed bag really but an awesome day. We got up at 5am and spent the next 4 hours helping out at a feeding scheme in a local hospital where we bring soup (from the US Government) and bread (from the local commercial bakery) and go down to give it out to the locals who are queuing for medical care. It was the first time here where we’ve seen a relatively high level of poverty, but even that wasn’t what we’ll see when we head out to what are called ‘townships’ which are basically shanty towns that surround the big cities and towns. But anyways, it was really enjoyable. Amusingly Jenny my team mate asked me if I’d ever been up this early on my birthday before and I remembered that I year ago at that point I was on the top of Beacon hill will just my PJs and dressing gown on (thanks again to everyone who did that!), so although I was up early again, this one was a lot more meaningful.
So we finished there about 9am or so and I will confess to feeling somewhat blue at this point. I didn’t think I’d be sad being away from my parents (as opposed to my home, because I wouldn’t say I really have a home at the moment, but that helps because I’m not homesick, Africa is just my latest home) but I really was. My mum text me about 8am (8.11am to be precise) and I had to wait a while to read it because I thought it might not help the situation! But it was fine and it felt good inside to be doing something I love on my birthday. I said to our co-ordinator Becky that if I could pick my birthday activities I would be doing that I did today, so that’s awesome really.
So after the feeding scheme we headed to Esther House which is the project looking after abused women. We were quite nervous about this simply (well me and Jonno were) because it was full of older women who had been abused my mostly men and so we weren’t sure how we’d fit in at all. When we got there there was actually already another team hanging out there too. There is an American team working here at Gateway too and they were saying their final goodbyes to the women. So we hung out with all them for a while, and they helped us get to know the women a bit and the kids running around. We played some quality games and then did some Zulu dancing. It was amazing! I’ll tell you one thing, you know when you’ve found a major life calling when you enjoy doing things you’d NEVER do elsewhere. Anyone who knows me in England would say I would be one of the last to go join a group of American and African people, who all know each other, and get involved and dance around with them! But I did, and I loved it! Amusingly one of the American girls went up to my teammate Hannah and ‘come look, your boys are making fools of themselves’. We were and the Lord said it was good, amen!
So that picked me right up and then some kids warmed to me and we built a leaf pile together. Then when the leaves ran out it turned to sticks, then from sticks to general dirt. THEN they threw it all at me. They loved it. And it was also cool to chat to the Americans and learn from them about what good things to do and what they’d learnt in their time here.
However joy turned to sorrow soon after just because some of our team are feeling very homesick. It’s someone I’ve gotten to know the best and aside from Jonno, get on the best with, and me being me took it very hard. But I’d been trying to look out for her a lot over the last few days knowing she was feeling bad, partly due to my leader role and mostly due to the fact that I don’t think I could not look after someone in trouble if I tried!, and when she went off on her own without telling anyone, I shared a bit of my thoughts and understandings of her with the others in the group. It was really good to be able to share a bit of my heart for people and them all with them directly. We dispatched Jenny to go find her (she had just gone round the corner of the building to sit in the sun) and then we had a bit of a group hug and pray. But it was quite challenging as it was clear more than one of us were finding things hard but it was a special time to come together as one team in that time of pain. We had talked a lot and hard times and so it was important to put into practice what we’d talked about when those times came along. I’d had guessed a while before I came out that given that my birthday was 8 days in it would probably be tainted with home sickness so that foreknowledge helped me really.
In the end a few of us stayed home while me and three others headed out with Becky to a little waterfalls nearby to chill out and get away from the prison grounds. Unfortunately Becky’s car began to breakdown to we did a quick turn around and went to the Mall instead lol. Top stuff. So we had ice cream. I had too much ice cream. That is bad. I still feel ill and I’ve got half the team cooking Lasagna for me as I speak! But that was fun, and the guys who stayed here picked up a lot. Plus I bought Monopoly and Jenga because they are both team favourites so we can play them together in the coming months.
So yeh that’s my birthday. Last night after cell social everyone sang me happy birthday and I got free ice cream (add that to today’s and the coke float I had before the free ice cream and you see why I’m feeling ill!). Plus various people from church had bought me little cards and gifts or text me today. In actual fact it meant more that they ‘d done that than my friends texting me because the people here don’t know me really so had made a special effort (not that I’m not grateful for my friends’messages!). Kat won the sweepstake on how many texts I got on my English sim. It’s amazing how many people text me ‘I don’t think you’ll get this but…’!
So other highlights include:
- Drew blood for the 8th time in 8 days. I’m quite impressed. I cut my hand open last week when a glass shattered on me while washing it up. I cut myself a lot doing team building, as well as my shoulder and thigh – was a quality day thought! And the other day I went down to hang with the school kids because from 2-4pm they just play on the field. Me and Kat invented this game where they have to crawl through each other's legs (because stuck in the mud is REALLY tiring when you have 20 kids running around and it's 25degrees heat), but me and Kat had to demonstrate. Trust me, crawling through the legs of 3-7 year olds whilst maintaining any concept of child protection is taxing, and indeed blood inducing, as I ripped up the skin on my elbow. Top stuff.
- We sat in some meetings about the finance and strategy aspects of the 9 projects run here and i managed to make a lot of doodles in that time AND expand a algebraic expression ((x + 3) to the power of 4) for the first time in 5 years with my equally geeky maths friend Abby. We're so cool we're basically frozen.
- OOOh, my address. Lots of people are asking for this so here it is. Post would be much appreciated! English chocolate is the best, it's got that non-melting stuff in it here so it doesn't taste so good.
Phil Sital-Singh
Oasis Team
Project Gateway
PO Box 101-071
Scottsville 3209
Pietermaritzburg
South Africa
Right well it's Lasagna time soon and I've been banned from the whole dining room so I'm expecting something suprising. When you ask 'where has my opened birthday card from you guys gone? It was here on the table' and they reply 'None of your business, don't ask those questions', you know something is amiss. I think it's someone else's birthday too and they're recylcing the card. Definitely the likely option.
Thursday, 17 April 2008
From darkness into light
Good afternoon all ye in England,
I have escaped the heat of the afternoon (it's 26 degrees here) and into the office for a while. I have 25mins before we have a meeting about the history of South Africa. Whilst I would normally be excited about that, we had a 5 hours meeting this morning and most of us are mentally decapitated and another few hours of listening might see my body follow. By choice if needs be! But for some respite I shall tell you a bit about the place we're in the philosophy and ethos of it.
Project Gateway, where I am, was opening in 1992 by a local church who bought what was a diralect political jail. Some 16 years on it is now an amazing place of community action and social care. Local legend says that Ghandi was once imprisoned here, although due to the hangings and apartheid nature of the prison, there are no records of anything so it is very hard to know for sure. Either way, the prison has a lot of history. One of the project leaders here was imprisoned here himself for 26 years. He managed to escape by climbing a 20 ft pipe, jumping about 10ft and falling another 10ft. They did however catch him 6 months later and put him back but in high security. A lot of this is very real to me because before I left I read 'a long walk to freedom'and Nelson Mandela talks a lot about his prison experience and so I can put the two bits of information together and see, a bit anyway, how it must've been like.
Where we eat as a team used to be a gallows, and where we cook used to be the postmortem room. That's information we didn't need!
I tell you this simply by way of contrast to the amazing stuff that happens here now. Due to the historial significance, the project is going to launch itself as a tourist attraction next year. It's slogon will be 'from darkness to light'. Obviously as a Christian centre it has more than one meaning, but on a local level it intends to envelope the amazing contrast of what has happened here.
I can't say I've had much time to reflect on things and I'm already way behind with trying to write this stuff down in my own journal, but when we do get time to sit and think a lot comes to the surface.
Before I close I'll just mention a few other things that have happened recently:
The meal with our future cell leader was a very mixed bag! On the one hand we got on very well because they are white South African so have a bit more in common with us in terms of culture. So I had a great chat about the Rugby World Cup and the Premiership season and champions league with Dean! They also understand sarcasm which was great for me. Cultural confusion lends itself to great comic material I tell you!
Unfortunately the meal itself wasn't so good! We tried to play it safe with Tuna Pasta Bake, however because we were cooking for 10 people, we got pretty much all the aspects wrong and what came out of the oven would be generously described as food. I amusingly noticed one of the guys doing husband duty with his wife as she was struggling desperately to eat some of it and not leave all of it! Thankfully as we all got on well it was not too big a problem!
Anyways, best be off.
If you do have questions, then leave them as comments and I'll try to answer those that I can!
I have escaped the heat of the afternoon (it's 26 degrees here) and into the office for a while. I have 25mins before we have a meeting about the history of South Africa. Whilst I would normally be excited about that, we had a 5 hours meeting this morning and most of us are mentally decapitated and another few hours of listening might see my body follow. By choice if needs be! But for some respite I shall tell you a bit about the place we're in the philosophy and ethos of it.
Project Gateway, where I am, was opening in 1992 by a local church who bought what was a diralect political jail. Some 16 years on it is now an amazing place of community action and social care. Local legend says that Ghandi was once imprisoned here, although due to the hangings and apartheid nature of the prison, there are no records of anything so it is very hard to know for sure. Either way, the prison has a lot of history. One of the project leaders here was imprisoned here himself for 26 years. He managed to escape by climbing a 20 ft pipe, jumping about 10ft and falling another 10ft. They did however catch him 6 months later and put him back but in high security. A lot of this is very real to me because before I left I read 'a long walk to freedom'and Nelson Mandela talks a lot about his prison experience and so I can put the two bits of information together and see, a bit anyway, how it must've been like.
Where we eat as a team used to be a gallows, and where we cook used to be the postmortem room. That's information we didn't need!
I tell you this simply by way of contrast to the amazing stuff that happens here now. Due to the historial significance, the project is going to launch itself as a tourist attraction next year. It's slogon will be 'from darkness to light'. Obviously as a Christian centre it has more than one meaning, but on a local level it intends to envelope the amazing contrast of what has happened here.
I can't say I've had much time to reflect on things and I'm already way behind with trying to write this stuff down in my own journal, but when we do get time to sit and think a lot comes to the surface.
Before I close I'll just mention a few other things that have happened recently:
The meal with our future cell leader was a very mixed bag! On the one hand we got on very well because they are white South African so have a bit more in common with us in terms of culture. So I had a great chat about the Rugby World Cup and the Premiership season and champions league with Dean! They also understand sarcasm which was great for me. Cultural confusion lends itself to great comic material I tell you!
Unfortunately the meal itself wasn't so good! We tried to play it safe with Tuna Pasta Bake, however because we were cooking for 10 people, we got pretty much all the aspects wrong and what came out of the oven would be generously described as food. I amusingly noticed one of the guys doing husband duty with his wife as she was struggling desperately to eat some of it and not leave all of it! Thankfully as we all got on well it was not too big a problem!
Anyways, best be off.
If you do have questions, then leave them as comments and I'll try to answer those that I can!
Wednesday, 16 April 2008
Arrival
Hello fair sirs and maidens,
I am happy to report that I have arrived safe in South Africa am sitting in our little office writing to you later. Unfortunately I have a number of obstacles to overcome, namely this stupid keyboard which puts a \ in the place where to backspace is and a writer's vanity when it comes to words. These two are combining to make typing very slow and unproductive. Oh and this is the fact that most of my team and in the kitcen making dinner for 10 as we are cooking for our new cell leader, Dean (very South African I know) and two of this friends. Apparently he wanted to bring ten people but Becky, our co ordinator here, thankfully spared us of that load on our first full day.
So yes, I am here. I am safe. And I feel like a Mr.Kipling cake. If you think about that for a moment you will get it. It's very funny.
For those of you that don't know, we are a team of seven and we're staying and working on a project called Gateway. We had the full tour today and it is very very big. There's all sorts of projects such as a sewing project, metalwork project, kid's school, fashion design project, abused women project, feeding project and quite a few more that I can't recall. We've not yet been assigned things to do, we have a week or so of orientation and then we decide with ourselves, the co ordinator, the project managers and hopefully God which we will be best suited to. Luckily for me, the three major areas I feel more excited by are those in most need. So we'll see what happens there.
We are staying in a cell block which to be fair is better than a lot of student accomodation I've been in so it's actually fine. Me and my sole male team member, Jonno, have our own cell. It''s very exciting. Last night we slept very well but that was mostly due to not sleeping on the plane. The whole site feels very uni like to me! There's a lot of popping back to rooms to get things, and a lot of meetings at the moment and meeting new people. And it's all on one site. Very compact. Largely due to the fact that it used to be a political jail. Makes sense.
There is a lot more I could say and a lot more reflective things I am keen to talk about, but I do need to get back soon so help the cooks and such like. So I shall quickly finish with what we've done today:
7am - Up
7.30am - Team breakfast, meeting and prayer
8.30am - Meeting with Becky about our timetable
9am - Meeting with Pastor Sinatra, head of children's school
11am - Tour of Gateway site
1pm - Food shopping
3pm - Meeting with Pastor Jabu, CEO of Gateway
6pm - Dinner with Dean and friends from the church who will be looking after us
(Likely) 9pm - Another horrendously slow but amusing game of Uno with team
10pm - Random chat with Jonno before bed.
I will endeavour to get on here again, maybe even tonight, probably not, to talk in more detail. But you can rest assured that I am safe, happy, and for those you who have seen me in my element, well I'm in it.
I am happy to report that I have arrived safe in South Africa am sitting in our little office writing to you later. Unfortunately I have a number of obstacles to overcome, namely this stupid keyboard which puts a \ in the place where to backspace is and a writer's vanity when it comes to words. These two are combining to make typing very slow and unproductive. Oh and this is the fact that most of my team and in the kitcen making dinner for 10 as we are cooking for our new cell leader, Dean (very South African I know) and two of this friends. Apparently he wanted to bring ten people but Becky, our co ordinator here, thankfully spared us of that load on our first full day.
So yes, I am here. I am safe. And I feel like a Mr.Kipling cake. If you think about that for a moment you will get it. It's very funny.
For those of you that don't know, we are a team of seven and we're staying and working on a project called Gateway. We had the full tour today and it is very very big. There's all sorts of projects such as a sewing project, metalwork project, kid's school, fashion design project, abused women project, feeding project and quite a few more that I can't recall. We've not yet been assigned things to do, we have a week or so of orientation and then we decide with ourselves, the co ordinator, the project managers and hopefully God which we will be best suited to. Luckily for me, the three major areas I feel more excited by are those in most need. So we'll see what happens there.
We are staying in a cell block which to be fair is better than a lot of student accomodation I've been in so it's actually fine. Me and my sole male team member, Jonno, have our own cell. It''s very exciting. Last night we slept very well but that was mostly due to not sleeping on the plane. The whole site feels very uni like to me! There's a lot of popping back to rooms to get things, and a lot of meetings at the moment and meeting new people. And it's all on one site. Very compact. Largely due to the fact that it used to be a political jail. Makes sense.
There is a lot more I could say and a lot more reflective things I am keen to talk about, but I do need to get back soon so help the cooks and such like. So I shall quickly finish with what we've done today:
7am - Up
7.30am - Team breakfast, meeting and prayer
8.30am - Meeting with Becky about our timetable
9am - Meeting with Pastor Sinatra, head of children's school
11am - Tour of Gateway site
1pm - Food shopping
3pm - Meeting with Pastor Jabu, CEO of Gateway
6pm - Dinner with Dean and friends from the church who will be looking after us
(Likely) 9pm - Another horrendously slow but amusing game of Uno with team
10pm - Random chat with Jonno before bed.
I will endeavour to get on here again, maybe even tonight, probably not, to talk in more detail. But you can rest assured that I am safe, happy, and for those you who have seen me in my element, well I'm in it.
Sunday, 13 April 2008
Welcome!
Welcome everyone to my South African journey. I shall be using this electronic open space to keep you all updated on my to-ing and fro-ing in the next four and a half months or so in Africa. I am told I will have good access to the information superhighway so I shall endeavour to post each week. My plan is to pick an 'internet day' in the week where each week I will sit down and write up this intangible journal (the clue was in the name).
I am some 31 hours from departure and still retain a short but critical to do list so I shall depart now.
I hope over my time away this space will inform, amuse and inspire as I wander through African culture. Comments will be welcomed however whether I am able to reply to you all remains to be seen.
This is your captain signing off...
I am some 31 hours from departure and still retain a short but critical to do list so I shall depart now.
I hope over my time away this space will inform, amuse and inspire as I wander through African culture. Comments will be welcomed however whether I am able to reply to you all remains to be seen.
This is your captain signing off...
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