Volunteering - the final verdict

Alas folks, my volunteering experience is over. I still remember the moment I decided I come volunteering in Africa. I’d gone through several miserable months [in fact years] of working and knew I wanted a break to go traveling, a desire my parents vetoed, completely in awe of this unfounded wanderlust and genuinely concerned that it would be unsafe for me to do it alone. Ever the respectful daughter, I went away and tried to think of a “safer” option that would allay their fears. In said moment, I recalled a conversation I’d had with one of my favourite people one summer’s day in a friendly Nando’s restaurant in London many moons before, where we’d had a detailed, thought-provoking chat about our longer-term life goals. It was truly one of those light-bulb-lighting-in-my-head decisions - automatic, firm, pleasing to my mind and heart AND incidentally to the family. Deciding where to go and who to volunteer with took some research but were fairly straightforward decisions. The enormity and finality of it all didn’t hit me till the day I handed in my notice at work, when my boss expressed dismay and surprise at my decision. But it was short-lived. Doubt and insecurity didn’t rear their ugly heads till about the week prior to my departure, when all of a sudden, I could think of a basketful of reasons why this was an absurd, impulsive, childish pursuit of God-knows-what. I was assured that it was just last moment jitters…it didn’t feel that way, especially not when I had to say my goodbyes or when I was all checked in and watched tears gather in my mother’s eyes…all that feels like such a long time ago…

Nearly 7 months later, I can say, in a rather clichéd way, that this is one of the best things I’ve done with my life. The memories I’ve gathered and documented here will be with me forever and for my friends, brace yourselves, my stories are bound to bore you in years to come :D. Some said it would be great, I underestimated how great; some said they knew people who didn’t like their experiences, how could they not?

I’ve received several emails, comments on facebook and on some of my posts here, applauding my efforts. I’m grateful for all these and if there was ever a time I doubted myself, those encouragements obliterated that feeling. I’ve met so many wonderful people in all the countries I’ve visited who were supportive and encouraged what I was doing, which more than compensated for the few who viewed what I was doing with some scorn, prejudice or somehow thought me unqualified for the role

I’m especially grateful to my best friends and family without whose support, I probably would have buckled somewhere along the way. From the thought-provoking interactions that led to the decision to embark on this journey, to the encouragement that it was the right thing to do and the right time to do it, to the suggestions of what to name the blog, what to take on the journey, travel tid-bits, kind words, those who offered me a place to sleep, those who faithfully read and commented on the blog; words really cannot express my gratitude. I’m also thankful for my faithful battalion of blog followers; hope you’ve enjoyed reading my stories and managed to live vicariously through me! :D

Midway through my journey, I started receiving emails asking questions regarding what I’d enjoyed so far, what hadn’t worked so well, the best country I’d visited, best volunteer experience, etc. Thought I’d wait till the end of the volunteer experience to express a fair opinion on these questions. Would start with this caveat though: each experience was unique and rewarding in its own way and if I had to do the trip all over again, would definitely not exclude any of them. So, on that note here goes

Zanzibar
You’ve seen the pictures and I’m sure cannot deny that Zanzibar is beautiful by any measure! The white sandy beaches, perfect sunrises and sunsets, [usually] friendly dolphins, great snorkeling and scuba diving opportunities, just to name a few. It has to get 5 stars for aesthetics…note that this vote in my mind is marginal to Mozambique and Cape Town. The volunteering experience, while not the most challenging, was perfect for the start of the trip. It had the right level of intensity and challenge and taught me a few valuable lessons that perhaps helped enrich my other experiences

Kenya
Hands down, should receive 5 stars for the most challenging volunteer experience. I was forced to step out of my comfort zone, focus on the job at hand and more importantly, think about the best way to apply myself. Also have to say that I admire the fact that Kenyans are reaching out to their own and it was great to note that Kenyans run all the NGOs that Fadhili works with. Kenya, like many an African country, is plagued with many problems and it’s refreshing to see that some can rise above the mayhem and show love and care for others. These NGOs may not be perfectly run but their efforts are definitely a step in the right direction

Mozambique
Receives 5 stars as a holiday destination. I’m talking about the total package here: beautiful scenery, a host of activities to indulge in: horseback riding, snorkeling, scuba diving, surfing, island hopping, etc; delightful cuisine and prices that offer good value for money. Getting there by plane is expensive but for me, it was worth every penny. If you ever had to travel there, would highly recommend flying to Jo’burg and driving or busing it to Moz. I admit that my volunteer experience there was ever so slightly soured by some of my sentiment toward the management style but it was still a good experience. I think the project has a potential for expansion and could definitely be improved on a few grounds – reaching out to the medical community, more widespread HIV education, liaising with the schools for reading and art clubs, etc

Zambia
I really enjoyed my Zambia experience because it exposed me to a very wide range of things and showed me what a well-run project can achieve. I’ll give it 5 stars for breadth and impact on the community. I was always on my toes in my time there: be it teaching, building, working with the old folk, farming, etc. While I didn’t get involved in all aspects of the project, I know that the other volunteers who did get to work on the parts that I missed, had a lot of positive things to say about their experiences

St Lucia, South Africa
I shall give a 5 star rating for its HIV education efforts. It had the most structured effort and the impact of AI’s efforts here were the most far-reaching. Overall, the project was also well run and offered an abundance of good experience to all the volunteers. It was also the first project that exposed me to working with very young children, an experience I didn’t expect to find quite as enjoyable as I did

Cape Town, South Africa
I considered CT my best city experience in the whole trip. It had the amazing combination of perfect scenery and modern convenience. I’d recommend it as a stop for all you city lovers out there. While I didn’t experience any of the more negative aspects of what city life tends to offer, I’ve been told that CT can be unfriendly. Though for the more savvy amongst you, this should almost not be a problem for you. If I managed to survive unscathed, I’m sure many others can. The volunteer experience on the other hand was not as challenging though I have to give a 5 star rating to the young ones I worked with here. They were the most fun and interactive: from their fervent hugs and kisses each morning when I walked through the school gates, to their inquisitive and intelligent questions and their love for all things fun! I even learnt a thing or two from them

For the other countries I visited: Uganda gave me the opportunity to do something daring and adventurous; if anyone had told me 8 months ago that I’d try bungee jumping at any stage in my life, I would’ve laughed them in the face. Though I will not be paying anyone money to terrify myself that much again, I’m glad I tried it. Swaziland was very picturesque and exposed me to some beautiful aspects of African culture. If anyone finds themselves in SA, would definitely recommend making a stop there, if even for a couple of days, just to check it out

The trip has no doubt taught me a lot of things and to list them all here would be near impossible. But I just want to shed some light on a few of the personal and other “revelations”
o I love children and being around them. I think they represent everything that is real and beautiful in this life: innocence, the ability to give unrequited, unconditional love, unbridled trust, fearlessness [admittedly, likely backed by naiveté], being non-judgmental, the ability to forgive AND forget, youthful exuberance, the ability to experience joy in its purest form, the ability to dream and remain undeterred in the belief that they can come true, etc. In them I’ve seen ghosts of myself; shadows and memories of who I once was, now dimmed by the lull of adulthood. I’ve relished my time with them and while I have no teaching ambitions, have thoroughly enjoyed the teaching experience
o My experiences exposed me to so many issues on our dear continent that I was hitherto ignorant about. I have managed to garner a full appreciation of some of these issues and ways in which we can help. While I’ve worked hard in the last few months, there is still so much more to be done. I will certainly be attempting to brainwash my African friends [at least] to chip in their two cents of help. More than ever, my belief that the solutions to some of the problems in Africa will only emerge if we start to effect changes at a micro level, has been confirmed!
o Wanderlust is a great thing; how dull, ignorant and unimaginative life is if we don’t travel and see; experience the way of life of other people; get to appreciate what a beautiful world we live in. I have become its humble servant and will definitely be doing more traveling in the years to come, contingent on good finances and a healthy, long life of course

I’m off to Namibia and Botswana now, so you haven’t heard the last from me. I will be in touch as soon as I can with news of my experiences traveling around these countries. Can’t believe that in approximately two weeks, I will be back in England again!

St Lucia - gone too soon

I honestly cannot comprehend how fast the last month has gone. All too soon, my time in St Lucia has come to an end and in line with my reflective mood I wanted to share my main highlights during my time here

I had a substantial amount of my time apportioned to working in the local crèches and inevitably I had favourites amongst the kids. That said I found each of the hundred odd kids that I interacted with to be an absolute delight and I will always cherish the memories of my time spent with them. For now, just a few words on each of my special ones:

Smangah aka Bubbles: he’s 11months old and is built like a 3 year old. He has a big afro and every time I pick him up, I have to resist the urge to bury my face in his big, soft curls. He is just adorable. He always wants to play with the older kids though he is not even walking yet and I think some of them are actually scared of him. He means no harm and is a very sociable chap. He loves his food (which may account for his size, though he’s not fat, just big) and will smack his lips in delight as each morsel touches his tongue. Just has to put a smile on your face

Pilo: she’s barely 2 and in absolute denial of this fact. She wants to hang out with all the older kids and do things that she lacks the mental and/or motor skills to execute. Just have to love her; she has a beautiful smile and I find her assertiveness very endearing. She insists on feeding herself though she ends up using half the food to draw a circle around herself, with half of the other half smeared around her face; hysterical! She took an instant liking to me and the feeling was reciprocated

Lily: 9 months old, absolutely gorgeous and you can already tell she’s a lady. She has a soft voice and you can barely hear her even when she’s crying her heart out. She has a lovely smile and was a favourite amongst most of the volunteers

Princess: about 2 years old. I call her the scowling diva. I don’t think I ever saw her smile, not even once. She would usually be found sitting alone, wearing a scowl and totally disinterested in the world around her. On occasion, she’d go out and play with the other kids but she was mostly happy [as happy as a scowling diva can be] to be alone. I’d try playing with her and she took to lego and playing with dolls or sitting on the seesaw. She used to hate being touched (especially by me) but after a while, I think she just got used to me and the other day I carried her round the school for a walk and she feel asleep in my arms, her head comfortably nested in my bosom. I love her and hope she learns to smile soon

Pumelela: about 5 months old and his name translates to “Success” in English. He is a doll! He is so pretty most people think he’s a girl when they first see him. Light skinned, little afro, beautiful eyes and smile and a very friendly personality. He hardly cries; I believe the only times he does is if he’s hungry or sleepy. He loves his food and aims to finish whatever serving he’s given. Eat-belch-fart-play-sleep is his routine at school pretty much. I took a strong liking to him and it was hard to say bye to him

Senzo: about 2 and a half and is the cutest little boy. He just loves to cuddle and is quite the smiler. Can be very naughty and is usually up to some trick or the other. Loves his food and will usually go through his portion plus the leftovers of his friends! He has a happy-go-lucky personality that I love

Natti: he’s 11 but has development problems that haven’t yet been diagnosed. Until about a month ago, he was crawling around like a baby and only recently started walking though not independently. He drools and makes sounds like an 8 – 10 month old but can feed himself and is fully potty trained. Apparently there is nothing that the education system can offer him by way of special attention and I guess his folks have given up on getting medical help. He is such a lovely boy; will usually greet everyone with a smile and likes to play with his toys or just be. I’m sure with some help he can do so much more but for now he’s just another baby

Zola: 9 months old, could be older but also seems to have some development problems. He can’t sit up straight and is usually always lying down or cuddling close to someone. He doesn’t eat very much and is a very quiet baby. He is beautiful, with the saddest eyes ever and a look that just melts your heart

My next highlight has to be the work I did on HIV Education. As I’ve alluded to in previous posts, the HIV situation in SA (specifically in the Kwa-Zulu Natal Province) is a dire one and the efforts of AI to turn things around is important and must be commended. It was good to see the seriousness with which most of the locals attended the sessions. They all asked intelligent questions on the subject and generally had a positive attitude towards the education initiative. Sadly, most of our organized sessions have a disproportionate female to male ratio. We tried to deal with that by organizing a football tournament to draw in the male crowd, with the caveat that they spend a few hours getting some HIV education. It was a great success; the guys from the village turned up in their numbers, paid attention during the HIV session and asked, again intelligent and insightful questions about the subject. I was pleased to a part of the whole thing and I hope in time to come the myths and negative social behaviour attached to the disease will be eradicated in its entirety

I got involved in home-based care during my time here and found it to be a great experience. As a reminder, what this essentially entails is going into the villages and offering a door-to-door service to patients at home, offering medical care and advice where we can do so. Note that the law in South Africa prohibits foreigners, even if qualified, from giving out full medical care unless with a valid license, which I’m told is near impossible to get one’s hands on. So a lot of the work is limited to just providing human contact i.e. show these people that someone cares about them, provide food supplies and nutritional supplements and if possible dress wounds and take care of other first aid needs. Most of the patients we see are HIV positive so are usually on a lot of medication, experience complications and other ailments that come with the disease. I am usually in awe of how positive they all are about their circumstances and they are all so appreciative of the work we do. The most heart-wrenching case I saw was a 2-year old boy who is HIV positive (contracted from his mom through the birthing process) and has his ears, hands, feet and genitals are covered in sores – a symptom of the disease. He sat quietly, sucking on his feeding bottle as we dressed his wounds. In addition to all this, sand fleas had raided his feet, so we had to take them out, always a painful experience but he displayed such equanimity and strength, barely crying; I was in complete awe of him. Not long after we were done, he was sucking on a lollipop and playing in the yard with his sister, happy as a bunny. Made me think what a great thing childhood is; it makes one see the world in such simple terms…
I also got infuriated by some of the inefficiencies in the SA medical system that were highlighted by some of the cases; people not getting the right medication for their ailments because medical staff couldn’t be bothered to properly assess the patient’s needs and deal with them accordingly. As if the AIDS epidemic in itself isn’t something of a wake-up call…

My experiences in St Lucia, as in all the other places I’ve been, have been inspiring, rewarding and given me much food for thought. Tomorrow I head out to my sixth and final volunteer project based in a town near Cape Town, in the southern most part of South Africa

Swaziland!

I hadn’t planned to dedicate a separate post to describing my weekend in Swaziland but as it turns out, I’ve spent most of my other weekends in St Lucia bumming around and not doing anything particularly exciting or new so the Swazi weekend was as much adventure as I’ve afforded myself in the last month (excluding the run-in with the wave that claimed my camera’s life, of course). Hope you find it at least somewhat entertaining. Apologies in advance for not being able to provide photos from the trip; it was the week after the demise of my camera, when I still harboured a delusional version of hope that it could be fixed

First, the geography lesson: Swaziland is one of 2 countries located within South Africa [the other being Lesotho, located farther south]. It also borders Mozambique to the North East. Swaziland is actually a kingdom and [I cringe a little as I say this but still think it a fair comparison] bears a lot of similarity to the kingdom depicted in the movie: “Coming to America”. The trip was Miss M’s idea and since she lives in Jo’burg, a good 5 -6 hours drive away from me, arranging the logistics of getting there worked out to be a tad tricky. After juggling a few options, it was decided the best solution was for me to rent a car from St Lucia and drive to a town midway to Swazi for both of us (she and her boyfriend (BF henceforth) would be driving down from Jo’burg) and we’d journey on to Swazi from there. Now, for those of you that don’t know me well, I’m hardly the most experienced driver out there. In fact I only passed my UK driving test in April this year so agreeing to this was a rather bold [read: risqué] move on my part. I was fairly confident that I could pull it off though, so that Friday afternoon, I got into my rented car, tuned in to a radio station with decent music, laid out my map on the passenger seat next to me, and with my heart thumping at full speed, I embarked on my journey. I drove for 5 hours to get to Piet Retief, the town I referenced earlier and for the most part it was long stretches of clear road. I built up my confidence and even overtook a few cars along the way. The trickiest part was when I came to a rather long stretch of road where there were some road works going on and it seemed like all of a sudden, 6- 8 foot long commercial trucks surfaced out of no where. Driving around them was pretty damn scary, to put it mildly. I ordered myself a large burger to congratulate myself on my achievement of getting [myself and the car] there unscathed and to kill time while waiting for Miss M and BF to arrive. By the time they did arrive, we were running seriously late for making it to the border before it was closed for the night. Miss M, a far more experienced driver than me, took over the wheels and drove like a deranged lunatic to get us there… BF in tow. We made it just in time, quite literally having to run through immigration, road tax, etc. We drove for another hour or so to get to the Ezulweni Valley in Swazi where our hotel was located. It was late at this stage, pitch black outside and hours of driving and chatting had left us all spent and ready for bed!

We were up bright and early the next morning as we’d booked ourselves in for half a day of white water rafting on the Usutu river. Breakfast was a hurried affair and we soon made our way to the office of the rafting company, which was located nearby from the hotel, thankfully. We had to then get driven from the office for an hour or so to somewhere near Mbabane (Swazi’s capital) where we’d then hop onto the river. Our fellow rafting chums were on the bus with us. It was a morning of fun! Though it has to be said that nothing beats white water rafting on the Nile. The rapids were on Usutu a lot tamer in comparison. The banks of the river were, in some parts, lined with the most extraordinary looking rocks I’ve ever seen. They looked like they’d be sculpted but there were actually natural and came in all colours and shapes. The scariest part of the rafting session was when we came to a damn and had to go down a steep slope about 4 metres deep. We felt that in the pit of our bellies! Miss M and BF shared a raft while I shared one with one of the guides. My raft never tipped over whilst theirs tipped over quite a few times! Fun! The morning zapped by quickly and we soon had to make our way back to our hotel to relax and organize ourselves for the rest of the day

We had a gander through a Swazi newspaper [well it was more like a brochure] to glean ideas of things to do. We found an interesting-looking restaurant and thought we’d check it out. It turned out to be way more than we expected. The restaurant was in a resort – the Hawane (pronounced: Hawanee) Resort, it was called. And the chef there had an array of African dishes on menu; boy did we eat our hearts out! And every single morsel of food was divine. Put 3 food lovers in front of food that good and expect them to have a field day! Nothing went to waste! The view from the resort was a stunning one: it was on a hill so we could see rows of mountains and valleys ahead, all covered in green. It was breathtaking and we were so sad we hadn’t booked ourselves into that resort, as the price was similar to what we were paying at our hotel, but with all this on offer! After dinner, we chilled with glasses of wine in the lounge area and had a rather intense conversation that took us into the wee hours of the morning; religion, marriage, African cultures, family, banking (an odd one to add to the mix but being an ex banker and with Miss M and BF still in the banking world, we were bound to touch on the subject at some point), just to name a few. It was a great conversation; one I’m bound to remember for a while to come. We almost got kicked out of Hawane, so we took our fun to another hotel, where we ordered cups of tea and tried to wind down. We finally made it home, very sad that it was our final night in Swazi

We woke up reasonably early the next morning as we wanted to do some more sightseeing and were keen to avoid leaving too late as we all had work early the next day. We went to see the Phophoyane (pronounced: poponyanee) water falls, which wasn’t much it turned out, but was recommended as a must-see by a friend of Miss M. On the way out to the border, we passed by a dam (can’t recall the name now) but boy was it beautiful. We drove to the top of the dam and marveled at the beauty of the river down below. Its banks were covered with a mixture of lush green vegetation and rocks, similar to the ones we saw on the Usutu river. Overall, driving through Swazi showed that its landscape was stunning: mountains, valleys, rivers, all surrounded by lush, lush green. There were lots of gum trees as well, which were pretty but BF gave me a little history lesson which revealed that these trees are grown to feed the paper production efforts of one of the largest paper producers in the world. These trees are not indigenous to the habitat but were there solely for commercial purposes. They are cut down and new ones planted every 30 years or so. The effects of these efforts have been far reaching; its affected rainfall patterns, wild life movement and habitation, amongst other things. Parts of South Africa have also been subjected to such changes and in some cases complete eco systems have been eroded or replaced as a result. I was quite sad to hear this cause I felt it sort of took away from the beauty of it all. Swazi is a very sparsely populated country and sometimes we’d drive for miles before seeing houses or signs of human life

Sad and reluctant to end our weekend of fun, Miss M, BF and I parted ways at Piet Retief, after grabbing some hot wings from the nearest Chicken Licken! It just had to be done! We were met with very heavy rain during part of our journey to Piet Retief and I hoped that I wouldn’t meet this sort of weather on my way to St Lucia. My luck was not shining that day as half way to St Lucia a massive thunderstorm began. I drove as carefully as I could and after what felt like a whole day, I finally arrived at the house safe and sound

The St Lucia stint

Life in St Lucia is moving on smoothly, for the most part, and I’ve pretty much fallen into the swing of things. The main dent in my time here is the demise of my camera during a chill-out session at the beach in my first weekend. I was actually dozing off whilst reading a book when a huge wave suddenly came and washed my stuff away, including my camera. It’s not working as I speak, though I’m working on getting it fixed and, fingers crossed, it gets resuscitated. That obviously means no pictures for most of my activities in St Lucia. Anyway, it’s now time to give you guys an update on my work out here

The St Lucia project is AI’s second biggest (Zambia was the biggest) and a lot of the projects out here bear a strong resemblance to those in Zambia. I won’t bore you by repeating what these entail but will rather focus on the more unique projects

There are 3 projects on offer to volunteers: community, medical and photography. The community project entails teaching/education as well as HIV/AIDS education and helping with various initiatives in the community. The medical project mainly involves providing home-based care in much the same format as that done in Livingstone. The medical volunteers also get involved in HIV education. The photographers typically go on game drives to take photos of animals and the landscape and also spend time editing these photos for the AI database and help with some of the nature conservation efforts in the community. St Lucia is well known for being one of the larger nature conservation sites in South Africa

I signed up for the community project and for the teaching aspect of it, we spend our mornings teaching at 2 local crèches in the Kuhla village. The children there are not necessarily disadvantaged; the crèche, like any other, simply provides a place for parents to leave their kids while they take care of their job responsibilities during the day. That said, you may have surmised from my previous post that folk in Kuhla are not exactly rolling in cash, certainly not in comparison to those in St Lucia. Life in the village can certainly be improved in many regards. The age range of the children is 4 months to 5 years. The setup at each of the crèches is very different with one having far less children who are well attended to and is very well organized. The other crèche is more chaotic in comparison with a large number of children, seemingly incompetent/laid back staff and is rather unorganized. The children are all beautiful though and while I get involved in teaching the older ones, I prefer to and have spent far more time with the younger ones. Teaching the older kids is similar to the work I did in Zanzibar, Kenya and Mozambique, so thought I’d give myself a different challenge this time round. Working with the babies involves more diaper changing, feeding, putting to sleep, wiping snot and tears, playing games and general hangout time than working with the older ones affords. I’m really enjoying it and may well be taking a couple of them home with me

My afternoons are spent working on one of several projects:
Reading club
Quite different to that in Zambia in the sense that there is less of a focus on getting the kids to read but rather a focus on getting them to pick up the skills that will enable them take an interest in reading. This approach was developed based on what the school we work with identified as a weak area for the kids [note, they are aged 12 – 14]. We teach them using a lot of word games [anagrams, word searches, forming sentences with new words, spelling games, hangman, etc] to expand their vocabulary. Some of them have quite weak grammar so some of the sessions turn into English lessons. That said, a few of them are also very bright. (During my first session I was subjected to some form of interrogation, the most poignant question being: “what are your life achievements?” I never do well in answering these sorts of questions and the look on the young lady’s face told me she wasn’t exactly impressed with my answer. I was highly amused and struggled to keep a straight face throughout the whole scenario) The sessions are usually fun and very relaxed but sometimes we make them competitive; we sit on the grass in the shade [under large trees] and catch some cool breeze while we are at it

Gardening
We have a couple of small gardens that we tend to with the aim of providing vegetables and small crops to the people we visit on our home-based care runs. We’ve recently done a revamp of the main gardens and planting season should soon commence. We are currently worried about things like keeping the soil fertile (it’s mostly sand in the area) and maintaining a functional compost heap

Orphanage work
AI is affiliated with a school in one of the nearby villages, which has a number of orphans in attendance and we go over once a week or so to play with and help feed them. There are about 40 orphans or so aged about 6 to 15. They are lovely, very energetic kids and usually good fun. Most of the orphans live with relations in the village. Currently, a set of rooms is being built for a few of the orphans on the school premises, as they have to travel quite far to get there. AI is spearheading this initiative and we work on the project several times a week. The building is now at the furnishing stage so we are spending time constructing beds and putting some finishing touches on it. The kids should be able to move in, in a month or so

HIV education
This is probably the most important aspect of the work being done out here. It is estimated that the infection rate in the region/province is about 80%; note that a sixth of the world’s HIV/AIDS patients are South African. Estimates also suggest that 1000 people die each day from AIDS in South Africa. A lot of work is being done to remove the myths and ignorance around the subject. Apparently one of Bill Gates’ charities has been heavily involved in HIV education and research in South Africa. Nelson Mandela has also been very vocal on the subject especially since his son died of the disease some years ago. Although some of these efforts are often negated by very ignorant comments made by equally prominent people like SA’s current president: Jacob Zuma. Our work in the Kuhla village is with the schools, teaching 12 – 14 year olds about the subject and concurrently with adults in the neighbourhood (the sessions with the kids are actually held in the mornings whilst those with the adults are held in the afternoons). The good news is that they all seem to take it seriously and usually ask questions and want to know more about the subject. Like Zambia, however, there are some cultural issues that may limit the extent of all this good work e.g. it is not uncommon to hear about very young girls getting raped for no apparent reason (turns out 1 in 100 children contract HIV via rape [as in penetrative sex] in South Africa) and women saying no to sex also appears to be a tricky issue while promiscuity in men is the norm rather than a taboo. We tested some of our students’ knowledge the other day and the question at hand was: “what will you do if your partner wants to have unprotected sex and you are uncomfortable doing so?” One answer we got [from a girl] said something along the lines of: “say no but if they persist and threaten to kill you, then acquiesce and get tested as soon as possible thereafter”…need I say more? It has to be said that given some of the shocking statistics around HIV/AIDS in SA (if you are keen to know more on the subject, I highly recommend reading the book titled “28 stories of AIDS in Africa”), it is equally shocking the it’s government has done relatively little to alleviate the problem given the wealth of resources available to them, certainly in comparison to other African countries. A substantial part of the HIV/AIDS work being done here is by charities and NGOs…a disgrace really…yet there seems to be enough money to improve infrastructure in the run-up to hosting the World Cup next year!

10 families
AI has put heads together with the chief in a nearby village to identify the top 10 families in need of help. This help may range from educational needs of children to helping to provide shelter, food and nourishment to these families. I’ve not personally been exposed to this side of the project but from what I’m told, the efforts being exerted are far reaching. AI has helped some of these families set up gardens to provide food; built houses where current accommodation is deemed unsuitable; volunteers go along to help children with homework and other educational needs. The aim is to basically help these families get on their feet and be able to fend for themselves. It’s proved very successful thus far and the families that have benefited from the programme in the past are currently doing well

Once again, I find the work I’m doing very rewarding and am in awe of everyone I work with. My fellow volunteers are all enthusiastic and the people we work with are usually humble, receptive and grateful for our efforts. I find myself getting attached to this way of life, yet again, and will be very sad to leave in a week or so. One month is just not enough time to spend on any one project, it turns out! Oh well, will just have to make the most of my remaining time here, I guess

Journeying on to the first world in the third world

My last day in Zambia ended on a rather sour note. One of our friendlier security guards was playing football with one of the other volunteers, stopped to take a break and started coughing uncontrollably. He soon started coughing big clots of blood; we tried to get an ambulance or other transportation to get him to the hospital but they came some 30 minutes after his coughing started. It was torturous watching him cough so much blood and being powerless to do much to help; he wasn’t in pain either. He’d already started losing consciousness by the time the vehicle arrived and he passed away en route to the hospital. Apparently, it was an AIDS related event – he suffered organ failure. We were so shocked by the whole episode; just 3 hours prior to that, I was joking around with him and he was in his usual jovial mood, perfectly normal. A matter of hours later, he was no more. The volunteer who was playing football with him and who was by his side right to the end, suffered the hardest. Know I’m saying the obvious but it really makes you think how fickle life is and how we should all appreciate the people we love [and hopefully who love us back] cause unfortunately death does not usually offer forewarnings – it’s just lazy like that! May his soul rest in peace

Sadly, life goes on so I was up bright and early the next morning [not that I slept very much that night in any case] for my 8-hour bus-ride to Lusaka. I did catch up on sleep and read for the rest of my time on the bus. I caught a cab to my Lusaka friend’s house (my Lusaka friend, for those that recall is the friend of Miss L’s with whom I crashed on my first night in Zambia), where I was to be crashing for the night. She cooked me a very nice meal, we watched some TV and I was asleep soon thereafter, a much better night’s rest than the previous

Keen to avoid all encumbrances on my journey to SA, I made my way to the airport well in advance of my due check-in time. I whiled away the time with some reading and people watching – I love people watching, it’s one of my favourite sports : ); there was the odd chuckle during that time. I made it to Jo’burg safe and sound, picked up my luggage and caught my connecting flight to Durban. It was pretty late and rainy when we arrived in Durban. Thankfully, there was someone there to meet me. We were soon seated in a warm, comfortable vehicle, making our way to St Lucia, my new home for the next four weeks. Our journey there was about 3 hours; it rained the whole time and was pitch black so there wasn’t much to see on the way, just lots of very tall trees. I do acknowledge that given my veritable height of 5’2.5”, my perspective of very tall may well be skewed, but would ask you to take my word: they were damn tall, those trees! Apparently the Kwazulu Natal province, which has amongst other towns, Durban and St Lucia is made up of many game reserve parks and other nature conservation initiatives. So I will be seeing a lot more tall trees in the coming weeks, if I get around

I know I’ve said a few words previously on how well developed the parts of SA I’ve seen are. Well St Lucia is no different. It’s a very quaint, beautifully scenic tourist town. Driving round the whole town takes no more than 20 – 30 minutes – it’s that small! Imagine well tarred roads arranged like a tic-tac-toe board. Each road is lined with perfectly manicured lawns and tall palm trees, where appropriate. Each street has a mixture of holiday homes, guesthouses, holiday flats for rent and such. Very few people actually live in St Lucia. The town centre is furnished with a good mix of restaurants, a shopping arcade, coffee shops, a fruit and curio market and a couple of banks. The Indian ocean is a walking distance from all this and even has an estuary into which Lake St Lucia flows to join it [“it” being the Indian ocean]. This part of the Indian ocean is rather rough with huge waves that slap the sand dunes on its banks. It’s just gorgeous. As you may have deduced, there are not many people in St Lucia, even during the peak tourist season of Dec – Mar, so the beaches are nice and clear usually. I know I will be taking some long walks along those shores in the coming days

The volunteer house is a complexly well-designed house made of stone. I still don’t know how many rooms there really are, but there are many of them. I share one with a Brit girl and it’s nice and comfortable, complete with air conditioning. Our living/dining area is large, decorated with wooden structures and African paraphernalia in a way that matches it’s stone exterior. There is a lovely stone-built kitchen as well and a small chill-out room with a pool table. There is a swimming pool and braai (SA lingo for barbecue) area and a scenic view of our street. It’s not a bad pad at all!

Work has already begun in earnest. Most of our work is done in a nearby village called Kuhla. It’s quite the contrast to St Lucia: untarred roads, a mixture of mud huts and brick houses, all haphazardly scattered across its uneven landscape. There are hardly any trees lining its streets, rather a mix of street vendors and tall grass and of course no street lights! Without the providence of the moon, it’s cast into pitch black dark at night. It’s just what you’d expect a third world setting to look like…and just round the way, is our beautiful St Lucia – amazing. I will be sure to relay my observations of how this dynamic affects life on either side of the divide. I am working with a lot of babies on this project, which I’m totally loving, they are just too adorable and I’m in love with a couple of them already!

The weather hasn’t been great thus far so hopefully that improves and I get to do some outdoor activities too!