Thursday 10 October 2019

Making myself at home!

Hello GAGA friends,
Safely arrived in Durban, South Africa yesterday late afternoon after the 17+ hour flight.  All went well on the first leg of the journey, being a night flight it was pretty quiet in spite of being packed to capacity.  On the second flight I was (ironically considering I am five foot two) allocated a seat reserved for extra leg room!  On the plus side this meant I had plenty of room and could get up and about easily (unlike on the first leg where I was in a window seat and both the passengers between me and the aisle were sound sleepers...).  However, this also meant that the area was the congregation area for the queue for the toilet, so a steady stream (no pun intended) of temporary travelling companions, so little chance for any shut eye on that journey.
Arrived on time and despite a little delay at the baggage carousel, in which I was on the verge of having visions of my luggage having been sent on an adventure of it's own, I was through arrivals and greeted by Debbie, our SA based project co-ordinator.

It was really misty, apparently some long awaited rain had appeared in time for my arrival, and as we set off from the carpark the first swipe of the wipers stripped the rubber off the passenger side wiper blade!  After an otherwise uneventful journey to Hillcrest, Debbie jumped out at home and I made my way, in the dark and now pretty heavy rain, to the accommodation at PheZulu.  All was well on arrival, security were expecting me and arrived at the gate with keys and I quickly off loaded the luggage and thankfully found my room and a very welcome hot shower!

After unpacking I went into the lounge and there was a lovely couple from Israel who invited me to join them.  It was so good to chat and hear about their trip so far, they had arrived in Cape Town and were driving up through South Africa on a month long holiday!  Then a lady arrived in the lounge and introduced herself, it was Carol, one of the team from Spirit of Africa, a fellow UK charity who fund the orphanage Ithembalihle.  We were so fortunate that our trips overlapped by 24 hours and we were both able to put faces to names, having previously only communicated by email.  Carol had been visiting Ithembalihle for 10 days and was supporting them with some school entry activities for the older children as well as getting school shoes and other essentials.  She also showed me the Christmas gifts that the Spirit of Africa supporters had provided.... Thandiwe will need some good hiding places to keep those under wraps until Christmas!

This morning Carol and I had a final catch up before I headed off to First Step Right, the creche and low primary school in Cato Ridge.  It was lovely to see the jacaranda trees starting to blossom as I drove along the road, their beautiful lilac flowers providing a wonderful contrast to the evergreen trees all around.  The Cato Ridge area looks to be thriving, with more low impact factory units opened since I was here in January.  This bodes well for employment in the area but it has certainly increased traffic!  The children were just coming out for first break when I arrived and it was lovely to have a happy welcome from them and the teachers.  After visiting all of the classrooms and meeting Gael and a volunteer called Nicole who is with First Step Right for a month I sat down with Reception class to try to read them the Wide Mouthed Frog story... but they were so excited they couldn't sit down for long!

My next meeting was a little along the road in Kloof, so I said farewell to the children and headed off to my meeting.  One of the key objectives of this trip is to assess the plans for the creche and low primary school for 2020, but more of that later.  Suffice it to say there is a lot of work to be done on all sides but the vision is very exciting!

Late afternoon meant a return to Hillcrest to go to Pick & Pay for some shopping and to top up my pay as you go, SA mobile phone.  That done I had to track down somewhere to replace my wiper blades as by now the driver side blade was starting to come away and more rain is forecast!  Luckily the manager at the Esso station not only gave me directions to an auto spares store but even said if I brought them back to the filling station he would fit them for me!  What a star!  Job done, and seeing clearly through the windscreen, I headed back to the accommodation to prepare some supper.

Sitting here now in my room, with a chorus of crickets in the background I am so happy to be back in Africa and am looking forward to all that this trip has ahead.  Keep checking in on the blog to follow the adventure!

Night night, Claire 

5 comments:

  1. Love this! As always beautifully written Claire about a wonderful cause, can’t wait for more instalments. Annette x

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  2. Thank you Annette, not feeling any pressure at all! lol x

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  3. At last I get to read your blog!!..... you paint a wonderful picture. Xx

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