Today I will have to badly disappoint everyone who was thinking of idyllic little villages with small cottages, cut off from running water and electricity, when I was talking about going to South Africa. Because the city that you can see above isn’t London, New York City or Tokyo. It is nothing less than Johannesburg. Of course there might be those “idyllic” places that most Europeans would associate with Africa, but at least Johannesburg isn’t one of these places at first sight - even though I’m sure that it’s got quite nice places that I’ll get to know soon. But first it’s time to say some words about my project.
Monday was my first working day at Cotlands. I had already heard a lot about it - some information that I got from my organization AFS, some facts that I found on the internet and other details that I had gotten from former volunteers – but anyway I wasn’t that sure what would expect me because Cotlands seemed to be so versatile. Then at eight o’clock we met one of our bosses here. She told us everything about Cotlands, the organization’s history, the different units, our jobs and what will be expected from us. The units that we will be working in for the next months are the baby unit, the early learning playgroups, the toy library and the office. There will also be smaller jobs, like collecting donations for example, that we can help with because we will be able to use one of Cotlands’ cars (a very old truck, which no one else wants to use, but we are happy as long as we even have one!).
This week we start with going into all the different units to get to know the work that we will be doing and next week we will have our fixed schedule and then I will give you more details about the different units and our work.
Another question that our boss could help us with was how everything would be working with our food. Because when we arrived on Saturday we had some things in our fridge, but didn’t really know if it was all for us and if we would have to feed ourselves all the time. We had already kind of arranged with that thought, but then we got to know that the cook would additionally prepare us one warm meal every working day - so far it tasted really good – and for the rest we will be provided with food by Woolworth, that is donating it to our project.
On Monday and Tuesday we could also already accompany a staff member for collecting donations and meanwhile make some first experiences with driving in left-hand traffic and the South African way of driving in general.
Wednesday was Heritage Day, a public holiday, and we didn’t have to work. That’s why we used the opportunity and went to the city for meeting another German volunteer. As our project isn’t directly situated in Johannesburg but in the suburbs, so far we hadn’t really seen a lot of the city, we only got some first impressions when we drove from our on-arrival camp to Cotlands.And even after spending a nice afternoon in the city, walking around and trying not to be identified as tourists, we probably only saw a very small part of it. By now I don’t really know how to describe Joburg. There are many skyscrapers, dirt and dark nooks, but also – maybe a little bit hidden – nice buildings, restaurants and parks. But as I already said: that’s only a first impression of a very small part of the city and doesn’t have to mean anything. But that surely wasn’t the last exploring tour!
After this pleasant surprise we completed our day with sushi and fresh strawberries and are already looking forward to the next donation.
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