It took me some time, but here it is: my first post from South Africa! So far I had some problems with the internet but now I have got my South African SIM card and the code for the Wifi so that nothing can stop me from writing my next entries. But in the last few days since my departure happened a lot, so I should better start with the very beginning.
On Wednesday evening our big adventure was starting with our flight to Johannesburg. Stella and I were flying from Hamburg to Frankfurt where we should meet two other AFS volunteers that are going to South Africa with us. Even though we both were a little bit sad after saying goodbye to our families and friends, in the plane we were just happy that we were really sitting in this plane after all the trouble with our visas. But arriving in Frankfurt our mood was dampened again because we already had the next problem: the airplane to Johannesburg was overbooked and there were no seats left for two of the four of us. But after half an hour of worried waiting we fortunately somehow got our seats and nothing could stop us anymore.
The flight went by very fast and Thursday morning at 9 o’clock we arrived in Johannesburg. Some South African AFS volunteers picked us up at the airport, warmly welcomed us and brought us to a lodge where we should stay for our on arrival camp until Saturday. We all didn’t really expect to have a real three-day camp because we thought that no one would make such an effort for only four people, but AFS did and we were quite happy to have this “period of grace” (furthermore we had already heard that the lodge’s food should be really good!). Moreover the weather already was much warmer than we expected - it’s still South African winter – and we had a swimming pool, but as it wasn’t heated the water was still very cold. Anyway we did not only have fun, we also learned a lot about South African culture, the country in general, dos and don’ts and a lot more of helpful things. We also went to a small mall to get new SIM cards, but except that we weren’t allowed to leave the property.
On Saturday the time had come to go to our host families or projects, in my case the organisation Cotlands. We were picked up by a woman from our project and she brought us there, showed us our rooms and everything that was important during the weekend. The volunteer area, where we live, is quite big for the two of us because there usually were more volunteers at Cotlands in the last years, but now it’s only us, so that we first felt a little bit lost in the big rooms. But for now we already arranged with that. Something that I still have to get used to is not being able to go out any time I want, because so far we can only go out in someone’s company.
During the weekend there aren’t too many people at Cotlands because normally only the Baby Unit is manned. That’s why we spent most of our weekend helping with the Babys – even though so far we probably weren’t such a big help because we couldn’t do much more than playing with the Babys. In any case it was fun and they are super cute, but now we are truly curious to get to know what will be our duties for the next months - because Cotlands is much more than just a baby station - and how everything is working here. We will hopefully get to know about all of that tomorrow!
Now I have to go to bed so that I won’t be too tired for my first working day at Cotlands!
Frederike
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