Back to work

Now it’s already three weeks that I am working again after our Christmas holidays - so certainly high time to tell you about what was going on here since we’re back.

When we had left Cotlands in December everyone was pretty much in pre-Christmas stress - many toys had to be prepared, lots of donations came in, Christmas presents had to be brought to community project children and some new babies found a new home in our Child Care Unit. So we wondered if calm would have returned in New Year and we were very excited if the babies would have changed a lot in these three weeks.

The first thing that we realized when we went to work on Monday morning was that calm indeed had returned – and it was even a lot calmer than expected because almost everyone was still on holiday. For us that meant that there wasn’t really any work to do except working in the Child Care Unit so we directly made our way to the babies. We had been a little bit scared that they might have forgotten us over Christmas but when we opened the door some excited toddlers already came running towards us hugging our legs. And like we had already feared they really had grown a lot. Two of them had learned to walk – we were a little bit sad that we had missed that – so now we have four children that are walking and running around always keeping us busy. Our oldest two-year-old child is even learning to go to the potty now – what can be quite exhausting because it doesn’t really always work yet – and they are all starting to babble away more and more. Two of the rather younger ones also learned to sit and the very small ones grew even though they are still tiny. Two babies had left Cotlands during our holidays and are now living in South African families, but in exchange we got four new babies, so that here are living eight babies that are younger than two months for the moment. As they are all still crying a lot we often feel like not having enough hands to care for all of them and it can be so exhausting because you can always be sure that as soon as you steadied one of them the next will begin to cry. One of them is even a preemie. She was born after seven months and even though she is six weeks old now she is much too tiny and I am always scared to break all of her bones when I am dressing her with the smallest baby clothes we have which are still way too small for her.

My favorite job in the CCU for the moment is playing with the toddlers. Especially those who already walk are getting more curious with every day so that we try to take them out for a walk or for playing at our playgrounds as often as possible.

Since New Year we also had to bring the babies to the hospital several times. They are all regularly going to their routine checkups, to assessments and depending on their needs also to occupational or physical therapy. All these things take place in different hospitals, so that we could already make very different experiences with South African hospitals. One of them that specialises on children living in children’s homes was very nice – we never had to wait too long, the waiting room was quite comfortable and we even got tea and coffee. The others unfortunately weren’t that nice. They were very crowded and we had to wait at uncomfortable wooden benches or sometimes even without any possibility to sit (and that’s a little bit exhausting if you are carrying a baby on your arms) for several hours. One time we even had to leave after eight hours of waiting without even being treated because they were closing and the baby only had an eye infection. After these first experiences with public hospitals in South Africa I definitely hope that I won’t get injured here in any way!

Some days we also had little baby emergencies. Luckily it never was anything really bad, but if the babies have temperature they are directly brought to hospital to be sure that it’s nothing serious. So it happened that we were called to the Child Care Unit some time in the evening and spontaneously had to work night shift until early in the morning like 4am so that the CCU would not be short-staffed during the absence of the social worker and the sick baby. And working night shift is much harder than we expected in the beginning, because you are not allowed to sleep or do anything that distracts you, you can just wait that a baby begins to cry and you can feed it or change a nappy and fight against your eyes trying to shut. When the call that they are ready and we could pick them up from hospital was coming we were always very relieved! On other days we got wake-up calls very early in the morning during the weekend having to drive a child to hospital, so sometimes it could be really exhausting because we didn’t have more than 3 hours of sleep several days in a row.

All in all it was very nice to see the babies again after such long holidays and it’s really sweet to see especially the older ones getting more and more attached to us. And we are also getting used to the work with the babies: By now sometimes we even manage to leave the Baby Unit without being dirty with porridge or pumpkin from head to toe! Also changing nappies or dressing the babies goes a lot faster than in the beginning. Nevertheless in the end of our working day we’re also always a little bit relieved  to leave the CCU because being surrounded by crying children and talking nonsense all the day can really make you crazy!

Next week we will probably get our new roster and then we will also have to do some work in the Toy Library and in the office again. For now I’ll have to catch up with some sleep but you’ll surely hear from me soon!

Finally in Cape Town - Holidays Part 2

After almost  two eventful weeks of traveling the Garden Route on the morning of the 24th of December we all were really looking forward to finally arrive in Cape Town. We had already heard so many people enthusing about the "Mother City" that we were very curious to ultimately experience it ourselves. Only Marina already knew Cape Town and even lives there as she is doing her voluntary service in a garden in one of the city's townships. Lea, Louisa, Stella and me, all living in Johannesburg and Pretoria, hadn't been to the city before but with Marina we luckily had our personal city guide with us. 

Full of expectations we set out for Cape Town early in the morning following the coastal route to our destination. Even during that drive our expectations weren't dashed because the route was one of the prettiest we had followed so far leading directly along the coast in narrow curves and offering a beautiful view.

Having arrived in Cape Town we were welcomed by many other volunteers from SAGE Net - Marina's sending organisation - with that we wanted to celebrate Christmas. We were all staying into a volunteer apartment and with so many people it was quite packed so that we had to sleep on the floor most of the nights but that wasn't a big problem and it was nice to have so many people around even though that meant that sleeping before 3 or 4 am wasn't really possible. The apartment is situated in Observatory, a slightly alternative student neighbourhood, and from the front door we could even see Table Mountain.

When we had introduced ourselves to all the new people we directly started cooking for our big Christmas dinner! We had planned to cook a lot of food and as we were cooking with many people into a rather small kitchen - additionally we had some problems with the electricity - the results weren't all perfect but all in all it was still a very nice Christmas dinner. Even though it didn't really feel like Christmas - probably because of the warm weather - we had a great Christmas Eve in Cape Town.

In the following days we started exploring Cape Town. To get a nice overview of the city we planned to start with climbing Table Mountain what didn't work out exactly as planned. At first everything was fine, the weather was nice and sunny and we enthusiastically started our way to the top. We didn't even have to climb far to already have a really beautiful view over Cape Town, but when we had finished half of the way up unfortunately a lot of fog came up... We could't see further than some metres anymore, it got really cold and the paths got slippery soon. Hoping that the fog would clear again we continued to the top but that day we dind't have a lot of luck so that we were relieved when we were all safely down again.

The next day our program was a little bit more relaxed: We went to a concert in the Kirstenbosch Gardens, a pretty Botanical Garden right at the foot of Table Mountain.

Another tour led us around the Cape Peninsula. We started driving along nice beaches such as Camps Bay or Hout Bay and then we followed the Chapmans Peak Drive that again led us directly along the coast and offered a beautiful view over the sandy bays surrounded by gentle mountains. Of cause we also couldn't let out to visit the South African Penguins, that are mainly living at the eastern coast of the Cape Peninsula, and to make a stop in Muizenberg, a surfer beach with the popular coloured changing rooms.

Then of course we had to go on exploring Cape Town itself and so we went to town and tried to visit the most important places: Long Street, Castle of Good Hope, the city hall, the Company's Gardens, Bo-Kaap, the University of Cape Town and a lot more.

And then it was already New Year's Eve. With 12 people we decided to celebrate in Langebaan, where the aunt and oncle of another volunteer own a house near the beach. Even though in the beginning we were not completely sure if we wouldn't miss something leaving Cape Town for New Year's Eve we didn't regret our decision for a second! The house was amazing, we had a delicious Braai and even the firework that we could watch from the roof was bigger than expected so that we had a great start into 2015.

Back in Cape Town a visit of a vineyard, for which the Cape region is popular, was part of the plan for our last day in the city. After that we enjoyed our last evening at signal hill watching the sunset above "Mother City".

Then, a lot quicker than we would have liked, it was already time to say goodbye, not only to Cape Town but also to Marina and all the others that had spent the holidays with us. So after 3 great weeks we headed back to Johannesburg with a heavy heart, hoping that it wasn't the last time of being in Cape Town and meeting everyone again.

All in all I had fantastic holidays and all the anticipation was definitely legitimate. For me Cape Town indeed is the most beautiful city I've ever seen. Even though the city itself maybe isn't even that breathtaking it is the combination of the city surrounded by the mountains and the sea that give it its very special charm. Furthermore compared to Johannesburg everything seemed to be so clean, the streets weren't that crowded and generally the cities are entirely different. Therefore in Cape Town the difference between the city and the townships seem to be even bigger than in Joburg. Also along the Garden Route we almost only saw comparably rich and touristic areas and it was striking that we saw a lot more white people than in Joburg. That's why I think that Cape Town and the Garden Route as the top tourist attractions in South Africa can maybe give a wrong impression to tourists and you can't claim to really have seen South Africa if you only traveled that small part of the country. In the meantime it was amazing how diversified especially the Garden Route was. Sometimes we had to drive for only ten kilometres to see the landscape change from flat beaches into gentle highlands and only minuits later we already were surrounded by the semi-desert of the Karoo. I hope to see a lot more of these different sides of South Africa in the next months and I'm already looking forward to my next trips.

But for now it's time to get some work done while a lot of things concerning our work here changed. Anyway that would be too much for now so I will keep you up to date in my next post!

» Also read Holidays part 1

A little travel overview

As in my last post I bombarded you a little bit with names of cities that you probably never heard about before and even more don't know where they are situated I created a map for you so that you will get a better impression of my travelling route. Just zoom in and click on the marks and you can see the cities' names and pictures.

2000 km of adventures - Holidays Part 1

After 24 days of Advent Calendar pictures now I will finally tell you everything concerning my holidays. I will try to make it as short as possible - and that won't be easy with about 1000 pictures to choose from - but anyway I will divide my post into a Garden Route and a Cape Town part so that it won't be too much at the same time.

Armed with lots of biltong (typical South African dried slices of meat) and pumpkin rolls Stella, Louisa and me started our big tour on the 11th of December early in the morning as we had 850km to drive ahead of us. Having arrived in our first stop Graaff Reinet we felt like beeing in a completely different country because everything was so different to Johannesburg. Especially the fact that we could walk around on our own in the dark felt really strange but that way we had the chance to directly start exploring the small city, that is one of the oldest in South Africa and popular for its architecture with many Cape Dutch and Victorian buildings.

The next morning we went on to Camdeboo National Park, a park surrounding Graaf Reinet that is known for its impressive canyons especially the Valley of Desolation. But we didn't only admire the landscape we also had the chance to get close to some animals, such as monkeys, zebras, springboks and lot of other boks that we hadn't heard about before.

In the afternoon we went on to the coast to Port Elizabeth, our first Garden Route (region between Port Elizabeth and Mossel Bay) stop where we stayed for two days - and again we felt like entering an entirely different world. In PE we especially enjoyed the beach that was not far from our backpacker and did two day trips - the first to Port Alfred, a small town with another really nice beach, and the second to Addo Elephant National Park, that is home to the Big 7 (elephant, lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino, shark, whale) of which we unfortunately only saw elephants. 

On the 14th we went on to Jeffreys Bays where we met Lea and Marina, two other volunteers that wanted to go on with us. Jeffreys Bay is a very famous surfing spot, so of course we couldn't miss the chance to take a surfing lesson which was a lot of fun! The day after we also tried sandboarding which is like snowboarding in the dunes and a very nice compensation in a country that doesn't really get to see any snow.

As a quick stop for our way to Plettenberg Bay the day after we had already planned the next action programme: a stop at Bloukrans Bridge - the world's highest official bungy jump with a height of 216 metres. We had been looking forward to this for days - some more than others - but the real jump was even better than expected. Even though the last moment before jumping was quite scaring the seconds of free fall were incredible!

After so many adventures in our two days in Plettenberg Bay it was time for relaxing at the beach and a hiking tour that wasn't as relaxed as expected. For that tour we went to the Tsitsikamma National Park where we hiked to Suspension Bridge, a big rope bridge that is crossing the mouth of Storms River, and to a very nice waterfall. The hiking trails were very adventurous with a lot of climbing but the beautiful nature along the coast definitively compensated that!

Our next stop was Knysna, a cosy seaport surrounded by a big lagoon and almost unspoiled jungle. To explore the Knysna forest we did a mountainbike tour, again on very adventurous trails, so that we often weren't far from little accidents, but once again it was worth it and it was a lot of fun to ride on those steep, stony and rooty trails.

The day after we went to Wilderness, a very pretty small city with beautiful and almost lonely beaches. On our first day in Wilderness we were doing a short hike on the old railways along the coast that led us to a cave, where a man is living for 8 years now giving a shelter to homeless people. Many people had told us about his cave before but it was still very different to what I had expectes, decorated with lots of shells and furnished with wood and diffrent kinds of donations. Anyway it was very impressing and interesting to hear the caveman's story about God telling him to build up that shelter.

On our second day in Wilderness we did a day trip to Oudtshoorn and the Cango Caves. 

Oudtshoorn is the South African centre of ostrich-breeding, so we visited an ostrich farm and also had the chance to do ostrich riding what was more like rodeo than real riding.

The cango caves were also worth seeing especially because we did an adventure tour. Instead of following the normal paths through the cave we explored it walking ducked down or crawling through gaps that sometimes weren't higher than 26 cm.

After those first eleven days we slowly left the official area of the Garden Route and went on along the coast because we had still planned two more stops before reaching Cape Town.

The first one was Cape Agulhas, the southernmost tip of Africa. Even though the Cape's nature wasn't even more impressing than the nature we had seen in the days before it was very nice as we went there during the sunset and the feeling that the whole of Africa was lying behind us was kind of impressing.

Our last stop before Cape Town was Hermanus where we had hoped to see some whales but unfortunately the whale season was already over and we couldn't see any.

And then, after more than 2000 adventurous kilometres, it was already time to go to Cape Town for Christmas! But about that I will tell you in my next post that hopefully won't be too long in coming ... But in the meantime you can already see some more picture in my gallery.

» Also read Holidays Part 2