Amazing weekend after a long week!

At Khanya Primary School the average class size is 40. When a teacher is off, there is no substitute, and that class gets split between the other classes in that age group… This week, I have been taking classes of up to 60 Xhosa speaking grade 1’s!!!! If only charades was an Olympic Sport… Challenge me if you dare!

On Thursday night, to celebrate another week of successful coaching, Charlotte and I went to Spurs for dinner. On a Thursday for 130R you can get bottomless ribs and wings, or ribs and calamari… That’s all you can eat ribs and wings for like £6!!!!! Challenge Accepted... I think three plates if a good attempt, considering I was unprepared!!! Next time, with the 7 P’s (Prior Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance) we’ll have to see what I can manage!!

On Friday, we were meant to be doing our active citizenship, working with children who have dropped out of school, and trying to get them back on track, with some life skills lessons such as CV writing, interview practice etc. We are also running a coaching session for them, enabling them to be able to learn the basics of coaching, giving them the foundations to be able to get into the field. However, as anticipated, if not slightly prematurely, the kids didn’t turn up… I’m sure there is a reason behind it, however, we are now working on a back-up plan, with a different group of kids… Hopefully my next blog post will be able to give you some insight into the work that our active citizenship and community mobilisation is actually doing! I was sick on Friday, so instead of heading into Cape Town gardens with the rest of MITS, I went home to bed!!!

Saturday was a busy day, which involved an early wake up, to be at the Portlands Indoor Centre, ready to leave at 0800! We were heading out to Hout Bay for the U14’s and U16’s Girls football tournament. It’s a round robin tournament in which each team hosts the event over a period of time and points are added up at the end. The 4 teams were Hout Bay, Mitchells Plain, Atlantis and Fish Hoek. It was such a good morning, and by about 1300 we were done and free to do as we pleased with our weekend.

The rest of our group met up with the UK volunteers from ABC for life, who are based in Hout Bay and wandered around the town for the afternoon… A beautiful little place, on the harbour, by the sea. Charlotte and I jumped into the car with Ashley and Michael and drove out to Newlands for the Currie Cup Final between Western Province and The Golden Lions. The match was INSANE!!! At half time Province were winning 13-0!! Easy, we thought.. The game is ours… Little did we know that somewhere deep inside the stadium, the Lions were getting the hairdryer treatment from their coach! They came out after half time with the wind behind them!!! Before we knew it, it was 13-13!! We edged forward 16-13, then 19-13, Lions came back, 19-16 and as the seconds ticked away, time was out and the Lions still had a penalty to kick… Squeaky Bum Time!!!! The stadium was screaming, boo’s rang out louder than I have ever heard anything before… Lion steps up, kicks……. AND MISSES!!!!!

PROVINCE WINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN :)

Such a good game!!!

Sunday was a day of tanning and Premier League watching whilst we were back to recovering from our sickness!!! India popped round for a bit which was nice… Patsy baked bran, date and carrot muffins… AMAZING :)

The world is a happy happy place :)

The Weekend of Dreams!!!

On Friday night, Leeds vs Rotherham was on South African Sky Sports TV! What better way for the local volunteers to understand me a little more than to invite them round for pizza, beer and football J  So after having spent a day at the University of Cape Town having a workshop on community mobilisation and active citizenship to help us with our projects, we headed back to Mitchells Plain for a MITS football social J Unfortunately, Leeds lost… However there was still plenty of excitement with games of uno and dominoes getting fairly lairy!

Saturday morning started with far too much energy expended during my hour of cycling at the MITS sponsored 10 hour spin-a-thon. As if spinning wasn’t hard enough anyway, we were outside in the beautiful South African sun as opposed to the air conditioned spinning studio that I have become accustomed to back home!! The event was a success with many people from the community getting involved and spinning for as long or as little as they could.

At about 12, Charlotte and I jumped on a bus into Cape Town… We dropped our bags at the hostel and changed quickly before heading back out. We wandered down to the train station and caught the train out to Newlands for the Currie Cup Semi Final match between Western Province and the Blue Bulls. The game was incredible, and made even better with a Western Province win, meaning that they will play at home in the final next week… Weekend of Dreams Part 2… We’ll have to see?!

Once the game had finished we headed back to the hostel to shower and change and meet up with the rest of the volunteers who had made their way into town throughout the afternoon and celebrate in style out on Cape Town’s infamous Long Street.

Sunday started bright and early, and feeling surprisingly fresh J We had breakfast in a café over the road from the hostel. We left our bags in Celina’s car and spent the morning chilling out in the sun. The next stage of the Weekend of Dreams was to take place in Greenpoint at Cape Town Stadium where local boys Ajax Cape Town were hosting my South African team, the Kaiser Chiefs.

The quality of football in South Africa is generally very poor with players having no strength on the ball, a less than average first touch, and a minimal pass completion rate, and this was evident in the game despite it being between two of the best teams in the country! Kaiser Chiefs won 1-0 in a pretty average game that picked up in the second half. It was then time for the long bus journey back to Mitchells Plain to get some much needed sleep and prepare for another week coaching at Khanya Primary School J

First week done!

So my first week in Mitchell's plain was a little quiet... The schools in the area are on half term break, so we spent time in the Portlands indoor centre, which is where MITS is based. Here we were learning a little more about the work we are expected to do over the coming weeks, the schools we will be working at, and a lot more about our SA partners. The South African school system is different o the UK system, they hAve specific lessons in "life skills", this varies from learning about their country to road safety to staying away from gangs, drugs and avoiding teenage pregnancy... It was here that we found out that we are expected to fit these life skills into our coaching sessions... Since then, I have been trawling back through all of my carefully prepared lesson plans to fit in life skills lessons and real meaning behind warm up games and drills...

On top of this, I have been told that the school I am placed in speak only Xhosa!!! The children don't understand English very well, but there are roughly 10-15 who do that we can use to translate... so it looks like the next 8 weeks are going to be spent playing charades, whilst I work on my Xhosa!!!

On Wednesday, we went up to Oasis (another of the partner organisations) to have a coaching workshop with a local coach, called Barney. He is a super cool guy who used to be homeless and have drug abuse issues etc, but he has worked his way through this and made something of himself... He is now one of the top coaches in South Africa, and travels the world from Sweden to Brazil and Australia coaching football... He has set up a charity running football coaching and festivals for homeless people, also he is in charge of the South African homeless world cup team... His biggest block of stories comes from being David Beckham's personal tour guide during the World Cup in 2010··· Some super cool stories from that time of his life, and man, he can talk for hours...

 On Thursday there was a basketball tournament, it was run by the coaches, but we were drafted in to help, our first taste of coaching since arriving in South Africa..  Charlotte and I were left in charge of the creche kids, nothing too challenging here, especially as I didn't need to know anything too detailed about basketball!!!

We had been asked to prepare a coaching session each ready to deliver on Friday... So Friday morning was spent running through all of our sessions, a lot of running around, was good :)

On Friday afternoon, we went to Cape Town for some team bonding, planned by MITS, and chilled out at a bar called The Neighbourhood on Long Street... A couple of beers were very welcome, the first time we have been able to drink since arriving in South Africa... Nice and chilled :)

On Saturday, Patsy and Barney took us to Muizenburg Beach, where Oasis (another of the partner organisations) were hosting a homeless football festival... It was really nice to see some of the other volunteers again, and to chill at the beach whilst they were working...

Sunday was a very chilled day, some more lesson planning and reading in the sun... WAS a nice day to relax before actually starting work on Monday...

I'll update at the end of the week regarding my first proper week working, and too tell you about my SUPER exciting weekend plans!!!

X

First Week Done :)

So here goes for my first blog post from Cape Town :)

The first drama was encountered at the airport... British Airways had over booked the flight, meaning that 8 of the 21 people in our group couldn't fly, and would have to wait until the next evening to take the next flight out to Cape Town!!!
We said our goodbyes and then headed through to the other side... We had something quick to eat in Wetherspoons, then went to find our gate... It was here that we heard the news, that 4 seats had become available on the plane, and that the remaining 8 were going to draw names from a hat...
We boarded the plane and waited to see who had made the cut!!!

The flight was probably the most turbulent I have ever experienced, although I still managed to sleep for 10 of the 12 hours... The other 2 were spent eating and watching 'The Fault in our Stars', a terribly predictable movie!!!

Once we landed, we took an age getting through customs, the only bonus of which was that our bags were already on the carousel once we had gotten through.

We were picked up by our team leaders and taken by mini bus out to Hout Bay, where we were to stay until Friday.

The place we are staying is incredible.. It's a disused army base, built into the side of Table Mountain... The views are amazing!! We have spent Tuesday-Thursday getting more information about the partner organisations we will be working with, and spending time team building....

On Wednesday evening we went down to the local beach... Llandudno Beach! It was beautiful... Looking back from the shore, Table Mountain stands tall...

Tonight is Thursday, and we have found out the partner organisations that we will be working with, and the volunteers we will be sharing a house with... I am sooooo happy that I will be working with MITS; Making an Impact Through Sport. I will be based in Mitchells Plain, the biggest settlement in Cape Town, with 1.7 million people living in 6 square km...

Tomorrow I will be heading out to my host families house... I am so excited, all the training is over, and we are finally going to do what we came here to do...

I will try and update as much as I can from now on :)