Arriving in South Africa

Turns out I'm not very good at this whole blogging thing seeing as it has taken me over a month to write one post but here goes anyway...

5 weeks ago now I left all my home comforts behind in Edinburgh and packed my bags for South Africa. Even after months of fundraising and preparation, it all seemed very surreal as I said goodbye to my family and friends at Edinburgh airport.

Since arriving I have been attempting to write a blog post but keep getting distracted with other things. It has been non stop since we got here and I could go on and on about everything we have done but I think it might be best to keep it short and sweet.

After over 24 hours of travelling we finally arrived in Jo'burg and all 38 of us stumbled into The Ritz Backpackers where we spent our first 4 days. We had Wednesday night to settle in and catch up on sleep but on Thursday morning we were up at 5am and heading to the Children's Memorial Institute. Both Thursday and Friday were spent at the Children's Memorial Institute volunteering at NGO's (Non-Government Organisations) in the building. Although very tiring it was good to get straight into volunteering and working with children as it gave us a feel for what was to come before we were completely thrown in at the deep end at our own projects. I spent my 2 days there with Shannon Low and we moved between different NGO's. We started on Thursday morning working with autistic toddlers and by Friday lunch time we were in the kitchen serving up the food for the children. We had to wear hair nets as we served the food and all the locals who work there found it hysterical that these white girls had come in for the day to help them serve up spam.

Myself, Shannon Low and Shannon Hartley looking stunning as we served up lunch at the Children's Memorial Institute 

On Saturday and Sunday we went to a local church hall where we listened to talks about the culture and history of South Africa from our country rep Ian. On Sunday we had a talk from a Project Trust return volunteer called Chris Trott. Chris is now the UK Consul General in South Africa and he gave the most awe inspiring talk about his life and everything he has accomplished since being a volunteer. From being ambassador in 4 countries in Asia and 4 in Africa to directly speaking to Nelson Mandela's wife after his funeral, the man has done it all. After Chris's talk we had a picnic in the church garden before going back to the hostel to get organised for heading off to our projects the next morning.

Roughly half our country group on our last night in Jo'burg before heading off to our projects

That's all for now, hopefully I'll get round to writing a post about the past month at my project at some point today...but then again it has taken me 5 weeks to write this.

Rachel x