First day at Sinthemba

Below is an expert from my journal I have to keep from my volunteer experience. While in South Africa I am volunteering at a children's home called Sinethma, which in English means "We have hope". The children's home is home to 26 children who would otherwise be living on the street. Many of these children live at Sinethemba due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. I volunteer at the children's home every Wednesday from the end of July until the end of November. 

My first day at Sinethemba was interesting. When we showed up none of the children were there yet because they hadn’t arrived back from school yet. When the children did they first had a snack and stared at us for most of the meal. Some of the children were more welcoming than others though. One little girl immediately took my hand and had me sit next to her while she ate.

Another group of four women also come to the children home for a few hours on Wednesday afternoons to read books to help the children with their English. I’m not sure how long they have been coming to the center, but I think it’s been a few months as they knew most of the children’s names. We helped the women keep the children quiet and engaged in the story. After they finished the book the children got out any homework they had from that day or other work on math worksheets the women brought. I helped with the first and second grade children. This is the part of the day that I found the most rewarding. Back in the United States I volunteer at a low income school helping the students with math and reading, so this felt similar to what I had experienced. Of course, the situation that these children are in is much different than the students I taught in the United States. The children at Sinethemba all seemed very bright to me and interested in their education. One girl had the cutest expression as soon as she understood her math problem. Another little boy had me sign his English homework stating he had read me his story for the day. He really struggled through most of the story and after asked me if he could do it again because he wants to learn it better.

The living conditions of the children center is what surprised me the most. After we finished all their homework and work sheets we went outside to play. Some of the children were playing netball with a half deflated ball and a broken net. Every time after one student threw the ball another child would use a broom to push the net back up to be parallel to the ground. Their outdoor play area wasn’t very large either with no green grass or toys like I am accustomed to. Despite all of this, the children were laughing and playing which warmed my heart. We played ring around the rosey and another game similar where the little girls would sing in Xhos then suddenly lift their right leg in the area and place it over their arm while jumping in a circle. The first time they did this Verina and I were confused and surprised as we didn’t understand the song or game.

By the end of the day I was happy, tired and hungry as the transport was nearly an hour late picking us up. Next week I plan on taking some extra food and water to prevent that from happening again. Overall I really enjoyed my first day at Sinthemba and I’m excited for the weeks to come!

Swazi and St. Lucia

This weekend I was in for the most spontaneous adventure of my life. After messaging a friend abroad in Australia on facebook, I learned that my friend Graye would be in South Africa in a few days and I was curious what he was doing and if he was available to meet up. It's always nice to see someone from home.

View from hostel in Swaziland

Spontaneously I bought a plane ticket to Durban to see him with little idea of what we would be doing, but knowing it would be a once in a lifetime adventure (and I was not wrong). Graye and his friend Hanna picked me up at the airport and we traveled to a small surf camp North of Durban in a small town called Shaka's Rock after the Zulu King from the 1800's. We spent the night there, woke up early and began our drive to Swaziland. The drive was long as we drove along the N2 on the border of Swazi and South Africa for several hours. We entered Swazi at the Manahama border. I've never entered a border through land, so it was an experience, but apparently South Africa/Swazi borders are the best in Africa. Swaziland was beautiful and we stayed in Manzinia at a backpackers. The currency in Swaziland is the Linageni, which is evaluated to the South African rand. It was really convenient as I could pay in rand and received linageni back.  While in Swazi we went to the fanciest restaurant and paid less than 300 rand a person for an appetizer, three entries and a bottle of wine. This is about $23 for the whole meal.

Beach at St. Lucia

Swaziland was beautiful and mountainous, but poorer than anything I have experienced in South Africa. While driving there we took a wrong turn and ended up in the downtown Manahama, where I have never seen so many people in one area. As we drove through the country we saw plenty of run down houses, very skinny cows and goats running through the streets. I don't know how else to desrcibe the country other than seeming very poor. It was obvious we were in a third world country.

After spending a night in the country Graye, Hanna and I felt that we had experienced enough of Swaziland for a lifetime and headed back to South Africa. We decided to break up the long drive by staying St. Lucia. St. Lucia was incredibly gorgeous and I am beyond grateful we stopped there. We stopped in a bed and breakfast where each of us had our own room with the most comfortable bed I have stayed in since arriving in South Africa. In the morning we got up, ate breakfast and went to the wildlife reserve in St. Lucia. We were hoping to see hippos in the reserve, and we did, but from a far where we had to borrow people's binoculars in order to see the hippos. After spending the day in St. Lucia we had to drive back to Durban Airport as Graye had a flight to Ethiopia on Saturday night and Hanna and I had a flight to Port Elizabeth at 6:55am Sunday morning.

Saturday night Hanna and I dropped Graye off at the airport and headed to our hostel, only to be in for a great surprise. When we arrived at our hostel we learned that through the lack of English spoken by the man taking our reservation and poor cell phone service we only booked a place in the dorm for one person and they didn't have room for both of us. We quickly booked another hostel in Durban and headed there, except when we arrived we realized we were in a bad neighborhood and we were the only white, young and girls at the hostel. As we walked into the hostel every man in the place was staring at us and I have never felt so uncomfortable in my life. Hanna and I quickly used their wifi to find and get directions to another hostel. When we arrived at the next hostel we still did not feel great about it. As we were driving into the hostel we scratched the side of our rental car due to poor direction from the women running the hostel. Due to Hanna and I's high stress and later we realized lack of food we decided to leave and head back to the airport. We were hoping we could either sleep at the airport or spend the night in the airport hotel, only to learn that neither were possible. Once arriving at the airport we realized neither of us had anything to eat since 9am that morning we decided to have dinner at the airport before trying to find a place to stay. Once we got some food in our system we began calling hotels in Ballito, which is about 10km north of the airport. After calling about 10 hotels only to be told they had no availability we remembered Shaka's rock from Wednesday night. We called asking for availability and after calling twice the manager answered stating they did have availability for the night. Never in my life have I been so happy for a random, small surf camp in the middle of Shaka's rock.

I love you St. Lucia

The adventure to Swaziland and St. Lucia was the most spontaneous I've ever had, as we woke up every morning wondering where we would go and sleep that night, but one of the most incredible, rewarding adventures. I learned more about South Africa and Swaziland than I have since I left the United States nearly two months ago and about myself and my ability to adapt to stressful situations.