On one of the Fridays that we had the swimming lesson, it was held in an indoor swimming pool for the first time. It’s getting closer to winter now, so it’s too cold to swim in the outdoor swimming pool - the children will freeze and get sick. They were excited to see the new swimming pool, but it had one difference - in the outdoor swimming pool they were already a little bit scared of the water, but more so now because the indoor swimming pool is uniformly deep everywhere. Sometimes the children are so scared that they hang onto your neck and scream!

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To many travellers, South Africa is known as one of the adventure capitals of the world. You won’t be able to do all the incredible things and see all the awesome sights that the country has to offer in only one trip – be prepared to get hooked and keep coming back for more! Here are a few ideas for either first-time travellers and volunteers, or for those who have spent time in the country beforehand but want to see more.

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I had a lovely visit with my parents and sister, but I was happy to see the Ilitha daycare children again, and they were happy to see me. Last Tuesday we went to an educational farm and the children were very excited. We went in two buses, and on the way the children were talking non-stop about all the things they saw during the trip. The farm was in Port Elizabeth and we had half an hour’s travel time.

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Simon is coming on so well with lessons this week and I am extremely proud of him! He is still learning how to write his own name. I alternated teaching his name with his wife’s name, and then numbers.  I didn’t want to overwhelm him with new information and make it too difficult for him. First of all I wrote down his name, so he could see how it looked. After that he had to write it by himself, but I gave him the letters. By the end he could write his name by himself. Although we have lots of practice to do, I was glad he could spell his name without my help.

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Last Thursday I helped at an adult literacy class in the township. The people were learning to recognise the letters of the alphabet, and write letters and words. Most people who join the literacy classes struggle quite a bit. One of the women couldn’t recognise the difference between the letters “h” and “b”. Someone explained it to her a few times, but it didn’t work. The teacher explained using the words hello and baby. It was a little sad that she was struggling so hard to learn the alphabet and write, but she was making an effort!

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At the daycare, I helped a boy pull up his pants, and saw that he had a green thread fastened around his hips. I asked the teacher what it was for, and she told me that it was a religious symbol, and meant that God would watch over him. Faith is very important for people in the township, and that was the first time I truly saw this.

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I’m writing this blog while sitting on the couch at the volunteer house. There are three new people here, who arrived last weekend – two guys, one from the Netherlands and one from England; and a girl from the US. It’s not that easy to write with them here - one of them is listening to loud music, and another one keeps hiccupping! But they are are lovely people and I like sharing the house with them.

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Another week went by, with the children at the holiday program. This week we had four days where there were a LOT of children. There was no electricity at the school at the beginning of the week, so we had to dance without music. The children really like music and dancing. Finally at the end of the week, the electricity was back up. It was much nicer to dance with music – it’s easier and puts us all in a good mood. The people here are so flexible with their hips - it’s great to watch and I’m jealous!

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The weeks here as a volunteer in Port Elizabeth go very fast. Last week we had three days holiday program with children from the township at the Jon Masiza primary school. Tuesday was the start and there were around seventy children. We made four groups for the children, green, orange, white and purple. When the children come to the holiday program in the morning between nine and ten o’clock, they get a color on their face with facepainting and have to say her or his name. That makes it structural. We have four groups with children because we had four categories: sport, fun games, art and dance.

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Three of us volunteers painted a township nursery. We worked on it for three mornings, but it was a lot of work, so it isn’t finished. The nursery is a house made of corrugated iron. My volunteering work is in a colorful crèche, which I think makes children happy – so we wanted the nursery to be colourful as well.

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