22nd-24th June

On Friday we went to Northdale for the weekend, with Pastor Collin [the vice chairman of gateway]. After making up a lot of reasons about why we couldn’t attend we finally gave in and agreed to spend the weekend with his family in the Indian area of town. However when Friday came I was really excited about going, looking forward to proper showers, beds and finally getting out of the prison. The four of us girls stayed with his sister who has a massive house all to herself as she is a widow. We had a brilliant weekend which included going bowling, shopping, to the cinema and double beds!

The main part of the trip however was being force fed. The Indian families here are amazing hosts and we had so so much food. When we arrived we had cottage pie and curry, bacon and eggs for breakfast, lasagna for lunch and a roast for dinner. As soon as our plates were empty they were refilling them and having had 3 portions already was no excuse because ‘we don’t count here’! We also went to Collins church on Sunday which was a nice change and then went to his afterwards for a Braai. We got to spend time with his kids, nephews and nieces. This was the most jokes part of the trip because Colin had previously given us a talk about how well disciplined his children were, however in reality it was a very different story. As soon as we arrived to the bowling all them were drinking and smoking and saying ‘what our parents don’t know won’t hurt them’! We didn’t really know what to do! It was also pretty neeky because they clearly thought that this some how made them ‘cool’ – not so much.

In the evening on Sunday we went to the church service at NCF and then followed by a standard Mug and Bean session.

30th May - 20th July catch up

Hey everyone sorry about the lack of blog for the last few weeks, but I have been really busy and it’s been hard to get to the computer [also the longer I leave it the worse it gets to write!]
So I am just going to sum up the last few weeks, and then I can start afresh!

Pregnancy crisis centre
Work at PCC has been really busy which has been really good because at some points I have felt just like I have been hanging around. All the ladies that I was working with originally have now had their babies so we have had 8 babies born in the last 14 days – including twins!
It been really exciting going into the hospitals to visit the new born babies and their mums and it has really hit home how important the work that PCC do is. Each baby is beautiful and has so much ahead of them and without PCC they wouldn’t exist so it had been such a big encouragement. One of the highlights has been the house mother turning up saying one of the girls was in labor and Michael was out with the car so I had to leg it over to find rob so we could drive the girl to hospital! We were just praying the whole journey that the petrol would last and that we would be actually able to get into the hospital, because there is so much uncertainty with the strikes [ill write about that later]. However along with the excitement there has also been some very difficult moments. The most emotionally draining moment of my trip so far was going with a girl, who I have worked with since I have been here and visited in hospital, so that she could give her child away for fostering. It was really tough because she really didn’t have any other option with no job and only temporary accommodation. It was hard for me having to be there when it happened, so I cant imagine how it must feel to have to give your baby away [prayer point: that the mum can get a job so she can then afford to have her baby back]. The foster mother is incredible, she has around 16 children living with her and each one is loved and cared for.
I have also been doing some admin to free Michael up and another exciting thing is that I have begun computer lessons with some of the Zulu ladies who work with us and at CCP. It was awesome to see how excited they were with being able to just open a word document! One of the ladies I am teaching had never even switched a computer on, so it was funny trying to keep a straight face while reminding her that she had to click the mouse to make things happen. It’s nice to have an area that I can get stuck into and start seeing results – even though it takes a lot of patience.





Social
We have been really blessed to have a lot of social things going on over the last few weeks. We started off by having a Braai with the American girls for their leaving. It was really fun, lots of people came and we got a taste of south African culture with an American twist! Braai is basically a SA way of saying BBQ and there was also a big bonfire. The American twist: ‘salad’ with mars bars in…
The following Saturday we went to a girl that we met on mini missions 21st birthday party, it was awesome with a big bonfire and curry. We also played a game called 30 seconds, where you have to describe words in a list with a 30 second time limit. This was rubbish as it made me look really thick as I don’t know anything about African famous places or people and having to describe ‘summer of 69’ lead to many people now thinking I need prayer.
The last few weeks have also been hard because they have been the run up to Sarah’s leaving [the Irish girl who has mentored us the whole trip]. Sarah is my best friend here outside of my team and who I go to if I feel frustrated so I have found it really hard her going. We had a leaving party for her on Thursday which also involved a bonfire but also a ‘rock on’ theme. This was wicked as we all dressed up and it meant I got to put eyeliner on boys and straighten their hair – get in!

The Friday after was a girl at Duduza’s birthday so we had a party for her and got to see Zulu dancing which was jokes. Two of the kids at Duduza have won best gymnastics in the whole province for their ages [an area bigger than the size of England] and they are now going to nationals next week so we bought the girl lots of things for her trip. It’s so exciting that these are children that have been brought up in gateway for the majority of their lives and now are competing in a national competition!
All of this has been surrounded by various DVD nights and Mug and Bean trips making us become better friends with the people who live here and making us feel more at home.

Another blessing has been that two girls from Brighton have come to Gateway as individual volunteers, Heather and Becca. They have been in cape town for 5 months and Heather is now hear for a month and Becca came for the weekend. It has been fun to have some new people to get to know, after always being with the same people for 2 months and nice to have people who know about where I live. Heather went to Brit School and understands when I say things like ‘this is just like west croydon/mitcham’. She is really out going and has encouraged me a lot already on the ‘God front’.

About 2 weeks ago I was feeling a bit low and quite frustrated about being here. Not that I’m not grateful but the novelty of being here had worn off. I had been finding it frustrating only being in about 5 different locations and spending about 70% of my time in a prison. However after sleeping a lot and crying a bit I’m now over it and looking forward to the next chapter of my trip. I also feel like God has blessed me so much by being here what is the point in complaining? I need to make the most of being here!

Strike
One of the big things that has been going on for the last few weeks are the strikes. Before anyone starts getting worried – as I mentioned before, I’m in a prison about 70% of the time, so I’m not really personally affected by any of it. However all the teachers and people in hospitals are striking hoping to get a pay increase. The way I understand it is that there is enough money in the government to give these people - the people who need it, a pay increase but they have been lining their own pockets instead. So the people cause is pretty fair however it has caused a lot of disruption. The other problem is those who are striking feel so strongly about it that they want everyone else to strike too, so they have been trying to make this happen by force. Therefore we have head about a nurse being shot for still working and a head teacher being beaten up. This has meant that when going to the hospital with PCC, not only have we been met at the gates by people picketing but also with locked doors to all the wards and had to prove that we aren’t there to attack anyone for working! The schools have also all had to be closed and any child who is still attending school has had to go in in their own clothes to stop people attacking them on the way. Gateway Christian school hasn’t wanted to be involved in the strike as all the teachers there are being even more underpaid anyway, but that’s not what their at work for. But they have been forced to close for the safety of the children. They reopened on Friday however 3 times people from the union came to see if they were open and after the 3rd time said they didn’t believe no one was their and that they were sending a ‘mob’. This then meant that we had all the kids hiding in our conference room [where I’m sitting now] so that if people came they wouldn’t be found.
Another annoying this was that the day we normally are free to go food shopping is Wednesday but last Wednesday was a day where all the strikers were marching so it was even more dangerous so we couldn’t get food for a week! We were told that strikers were kicking car doors in and dragging out passengers incase they were potentially going to work!
There are also threats that the police will be going on strike and the power company. There is only one main electricity company where we are so if they strike it will cause a lot of chaos such as traffic lights not working etc! so please pray that the government take the strikes seriously and give people the wages they deserve before things get even more out of hand.


Another project we have had on the go is decorating the room we use this has been lots of fun as well, choosing painting, sanding walls and painting. It has also all been done to up beat clubbing style music which has made it jokes.

pictures

The braai:


Kates Birthday meal:

Dinner at Spur:

Mug and bean:

28th May - 31st May

Monday 28^th

On Monday it was really nice to be back in the prison and to be with the boys again. I went to PCC in the morning and started to back up all their files. This was a very frustrating process because they are using a computer with windows 98 on and it doesn’t even have a CD drive. This meant that I had to save everything on floppy disks which was missions as they have SO many files and floppy disks have like no memory. In the afternoon we were invited out by Dean to watch the 3^rd Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I was a bit annoyed because I pretty much hate all of those films, and it would be against my principles to actually pay to watch it at the cinema. However luckily we got a call from Sarah saying she was going round Ashley’s to watch 4 episodes of one tree hill and wondered if we wanted to come. So Kate and I jumped at the chance while the others went to the cinema. I had such a good time because I haven’t watched television now for the last 6 weeks! Also Ashley gave me a duvet to be wrapped up in which was the best thing ever [im getting pretty fed up for a sheet and skanky blanket] and his house has a fire so was really nice and warm!

Tuesday 29^th

On Tuesday I was at PCC again but I was left alone for the morning to get on with my admin work. This was pretty scary as it’s a big house and I would have to try and sort out anyone who popped in or phoned up. While I was by myself two lots of girls came in asking for pregnancy tests. Now I was a little worried about this as any miss information could be a pretty big deal, such as ‘one line means pregnant’ when it is in fact 2. I was panicking inside and doing a lot of ‘please help me God’ style prayers and thank goodness I managed to pull it off… I felt pretty pleased with myself afterwards and was impressed by my immense memory skills [I’d only been shown how to do it once] along with my ‘talking loudly and clearly to a zulu person’ skills.

In the evening we were meant to go to prayer meeting however it was all the way in Northdale and we couldn’t really get there so we decided to give it a miss. This was fortunate as I hadn’t showered in a real long time, so it gave me a good opportunity to get clean. Sadly I still haven’t adjusted to showering practically in front of people while they try and talk to me in Zulu but I’m sure with time…

In the evening we ordered Pizza, now this was an ‘interesting’ experience. I volunteered to make the call and proceeded to shout a lot down the phone hoping that this would some how combat the language barrier, along with trying to convince the person that when I say ‘deliver it to the prison gates’ I’m not actually joking. The 3 large pizzas came, costing 6 pounds in total and it was high fives all round.

Wednesday 30^th

I worked at PCC in the morning and it was pretty standard so there isn’t much to write. In the afternoon I went with Rob and the community care project [CCP] to sit in on one of their GOLD classes [generation of leaders discovered]. This is a lot like our PSE lessons at school. Wednesday’s topic was sexual violence and teaching them what is and isn’t considered sexual violence aka rape. This was a worrying experience, although some of the people in the class were pretty clued up lets just say I wouldn’t like to be alone with some of the boys in an alley based on their views…There were various scenarios and the teenagers had to say if they were sexual violence or not. It all got pretty heated especially when one boy was adamant that, if a girl agreed to have sex and then changed her mind it was fine to then force her as, ‘she had already agreed once and it wasn’t fair to make him stop when he had got ready’. The leader of the class then had to clearly lay down that ‘yes, forcing anyone to have sex, no matter what, was always sexual violence.’ A lesson well learnt I feel. On the way back to the car a girl came up to one of the leaders of CCP crying and got in the car with us. They were all talking in Zulu so Rob and I had no idea what was going on. But it turned out that her dad had died a few weeks ago and now her aunts had taken over her house and run her out. Luckily CCP took her in for the night and then sorted it out the next day [so she is back at home and its all OK].

We then did our big group shop and I prepared a chineese style feast [well chicken and rice] and we got ready to go out. Zane had invited us to go over with people from the church and watch napoleon dynamite! We had such a good evening, that film is always a winner and it was nice hanging out with new people.

Thursday 31^st

Thursday morning we got up early and were ready to leave at 6 for the hospital feeding. This was the same as last week however we upped up the amount of food as we didn’t have enough last week. We ended up feeding around 350 people and it was good to have more interaction with people outside of my project. There is a team of American girls down at the moment for 2 weeks so they came along and helped us.

When we got back I the helped Sarah and Rachel run the P.E class for Reception and year 1. It was a lot of fun although I was very tired but its always nice to do things with the kids at the school.

Then in the afternoon Sarah and I went what she calls ‘dodgy street’ shopping. This meant that we went to a predominantly black area to see what bargins we could find in all the little shops. We were the only white people in the entire high street AND I got to see an albino black person which was a bonus! It was lots of fun and it felt really good to just shop and feel normal and have a bit of a break from my team. I bought some shoes for 3 pounds!

We then went to cell in the evening at Clint and Niokas house. They are a really cute couple in our cell and they have a really lush house. The meeting was really interesting and my team won the game [of course!] and it was finished off nicely by butternut soup and rolls.

The forest fire:



Our mini mission trip:

Pics!

Hospital feeding: