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.