Can you feel it? It is here!

Hello cyber-world,

This is Luke here. Becky asked me to write a one off instalment in her South African blog as I have been out here for a week now. I thought that the best way to go about it would be to give you a flavour of my experience so far. Unsurprisingly, it started with an all but 24 hour door-to-door journey. Being the first time I have flown on my own, and the first time I have travelled outside Europe I was slightly apprehensive. However, the 10 and a half hour plane journey was fine and I managed to watch a couple of films and read quite a lot of my Dan Brown book. The trouble only really started once I had done all the seemingly hard work. Foolishly I thought that on arrival at Johannesburg airport my sister would be there waiting with open arms! It soon became clear that this was not the case and I was told that she was still a couple of hours away. I used the time wisely (largely sitting on the terminal floor and turning down the numerous offers from taxi drivers to take me to my destination). Having got bored of the airport I went outside in preparation for my sister's arrival. Numerous phone calls with Becky followed and we both concluded that we were looking at the same hotel and we could both see a big red ball (one of the many signs that the World Cup was coming to SA). Unfortunately, 20 minutes later and I was still under the big red ball and there was no sign of Becky. Eventually, I saw Becky on her phone in a car driving past and managed to persuade her to stop.

Having travelled nearly 6000 miles, I was finally ready to travel the remaining 200 or so miles to St. Anthonys. Having suffered a sleepless night on the plane I managed to fall asleep in the car having stopped off for a South African Wimpy (not exactly the authentic Zulu experience just yet!). Arriving at St. Anthonys I was pleasantly surprised by the modern appearance of the home and the sight of the soccer pitch. I arrived before the kids were home from school so we went to the boardroom/dining room and I met the staff of St. Anthonys and tried a Zulu chicken curry. The curry was good and being a bit of a cave man I had no problems with the chicken being on the bone.

Soon the children started coming home from school and I went round with Becky and introduced myself to all of them. They were all really nice and welcomed me with the traditional Zulu handshakes. One of the little children charged up to me and said "Visitor! Hello!" and made me pick him up and swing him round, whilst he tried to copy whatever I said. The older kids assumed that I was some sort of super soccer (not football out here) star, and I quickly accepted the favourable nickname of "Beckham". We played soccer until it was dark and we literally couldn't see the ball any more. In the evening me and Becky went with the other staff members to the local casino for dinner. I had a really good steak and I was really impressed by the casino. In fact, me and Becky are going to go back there tonight to do some recreational gambling! Unfortunately, Zulus do not gamble!

During the days me and Becky take it pretty easy and end up driving into town and doing little jobs for the home, whilst the kids are at school. Each afternoon I play soccer, cricket and basketball with the kids and that is always really good fun. It has been really good to bring some structure to their games. For example, on Sunday the young kids from St. Anthonys played the kids from the local church at soccer and I was the ref. Afterwards, me and the older kids played the older children from the church. We drew 2-2 (I scored 2, but that is an unimportant detail) and the match went to penalties. With our team scoring the first 4 penalties and their team having only missed 1, I was told to take our fifth penalty and hopefully win the game. However, I didn't want to take the moment of glory away from one of the kids so said I wouldn't take it. Thankfully, someone else stepped up and tucked it away. It was so fun as everyone watching went absolutely crazy and we had a mass bundle.

The cottage here is really nice and Becky did a great job of making it welcoming for me. In the evenings me and Becky usually watch a dvd and sometimes the kids come round to watch as well. The kids love coming round to the cottage and seeing me and Becky which is really nice. On the second night, the kids did an official introduction for me, which involved lots of traditional Zulu dancing and a really nice speech from one of the girls saying how happy they were to have me here. They also put me on the spot and made me say a few words, which was a bit nerve racking!

I will apologise now, both for the length of this blog and its disjointed nature. There has been so much going on here though that it is difficult to get down in an orderly manner! On Sunday, me, Becky and the older boys went to a local church where we got a taste of the traditional Zulu Christian experience. It involved a lot of singing, dancing, crying, feinting and shouting, which was fun and certainly different from OLOR!That Sunday afternoon we went back into the township and played a really serious (by Zulu standards) soccer match. It was the care worker’s team against a team from the local community and only me and one other boy were chosen to start. The other boys from St. Anthonys were happy enough watching though. We lost 2-1 in the match, but I did score the goal... It was really interesting to play with African adults at football, as the style is totally different to that of recreational European football. The game is so quick, and the players are strong and powerful. However, their lack of coaching is quite clear as they often lack the vision or experience to see a pass that others would. It was a really cool experience, especially playing on the dustbowl of a football pitch, with huge clumps of grass sprouting out!

Anyway, I think that I have spoken about my main experiences of SA so far. The kids are really nice and welcoming and I can see why Becky would want to work here. She does a fantastic job here and the kids love her. I think she is unbelievably brave to do what she is doing and I have only fully recognised what a big leap it must have been for her, now that I have visited. It must be particularly hard due to the lack of normal communication you can have. The care workers speak Zulu 99 % of the time and only a handful of the kids speak good English. I am very proud of her. I know that she is really happy to have me here which is nice as well. It gives her someone to talk to and I am able to entertain the kids for hours, which is fun! Oooh and one more thing, I was out driving today for only the second time in SA when I was pulled over by a traffic cop! He said that I was doing 87 kmph in a 60 zone (which was a bit harsh as it had literally just moved from an 80 to a 60 like 50 yards before!). He then said it would cost me 600 rand. And then he said, “where are you from?” and I said “I am from England and I am here to watch the soccer”. And all of a sudden he was like, “ok, well off you go, and slow down.” So that was a result! It was really unfair anyway though as the people infront of me were driving faster but didn’t get pulled over! It showed you that they were trying to be extra nice to tourists though!

I hope everyone is well back in England. Hopefully, this blog made some kind of sense and didn’t just seem like random ramblings! Anyway, gotta shoot as me and Becky need to get ready to go to the casino! Wish us luck!

Luke
xxx