So now we’ve been at Hands base in South Africa (near White River) for a few days now and it’s really beginning to feel like home.

 

 

To give you guys some insight into my new world, we are staying in the Hands village. There are 7 other volunteers on my intake. We have a couple of Australians, three Canadians, another Brit and a token American… It’s a lot of fun. J

 

Our first week involves spending time together, doing training with other Hands Volunteers (who have been here longer) and going into the communities.

 

Yesterday (our first official day) we went into a community called Clau Clau, which was about 45mins drive from the Hands base. We had an overview of the way that Hands are structured, which was really helpful as we found out about how the Community Based Organisation’s (CBOs) tie in with the Service Centres (SCs) and the Regional Support Teams (RSTs).

After this we went into the community and met some of the kids that they support. When the children arrived we played ball games with them and chatted to them to find out more about their lives.

 

Today I was really excited to be heading back to a community that we visited last year and was close to many of our hearts.

We went to Welverdine where we went out with the community care workers to visit the children in their homes. It was amazing to see the community a year on and to see all of the care workers again. In this particular community there are only 9 care workers and they feed around 100 children EVERY day (Monday to Friday).

While we were out walking, we were caught in a massive downpour – after a short walk in it, we were absolutely soaked to the skin and walking along in the middle of the mini-rivers that had formed instantly. We ended up sheltering in someone’s house while we waited for the rain to subside (photos will follow!). Ahh storms in Africa are fun. :)

After we made it back we had a great time (albeit brief) with the children – Although I didn’t get to see any of the ones that I met last year – hopefully I’ll see them next time.