Category: South Africa

The time I fell in love

Today was my first day volunteering. Driving up I realized this is real these are kids have nothing consistent in their life and I am someone that can impact their life. After a little oreitantion and rules being put in place i got a tour of the orphanage. Once I saw the first room with the 0 to 12 months I fell in love. The smiles on the kids faces while I played catch with them it melted my heart. At that moment, my manager told me not to get comfortable because those weren’t the kids I’ll be working with. My group of kids are 1 to 3, they are the cutest group of kids I’ve ever met. They all are fascinated with my hair, and my watch they loved the colors. Many of them have non English type names which can be a bit hard to pronounce. There is one girl, a name I can not pronounce nor spell so I’ll call her Cee, has autism. As a special education major I am immediately drawn to her. I am not a doctor but I would say she is mild to moderate in the level of ability she has. She does understand when I speak to her and does respond just not verbally. The way she eats, communicates, or anything she does I just love to watch her. It is only the first day,but some of the teachers do not possess the patience to deal with Cee. Cee will not eat at the same speed, she won’t communicate the same, nor will she do other activities the same, but if you give her time, patience and attention she will complete the task. I already have grown so much love for the kids and it’s only been a few hours. These four months will be difficult, but I’m sure they will be so rewarding. Just as a warning I am not allowed to post any pictures with any of the kids on social media, blogs, nothing, I will be able to take pictures probably after the first week.

What no one tells you

Those small details that are important when traveling abroad that no one tells you. They do not tell you that coming to a foreign country is difficult. I am extremely grateful to have family here to help adjust and to steer me in the right direction, here on my first couple days. Before coming I wanted to do things my way and on my own, but after being here for a few days it is better to have a friendly face around.

Here are some of the things I am having trouble adjusting to:

  1. Time Difference. There is a 6 to 7 hour time difference between Joburg, SA and Georgia, USA. The difficult part Is not being able to sleep when everyone else is sleeping. Jet lag is a real thing and is very difficult the first few days. I haven’t adjusted yet. Trying to contact family and friends becomes difficult because when I’m waking up (8:30 am ) they ae going to sleep (1:30 am) and when I am going to sleep they are coming home from work.
  2. Adjusting to cultural changes. When I say this I mean being able to go run, like I did back home. It is absolutely beautiful in the mornings and I just want to go run. But because I am still new to the country I want to adjust to my surroundings before I truly start exploring, at least for the first few days.
  3. Not knowing if when people cook if you will like it. I love to try new things, but there is one problem, I do not like curry. Do you know which country is the curry capital of the world? (not literally) South Africa. I bite into everything with extreme caution. Luckily my family has cooked some delicious alternates and I have not run into that problem yet. I am keeping a list of dishes I like.
  4. Getting use to house help. One night everyone was sitting at the dinner table and I heard a noise in the kitchen. Now if I was back home, and noise in the kitchen happened while everyone is in the same room that is a reason to go get a gun. Instead here no one was freaking out, I simply had forgotten the house help was cleaning the kitchen. It is very common for house help to stay with the family and become part of the family.
  5. Lastly, not understanding what anyone is saying and lots of staring. The accents are thick and because I look like a coloured girl (a mixed girl in South Africa) everyone speaks fast, not til I open my mouth do they realize I’m American. Many school age girls stared while I talked and wanted me to say more things. It is quite entertaining. Everyone speaks extremely fast when thy are in a large group and they use different English words which makes it difficult to understand.
    1. For example- Indicator = turning signal
      1. Boot(when referring to a car)= trunk
      2. Robot (WHILE DRIVING)= traffic lights
  • Matriculate (referring to school)= senior
  1. Napkin=diaper

And many other small words that aren’t used in America

Until Next Time,

Jill Bundy

The Time I Lost a Day

Warning there are a lot of random small events I will talk about in this post that contributed to the time I lost a whole day.

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The Flight

First it started with a 20 hour flight, which to my surprise wasn’t too bad to endure. I sat next to a Nigerian Pilot, he was extremely nice and ended up helping me with Wi-Fi when I landed in South Africa. So shout out to you, Nigerian Pilot, whose name I Don’t know! Before flying I was scared that I would not survive the flight because I could not sit still longer than 20 minutes. To my dismay I was able to sit, watch movies and color majority of the flight. The food tasted like a fast food restaurant that wanted to be higher class but failed miserably, my taste buds did not enjoy.

On the second leg of my flight we landed in Ghana. I found it interesting that while landing, all the giant houses and buildings were sitting on dirt roads. The main roads were paved with asphalt, but 75% of the roads off of the main road was not. The infrastructure of that country intrigues me. Ghana has definitely made it on to my long list of countries to go to.

Landing in South Africa.

The airport signs were extremely confusing; therefore I just followed my Nigerian Pilot to where I needed to go. Everyone had to go through immigration. In this line I met a couple from the United States, Andy and Ann, they were world travelers and was staying for 2 weeks. We talked for a long time and I realized they are definitely my traveling goals, Mr. Andy had travelled to 57 countries. Hopefully our paths will cross each other once again.

Meeting the Family.

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I was gracious enough to have family that lives in Johannesburg, South Africa. Fun Fact: In South Africa they drive on the wrong side of the road, meaning the steering wheel is on RIGHT side. The kind of living in South Africa is different. My family lives in a gated community, that is still not safe for a single female to walk around in, along with gated fences around each individual houses. The windows are boarded up, but used as a design on the window. Along with after locking up all the doors there is a separate gate leading to the bedroom that also gets locked. My Aunt Tracy prepared a delicious African version of chicken and dumplings, it was prepared differently from the American version and I enjoyed it. The rest of the night, which felt like the day that never ended, I sat around and talked with my new family.

family

Although in South Africa they speak English, Afrikan along with 9 other languages, I have to pay close attention to everything that is said because the dialect is very different. They use words in different contexts and it completely throws the sentence off. Side note, everyone has an awesome accent, although to them I’m the one with the accent.

That concludes the time I lost a day.