I thought that for this entry I would give you a basic idea of what I spendmost of my days doing (so far). After two weeks of working I have settled into a basic routine but everyday is different.
I wake up around 7am and get ready for the meeting that all the volunteers and mothers have each day at 7:45am. These meetings are run by a staff member. From what I gather these meetings are a fairly recent addition to the routine here at Nkosi's Haven and they allow everyone to have an opportunity to raise concerns or make announcements. This is important in a place like Nkosi's Haven because word of mouth is how almost all announcements seem to be made.
After the meeting I go back to cottage I live in and have breakfast. Breakfast is served in the kitchen everyday at 6:30am but I have no intention of getting up at that time for maize porridge or bread. (This is what I've heard is served for breakfast I've only eaten it once, my first day because I arrived at 7am.) This is the cottage I live in.
Then its time for me to “commute” to "work". Here is the hill I walk up to get to work
Once I arrive at "work" - about 3-4 minutes later - I start working on whatever tasks I have for that day. This always involves several trips “downstairs” (the bottom of the hill) for discussions with the founder of the organization, and my boss, Gail. As everyone is always saying, walking up and down the hill will make me “fit”. This is my office.
So far I have written a donation proposal, taken over running Nkosi's Haven's Facebook page, created a media list and am currently planning a memorial event for the 10th anniversary of the death of Nkosi Johnson, the boy who inspired the creation of Nkosi's Haven. Shameless plug: If you have Facebook, you can “like” our Facebook page by using the box to the left.
I work until about 1pm when lunch is served. Lunch varies from day to day but its generally a variation of sandwiches, fries, sausage, hot dog, potatoes, salad (rarely with dressing) or bread. So far lunch has not been my favourite meal of most days.
After lunch I go back to work until about 4pm or 5pm it varies from day to day. Since my office is in the therapy building of the village I usually get a few visits from kids who are coming for therapy, tutoring or Afrikaans lessons.
After I finish work I pack up my things and commute back down the hill. Then I usually spend an hour or so hanging out with the kids while we wait for dinner.
Dinner starts at 5pm with the children being served first. Then everyone else is free to come and serve themselves. I usually eat dinner in the cottage with the other volunteers. After dinner we usually hang around and talk or sometimes I read. Another volunteer and I are also trying to learn a bit of Zulu (the most common African language spoken at Nkosi’s Haven) so some nights we read aloud from the instruction books we bought.
I don’t quite know why but something about this place makes you tired very early. It gets dark at 6pm and everyone heads to their cottages around 7pm and seem to be in bed shortly after. So around 9:30/10pm I turn on my electric blanket and go to bed. For some reason the majority of houses in South Africa don’t have any insulation and we don’t really have an effective heating system either so its quite cold at night ... more on that later. I think that ‘quirks’ will make for an interesting future blog entry.
Leave comments!! More pictures to come...
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