Our welcome to South Africa was not quite what we anticipated. We have now been in so called “sunny South Africa” for a week and it has rained for the past two days! But no problem, it has not dampened our spirits, and anyway the sun is out again today.
Our first couple of days we stayed at a B&B until one of the other VSA volunteers (Lindsay from Dunedin) kindly offered us a spare room at his place. We moved in there temporarily last Friday. He lives next door to another VSA volunteer (Lesley from Auckland) and we were pleasantly surprised by the quality of their accommodation. Who knows what standard of place we will get later on in December?
Sports Day
Lindsay took us along to a sports day organised by his church on Saturday and managed to rope us in to taking part in Pastor Roco’s team! It was mainly kids competing, with a few bigger kids like us as well. Dave competed in the football, touch rugby, and wheelbarrow races (using real wheelbarrows), and Sharon played volleyball and had to do the sack race. It was a great day out, just a bit too much sunshine for us and we really enjoyed watching the black kids dance, they were superb with unbelievable rhythm. (Oh by the way our team won!)
Sharon competing in the sack raceDave leading a real wheelbarrow race!
Familiarisation
On Saturday night we went out for dinner with a few VSA volunteers. There are currently 5 VSA volunteers in East London, and a few more scattered around South Africa.
Sunday was spent with two volunteers showing us around the area. We did a lot of walking on some beautiful beaches, something we hope to do a lot more of when we get our own place here.
We have also met our VSA field officer and have found out a wee bit more about Sharon’s actual assignment, not much more, but a little! He has also put me in touch with my soon to be boss in Fair Trade in Tourism in Pretoria so hopefully we will get up there to see her at some stage before I start work.
The last few days we have been car shopping and doing a lot of walking. It is hard to buy a car without a car because it is a fair distance between car lots and private car sales! Hence no car yet!
We went to a drumming circle on Tuesday night – a group of people who get together weekly and play the African drums, great sound and maybe that is something else we will do when we get settled in East London.
Right now we are in Port Elizabeth (PE), two hours south of East London (EL), and although as we said earlier our spirits have not dampened we are fairly p!$$ed off .
The inevitable welcome to South Africa
Our welcome to South Africa has involved the inevitable, something we thought was likely to happen at some stage during our two years, but not anticipating it would happen in the first week.
You have probably guessed by now that we have been the victims of SA crime! The volunteer’s house we were staying at was broken into on Wednesday morning just after we left to go catch a bus to Port Elizabeth for a few days. The bad news is that we lost half our stuff. The good news is of course that we still have the other half!
It is just unfortunate that the missing stuff was our luxury stuff – the laptop and our trusty iPOD with all our music. Sharon’s backpack is gone, her clothes, our hiking boots and running shoes (great excuse to not have to go running anymore), and a few other bits and pieces. Note that none of Dave’s clothes were taken!!! Lindsay, our host, lost a few pairs of shoes and some pens!
After dealing with half the SA police force and completing a dozen forms to report the crime, we managed to change our bus time and still get to PE as planned.
One parting quote from Lindsay as we left the police stations was “we thought we were all coming to SA to help the poor, but it looks like the poor are quite happy to help themselves!!!”
We are meeting our SA friends (Michelle & Peter) tomorrow and really looking forward to spending the weekend with them.
One last thing – we have not managed to work out a way to make cheap international phone calls yet, and texting is also very expensive for us, so email and this blog will be our primary source of communication.
Wednesday 28th September 2005 is now ranked up there as the longest day we’ve ever had, but more about that later.
We are now in South Africa, and writing this at 5am from a bed & breakfast in East London!
Our last week or so in New Zealand was a wee bit strange, it was kind of like being in limbo because we had to move out of our house on the 18th to allow our tenants to move in, and our flights were not leaving Queenstown until the 27th. We are not sure what we would have done without the generosity of all our friends who housed and fed us during our homeless state. A big thank you to everyone we stayed with, and also thanks to all of you who so kindly offered, it was all very much appreciated.
Stewart Island
Since we had a few days to while away we took the opportunity to visit Stewart Island and it was a well needed break away from all our preparations. We had a lovely time relaxing – we spent our three days there reading, walking and eating some delicious fresh fish while admiring the stunning views. It is a beautiful little island and well worth a visit.
Halfmoon Bay Stewart IslandOban, Stewart Island
And so it was that we could no longer prolong the inevitable emotional departure from our home of the past four years. We had a bit of a farewell do in Queenstown on Saturday night, which had a knock on effect on how we, and a few of our friends, felt on Sunday morning!
If things go according to plan with our VSA assignment in South Africa, we will not return to our home in New Zealand with the views that we will no doubt miss, until the end of January 2008.
Farewell party with friends
Back to the longest day
Okay back to the longest day.
It started in a Christchurch airport motel with a very early morning (or rather middle of the night) wake up call at 3.30am! Our international flight left at 5.50am for Sydney where we had a few hours to kill before the 14 hour onward flight to Johannesburg.
There is no getting away from the fact that it was a very long flight all the while seeming to chase daylight, but the amazing views over the Antarctic made it all worthwhile. The pilot who had been flying for 30 years said he had never seen such impressive views of this unique continent. It all felt even more relevant due to the fact that we had just spent the previous afternoon in the very educational Antarctic Centre in Christchurch.
We arrived late afternoon in Johannesburg, and on the connecting flight to East London, we were relieved at last to see the sun set. We’d had 22 hours of daylight – it would soon be bed time and at this stage nothing else mattered!
The fact that Sharon’s backpack did not make it with us to East London was of no concern – we were in Africa now! We were met at the airport by two VSA volunteers who drove us to our B&B (The Gate House in Quigney). And the surprising news was that the missing back pack turned up at 9.30pm just as we turned down the sheets at the end of the longest day (about 28 hours after we got out off bed)!
We are on the move again! Volunteering this time. As many of you know we had our first experience of volunteering back in 2003. Since returning from that first four-month foray in Peru, we knew that this was something we both wanted to do more of, so it is with that in mind that we are on the move again.
Our experience in northern Peru was really great and we learned a lot from it. First and foremost that teaching was not the way to go for us. Secondly, we wanted more time to achieve sustainable results, and thirdly we knew we wanted to get involved in a volunteer project where we could use more of our skills, experiences or whatever you call the things we felt we could offer!
Volunteer Services Abroad
And so it was that back in February this year, after a fair few hours of researching on the internet, we came up with the idea of registering our interest with Volunteer Services Abroad (VSA) based in Wellington.
Anyway to cut a long story a wee bit shorter, there were a couple of tourism related jobs up for grabs so Sharon applied for both. One in the Solomon Islands, and the other in South Africa.
In May VSA invited us both to Wellington for the interview process, but only for the job in SA.
Our first reaction was disappointment as we had an idyllic, romantic notion of working and living in a Pacific Island where everything would be new and exotic to both of us. On second thoughts perhaps living on a very small remote island with limited running water, and a sporadic electricity supply for 2 years may become ‘old hat’ after a while!
All of this was in comparison to going to South Africa, a country we have both been to before, and primarily think of as being developed, but facing a different set of challenges.
Although Dave did not apply for a specific role, he did have to join Sharon throughout the lengthy and thorough interview, selection, recruitment and preparation processes. Bearing in mind that he had not had an interview in almost 20 years, that experience was a little nerve-wracking to say the least! (A special note of thanks here to those people, you know who you are, who provided the very detailed references for us – we didn’t recognise ourselves when we read them!).
South Africa it is!
Suffice to say we got through it all, including extensive medical and dental examinations, and Sharon has accepted the role of Tourism Development Advisor for Fair Trade Tourism South Africa. We are on the move again!
Dave is officially going as an ‘accompanying partner’. Although he claims he is going to spend the next two years paragliding, golfing (very loose term), and learning to surf, he is actually going to find volunteer work when we settle in to our new location, a city called East London on the Eastern Cape of South Africa.
It is 15 years since Sharon first lived in SA, and it was nine years ago when we both had a short holiday there. No doubt we will notice changes, but we have a vague idea of what to expect in terms of climate, geography, landscape and lifestyles. Let’s hope we can adapt and fit in to our new community.
We have just received our visas and are waiting on final flight confirmations. All being well we should arrive in SA by the end of September, either way we are moving out of our house this weekend because we have tenants moving in on Sunday!
Because the volunteer assignment does not start until January, we are going to travel around SA for 3 months or so, and experience the tourism industry first hand! And by way of this blog we will try and keep you up to date with what’s going on in our lives, but meanwhile should you want to contact us please do so on: schindlersinsa@gmail.com
About Us
Hi, we're Sharon & Dave an active and adventurous Irish & English couple who've been travelling together for more than 20 years. These posts are our travel stories and personal journeys. Follow our adventures to see where we've been and where we're going next!
Pin It on Pinterest
Loading Comments...
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.OkPrivacy Policy
