The first days

After skyping the family, deleting about a thousand photos of the motorway that Isaac House took on my camera, and doing the nightly spider check of my bed, I felt it was time to start my blog.So I've only been here four days but it already feels like forever, everyone is so lovely and it feels like one massive family, although I have to say i'm already missing everyone at home a lot.


So after getting off the plane and meeting Maz at the airport we set off for the village of hope, doing a huge number of errands on the way back (when all I wanted to do was sleep!) and although I've been here before it is still shocking to see the huge contrast that divides this country. I mean I spent the morning in a shopping centre, which could have easily been in the middle of Aylesbury, and then spent the afternoon with children who couldn't even imagine the life that we live. 

There are 10 children in the unit here, all with different stories but ultimately all without a family that are able to look after them. They are the most gorgeous children ever, all so loving and smiley and some, very cheeky. As they are obviously used to new people coming around, the minute I walked into the room they were all surrounding me, giving me cuddles and wondering why my hair was orange! The way their faces light up when any volunteers walk into the room is so amazing to see and I cant wait to get more involved with them.


On Thursday afternoon we did sports club, which they run in the townships every week from monday-thursday. After spending a ridiculous amount of time driving round picking the kids up and attempting to fit about 15 kids in a seven seater vehicle and then getting locked out the building we finally started sports where we played indoor hockey (because of the rain), or rugby with sticks as it became known. One of my favourite things about South Africa is how laid back it is and that there are no ridiculous health and safety laws that just smother the children back in England. Its just  amazing how just an hour a week of sport obviously means so much to these kids and its great that through sport we can break down so many, social, cultural and emotional barriers that may stand between us and the kids.