Garden Route

We went away for the weekend so I haven't had the chance to update. Here it goes.

Thursday - I worked with the toddlers again at Sarah Fox. I started to learn their names (very hard to pronounce) and their personalities. I began realizing that standards of care are very different here than they are the United States due to lack of resources. For example - Several children are given medicine with the same spoon, cleaned with the same towel, etc. Some of the nurses and housekeeping staff become very impatient with some of the toddlers and will tie them to their cribs even when they didn't really do anything wrong. The other volunteers and I tried as hard as we could to engage the wild ones to keep them from being tied up, but it's hard when there are so many. I even tried to untie one to bring him outside but got scolded by the head nurse.

After placement, we attended an HIV/AIDS workshop. Over 6 million people in South Africa are infected with the virus, and there were more than 1,400,000 AIDS orphans in South Africa in 2007. The workshop was very informative and now I have a little better understanding of the many different aspects of the virus and its effects on the country.

Friday - I was the only CCS volunteer at the hospital Friday.. Jessie went to the Red Cross Hospital with one of the infants and Alex and Allie were sick. I spent the morning in the "school" since no one was there to take care of the older kids. Since many of them have never had any kind of formal education it was difficult to keep their attention, especially since they haven't learned English. I finally got them to listen when I tried to speak to them in Xhosa. I only know one sentence by heart but they got a kick out of it.. they laughed and laughed and laughed. I showed them how to make paper cranes and we finished a puzzle. Once another volunteer showed up I was sent back to the toddler room.

After placement, we jumped on a bus and headed on our weekend trip on the Garden Route. We drove for about 6 hours to Wilderness, South Africa where we stayed in a hostel for the night. The drive was so gorgeous, and the hostel was really cute.. Once we got there we had dinner and wine in a little tiki hut. I saw the Indian Ocean for the first time.oh, and we saw a bunch of baboons at one of our rest stops.Dinner at the hostel

Saturday- Our group woke up at 6 am Saturday morning and drove about 2 more hours east along the southern coast of Africa. First we did a canopy tour and then I bungeed the tallest bungee jump in the world! It was AMAZING..I'll try to post pictures. Everyone in the group bungeed except for two and it was an awesome teambuilding experience. Later we saw elephants and I got to walk/feed/touch them. Our trip was definitely a much needed break from all the hard work. We ate dinner on the water in a town called George. BEAUTIFUL.

Sunday - Again, we woke up at 6 and left for the caves and animal excursion. I opted out of the caves because it was something that I've done before and can easily do again in Missouri. Instead my friend Whitney and I window shopped in a little town (forgot what it was called) and ate at a local restaurant. They served crocodile and ostrich. I tried both. I was excited about the animal excursion but was a little disappointed because it was more like a touristy zoo and I can see that in Kansas City. Some of the other volunteers paid extra and got to play with the tiger cubs.. That was fun to see. After the animals we headed back for Cape Town.