SAEP, Philippi, Qhamani & my work

My organisation (South African Education and Envrionment Project) takes care of nine crèches altogether through sending volunteers and raising funds.
Qhamani Educare Centre is the crèche which I am responsible for. It is situated in a township called Philippi. Philippi is an informal settlement on the outskirts of Cape Town, characterized by a high level of poverty and crime. Most people are illiterate, unemployed or in very poorly paid jobs. Therefore, good childhood education is in great demand in the community.

Nokhaya, my principal, started with the crèche in 1996 in her own house - seeing the demand for educare centres in her community.
Qhamani provides day-care for 105 needy children aged 1-6 years, providing them with 2 meals a day, stimulation, play, life skills training and pre-school education from 6 am to 5 pm.
Although the staff are only paid very little due to the lack of money, they do a wonderful job in looking after the children, attending trainings on early childhood education, cooking and caring.

Staff as well as children are all Xhosa. Therefore, English is a second language for everyone.
Some of them grew up in Cape Town, some of them, like Nokhaya, are originally from Eastern Cape or from other parts of the country. They came to Cape Town to look for a job - e. g. as domestic workers.

I work with the children, with the staff as well as with Nokhaya.
My day starts normally at 8 am in the office in Rosebank with some paper work. Between 9 and 10 am we go out to Philippi and work there for a couple of hours - on whatever needs to be done. Teaching, playing with the children, filling out forms with the principal, helping staff with assignments for their training, helping in the kitchen, giving computer lessons, etc. etc.
Nearly every day is different from the previous one and you never really know what to expect of the day.

Besides all the various "small" projects I work on, the rebuilding of Qhamani Educare Centre is my biggest "baby". SAEP supports the rebuilding of a new crèche for Qhamani.
My job is to organise and to oversee the process, to get quotes for material and labour, to find a place for the children in the meantime and to coordinate everyone involved – in cooperation with the principal of the crèche, parents and staff members, other volunteers and the local community.

It takes time to build up relationships with people but I really love and enjoy my work here.
I'm very glad that I "ended up" ;-) with SAEP and Qhamani!

My own car

I guess you wouldn't believe it as I can't really believe it myself yet but I really bought a car on Friday!! I am the happy owner of a Toyota, 1996, as you can see on the picture!!!

I have a "buy back" option which means that I will sell it back to the same guy who sold me the car now. I hope I won't loose too much money...

Getting the money for the car was a special experience. South African banks are complicated, you have to queue forever and not every bank takes every common credit card or credit cards at all (at the tellers). In the end, I was queuing at four different banks for nearly two hours and came back with a bag full of notes because they could only give me 50 Rand notes.

I don't have to say that the worst thing you can do in South Africa is to walk around with lots of cash in your pocket but it was the only way for me so I had to. I was lucky - nobody took any notice. ;-)

Now, I have my own car and I'm so much more flexible than before which is great!!
It is too dangerous to go out when it's dark without a car which means that you are basically stuck at home in the evenings.

Not anymore for me though... Yippieh... ;-)

JDI Ball last Saturday

...well, the ball wasn't really what I would call a ball... :-) No ballroom dancing at least.
Formal, fun, nice dresses, people with money and a heart to spend it for people in need, three course meal, a funny, professional auctioneer and party, party, party...

It was organised by JDI (= "Just do it") - a group of people who do fundraising for different projects, meaning they regularly collect money or organise an event like the ball on Saturday to gain money for projects/organisations like the rebuilding of my creche or SAEP itself.

Nokhaya, my principal, came with us as well - in a beautiful African dress. It was great having her there. I always enjoy it a lot to be around her and to work with her. She is a generous, intelligent, hard-working, funny, honest, loving and giving woman who never complains about anything.

Public Transport

Riding a minibus is the most hilarious experience ever!
To stop them, you can just walk in the direction you want to go - the drivers scream at you their destination when passing and take you on if you wish.
After managing to get ON the bus, you need to squeeze in with as many people as possible - if you have your shopping with you and don't know how to breathe with all the things on top of you or not... ;-)
The money is passed to the driver while driving. You just hand it over to the people in front of you.
If you finally reached your destination, you are the one now who needs to scream in order to stop the minibus.
It happens that you feel totally exhausted after taking the minibus to do your shopping but it's a never to be missed cultural experience and I love it!! :-)

Finally starting my blog

I have already been in South Africa for more than four weeks and I finally start using my blog.
I'll post short comments on how I am getting on and what I have been up to.
If anyone feels like leaving me messages, I am very happy to receive them!

I am just about getting well again. Unfortunately, I was pretty sick at the weekend - cold and flue - which wasn't actually a surprise regarding lots of sick children around me and a still very cold and windy Cape Town weather.

On Saturday we'll be going to fundraising ball for SAEP - the organisation I work for.
An African Spring Ball... Clothing is not sorted out yet... ;-)

That's the two extremes we live with and experience every single day. Poor and rich, black and white. Although I don't like putting it that way, that's what it is like. Unfortunately.
But then again: The money of the ball will go to SAEP which is great and a big help - so I am very much looking forward to that event.
If it is any different than the balls I've been to before?

Start meines Blogs

Ein erster Versuch, mich in der Welt der Blogs zurecht zu finden...