We left Belfast City airport at 3pm on Friday 1st August and finally arrived in Durban at 2pm on Saturday 2nd August. Twenty-five of us, still apprehensive as to what the next 3 weeks had in store for us. One of the first things we did was run an SU life-skills camp in Underberg at the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains. We had raised money at home in order to bring 60 kids from a school in Pietermaritzburg to the camp for 4 days. We ate, slept and spent all our time with these kids; it was an amazing experience and privilege for us to share in hopefully making a difference in their lives. The kids were there to learn about decision-making: the theme being "decide to decide right". Difficult issues were tackled such as sexual abuse and AIDS and we were promoting the idea of one partner for life. This camp was overall a lot of hard work, no doubt about it! However, it felt rewarding and I also learnt a lot from them.
Next on the agenda was to participate in a bridge building encounters programme run by African Enterprise in Pietermaritzburg. There were south African Indians, blacks, coloureds, whites, Americans and us! What a weekend! We had so many great opportunities to mix with people from different cultures, finding out how similar we really are in some way and learning to love the differences. It was also a challenging time for us as a team. It made us examine our own culture in Northern Ireland, something that we realised we don’t know a lot about. This made me really think about my country and who I am as a person from Northern Ireland.
We then travelled back to Durban and spent time in Anchor House. Anchor House runs an after-schools project which we ran while we were there. It is positioned in quite a dangerous part of Durban and so the park is not a safe place for the kids to play at any time. Anchor House has been working hard to build up relationships with these kids and attempts to make the park a safer place. The kids recognise the yellow jackets worn by the volunteers (us) as a sign for safety in the park and are advised to stay away at any other times.
After our time in Durban we flew to Cape Town. The following morning we led a church service. Some of our team shared their experiences of South African so far, we sang a song and one of the other leaders gave a short sermon. It was an amazing thing to experience another church and to take part in their (very African-style) worship!
The thing which had terrified the majority of leaders, was the day spent in Garlandale high school. Our kids were paired with a South African student and the leaders had to teach for the day! It proved to be one of the best experiences of all for everyone.
