Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Diary - South Africa - ABC - week 6
Friday 18th - We woke up to go Oranjekloof and meet with Miss Davies. It had been raining so I we didn't plan on going to do sport there as the field we play on there would be unplayable. We asked if she was about and got told she wasn't in, I'm not sure why she wouldn't be, she's meant to be running the place! We got told that she would be in on Monday and that we could talk to the vice principals. We spoke to one of them and we saw Cheryl in the school do she joined us, we got an appointment with Miss Davies for Monday and sorted plans for getting girls out of the school for a session on Monday at a stadium in cape town, called the Athlone stadium which was the main stadium before they built the world cup ones. We had a few words about pupils at the school who were good at football and should be mentioned for chances to be developed further in football and left the school, we didn't have any plans until 3:15 as we were not teaching at the school so we chilled for a bit and headed up to Cheryl's. We spent a few hours up there and spoke with Isaac, Cheryl's housekeeper, he left us as he was done so we were left alone in her house, that is some serious trust there! He left us with some keys and the alarm system for when we left. We left an hour or so after this and as we left, Liam went to lock the door and turn on the alarm system and as he did this, the alarm went blaring off, we didn't know what to do so we phoned Cheryl and as we waited for her to pick up, a guy who was patrolling came whizzing up in his car to assess the situation, Liam looked worried! Cheryl eventually picked up and we gave the phone to the guy to sort it out. I got it on video because I thought Liam would fill his pants when this guy rolled up. We left her estate and went down the mountain but this time, it was raining heavily and this made it difficult for two reasons. Number 1 being that you're going down at like 30-40 miles an hour due to the gradient and that added with wet surface doesn't make it easy and number 2, with the wheels spinning so fast, the water spinning up from the front wheel was hitting us in the face, not cool, we survived this to make our way back to the flat to pick up a few things for the girls workshop at mariners wharf with Marquerithe. With all the rain and that, nobody turned up. Today had been a write off, we spoke about what we could do to get things started and set off back home. We got back and cooked dinner with two chickens that Marquerithe had bought for us, how nice of her! We had this and me and patrick headed out to watch the kids football matches. We stayed there for over an hour and as it's winter, it gets dark fast so for the last game, the second half was almost pitch black. There was a funny moment in the game when one team scored, the defenders and goalkeeper on the scoring team didn't know they had scored until their team was running back celebrating so they started their belated celebrations! We were going back to marsh for a briefing as there is academy players from 17 of the premiership teams coming out so we were meant to be briefed on what was happening. We got picked up quite late, around 7, and got back to marsh which was suffering a power cut, the house was as dark as the pitches earlier! Some got some candles so people were using these. I just used my phone, after 10 minutes, the power came back on and people planned to go out, we asked about the briefing and they said that they already had it, cheers for waiting! People were going out to a local bar for a few drinks so we joined them. It was alright there bar an incident with a new volunteer but apart from that, a decent night. We walked back to Marsh and waited for a lift back to Hout bay, which took around 3 hours but I weren't complaining, I got a few hours kip at Marsh waiting. We got the lift back but were going back again in the morning. As soon as I got in I was out for the count.
Saturday 19th - we got up relatively early to get back to marsh and as we waited, we got tickets from Cheryl's husband, Peter for the rugby game between the stormers and an Australian team, the Waratahs. He gave them to us as he was sitting in a different section to us, how nice of them to get us the tickets. We headed back to marsh and just chilled there. It was olivia's birthday so people got cards and stuff and then just chilled, we played football for a while then had a late breakfast... Around 4 o'clock. I played some more football but with the children staying at Marsh and then got ready for the rugby game. Liam wasn't too interested in the game so me and Patrick went with Thomas. We got a taxi to Newlands, the stormers stadium which was only 5 minutes from marsh and walked towards the stadium with the several other thousand people making the same trip. The stadium holds around 50,000 people and most of those seats were filled. We got our faces painted on the way in to show out support, we thought it'd be pretty cool at first but soon realised we looked pretty silly. We eventually found our seats in the stadium and sat down with enough time to see some warm ups then the kick off. The only player I knew from either side was Bryan Habana and he didn't disappoint. He was hench! The thing about him was that his body went like a triangle, his legs and waist weren't massive but up to his shoulders, he looked like an American footballer, but without the pads! It was unreal, the atmosphere, game and cheerleaders were all unreal, it was great to have the chance to do that, the stormers won the game 19-13. We headed out of the stadium to get a taxi back to the place went to yesterday for drinks as we were going to see the champion's league final. We watched it in a pub which was rammed, there were more German supporters then English so the atmosphere was different to normal. To cut a long story short, we went mental after penalties, what a finish to a game! We were going to go out afterwards but after penalties, it took it out of us and we headed back to marsh. Me ad craig got a taxi back for an agreed price of 20 rand and as we were nearly at marsh, about 2 minutes away, the driver said for 30, I wasn't being mugged off so after a small debate, I gave him 10 for where we were, I mugged him off. We got back expecting a lift but Carla was unable to drive as she had some tablets that made her drowsy. What a shame. We ended up staying the night.
Sunday 20th - we woke up again, very early and Didn't do much throughout the day, played football twice for several hours, went to go on the internet as well, spoke with people. Went to the shops for food. A really uninteresting day to write about, sorry guys!
Monday 21st - went with marquerithe to sentinel assembly, the idea of coming to this, which was Marquerithe's idea was to familiarise ourselves with the children at the school so they know us and will want to come to the football on the beach, they have seen us loads of times already as we go to the school, we just went so it shows Marquerithe that we're trying! We said a few words and left the school. We got a lift to oranjekloof school, we were going there to sort out the schedule again! We spoke with Miss Davies and she said that she'd sort it out. We said we will do the maths in the morning and with a schedule, do leasons later, We took her word, like mugs, As we got a lift to the school, we had to walk back home. Instead, me and Liam walked to la Cuccina, for the free cake and drink whilst Patrick went back to nap, he missed out because it's gotten better somehow! Maybe it was the fact we missed it last week. We left the cafe and saw Kenny, the coach doing some work, he told us he got a bit of work helping to put fences up for two weeks, he wasn't working hard, nobody really does with Manual labour here, i dread to think what it's like in the summer when it's actually boiling. I waited at flat for cheryl as we were going to go to the Athlone stadium with the girls of Hout bay who went to the waterfront tournament. We were going for a skills workshop with 17 of the premier league team's academy players. The stadium was the one being used by Ajax Cape Town before the world cup stadiums were built. On a whole, the experience was immense, incredible. We got there earlier then most and waited for our girls as they came via minibus. The girls got there and we had to group them with another school for the drills. There were around 300 children there, different ages, boys and girls doing the sessions, even we had a group because one of the PFA coaches thought we actual coaches, at least we look the part! After all this was done, the drills, the PFA group gave out these goody bags to the children with stationary, banners, badges etc; to the children and had them sit at the side to watch the premier league players play a small game against each other. The wigan player didn't bring boots and asked if I had any, I let him use the ones I was wearing, he thanked me and I just wore his trainers. None of them played in goal so we asked some dude of he wanted us to fill in, he was cool with it, buzz! They had their match Which was quite fun to watch, the Sunderland player played pretty well and it turned out that he was a keeper! After this, the guys signed loads of things and left, Patrick got a pair of boots off of one of the players, lucky kid! We were the last few on the pitch so we were pinging balls to each other, it seems a lot easier in a stadium for some reason. It's hard to explain all what had happened here or to paint a picture but I don't need to do that as there was a tonne of pictures taken anyway! We went to Rondebosch for a briefing about what was happening on Wednesday, some football workshop between all of us volunteers that the academy players were coming to, as well as Aaron Mokoena. We were told our groups for the day we stayed here and chilled for a while, playing cards and catching up on the NBA. We left late quite late and when we got back, I went to bed.
Tuesday 22nd - We woke up with just enough time to get to Oranjekloof, we knew we couldn't do joined in helping a maths lesson. Me, Patrick and Liam went into different classes. The classes we were put in were all kids that were grade 3, these are children that are around 9-10. It was quite fun as it was a change from the norm, they were doing length, the teacher kept spelling it as 'Lenght' but i didn't want to correct her 2 minutes into walking into the class! One thing I learnt straight away was the children's attention span is very very poor. In the whole hour and a half, they did 3 sentences that were on the board, all the children were at different points and some kids, especially one I say near was stopping, not mid sentence to look around, but mid word! I helped him through it by keeping him focused and once he finished, I asked him to read it out and he couldn't. Going through it, he managed to but through a lot of prompting. I know it's obvious but with so many in a class, individual learning is so far back so the different levels of intelligence per student varies massively! Once class was finished, I stayed in for break and started writing my diary, the children asked if I had a camera on my phone and I showed them and they just kept posing for pictures and I let them take pictures too, it was so funny! After this, I met up with Patrick and Liam and we went to sort out the schedule. We went to get the schedule, still no schedule, we sat there waited for them to do it, We stuck around and waited for around 30 minutes to get the classes schedules of grade 4 and 5, we got them eventually. We stayed there while this was done because i can guarantee if we went home then it wouldn't get done, the teachers are very busy and when they are asked to do it, they say they will and forget about it. We got the schedules of the classes so that we could sort one lessons for each of the classes. After this, we went back to flat and then to checkers for the shopping for the week, went with Patrick to get his hair done, he asked to get it done like Taylor Lauttener haha! We stayed in there for about an hour and rushed back so that we could get back in time to get things for the beach football workshop, we moved it forward as we couldn't do Monday. Me and Patrick went to the school, waited around a d a few boys said they were coming. After 10 minutes, we jogged to the beach and played a match. We Had a turn out of 5... Wasn't bad but as it is a group of friends, they would show off in front of each other. Bit frustrating with one in particular. Wasn't a bad session, Lindsay turned up with Clare and took some photos of us there. Went back to the flat and then to the mighty reds training, played there until dark. Had dinner and went to bed ridiculously early, the earliest I can remember in too many years... 8:00pm!
Wednesday 23rd - woke up warly and had a lift to the football workshop at Portland playing field school in Mitchell's plain from Norman. The academy Footballers were there, hectic as there was over 300 children there from 18 schools, felt stitched up as my group was out the way without the academy players helping, then we got two schools. I was meant to be doing a game situation, I just set up a game between the schools as it killed two birds with one stone. not organiser's fault as he had a very hard job with everything there. Left that early, as the schools left. The footballers gave away all their stuff, massive crowds asking for stuff, they even asked us for stuff, like our socks! I did get a pair of boots from one of the players, sweet! went to Rondebosch. Chilled here and got the ready for the evening, looked very smart, as we Went to British high commissioners house (no idea who this is) at this place, we had to sign our name in to get in, felt out of place there, it was very posh! There was waiters going around with food, which was sweet, like the movies! There were free drinks here, abused! Got introduced to Aaron Mokoena, he said to me that he wanted to talk to me, he spoke to me for over an hour about what I was doing, and gave me a life lesson, it was very good. Afterwards he said that I should get his number off of Clare as he was in South Africa for some time. Had pictured and got Ronny Minkwitz's jacket (fulham academy player). Went back to Rondebosch.
Thursday 24th - couldn't get back to Hout Bay, stayed and did oasis placement. Stayed at the building for ages, played table tennis and went to bakery, they did 10 doughnuts for 10 rand, too good of an offer! Went to a school called lotusriver, oasis volunteers were left in charge, they did not know what to do. poorly ran with those guys. We left this place and went to opening of street soccer league, sponsored by kia, took ages to set it out as we had to mark the pitches. Was good though, it was organised but needed to be thought out before as some things didn't work out. We went back to oasis via the back of a pick up truck, was sweet! Saved Patrick from
Falling out (he can thank me later!) from here we Went back to Marsh. For those of us that paid, we had lasagne which was awesome! I have definitely missed this! afterwards a few of us went on the Internet, then went back to Hout Bay.
- comments