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So I arrived at Manchester airport in good spirits, packing having gone surprisingly easily given the fact that I had been away for the whole weekend working on the Donuts & Dips jugganaut at Radio 1's Big Weekend. However things soon took a turn south when I got to the check-in desk and they inspected my passport..."sir did you know you have a small tear in your passport photo page?" Well obviously not otherwise I would have done something about it! They said I had to get a new one asap and that I might not be allowed into South Africa as the border patrol may consider it tampered with. Bloody brilliant. Anyway they let me board the plane seeming fairly confident I would be ok. Still a little shell shocked from this problem I then proceeded to the overweight baggage section. Having put my bag in I went through security. That went fine but as I was repacking my hand luggage I noticed my black folder with all important documents in was missing. What the hell!? So I frantically asked a member of staff to ring back through to baggage drop and thankfully it was there, it would be waiting at the gate. Not a good start to say the least.
The flight to Dubai was fine apart from not being able to get a wink of sleep as per usual. The second leg of my flight to Cape Town however was a different story. I had vicious stomach cramps and must have been to the bathroom at least 10 times during the 8 hour flight, I knew I had food poisoning, which I must have caught from something I ate on the first flight. All this meant I had had no sleep in 34 hours and so I was also suffering from exhaustion. It was the worst flight of my life. By the time we landed in Cape Town I just wanted to get to the hostel and go staright to bed. Which is what I did. Unfortunately with the illness I was up and down all night! Then at around 7:30am I was half awake when somebody wandered into the room (which had keypad locks on the door) who I didn't recognise but presumed was just moving into the room. Then next thing I knew I was being woken up by the hostel owner at 9:30 who told us that someone had been into the room a couple of hours earlier and possibly stolen some items. I looked down...the black cotton bag with an old laptop in (to keep in touch with people cheaply back home on Skype), my cool Adidas jacket and my black documents folder had been taken...fuuuucckkkk!!!!! Could this trip get any worse so far!? I couldn't have felt more ill, dejected and alone about the next 5 weeks at that moment.
So I spent the next hour giving a statement to the police. The circumstances of how the guy managed to get into the hostel in the first place was all very suspicious. In the meantime our helper from the volunteer organisation Eleanor arrived to take me and Derek (my fellow volunteer coach from Scotland 45 who had arrived in the morning) to the school for a meet and greet. The Observatory Junior School where we would be working was far better than I imagined. Although nearly all of the kids come from the Townships the school certainly didn't fit that mould. Neither did the suburb of Observatory where we were staying, which is kinda cool and bohemian. We were taken into each class to meet the kids and also met all the teachers in the staff room. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. I was looking forward to starting tomorrow.
Eleanor was really kind and offered to take me to get a new jacket as it would be really cold in the evenings and so I got a new fleece. I was then anxious to pick up my World Cup tickets from the centre as my ticket confirmation was one thing that had been stolen, so Eleanor dropped us off at the right place and luckily there was no issue collecting the tickets and so it was still World Cup go! Back at the hostel I still couldn't eat anything so it would be off to bed straight away for an early start at the school.
Well despite being told that we might not be that busy on the first day due to organisational problems and it being exam time at the school we were thrown in at the deep end with 4 classes in a row which we were pleased about. We both had plenty of ideas and it seemed we would work well together, but it soon became clear that we would have to lower our expectations with the kids as they were obviously not used to organised sessions and always just wanted to play matches. But you couldn't fault their energy and enthusiasm which was heartening. Not only that but some of the kids, especially the older years, were really good technically gifted players. We learnt something new everything class and would have much more of an idea of how to approach next week.
School finished and at 2:30pm we were invited by Denise, a general (and loud and eccentric) helper around the school, to go for some drinks in the area at Scrumpy Jack's with her and a couple of Dutch girls who had been volunteering at the school for 3 moths before us and were staying at our hostel. Despite not feeling anywhere near myself we obliged. Well the drinks kept flowing and it was a sports bar so plenty to keep me and Derek entertained. The girls decided to leave at dinner time to get some food and then go out at night, which was alos our intention....but...well you know how it goes when you get chatting! lol. So 8pm rolled round (by now feeling merry) and we decided we needed to get some food and had heard about a cheap yet good Mexican place down the road. Now this wasn't the best idea given I hadn't eaten a proper meal for 3 days and my stomach was still decidedly dodgy. Especially as I chose enchilada's which had some stonking hot peppers in, boy did I suffer that night and the next day!
By the time we had finished eating it was 11pm and we both decided discretion was the better part of valour and not go to the local legendary club Stones. Rather we would save ourselves for the weekend to come which would involve watching the Super 14 rugby final and hopefully scaling Table Mountain, fingers crossed for the weather!
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