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Week 1 in Johannesburg:
Wow - what an amazing first week! It has really flown by and we have quickly settled into life in Jozie. Firstly a little about Dipa's work. She is spending her mornings working in a school for children with learning disabilities. The school is very well organised and caters for children from disadvantaged backgrounds between the ages of 7 -15 with mild to moderate learning disabilities. The 8am starts are proving a bit of a challenge, especially waking up in the winter cold mornings! Fortunately the drive to work is only 10-15 mins through some nice suburbs of Johannesburg. For the first week she has helped out with one class, which has been a mix of different experiences: correcting work, assisting with reading, teaching the children how to tell the time, etc. The afternoons have been spent volunteering at an orphanage for children between the ages of 0 - 2.5 years old. There are 30 babies and the orphange is situated in one of the most exclusive areas of Johannesburg but the children can be from any background. Dipa has been spending lots of time playing with the little kiddies, feeding, preparing food and helping with office work. A mix of things to help the couple of actual paid staff at the orphanage. It's a very small and cosy place and they get a lot of volunteers in to play with the kids. The highlight of the week was feeding a 2 week old baby and rocking it to sleep. Luckily she doesn't have to change any nappies as this is the job of the paid staff!! The orphanage is also very close to "home".
Jonny has been working at the infamous Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Soweto. He is based in hepato-billiary surgery (liver, gall-bladder and pancreas surgery) but a large part of the Surgical workload at the hospital is general trauma (road traffic accidents, paraffin stove burns, stabbings, gun-shots etc). So far he has been able to get some great experience of various procedures, whilst at the same time seeing lots of things that would be very rare in UK. Tomorrow he is going to spend the day (and night!) in the trauma surgery section, meaning he is going in for 7am and is not expecting to return til at least 10am the following day (having no sleep in the meantime!!). For those interested in medical matters or want to read more about how he is getting on at work, he has his own blog for such things at: http://www.jgelective.blogspot.com/
We both generally get home around 5pm, which is quite refreshing and we have joined a local gym (and are trying to go at least 4-5 times a week!). We try to cook every evening at home (although the local restaurants are excellent) and are making the most of the spare time to spend time together. Last weekend we decided to venture out of Johannesburg and explore some of the sights and beautiful countryside. On saturday morning we went to a lion park, where we got to stroke and play with some lion cubs, as well as feed giraffes. The lion cubs were really cute and we could have stayed there all day. We also got a chance to take a game drive around the park and saw some other big cats. Jonny is insisting that we go back to the sanctuary before we leave as he has discovered that you can do "cheetah walks" there - basically take a cheetah for a walk as if it was a dog!! We then drove to the cradle of humankind and visited one of the caves where ancient human fossils have been found dating back around 3 million years. It was really fascinating and the cave was beautiful inside. We then drove into the Magaliesberg mountains, enjoying the bushveld scenery (red earth, biege grass-land) to reach a spa hotel where we spent the night. The next morning we had a round of mini-golf, Dipa had a back-massage in the spa and then we drove to a reserve where we had a long trek following a river through some nice sandstone scenery. We drove back to Johannesburg and went out for a well-deserved meal at a fantastic local restaurant (The Attic, for all you locals).
We are spending this week working and then planning on heading out again at the weekend.
Hope everyone is well,
Dipa & Jonny
p.s. Look at the photos we have uploaded to the photos tab on this site, for pictures of the weekend.
p.p.s. For Michelle: animal of the week is the Lion (in particuar the lion cub!!).
- comments
Trevor & Cecelia Thanks for the updates and so pleased to hear you are so involved and helping at the adoption home. Enjoy Africa.
Claire & Ade Hey you two - glad you are both enjoying yourselves - its a treat to get your updates and well done to you both - you are doing great jobs out there so keep up the good work.
Rena I'm sitting here at the office looking at excel spreadsheets while reading your blog :( Have to say I'm a tiny bit jealous :) of well, at least the sun is shining and it's 25 degrees :)
Vides sounds so amazing, i am ridiculously jealous. thinking of you lots, stay safe please x
Cherisse Hi Dipa & Jonny, Thank you so much for sending news. I am delighted to hear how well you both have settled and how many great things you have done in such a short time. Looking forward to seeing you both in a few weeks. Love lots
the manny and the rachel Sounds good. Great stuff... time to join the gym... eh? i like your style.
the manny and the rachel jonny - the separate blog accompanies your elective assessment I assume? I like it. praying for you bro!
Michelle Great update and choice of animal for week 1! Am keeping a close eye on your "jungle book" and can't wait for Jonny's cheatah moment. Keep blogging. We're lapping it up this end...
Susan G Sounds like hard but rewarding work, glad you're getting some down time too- thinking of you x