Last Mango in Paris...

No not a European fruit crisis but a night of fun and Dancing at Rocklands. We've currently got a group in some of who are in year 12 and have their Matric' Dance coming up. They also arrived (like myself) with two left feet. Enter the Rocklands Programming Team! Freshly schooled in the Waltz, Langarm Sokkie Sokkie and a Line Dance; and having left our inhibitions at the door, we stepped into the fray and set about teaching a group of 15-18year olds how to dance. All would have been lost if it weren't for Amy- She does dancing herself and is an excellent teacher. She led the group with authority and style and kept the interest going, no mean feat!
Backed up by Carolyn (a dancer herself) and Darla (schooled on Sunday) and erm...well the guys (full of enthusiasm, lacking slightly in skill...) we managed to run a dance session for 3hrs and everyone got involved. After learning the Waltz and Sokkie, the kids split into 4 groups and choreographed their own dances (mainly in the hip hop break dancing vein, all very impressive) and then came back to the Hall for a Dance-Off. It was a good vibe throughout the evening and I think the whole thing worked well for two reasons. Primarily Amy's teaching skills and Secondly, the rest of the team's enthusiasm and participation- Well done Everyone!

There be penguins...

Well, I'm trying desperately to get a bit more up to date with the old blogging, and as such I'm trawling through various pictures that Ive taken that might be of interest. I realised that through all my stay here, I haven't posted a single picture of the penguins just down the road. Boulders Beach is home to a colony of Jackass Penguins and they have become quite the tourist attraction! You can pay to go down to Boulders itself and sit on the beach and have your sandwiches knicked by the little mafia bosses, or you can wander to the next little area, not as photogenic but FREE!

For an Englishman out of Europe for the first time, seeing penguins in the wild, chilling out and doing what they do is amazing! Its so nice to experience all this amazing stuff and have it right on your back doorstep...

Be careful if you go down to the beach- There Be Penguins....

Life in the slow lane

I made a new friend the other day. I named him Horatio. He was wandering across the initiatives course when I heard him. After a brief trip down to my house and a photo shoot, he was returned back home unharmed and famous.

I cast you into the Pit....

The Peanut Butter Pit has always been a massive hit with the kids here at Rocklands, the Jewel in our Initiatives Course Crown you might say..

It's basically a giant rope swing over a pit filled with water which the kids swing across and hopefully land in. Unfortunately though, too many kids were getting across dry and it wasn't quite how we wanted it- the sides were starting to collapse and the edges of the pit were not entirely lined with wood meaning that the water drained away too quickly and with the splashing of the waves from campers belly flopping into the water, the sides were washing away revealing a little too much of the foundations of the A Frame that keeps the whole thing standing. Something needed to be done- Enter Grant and myself, armed with enthusiasm and a chainsaw...

First task was to dig out the pit, (rain water had been washing sand from further up the mountain down into the pit meaning it was getting more and more shallow and less and less scary to swing across) remove the trampoline mats that we had lined the bottom of the pit with (to slow the draining of the water) and dig out the post from the retaining walls. This done we set about digging out the post holes on the mountain side of the PB Pit so that they went deeper making the retaining wall stronger. This was where things got complicated...well not complicated but certainly er BIGGER than we had intended. We figured we could build a retaining wall level with the top platform that the kids swing from. The result would be a wall about chin height (5'+) using the wood from our old high wall (now no longer used).

However, once you have a wall 5' high and then back fill against it with a few cubic meters of sand, it has a propensity to sag a little (I can sympathise). So we needed to anchor it some way. More post holes were dug further up the mountain (about 12' away) in line with our existing posts. Then we put cross beams linking the front posts to the back to the structure strength. however it seemed silly to have all that in place and then just have sand at the top so I floated the idea of making an entire deck for the kids to stand on while they watched their friends get wet. We had the wood, we had the drive and we had a chainsaw so we decided to go for it. More cross beams were added to support the deck. Before we nailed everything together, there was the small matter of finding the 2 tons of sand to back fill the 2.5 cubic metres of void behind our pretty new wall.

We needed help and we were man enough to admit it. Time to call the big guns. Carolyn and Darla set to with a shovel and pick and a walking stick high ho high ho...whilst myself and Shaun wheeled barrows of sand back and forth (Grant was embroiled in another project by this point).

The result was a lovely new parking space up at the Adventure Centre, and the side wall very much reinforced.

After that it was time to nail the deck in place, wrestling the warped boards into submission and beating them into silence with a big hammer. It all looks rather smashing now! But I was not finished! I then cut some poles to size and boxed in the corners at an angle making the pit into a coffin shape ( no significance!), relaid the mats, skimmed over the top with sand and bolstered the downhill sides of the pit effectively back filling onto the new retaining walls

But that wasn't enough for the crazy kids who come to Rocklands, oh no! It was deemed that entirely not enough kids were getting wet, something needed to be done. Our original plan was to run irrigation piping up the A frame of the pit and along the cross beam, punch holes in it and have a cascade of water pouring down on them. Unfortunately this was canned due to the Cape Doctor blowing so hard at Rocklands that all we would really achieve would be to water the plants next to the sports hall. Instead I laid the piping along the underside of the deck (which protruded from the retaining wall slightly) and along the top edges of the other retaining walls, plumbed in a manifold to split the pipe that used to fill up the pit. This means that we can select either to have no water flow, fill the pit, or have the sprinkler system on...its quite impressive when it gets going!

And an Englishman shall lead them...

No I haven't been made Campsite Director...yet...But I have been making directional signage for the campsite, including all 17 chalet names not to mention all the signs pointing to toilets, the adventure centre, reception, and various local features and attractions...

The process involves finding a clear and attractive font, blowing it up nice and big and then printing out a couple of thousands bits of paper with useful words and phrases like "AH" and "LLEY BA" and "ME LILY", cutting them up into bite sized chunks and then trying to reassemble them, sellotape them together and then transfer them onto pine planks with carbon paper. As with most jobs I'm finding these days, it all takes longer than you expected...

Once you have your lovely plank with the names transferred onto them, its time to break out the router and get busy! I was averaging 10mins a sign for routing alone and there were about 50 signs that's over 8 hours not including breakfast, tea time, lunch time, afternoon break, cool drink breaks, chatting breaks.....

After scraping half a tree's worth of sawdust out of each eye, I sparked up the circular saw and cut the planks into the right lengths praying that I had put the arrows pointing the right way...

Then the edges needed routing, the tops needed sanding and all 50 of them needed a coat of varnish. Whilst they were drying, I had to sink 3 poles to put signage on, which is not easy in ROCKlands I can tell you! But I managed to get the posts in, and the signs up, hopefully nobody will get lost now...

Confessions of a blogger...

So there have been a lack of blogs recently. There a couple of reasons for this- it's hard to maintain a regular supply of witty, pithy anecdotes for your reading pleasure, I have been quite busy at work of late, or it would seem like that, and of course now having a girlfriend does make blogging a less attractive option. However, I have been harshly reminded today that I only have 6weeks left as a Rocklands Volunteer. I'm fairly sure that I can keep it going for 6 weeks... surely...

Two halves to any story....

...so as I left you, I had just been to see Thabang in Ntemere. Well soon after that, Jill returned to Pulane and it was time to put the Christmas presents together!

Its quite an involved process, involving lists, bags, presents and making sure that everyone got something! However, Jill, Bernard and myself waxed it in a mere afternoon, which meant that the next day we could hightail it off to Semonkong at 6am to visit Tara and Patrick (Jill's daughter and Son-in-Law) who run the centre there. It was quite a journey, and took me across parts of the country that I had not seen before, and down roads that had not seen tarmac before...

After a spine-shattering 3 hrs of unmade roads ( on top of goodness knows how many miles of tar roads) we finally arrived at the centre in Semonkong. It is an impressive site (and sight), much bigger than Pulane and obviously more established. I think it's been going for 3-4 years and has had lots of missions teams going up there. It's a good indication of where Pulane could be in the future though...

The top picture is the chapel and the bottom picture shows the view from Tara and Patrick's house looking across the centre to a couple of the bunk houses, the dining room and kitchen are just off the picture to the left, the chapel is to the right of the picture and Semonkong itself is way off to the left. It's one of those places that's really hard to photograph completely!

So we arrived and got settled in- met Tara and Patrick, and had a good ol' cup o'tea! for the next couple of days I was helping Tara to pack the Christmas gifts for the Orphans- 79 this time! Then to Church on Sunday, Patrick led the service, Jill did the talk and I asked 10 Christmas questions for the children to answer. It was good fun and there was some awesome singing led by one of the girls- all achepello African songs- it sounded fantastic.

Whilst I was in Semonkong, a murder was committed. It was terrible- The victim wasn't harming anyone, just minding his own business. He was set upon, hog-tied, had his testicles cut off and then had his throat slit, and head cut off. Here is a picture of the victim-

and after the assault...

I must admit that I was then involved in destroying the evidence...the hind quarters made their way to Patrick's freezer for later, and the er...front(?) quarters were taken to the kitchen and Patrick and I butchered the meat, Two lovely racks of ribs, and lots of diced pork. Oh and a head...and the fat...and the trotters...that erm...all got eaten...by someone...

Another job that needed doing was to deliver Christmas presents to various local people, community leaders or people who had shown particular kindness and helped out with the project as it went along. This involved me getting back in the saddle so to speak and taking a horse out for the fourth time...ever...but it was all good fun and went off without a hitch. Ironically the chief who we were delivering to wasn't at home...but it's the thought that counts...

Before we knew it, Christmas had arrived! It was at one and the same time the most and the least Christmassy Christmas that I've ever experienced....it was completely...COMPLETELY lacking in commercialism, pomp and tradition. It was fantastic, simple, homey and very genuine. We had a Christmas service in the chapel followed by some lunch with all the orphans..and then...THE PRESENTS!

But unfortunately the excitement was all too much for some...

After the excitement of Christmas was over, we made a trip up to see the tallest Free fall waterfall in Southern Africa- Its an amazing sight! We had a pick nick and relaxed in the sun- it was a fantastic end to my time in Lesotho.

All too soon it was time to leave. I said my goodbyes and caught a lift with Patrick across the border to Ladybrand where I met up with Didi and Jappie who were randomly having a road trip in that area! After a quick breakfast at Whimpy's we went to kill a dog. No really. Didi, being a Vet Student, did an internship at a vets in Ladybrand and went to help out. And had to put a dog down. I had to hold it's head as she killed it. I didn't realise what was going on. Traumatised.

After washing my hands clean of the poor dog's blood, we drove up to Bloem and I hopped onto my bus ready for the journey home. Except that the bus had electrical issues and ended up setting off 4 hrs late. All was well though and I eventually got back to Cape Town.

I had Emailed Shaun from Lesotho to tell him not to bother picking me up from Cape Town itself as he'd have to set off at about 5am. My plan being to brave the South African rail network and get myself as far as Simons Town. This was very fortunate as I had left my phone in Grant's house and couldn't have told Shaun about the 4hr delay...he may have been understandably grumpy...So I bought my ticket and meandered across to my train and before long was chugging merrily homeward...

I'd love to say that was where the story ended. I got picked up at the station and went home for a cup of tea. Unfortunately, Shaun had been down to the station twice already and with me incommunicado he had no idea when I would arrive and had better things to do with his day than sit at Simons Town Station. So I arrived after setting off at 5am the previous morning, not a taxi to be seen and a long walk ahead of me, no telephone, no telephone numbers...I stopped in at the video shop on the way home after a stroke of genius thinking that Shaun and Vyan's number would be on the system there and I could ring for a lift. If only Vyan used her mobile...

I arrived bedraggled and sweaty but alive and with a lot to think about no doubt wont be too long before I'm back in Lesotho...always for the last time...