Pedal Power Wine Tour

I spent the weekend cycling around gorgeous Stellenbosch with some of the other volunteers...it was a beautiful, if sticky, day when we left Cape Town early in the morning. I say early, I mean 8am. Yet this is early for Cape Town as we usually trawl up and down Long Street on a Friday downing shots in the eclectic mix of bars.

So forgoing our usual Friday night outing, we arrived in Stellenbosch at 10 am, picked up the bikes and set off on the trip. The way there was an uphill struggle, panting up winding roads with only the beautiful views of the mountain and the promise of some great vino to keep us from flagging. Yours truly had managed not to fall off her bicycle the whole way there until we arrived at the wine farm with the fields of grapes spread out as far as the wide sky. Then I managed to trip over my own feet. I was staring at the mountains. Once ensconced on the comfy sofas at the first wine farm and sipped a selection of Chardonnays and Merlots.

It was then back onto the bike and off to the next wine farm, where we sampled 7 wines ranging from sweet desert wines to heady reds. And we scoffed a lot of posh chocs. Dark chocolate and chili. Milk chocolate and geranium. Dark chocolate and rock salt. Mmmmmmmmm. Once loaded up with enough chocolate for all the family back home to devour at Christmas we headed back to town. 2 flat tyres later and a beefy American changing pipes and pumping tyres we missed the train.

We stumbled to the local backpackers and begged stole and borrowed some towels to have a quick wash before heading out for a well deserved dinner. The rugby was on (Wales lost, shame) but nevertheless a lovely chilled out evening was had by all. A few games of pool and a couple of mosquito bites (by probably the most stupid mosquito ever...he bit by face and my eyelid but not my meaty areas...definitely a male mosquito) later we were tucked up in our bunk beds and ready to head home the next day!

A Shark With No Bite, Shame!

Last Sunday a few of us decided to risk it all and participate in a dive with Jaws best friend - the friendly South African Great White Shark. Yours truly had a bet with one of her legal eagle buddies that she would not brave the shark infested waters of Gansbaai, a few hours down the road from Cape Town, don a wetsuit and perch in a cage while sharks bashed against the bars.

Well, we set off early in the morning eagerly anticipating a terrifying day. We arrived at the offices of the dive company, listened attentively to our safety lecture and were generally working ourselves up into a frenzy. We set off in our boat and changed into wet suits. The crew threw chum into the water which is supposed to encourage the sharks to come to the surface. It is not bait. I suppose its kind of a water that's had dead fish in it. Anyway they can smell the dead fish.

After half an hour a shark popped up to the surface. A cry of "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhark in the bay" rang out. Well, blink and you would have missed it! It popped up banged against the side of the boat and was gone.

We trawled around for a few hours, but to no avail. The sharks were not where they were supposed to be. It was all a bit disappointing really.

However, back at the offices we were warmed up by a nice lasagna and heartened with a cold beer.

Snappy Meal

This blog is dedicated to my roomie, who takes pictures of all our meals and loves, in her own words, "delicious, dirty street food".

I have decided to write a blog about "Food, Glorious Food!" because so much of life in Cape Town revolves around "chowing". In fact, daily life here (and this is the most obvious thing to say, but I'm going to say it anyway) revolves around  family, community, church and food! Before I made the journey over to SA, I always associated these values with warm Catholic culture. With feasting and colourful street processions on saints days. The Hot Prot culture back home never inspired images of abundance and indulgence. It always seemed to me that  Protestantism was all about self-control and self-denial. As my Dad said on visiting Switzerland, "I hate this cold, petty bourgeois, Calvinist country!" I'm only ever holidaying in Spain again. At least there the churches are colourful and the food is tasty!

Cape Town has changed my perspective somewhat. Here life is certainly colourful and the food is delicious. My host mum makes delicious spicy curries. When I first arrived they used to burn the back of my throat and give me a runny tummy. Now, my gut seems to have adapted and my throat has grown accustomed to a bit more heat. Her chicken curry is amazing, its my favourite meal. I've tried ox-tail stew, mutton curry and bean curry as well.

On Sundays my host mum buys sticky donoughts coated in dried coconut as an after-church treat. My host Dad makes his special sandwiches in the evenings. He used to be a onboard chef. He's sailed all around the world. He makes delicious toasted cheese sandwiches. His speedy hands slice up tomato finely onto buttered bread, adds grated cheese, pepper and herbs and fries them dry in a pan.

On Saturdays my roomie and I frequent the Biscuit Mill. She has introduced me to "beverages". Under her tuition I'm learning to give up my beloved coffee in favour of more healthy exotic fruit blended concoctions, like pomegranate and mango smoothie.

We've stuffed ourselves with sushi at an all you can eat sushi buffet. We've munched ourselves to oblivion on ostrich burger at a gourmet burger joint in town that none other than Salema Hayak has declared the "best burger bar she has ever visited".

I've been to a traditional African dinner in a township and eaten fried chicken with sweet potatoes, spinach and bean stew in the home of one of the ladies who the Human Rights Office works with.

It could me easy to feel gulity and all these eating and self-indulgence in a continent where some people have so little. But, I feel I should eat and be merry while the sun shines...

History Lessons

Saturday my roomie and I went to visit Robben Island. It was a beautiful day and we had a beautiful boat journey there. We saw wonderful views and took wonderful photos of the City and mountains from the sea.

I was expecting the journey there to be somewhat different. I was expecting something different. In my mind Robben Island should have been a frightening gloomy place. It should have been a horrible arduous journey to reach an impenetrable fortress. Harsh waves should have been crashing against high stone walls and Dementors should have been swarming over the island.

Instead, it was a beautiful island resplendent with bright yellow gorse, with beautiful wild African birds and the horizon stretching out for miles around. "This is a prison?" by rommie and I asked each other perplexedly. It seemed so absurd that such a place could be a prison.

Then we visited the limestone mines where Mandela and the others worked. We saw their cave or "university" where they endeavoured to educate each other. We were guided around the tiny cells where the political prisons stayed. We were led into the small exercise yards where they were allowed out for half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the afternoon.

Our guide shared his story with us. He was involved in the 1976 school uprisings. He must not have been more than 16. He and his friends took part in a peaceful demonstration. He was shot at by the police. He hid in his school. The police arrested him hiding in the school. The way he spoke about his experiences really humbled me. He didn't seem bitter or angry. He just said what had happened. He did not over-dramatise or either play down what happened. He spoke so calmly and with such humanity that I thought I was going to shed a few tears but luckily I managed to hold it back. He smiled a lot. I thought to myself that it was truly amazing that someone could smile in such a place where they had experienced such brutality.

Going to Robben Island was not my most fun experience of Cape Town, but it has defiantly been one of the most interesting and enriching. It does make you wonder though going there "When how did we manage to turn paradise into hell?"

Its a Small World After All...

Sunday was a miserable rainy cold day. My roomie and Dutchie (whose kind of my boss at the office) decided to go to Muizenberg flea market on the coast. Muizenberg is where all the cool surfer types hang out. None of the stalls we wanted to visit had turned up, there were no scarves or earrings or any such things. The gusty blustering wind blew off my little red cap which was stopping my ears from looking blue. I thought to myself...what are we doing here?

We sat in a cafe and drank coffee to warm up. We had planned the day before to go to a braai party in the township of Guguletu called Muzolis. Should we still go, no one seemed keen. We were close to abondoning the plan. The Americans were being slightly lame. Put off by the rain. The Germans were lured along with the promise of cheap juicy meat.

Our driver dropped us off outside the restaurant. You could hear the party before you could smell it. We met up with one of Dutchie's friends, her ex-PA no less, a really nice guy who showed us how it worked. It was a covered shack. It was a loud party rammed with a sea of people pulling apart charred meat with their bare hands. He found us a picnic table under the plastic cover. Showed us where to buy our 6 pack of Savannah ciders. We walked with him to the butchery where we chose our meat raw, paid for it and then took it to the smokey fires at the back to get it braaied. Even though they accidentally put my sauce on Dutchie's chicken, it was still delicious!

When I first arrived in SA I had a lot of TIA (this is Africa) moments. In the minibus, looking up at Table Mountain from the PA office, meeting people, even eating dinner with my host family. Life here has become more normal and I haven't had one for a while. But being at this braai party sent little pickles down my spine and I really felt "OK, I'm in Africa!"

The group sitting next to us were celebrating a 21st birthday party. Dancing and jiving and sharing cake. A white middle aged lady was jivvy with them, a beautiful smile stretching over her face. I thought I recognised her. Maybe she just looked like someone I knew at home. Later in the queue for the loos the same lady embraced me "How are you?". Then I realised she was the lady I had sat next to on the plane, whose daughter lived in London. She wasn't meant to be in that seat, she was meant to be in business class, but there had been a mix up. It was so nice to see her and her family and be able to say "Your country's beautiful!". Especially as I felt so wobbly coming here on the plane and she was so chatty and kind. It is in these fleeting moments of openness and connectedness with people who you essentially really don't know but feel you do that you realise that the kindness of starngers is what keeps us all glued together and that He is good.

In Loving Memory of the Ginger Kid!

On my first day at work I met a boy called Laurence. Everyone else called him Ginger. Soon I would start referring to him by this name too. He had been here for 3 months, he had one month left. This post, while never being able to encapsulate the full wonder and awesomeness of Ginger, is in his honour, because without him the office is a lot less colourful...

The first time I met Ginger he told me he had just spent a week doing a sailing course. He'd gotten very sunburnt. He didn't look that sunburnt..."You mean you haven't brought Factor 150 with you, oh but you look so pale". I wondered whether I should email home and ask my mum to post some. I decided Factor 50 would have to do me. He told me stolen some flares from the boat and was going to set them off at 6pm. I needed to go outside at 6pm that night and watch Cape Town on fire. I went outside at 6pm. All I could see was my host family's pool and the mountain beyond. The next day at work, Ginger told me how he'd had the whole area he lived in blocked off from letting off the firelight. He'd nearly been caught by the police. I was worried...so this is Cape Town!?!

He then took me for a walk around Rondebosch where our offices are, telling me how amazing Mr Price (think SA Primark) was and getting me a discount at the gym. I'm so glad I never took his advice. I don't know how I'd have time to go to the gym. Ginger pointed out all the cheap places to eat, he introduced me to Black Label beer at PAHRO's perennial hangout the dingy and divvy Cybar. He told me where to buy a UCT Hoodie. He told me how much I should pay for everything.

My first outing with Ginger was to the BoKaap where candy coloured houses are glued to the edge of the city and the lush green mountains behind. But, its not the safest neighbourhood. Cape Malay kids were wandering around and playing football down the narrow cobbled streets. "Ellie stand close to me we're about to get mugged...that was a close one, that was sketchy, if you ever want to show you're being non-confrontational stand with your hands behind your back".

We walked up Signal Hill. We walked up Signal Hill the wrong way. Fallen trees blocked out path. "Stay here girls I'm going to find a way up the mountain, I'm going to scout our way". One of the other girls tripped, a small thorn stuck in her finger, "It's OK I have a medical kit". Out he pulls catheters and plasters and bandages from the depths of his rucksack. Finally we get to a small pair of tweezers. "Elevate the wound". Watching the sunset over the ocean and Robben Island, the clouds parting to let the light stream through was magical. "I'm glad we all shared this day", I said. "Yep, me too, so beautiful, I think the toilet water is drinkable...we better fill up the water bottle for the trip back".

Maybe its not so good to meet Ginger on your first week in Cape Town. He told me how he had been mugged, how he had been arrested when a friend borrowed his knife. He showed me how to use Pepperspray. He sprayed half the Pepperspray in his face. He then rubbed it into his eyes. He then tried to light the Pepperspray with a cigarette lighter. I've never been so scared and at the same time laughed so much in my life when I've been someone. Thank you for a colourful introduction to a colourful city!

A Kandinsky of A Weekend in Cape Town

Friday night is Long Street Night...think Brixton meets Camden. They even have a branch of The Purple Turtle here! Drum and Bass blaring down the street, neon signs, drunken students of every colour and nationality getting drunker. Tourists meandering into the middle of the street while cab drivers honk their horns. A whirl of green and cream Springbok shots. Spinning to the beat. Feet pounding to the rhythm. Guys dancing at your hips trying to pick your jeans pockets. More Black Label Beer. Bleary eyes.

Saturday morning is the Biscuit Mill...think Kensington Farmers Market dumped into Peckham. Think a world of food beautifully presented on quaint stalls in one of the neighbourhood's that is the most uncomfortable and dangerous to walk around in.  Think Brick Lane market as it is now, trendy, but think Brick Lane as an area before it got trendy. Its expensive, its slightly pretentious, it seems to be to be full of rich white South Africans moaning about work and life and living in their city. Its full of girls in artsy dresses and young bucks drinking beer and munching on steak sandwiches. But the food is SO good.

Saturday afternoon is Kalk Bay...think quaint seaside village. The beautiful mountains like a bluescreen background. The little brightly coloured fishing vessels in the harbour. The smell of salt water and fresh fish being butchered before your very eyes. Seals playfully jumping and performing for the scraps. And the best fish and chips ever. Better than home (sorry).

Sunday is Table Mountain...think scrambling up wet rocks and waterfalls. Climbing up ladders over ravines. Think stumbling over boulders. Meeting young athletic Americans from every state on the flag. Think your legs being so sore you can't walk for 2 days afterwards. Crying in pain. Praying for it to end. Not believing you will ever get down again while admiring the most amazing views of the most beautiful city you have ever been to. Walking in a cloud. There's a reason why you feel closer to Himself on the mountain!

Springtime at the Tip of Africa

Sunday 12th September a few of us, some from my office and some teaching volunteers made a trip to the tip of Africa (well almost, the most South Westerly point, but who cares about a few degree, right?).

It was a beautiful spring day. The sun was shining brightly as we set off on our car journey along the coast, it almost looked as if the sky and sea were merging in together. We drove on a beautiful coastal road looking down at one of the trendy areas, Clifton, where Adonises complete with RayBan's were sun worshipping the amber orb visible in the expanse of cloud free skies above. The rocky ragged hills rose up as a backdrop to the foaming seas below.

We headed into the Cape Peninsula National Park where groups of baboons were picking at berries opulent among the clumps of bushes which clung to the rocky hillsides. After having my sandwich stolen by a baboon, I'm not exactly a fan though. It was a good job that we could admire the baboons from the safety of our vechile! All I could see for miles around was blue. The blue of the sky, the blue of the sea. Even the fauna had a bluish hue.

We were dropped off on the cliff path and walked through the alpine-like plants past ostriches and seagulls watching crumbs of sand on the beach below being enveloped by the surge of the frothy seas. We walked up and up climbing up to the top where the beaches were spread out below. It was like walking into an oil painting. A more beautiful place than I could ever have imagined. We took photos and marvelled at the view before descending.

At the bottom we posed before the Cape of Good Hope sign. We took in the awesome feeling of being at the tip of such a beautiful place. And the end of the continent.

On the drive back with the sun blazing down we stopped off at boulders beach and went penguin watching. We walked to the beach on a path where huge geraniums (I never knew that my window box favourite could grow so big!) hung over  groups of penguins. We sat at the beach and contemplated the big blocks of stone that rose out of the icy Atlantic waters. It looked how I imagine paradise to look with blooming tree branches hanging down over our heads. Bliss!

Then it was back in the car and home to the host family after a beautiful spring day.

A Taxi Cab Like No Other

The favourite part of my day is surprisingly not relaxing with the other PAHRO volunteers in CyBar after work with a pint of Black Label draft or “chowing” my host mum’s delicious chicken curry, but my morning journey in the taxi. At home I hate morning travel. I hate pushing my way onto the Underground and spending half an hour tucked under someone else’s armpit. The way the doors jerk and roll as someone squeezes onto the super fast cattle truck rushing through the belly of the city. But in Cape Town I really enjoy going to work because its during my morning ride that I really feel that I am in Africa! I love flagging down a taxi and squeezing in between traditionally built ladies wedged between bags and buckets. I love the way the drivers’ mate rides with his head out of the window screaming Wyyyyyyyyyyyynberg or Cape Toooooouuuuuuunn at everyone we pass. I love the way that everyone passes their money up to the driver and the way one of the “mamas” passes me my change. This would never happen at home. For starters you wouldn’t be allowed on the bus unless you had bought your ticket in advance. For a city where its not safe to ride around after dark this trust sums up for me the paradoxes of life here.


Before I arrived in Cape Town I thought I had seen it all on London’s nightbuses. Seriously. Drunken football fans singing “We’re forever blowing bubbles” while downing cans of beer. Students with straggly beards wearing ripped jeans talking in posh accents about how they found themselves while smoking dope in Indiah on their gap yars. Girls in short skirts and skimpy tops throwing up chunks of kebabs every time the bus lurches around another grey corner on a drizzling London night. That was until I came to Cape Town. But you really see all manner of life in the taxis! Guys in blue factory overalls jump out on the way to work, while girls rearrange their headscarves with bangled arms. Children in smart brown uniforms (with brown shoes and tights!) much on dried snacks. The ladies with the buckets shout at each other in the klick klick of Khosa and wave their arms around and laugh with toothless smiles. On my first journey alone, when the workers were striking, a young woman roused the troops of women who were clapping and singing in Khosa. I’ve ridden up front with the driver, I’ve squashed myself in the back. I’m forever being spoken to in Afrikaans. I shrug. “Ma ma where are you from? Where did you learn to speak?…You like my country?” I’ve had a neighbour around my age from a few streets away tell me everything he knows about Germany - it took me the entire journey to realise he thought I was from Germany. We pass one of the PAHRO projects – Bonytoun, a young offenders institute. We pass a military base. I see the street vendors selling cheap ciggies and sweets on their makeshift market stalls made up of cardboard boxes and old fruit crates. I am in the bustling hubbub which is Wynberg and the end of my ride.


However, what I love most about my Taxi ride is seeing Table Mountain rise up before me as we swing around the corner of Plantation Road. I love seeing the misty tablecloth rise and swirl over the rocky crags that stand like a sentinel over the city. One of the things I love most about South Africa is the huge open skies. The way the sky seems to go on and on forever as if the world is a picture frame and the sky a canvass stretched over it. I love seeing the sky and my day anew spread out before me as I ride to work. And it makes me feel a little sad that the people here only enjoy it from beyond the window of a taxi, a train or a car. That is my prayer for South Africa that everyone is able to feel as free here as I do on a London nightbus.

At Last A Blog - Arrival!

So on Sunday I will have been in SA for 3 weeks now. I didn't want to write anything sooner as I've been finding my feet.

I'm living with a Catholic family - so all you Newman Housers can breathe a sigh - who have a house in a coloured suburb called Wetton. This is one of the Southern suburbs. I work in the PAHRO office in Rondebosch, where one of the main universities is. This is about a half hours journey to work. I wait for a taxi (minibus) and go to the train station in a bustling place called Wynberg, which reminds me a bit of where I was born in Walthamstow. I recognise the station by the Mosque. The family are very kind and are feeding me very well. Unfortunately I may come back twice the size if I am not careful!

The office has around 20 interns at the moment and our leader, Theo, is a very inspiring man, full of kind words and friendly encouragement. I do a mixture of case work, from refugee status applications, finding abused women counselling and hostels to employment rights. So far its been very eye-opening. I am also doing some social outreach work which is more hands on. We give little workshops to women's hostels on their employment rights, basic health care rights and how to prepare for a job interview. I find this really rewarding as the case work can be a bit frustrating. However, I cracked my first case this week - I managed to get an employer to pay their ex-employee the 8,000R they owed him! Yeah!

So aside from a big wallop of culture shock when I first got out here - no amount of watching videos and reading books could have prepared me for how I would feel - I'm managing to have a bit of fun too. It's quite hard giving up control and not being able to cook for myself, walk around the streets at night on my own, just pop out of the house for a stroll...but the beaches are beautiful, if the sea is a bit chilly (need to wait for it to warm up). The city centre is very lush and green. My to-do list is getting longer and longer as the weeks go on...so I guess I'll have lots to write about

Bye for now, Missing you all, xxx

In Bocca al Leone

So I'm packed (Me, being me, I've been packed for the last few days...) and raring to go. It was so lovely to catch up with good friends last night and I'm a little sad that just when everyone I love returns to London I must go, but that's just life I guess! Thanks for being the best friends a girl could have.

I have my address in South Africa. I'm living with a retired bank clerk called Eleanor (good sign that we have the same name) in Heathfield. This I am told is a typical Cape Malay coloured area, vibrant and dynamic. The office will probably be in the university district and then clinics and field work can be anywhere in the city!

So, in bocca al leone...Well, one of my I-talian friends will probably need to correct me here but In Bocca al Lupo is I think how you say Good Luck in Italian. I've always liked this phrase so much more than boring old Bon Voyage. I'm been doing some extensive research on the entomology of this phrase (a few minutes on Google) and apparently it has something to do with the Founding of Rome myth of Romulus and Remus being carried in the mouth of a wolf and the wolf then throwing them out of her mouth to found Rome. So, I feel so excited I've hardly slept for the last few night and nervous too so that I've decided I need to wish myself Good Luck. Lions or perhaps Leopardo seemed more appropriate for Africa!

Piri Piri Fried Satire

So for all you readers out there who, like me, were labouring under the misapprehension that Nandos is Portuguese I have something to tell you: Its actually a South African company! But Piri Piri is still a Portuguese word for chili apparently. Its all to do with those fun colonial times I've been reading up about. Yes, we Brits may have nicked Ketchup from Hong Kong and curry from India but the Portuguese left Mozambique in the mid-C20th with Piri Piri chicken.

While all appearances may be to the contrary, this blog is not the mere ramblings of a hungry madwoman. There is actually a point if you'll bear with me. After popping to Tottenham Court Rd to order some new lenses - all this legal studying is making me even more blind - I decided to pay a visit to my darling former chaplain, Fr PJ at the Catholic Chaplaincy. Fr PJ is South African and one of my inspirations for wanting to visit the country. Aside from making him very jealous of my plans to visit his homeland, we had a heated discussion about South African politics. I say heated because it mainly consisted of him showing me Nandos adverts which have a political spice. Here are my favourite courtesy of You Tube:

On the 1 party state: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONTqdp5scmg

On Jacob Zuma's wives: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38xBihimIB4&feature=related

This one was banned: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fELTOduqwqI&feature=related


I can't imagine Pizza Express doing anything like this over here, but they sure could have spiced up the last election.

We're On!

Flights finally booked..! Less than a month to go... 

A Rainbow in the Night

Before I embark on my journey and the super long legal reading list I have decided to indulge my passion for history by finding out a little more about South Africa and her past.

This book by Lapierre, who boasts Mother Theresa among his associates due to his humanitarian work, is beautifully written and I am enjoying it immensely. Translated from its original French, he manages to romp through a few centuries in a couple of chapters in a pacy and lively account. It's really well done and although brief on historical detail manages to eloquently convey a sense of history from the feeling of what it was like to be in South Africa when it was originally settled by the Dutch in the C17th to the hardships of the Great Trek and settlement in the C19th. 

The book is also great at delving into the developing psyche of the Afrikaner movement and has made me think quite considerably about the social, religious and moral justifications for Apartheid used by the Afrikaners to subjugate not only the Black population of South Africa but also their own. It's struck me how so much of the C19th and early C20th ideas about race and superiority are rooted in the Reformatory movement of the late C16th and in particular Calvin's doctrine of the Elect. This doctrine with its focus on the elect of God being his chosen people lead logically into the beliefs which emerged in the C19th of nationalism and the right to a country for the people of the same shared tongue and religion. But then again, I've never been a fan of the Elect of God which seems to me so at odds with the message of universal salvation by faith and through living a good life with is the heart of my own faith. So not going to fan John Calvin on facebook anytime soon.

The only thing that annoys me about the book is that like so many histories it reads the South African experience in isolation from what was going on in the rest of the world. But this has always been one of my biggest bugbears from being an undergraduate and I find it's a folly. Collective ways of thinking mushroom off events both contemporaneously and in the past. Countries don't exist in isolation from the general socio-cultural atmosphere of the times, just as we don't exist in isolation from the experiences of history. The very fact that the Apartheid conjures up images of the night and the darkness of South Africa's past shows this. I can't help but think that the segregation laws in America are so very obviously rooted in the same ideas, ideologies and experiences of South Africa. There are plenty of parallels to draw from the early experiences of Calvinist settlers and their belief that God had chosen them as his elect people to settle the land, to invasion and war with the British cementing national ideology and pride, etc. Although for South Africa you'd have to swap the "as" in WASPism to WAP or WAD...Then there's the experiences of the Jews in Germany under the Nazis that the architects of the Apartheid self-consciously copied. These in their turn were modelled on the divide and rule policies of Glorious Britain and her Majestic Empire. Britain turning a blind eye to ethnic cleansing unless its in her back garden.

The saddest thing I have read in the book is the retelling of a mass under Apartheid where the congregation were made to sit in different parts of the Church and where there was a racial order of how they received Communion. But then again the image I have in my head of the congregation sharing the Eucharist, the one body, and themselves being the one body of the Church overcomes this superficial segregation and reminds me of why I am going - well that and the description of the first Hugenot settlers planting the vineyards in Stellenbosch. Ophs, hope that doesn't make me sound too much like an alkie wino.

The JB Challenge Cup

So as if living and working in a township is not going to be hard enough Ellie Kirby has signed up to participate in the Jeremy Barker (JB) Challenge Cup. Sources say that the young lady was not in an entirely sound state of mind when she struck a deal with the veteran African traveller. Having completed the gruelling challenge of studying and taking her LPC exams Kirby was feeling "on top of the world" and "up for anything". Sources close to the student tell us that in the cold light of day Kirby now feels she may have bitten off more than she can chew, or more to the point, more than can chew her.

The JB Challenge Cup involves 3 quite daring feats:

1) Shark cage diving - This speaks for itself as the challengee must go face to face with one of the world's most dangerous predators.

2) Spotting a leopard - This is a feat that even the daring challenger himself has yet to complete. Kirby will spend 3 weeks on a game reserve, half the time JB spent, so her chances of success are somewhat slimmer. However, sources in South Africa concur that leopards do frequent her camp, straddling the Limpopo river, late at night in the South African summer and have been known to hang around the toilet huts. Kirby better watch out for fear she parks her pert booty on another of the deadliest creatures the world has to offer. The JB rules are silent on how she will prove she has spotted the spotty one...she is hoping that eye witness accounts will suffice the great JB less poor Kirby will have to sellotape her camera to her wrist every time she needs a trip to the ladies.

3) Bungee jumping from the world's second highest point - unfortunately Kirby was so out of her own mind that she cannot actually recall where she has agreed to take the plunge from...however she has been reassured that in Dorothy-esque fashion if she says the word Bungee 3 times in South Africa someone will take her to its location anyway. Kirby is thinking of chickening out of this one and a friend close to the student said she may attempt a skydive instead. This is because until she was 15 and taken on a school "let's take these city kids to the country and show then mud and cows" trip to the Brecon Beacon National Park she had a terrible phobia of heights. Kirby has no problem with abseiling and has plans to abseil down Table Mountain or do a sky dive over the bay, which is quite horrifically frightening enough for her. She is currently hoping to plead disability as if she bungee jumps her glasses will fall off and she will have to fly back to Blighty to get a new pair. JB was unavailable to comment on whether he would relax the rules...

This writer says good luck to the lass - let's face it, this may be the only sporting trophy England wins this year!

They Think It's All Over...

It isn't now! Just when I thought work may be over for the summer, I've been sent an extensive reading list by my charity! It runs to quite a few pages (to put the situation mildly), covering HIV law, employment law, divorce law, child rights...I'm just going to approach it like a history reading list and have decided they don't really want me to read everthing just a few installments. This will give me something to do now that normal life has been replaced by football.

I've got nothing against football. But I am not a fan. It keeps the boys happy. It keeps my mum and sister happy. I've tried to pretend I like it but this year I can't be bothered to pretend anymore. I normally get sent out of the TV room when England are playing anyway as my presence, so my mum and sister say, seems to coincide with England conceeding a goal. I've been banished to do the washing up with my Dad and listen to radio 4. So for me, football is slightly more interesting than cricket, but not quite as interesting as rugby. And this assessment is based purley on the fitness of the players.

However, the good thing about the world cup taking over the airwaves is that it has meant lots of coverage of things I am more interested in about South African life. I have been following WAGS, kids and world cup dreams which I initially thought would be really cheesy and patronising, but is in actual fact a very touching programme. I have been inspired by my namesake Ellie who really seemed to take the country into her heart and the endearing Chantelle who raised around £40,000 for the charities on her return. And only this morning the BBC had some wonderful coverage of the winelands. Now that's an inspiration to get on with revision and my hefty reaidng list!

Counting Down the Days

I'm counting days the days until I finish my exams and then I will have a couple of months to prepare for my trip to Cape Town where I will be part of a legal service team promoting human rights and providing social justice outreach services to people living in the Cape Flats Townships.

I will use this blog to share my news with my family and generally keep everyone at home abreast of my work and travels in South Africa. Hopefully, this will stop me from being too homesick. 

Yes, so now just need to get these exams out of the way...!