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