Guess who's back, back again?!

I have been meaning to blog more for a long time. Writing is definitely cathartic, but I suppose I have become lazy. Last year, when I was in hospital, I wrote a lot.......mainly as a way to pass the hours. In January 2009 I was admitted for just a fortnight, before discharging myself and later being re-admitted in May, and I recently found a letter I wrote to my doctor during the time between the two admissions in which I acknowledged that leaving hospital had been a mistake. After that I'm not sure what else I wrote, because I wouldn't let myself read the letter properly. Partly because it still hurts too much too remember that time, and partly because at the moment I have really strong urges to go back to the anorexia, so I don't want to remember how bad things were as that might stop me.

To anybody on the outside, the above statement must sound insane. Why would a person willingly choose to go back to something which caused them pain and made them unhappy? All I know is that right now I do not like myself very much. My body and weight disgust me to the point where I can't look in the mirror and I have found myself looking back a photos of myself at my lowest weight and wanting to cry because I am so much bigger now. Getting back to that weight is a very appealing thought, although I am so far from where I was that it doesn't seem achievable, which depresses the hell out of me.

It has never left me. Even when, on the outside, I have appeared to be doing well, it is there in the back of my mind. Some days I listen to it, and then some days it is easier to ignore. But I can feel it slowly creeping its way back into my life and I am too tired to fight it.

In my mind, I fear I will never be free from the grip of anorexia, and that even if I return to a healthy weight, the thoughts will still plague me. I have just come back from two family holidays in Spain and New York, which were fantastic. But I don't think anyone really knows what a struggle every day is for me. For example, in order to do things like having a cocktail, an ice cream or eating steak, things that the average person wouldn't think twice about, I force myself to either restrict the rest of my intake, or to walk for miles, in order to compensate for any extra calories. Calories that my body needs simply just to maintain my weight, but which I don't believe I deserve. It is an utterly selfish illness in so many ways, and when I look at everything that is happening in the world right now, I do feel terribly guilty that my internal world is so small and trivial.

Maybe this is happening because there have been a lot of changes in my life recently and I am nervous about the future, so the eating is becoming my safety net again. Maybe I will snap out of this blip as quickly as I slumped into it. Or maybe I really am just going to be nothing more than another anorexia statistic. I just don't know right now.....

And I know that it's a wonderful world, but I can't feel it right now.

I thought that I was doing well, but I just want to cry now.

~ James Morrison, Wonderful World

Heroes

My older brother has been my inspiration for many things, including writing again. He has caught onto the 'craze' that is blogging and claims that I am the best writer he knows, which is a pretty big compliment. Well, big until you know that, according to family legend, Simon has only ever read one novel from cover to cover.....but little sisters tend to hero-worship their older brothers, so it means a lot to me.

Simon is so different to me and is somebody I hugely look up to. While I am prone to over-reacting, my brother is calm and practical. He didn't go to uni, yet is one of the smartest people I know and now manages a radio station. And, most importantly, he knows how to enjoy life, which is something I am still learning to do......and taking lessons from my brother is helping! Watching him, and many other people in my life, I can see that one day, given time, I may be able to break free from my fears and demons and begin to enjoy myself again.

Working at Children of Hope was hard work, not only physically, but also mentally. It was fun and I laughed a lot, but at the same time it was emotionally draining, as were all of the African Impact volunteer projects. One of the things that kept us volunteers going during our time in South Africa, was the fact that we could walk away at the end of the day, that we could go back to our lives and simply step away from it all for a few hours. Saying it now makes me feel so selfish, especially as Sophie and Ntombie cannot just walk away. Without them there would be nobody to run the school. They live and work in Red Hill every day and they do it with very little outside help. My background in summer camp means that I'm very aware of health and safety rules, so there were a number of things that made me raise my eyebrows. But the children were never mistreated or in any danger - things were just different, which is natural considering it is a different culture.

This is Sophie with two of the pre-schoolers, Apiwe and Aviwe

The Red Hill Township has approximately 1,000-3,000 inhabitants but, as it is an unofficial settlement (and has been for the past 16 years), the residents are not allowed to set up any permanent structures, which leads to problems. One day we turned up to work and there was no electricity, as it is apparently cut off from time to time, and the next day there was no water. It meant that Sophie had to leave her class unattended, one day to cook lunch on a neighbour's gas stove, and another day to go and get water from the camp down the road. Obviously leaving a class of pre-schoolers with very little supervision isn't ok, but had she not done that, nobody would have made lunch. It's just amazing how we take little things like water and electricity for granted and how we prioritise things that sometimes aren't really that important.  

A hero is an ordinary individual who finds strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles.
~ Christopher Reeve

Picking up where I left off......

It has been 18 weeks, or 4 months, since I last wrote anything. Being a master procrastinator, one of the main skills I acquired at university, time has literally just flown by........After I came home from Africa it was suddenly cold, snowing and almost Christmas. Now it is still cold, still snowing (damn you, freak weather conditions!) and almost April.

I deliberately stopped writing for a little while after I came home - I needed time to process everything, to think properly, to reflect on my time at Children of Hope. The whole experience seems like another world now and I actually miss the children I worked with an awful lot. There were days when the children and the school felt like a test of my endurance, and I suppose I have seen that I am stronger than I ever realised, and that I can push myself really far and not crack. I saw some amazing things in South Africa, met some incredible people and learned a lot about myself. The pictures below are of me with Sophie and Ntombie, the teachers at Children of Hope, and with some of the other volunteers on my last night in Fish Hoek, 18 long weeks ago.

Lots has changed since I came home. I managed to get a place at Manchester Metropolitan University to do a PGCE in Primary Education with French, which I am absolutely delighted about. However, some things have not changed as I still have an eating disorder. Right now it's not something I want to think about or deal with. There have been small changes and I can do things that a year ago I wasn't able to even consider doing, but in some ways I am not a long way from where I was when I was admitted to hospital last May. The main difference however is that I now have a reason to fight, which I didn't really have a year ago. To teach, I need to be healthy and well, physically and mentally. And despite what I insist, I am neither.......yet.

Anything that's worth having is sure enough worth fighting for. Quitting's out of the question, when it gets tough gotta fight some more. ~Cheryl Cole

All good things come to an end.....

Tomorrow is my last day on project and my last full day in Cape Town, before I head east to Durban on Saturday morning. In a week’s time I’ll actually be back home! I can’t believe how fast the past month has gone……it seems like only a few days ago that I was saying goodbye to everybody!


I am having mixed feelings about leaving. In some ways I have to admit that it is a relief, as, after a month, I am tired of breaking up fights, washing porridge dishes and having sand thrown at me! Plus my poor hands can’t take many more days of washing up and I am in serious need of a manicure! A lot of volunteers arrived here at the same time as me and are also leaving this weekend, so there is a general feeling of winding down. But I will definitely be sad to say goodbye to Sophie and the children at Children of Hope and, as corny as it sounds, they will stay with me forever.

One of the hardest things about volunteering on a project like this is that the results cannot be seen immediately as they are the result of the work of a lot of people over many months and years. However, last Thursday afternoon four of us ran a Job Skills Workshop in the Red Hill Community Centre. It was for people looking for work and we kept it pretty simple, focusing on how to write a CV, what sort of questions you might be asked at interviews and how to present yourself at an interview. Yesterday, Mylena, one of the other volunteers who works in the pre-school next to the community centre told us that the Mum of one of her pupils had attended the session and had since approached Mylena to show her the CV she’d written based on our advice. Apparently this lady had never known how to do it before and was really proud of herself, which is just fantastic!

Those small things are what keeps us all going when it’s cold, raining, we’re tired and just damn well sick of small children! In the long term though, there is a project I’d like to help raise funds for when I get home. This morning Amanda, our Project Manager, told me that Children of Hope need to raise 250,000 Rand to install a flushing toilet. Believe me, the facilities up there are pretty grim – to the point where the volunteers drink very little before heading to work in the morning so that we don’t need to use them!

Since I got here I have taken about a million pictures and can’t wait to bore everyone with them when I get back! Like summer camp, I don’t think the true amazingness of this experience will really hit me until I get home. For now, all I know is that, despite the times when I have wanted to throttle the kids, despite the week of torrential rain, despite the dramas of sharing a house with so many other people, coming here and working at Children of Hope is one of the best things I have ever done and has changed me forever.

Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. ~ Mark Twain

Puzzling times

After a few minutes a boy came over and joined me, without saying anything, and we just got on with the jigsaw for a while before we started chatting. His name is Tamby and he’s 11 and speaks pretty good English. Up in Red Hill, where I work in the mornings, most of the kids can communicate in pretty decent English, but down in Masiphumele the residents speak Xhosa (the most bizarre sounding clicking language!) and the children in the primary schools there can’t speak much English until they are in the higher grades. So Tamby and I got on with our puzzle and just chatted about small things like music, films, what he does at school, etc. He asked me how often volunteers are at the library and I told him that we’re there every day of the week but that I’ll only be there again tomorrow and he said he was disappointed because he only wants to do puzzles with me. He pretty much broke my heart there and then and totally turned my day and mood around – so has saved my housemates from me being a total grump tonight!

On Sunday I went to Robben Island. It’s something I have wanted to do since I got here, but unfortunately the wind in Cape Town means the boat trips are often cancelled. Luckily Sunday’s trip went ahead and it was so worth the wait. The tours are run by former prisoners and are just fascinating. South Africa is a beautiful country but is still so divided and I think will continue to be so for a long time. Change is frustratingly slow, which is something I have also found while trying to recover from my eating disorder, as it is impossible to make big changes overnight to something so long-standing. One of the other volunteers here pointed out though that the generation of kids we are working with and helping now will be the ones that will grow up and make the changes to live in a fairer society. Sadly, they won’t all make it that far, and to believe they will is far too idealistic, but if even just a handful of the kids I have worked with out here manage to do something successful with their lives, to help change things for generations to come, then it will have been worth all of the snotty noses, bites and exploding yogurts I have been dealing with!

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.

Nelson Mandela

All things wise and wonderful

Life at Children of Hope is going smoothly and I am settling into some kind of routine, which isn't bad considering the kids are crazy! I generally arrive at around 8.30am, when they are having breakfast, am pounced on for hugs and attention, and then set about putting out their toothbrushes and cups of water so that they can brush their teeth. After that I have the terribly glam task of washing the breakfast dishes, before I join Sophie in the classroom for stories, ABCs and counting. Snack is at 10am, when I supervise, open yoghurt pots and juice cartons, cut up their fruit, break up fights and clean up spills, then the children go outside to run around, let off steam and beat each other up before coming back inside at about 11am to colour in and play with blocks. They have lunch not long before noon (sometimes earlier if Sophie is really sick of them!) and then go down for a nap. Then all I have left to do is clean up the lunch dishes before being picked up at and driven back to the house in Fish Hoek.

In the house there is a book which most past volunteers have written in, generally with advice for anyone else about what to do in the area and also programme-specific tips. Among things I have learned and will be sharing are the following pointers:

• no day will go by without somebody's yoghurt pot exploding in their bag
• always put out water cups in the same colour at teeth-brushing time....a single red cup in a sea of blue ones creates havoc and fighting
• always fill the cups up with the exact same amount of water - the kids always want the 'biggest' of everything, no matter what it is
• ditto for blobs of toothpaste and pieces of fruit
• small children never get tired of the same joke - twice a day, every single day, I somehow find the will to laugh when a kid gives me their dirty breakfast/lunch bowl and pretends to have lost the spoon
• drawing pictures for them is unwise - one kid sees you draw a cat for someone else, and you're suddenly drawing twenty cats......which isn't bad considering I was 'strongly discouraged' from taking GCSE art.

I complain, but I do actually enjoy it. There have been times recently when I've been tired, fed up (generally due to the bloody awful weather last week!) and wondered if I should have come for just a fortnight, but really that would not have been enough. The children are just about starting to get to know me, and me them, and I feel like I am finally connecting with them. The pre-school experience is definitely the toughest, but I feel like I am getting so much out of it as I am there every day and am always needed in some way, even if it is just opening yoghurt pots. And, very importantly, play rehearsals are going fairly well, although the mice who squeak during 'Old Macdonald Had A Farm' have been demoted due to misbehaviour and nobody has yet managed to start 'All Things Bright and Beautifully' correctly......in Red Hill the song starts 'All Things Wise and Wonderful', and no doubt will do so on the actual opening night!

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.

~ Aesop, The Lion and the Mouse

Bite me!

Things up at Children of Hope Pre-School certainly continue to be interesting.....in the past week, Clare (the other volunteer who has been there with me) and I have been left alone with the toddlers who spent that time screaming and running into walls head-first, I have been bitten by a small child (nothing serious for those who asked if my tetanus was up to date!), and Clare had to break up a fight where one little one threw a potty over another. It's crazy, no day is the same as the previous, sometimes I just want to hide from the kids and cry, but on the whole I am actually having a pretty damn good time. One of the other volunteers who normally works in the vet clinic came up to the pre-school for a morning last week and decided that working with dogs was far easier.....and that's saying something considering there was an incident at her place of work last week when a big dog attacked a puppy!

The reason we were left alone with the smallest children is because the older ones are rehearsing in the church hall for their end of year school play, and amidst the potty-throwing chaos last week we could hear the tune of 'I Believe in Angels', which is kind of ironic when you think about it! Anyway, on Friday I actually had a chance to watch the rehearsal and, while what I am about to say may sound cheesy, it was actually pretty inspirational. Sophie, who set up the school and currently works as principal, teacher and cook, tells the audience about the school, what the children have been learning and how they all have a dream, and then the six kids who are set to graduate and go to primary school in January step forward and say what they want to be when they grow up. Of the six, there will hopefully be one policeman (that's my little Cheslyn!), a fireman, a nurse and three doctors. Children of Hope has only been open for a couple of years and African Impact has already had reports from the local primary schools that the children who go there are starting Grade One at a far higher standard than their peers. Considering how primitive the conditions up there are, the fact that the school isn't even government-registered and that Sophie and the other teacher, Ntombie, are not even trained, I think that's pretty amazing and it means those six children actually do have a real chance of achieving their dreams. I could not be more proud to be a part of that, even if it does mean being bitten every once in a while!

Since the weekend the weather here in Cape Town has been almost British, with lots of wind and rain, although it is set to improve by Thursday. The pre-school is really just a couple of shacks, and it has been cold there this week, so I can't imagine what it must be like in winter. One of the afternoon projects is doing renovation work at the schools at that township, so hopefully it won't be too bad for them next winter. On Thursday afternoon I was working at the Red Hill Pre-School chipping old paint off the walls, but most of my afternoon work has been in the library doing jigsaws, playing games and reading as part of the after school club. In some ways the library work is a lot easier than that in pre-school - almost a welcome break from shouting 'no!' all morning, but as much as I come home at lunchtime feeling shattered, filthy and sick of kids, I think it's secretly my favourite thing. However, from this week I will also be able to spend a couple of afternoons a week assisting in a medical clinic in the Masiphumele township, which should be exciting. Although I'm informed it will mostly be helping with paperwork, I will still get to wear a while coat which keeps me happy!

I am learning so much about myself here. I am absolutely not the most flexible person in the world and like a plan, which is a definite family trait. Life in Africa however, does not go to plan.....sometimes we are supposed to be doing something and it gets cancelled, I'm told I'll be working in one place and suddenly I'm assisting somewhere else. It's not easy for me to 'go with the flow', but I am actually managing pretty well and hopefully it's something I can continue to do when I get home. Hopefully I won't turn back into a scary control freak as I fly back to the UK! Anway, internet access here is pretty limited and I had better stop rambling. And as corny as it is, I am going to end this post with a quote from the school play......

I have a dream, a fantasy
To help me through reality

And my destination makes it worth the while

Pushing through the darkness still another mile

I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see

- Abba

Finally here!

Wow, after all of the worry and nerves I'm finally here in Fish Hoek and so far I am absolutely LOVING it!

I arrived in Cape Town on Sunday morning and was driven to the volunteer house in Fish Hoek at the same time as a couple of others. The area is beyond beautiful, just so stunning. In fact, I need to work on my adjectives as stunning doesn't even begin to cover it!

I'm living with 13 other volunteers from all over the world, including the UK, Switzerland, Austria, Canada, USA and Mexico, all here for roughly the same time as me. We're a happy mixture of teachers, medics and vets and are bonding well so far over shots of Tequila in the Fish Hoek beach bar! In the mornings we all get driven to our various projects, be they in the schools, medical centres or vet clinics, then after lunch we're all mixed together in all of the different community projects.

So, the most important thing......the projects! Well, as part of the induction on Monday, all of us new volunteers were taken to see all of the various schools and medical centres. I'll be spending my mornings working at Children of Good Hope Educare Centre, which is a pre-school on the Red Hill Township. In the afternoons so far I've been working in the library as part of the after school drop in centre, just doing general stuff like reading with the younger kids and playing puzzles. On Mondays I will be going to Hokisa Orphanage and doing one on one reading work with a 12 year old girl called Fundiswa. I'm actually really lucky to be able to take part in this particular project as the people who run the orphanage are very careful about who is selected to work with the children. Only the longer term volunteers are able to go there as the kids have been through so much already that it would be really unfair to have volunteers just dropping in and out of their lives. And funnily, as the work is reading skills, those with strong accents are also ruled out.....hopefully Fundiswa won't pick up too much of my lovely Northern tones!

The pre-school is definitely a challenge, but it's crazy good fun too! The kids are aged 10 months to about 6 and the can be WILD at times! So far I've been jumped on, swung on, had banana mushed all over me.....and I'm actually working with the older class! The school was founded and run by a lady called Sophie, and at the moment she is working as principal, teacher, cook and cleaner as there is only one other teacher there who looks after the very little ones. My work is pretty much helping out wherever is needed. When I get there the kids are normally finishing with breakfast so after that we get their teeth brushed, wash up and then help with the morning lesson. The morning just flies by after that, and involves a lot more washing up, sweeping floors and general crowd control. So far I have fallen for Cheslyn, who is very cute and cheeky, but sharp as a button!

I wish I had time to write more, to really let people know just how incredible it is to be here, how overwhelming and awesome the experience has been after just three days. It seriously feels like I've been here for much longer! Tomorrow afternoon I'm down to do building work up at the other pre-school in Red Hill, so I am expecting to end up covered in paint as that's how everyone else has come home this week! And there's going to be no time for sleep at the weekends either, as there's a wine and cheese tasting tour in Stellenbosch scheduled for Saturday and plans to go to Cape Town on Sunday!

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, MUST be attained.

~ Marie Curie

T-minus 2 days!

In the words of John Denver, all my bags are packed, I'm ready to go and I'm leaving on a jet plane in about 48 hours! It feels like forever ago since I decided to do this trip, but at the same time I can't believe it is actually here. I'm not sure how I'm feeling to be quite honest. Probably a huge combination of nerves, excitement and anticipation.

For a change, I don't have very much to say........just a massive massive thank you to the people who have supported me in doing this and also for the donations I have been given to take to Cape Town. I will do my best to keep this blog updated while I am away - if not then there might be some pretty epic posts when I get home in December!

Either you decide to stay in the shallow end of the pool or you go out in the ocean.

~ Christopher Reeve

Surrounded by love

My sister told me not long ago that I have a lot of love surrounding me, and to use that for strength. She and I don't agree on everything (harem pants and Donny Osmond, for example, are areas on which we have had to agree to disagree!) but I think she's pretty right on that one.

Since I have finally started to open my eyes to the world around me I have seen that I am very lucky to have certain people in my life, not least some incredible friends who have stuck by me through thick and thin - no pun intended(!) and a wonderfully supportive family who accept me for who I am, love me despite my flaws (which are many, and range from being a pain in restaurants and crying over food to supporting John and Edward on their quest for X-Factor victory!), who never judge and who make me see that there is always hope. And without those people I would not have made it through the past year. Because of them, I am learning to accept myself as I am, flaws and all. I am terrified about the next few weeks, but knowing that my friends and family believe in me means that I know I'll be fine.

On Saturday night I went out for a meal with the people I love and had just the loveliest time. Somehow I managed to leave the anorexia at home for the night, relax and enjoy myself......and even eat some baklava! I was free and had fun, which I haven't done for far too long. Maybe that's why I want to work with children - being a kid should be about playing and having fun, and for so many reasons, it isn't always like that. And that is something I would like to help change.

There are times, usually late at night when I can't sleep, when I worry that I'm not done with my eating disorder, that I never got ill enough, that I'm not ready to let it go just yet. And I realise how absurd that sounds - how can a person cling to something which nearly destroyed them? That's something I don't yet have the answer to, and logic tends to fly out of the window. All I know for sure is that I don't feel alone anymore. As corny as it sounds, I do feel very much surrounded by love and support. So while it may be a long time before the anorexic thoughts disappear entirely, just thinking about that love helps make them go away.

There have been moments when I have wanted to go back in time, to re-do my life and never have developed an eating disorder, but I could never decide which point in time I would return to. To 8 when I first went on a diet? To 14 when I worked out how to make myself vomit? At university I read Diderot's Jacques le fataliste et son maître, in which Jacques believes that tout ce qui nous arrive de bien et de mal ici-bas était écrit là-haut - literally that everything happens for a reason. I haven't retained much of the knowledge I was supposed to be gaining at Nottingham (although I can still remember which bars and clubs do which offers on cheap drinks and where to get a decent pizza delivered after 2am), but that has always stayed with me, and even if I had the opportunity to time-travel now, I wouldn't go back and do it differently. Although this year in particular has been hellish, I have gained so much in return. I used to wonder why I had to get ill, why it had to happen to me, but maybe I needed to be literally stripped to my core to start to see things as they really are, to realise who I really am and what is important to me. If it took me losing nearly everything to finally see how much I really have, then I can start to be ok with what has happened over the past few years, stop wasting time wishing it hadn't happened and start to move forwards.

I've learned that all a person has in life is family and friends. If you lose those, you have nothing, so friends are to be treasured more than anything else in the world.

~ South Park