So somebody called Abra Fortune Chernik once said, “Gaining weight and pulling my head out of the toilet was the most political act I ever committed”. (I have sat through numerous lectures on plagiarism at uni, and feel the need to point out that I read this quotation in Marya Hornbacher's Wasted. Yes, I am a geek. But a geek who won't be getting sued!) Anyway, I’m going to take that a little bit further, pull my head out of the toilet, out of the calorie book, out of my a**e, and take it all the way to South Africa, to a community project near Cape Town where I’ll be working with under privileged children. The rumours are true, I have quite possibly lost my mind, and on October 31st am flying out to Cape Town then travelling south to Fish Hoek where I’ll live with other volunteers for the next month.
If anyone wants to read more about what I’m doing, details are here and it explains it far better than I can: http://www.africanimpact.com/volunteers/community-work-south-africa/
A few people have asked me about why I’m doing this, so I will try to explain as succinctly as possible.......
Firstly, why Africa? Well, in practical terms, all of the projects in South and Central America were ruled out by the fact that my Spanish is limited to ‘la cuenta, por favor’. And I won’t lie, I was kind of influenced by Out Of Africa and do have some fantasies about running into a (young!) Robert Redford lookalike, being flown around in a plane and having my hair washed on the banks of the river..... I have (somewhat annoyingly) been running around informing everyone that ‘I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills’. But I’m no Meryl Streep, nor am I living anywhere near a farm and my accent borders on being offensive, so I may stop that sharpish.
The project looks pretty amazing too. It’s based in a community just outside of Cape Town and the work they do there is so varied, which is what appealed to me. In the mornings I'll be working in the schools, in the afternoons it's more community based and I could be doing anything from working in the library to painting murals in the classrooms. Although I suspect they may take one look at my painting skills and leave me in the library! After I did summer camp two years ago I realised how much I loved working with kids, and now I am considering teaching, so this seems like a perfect way to gain some experience before I commit to a PGCE.
Some people know, and some do not, that since I was 14 I have suffered from anorexia and bulimia, and that over the past two years it has got hellishly out of control, resulting in me landing myself in hospital for a couple of months earlier this year. I’m not recovered yet, probably far from it. (And yes, the people who run the project are aware of my history! I didn’t lie about that, yet did tell them that I could cope with Afrikaans as I ‘speak a little Dutch’. This is not entirely accurate, but nevermind.....) While I’m not naive enough to be doing this as a miracle cure, I do hope that doing something worthwhile, being less selfish and looking after kids who really need help, will in turn help me to gain some perspective. I might come back bigger, but then I could also come back smaller, which probably wouldn’t go down well. But whatever size I am, I don’t want to care. I don’t want my happiness and self-worth to be defined by the number on the scales. I want to be more than just another anorexia statistic, and this is my way of pulling myself back from the huge low I got to earlier this year. It is giving me something to aim for when I slip, when I don't want to eat. When getting well seems too much of a struggle there is a huge reason for me to keep going.
It will soon become clear that succinct is not my style and that I have a tendency to digress when I write. But really there is no single reason why I am doing this. The past two years have - to put it mildly - not been a whole lot of fun, and I just need to get away from things, to do something new and exciting, to prove to myself that I am capable of more than just losing weight.
Despite being somewhat scathing about blogs and bloggers, I have finally decided to get one to keep in touch with people while I’m away. Mass emails weren’t really an option as certain members of my family don’t speak so therefore can't be included in the same emails and not everybody has Facebook. And I still refuse to accept my parents as friends on there anyway – you’re too old people! ;) Plus last week I saw Julie and Julia and now hope to become the next Julie Powell with my very own book and film deal......
I won't lie - I don't really understand how blogs work. But mine is pink, so it can't be bad! I have no idea how often I will update this - either with ridiculous regularity, or never again. It may continue long after I come home from Africa, or I may get bored before I even leave in 5 weeks time. I may be the only person who ever reads this. But for now a pink blog it is - the perfect way for me to bore you all to death even on another continent!
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