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
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