Week 1 - Durban briefing

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So week 1 of orientation and getting to know Durban is over. Tomorrow morning my co-volunteer and I head inland 2hrs to start our placement at Woza Moya. The last week has been really interesting and very busy, but I'm looking forward to actually starting the placement.

So what have I been doing the last week. Well I arrived at the Monash South Africa campus on the Saturday afternoon. There are 10 of us students involved in the placement. There are seven girls from Monash Australia and three people from the South African campus. These three are a mixed group. Stephanie is from Germany, Nasreen is from Tanzania and Simba (our sole gentleman) is originally from Zimbabwe, but currently lives in Botswana. When I arrived, three of the Aussie girls were there along with Simba. We were met by Craig and Inger who took us out for lunch. Later in the afternoon, 2 others joined us for dinner. The rest joined us on Sunday. Monash nicely picked up all our meals for our time in Jo,burg.

The Monday started our orientation and we were provided with a range of information about how Monash South Africa runs and some other general information sessions. Before lunch we did a tour of Zandspruit, an informal settlement near to Monash. Then we had lunch at Wandies in Soweto. We also went to the Hector Pieterson Museum where we learnt about the student uprising and killing of Hector on 16 June 1976. Very interesting and moving museum.

That afternoon we flew to Durban. Our plane was delayed and by then time we arrived it was dark and pouring down with rain. It was then that I discovered that I would be driving one of the hire cars to our accommodation.....mmmm, new city, new car, pouring with rain, this was going to be interesting. There were 3 hire cars driven by us students, following our only local Inger. Somehow we managed to get there without incident. When we arrived and needed to park, I discovered I couldn't find reverse.... found it with help eventually.

The next morning we got to settle in at the guest house. It's so lovely. The rooms nice, breakfast is served every morning and a pool. So much for doing it tough (well at least for those in Durban the whole time). At 12noon we went to Oxfam and were provided with an information session about how Oxfam works in general and then more specifically in the programs we will be working for. In the evening we were taken out for dinner again...If only this was how it would go the whole trip.

Wednesday we were provided with an info session in general on HIV and Aids and specifically the issues in South Africa. This was interesting particularly since we will all encounter these issues in our placement. In the afternoon we had a session on media where we got to interview each other about our expectations of the placement. Inger would like us all to provide some sort of contribution regarding our placement and one of our options was to interview people at our placement to document some of our experiences. I think i'd like to do something like that. It would be good for me to keep as well as to provide Monash and Oxfam with something to document what we are doing.

This evening was the first group cooking evening. We are all a given a food allowance and they group has divided up to cook combined dinners Mon-Thurs. Myself and Sophie won't be involved normally, but we were this week. The first meal was delicious and plenty of food, so all good.

Thursday morning back at Oxfam to meet the Psychologist who will be running our mid placement briefing and final briefing, along with the Social worker we can contact during the placement if we need someone to talk to for whatever reason. We discussed what our expectations were and previous community development experience. It was really interesting to hear what other people had experienced and what challenges we might come across and how to handle them.

In the afternoon we went to a Braai (South African BBQ) at one of Inger's friends houses. They had 2 lamb legs on the spit.. delicious. Lots of local people, food and alcohol. It was a great fun night that started with some drinking games and ended in a game of 'never, ever, have I ever'. Somewhere in between there was some intellectual conversations and more civil getting to know you conversations. Proudly I was amongst the last 3 of our group to head home.

Friday we did a bus tour around town..... kind of interesting, and good for orientation. The afternoon was raining and not great weather so we headed to a shopping mall for some retail therapy. The evening was a quiet one, with Sophie and I cooking a green curry and after some of us sitting around chatting about life and love and falling out of love. It was a nice evening.

Saturday morning we went into town to do the 'Warwick Market tour'. There are a lot of formal and informal markets around inner Durban. We went to a market that sold 'lime' that was used to lighten skin or as a sunscreen. Lots of women in the market had this white or brown stuff smeared on their skin. Amazing the difference in cultures. Us Aussie white folk have spent some of our time sunning ourselves by the pool trying to get a tan, whereas these local black women are trying to whiten their skin, or at a minimum protect their skin from getting darker. We also found some people selling a variety of plants that you burn in order to make contact with your ancestors. The plant you bought would depend on where your ancestors come from. Then there was the early morning market that sold fruit and vege and chickens (live of course). Then the area where women cooked up the cows head and served the meat with a flour dumpling. The meat and was absolutely delicious and tender although some bits were a bit too fatty. The dumpling was delicious too. I love trying local delicacies.

Lunch was had at a cool Indian sweet shop where we were directed to a room out the back of the shop to wait for our curries. The room had the feel of a converted bathroom..., a bit weird, but fine. Later 5 of us went to the beach and were told we didn't look like locals..... there weren't many white people on the beach we were at, so maybe there are still unofficial separation of blacks, coloured and white. It was nice to be in the surf again. I had been swimming in the pool loads, so good to get some salt water.

In the evening we ventured down to 'Wilson's Wharf'. We ended up on a bit of a mystery tour due to a wrong turn that took us onto a freeway that didn't have an exit for about 2km's... fun stuff. But eventually we made it. A lovely place for dinner. There was also a festival on, so we saw some local theatre. It was a comedy and very enjoyable. It was a really lovely evening.

Our last day before placement required a relaxing morning lying in the sun, swimming in the pool and reading. So lovely. Then Cara, Linden, myself and one of Ingers friends Adam, headed out to a local soccer match. It was between AmaZulu and the Arrows. After a stop to get directions we arrived at the stadium which felt like it was out in the middle of nowhwere. Adam can speak fluent Zulu, which is very unusual for a white man. It was very interesting to see the reaction of people when he started speaking to them in Zulu. We had to do some very creative parking and in the process made some friends who walked with us to the game. I think they were fascinated to see 3 white Aussie girls going to a local soccer match. We only saw 2 other white guys while we were there. The atmosphere was great and the soccer average, but it was loads of fun, despite the horrendous Durban heat that was pelting down on us. In the evening we cooked up a braai. Yum.....

I then packed up in preparation for our drive out to Woza Moya in the morning. I'm feeling a little tired from our really busy week, but pumped for the reason I came to begin.

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Comments

[anonymous]

Sounds awesome;)