Voting Day in Sweet SA

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Hey guys!! I realise I've sounded a bit down in my past few entries, and I'm sorry about that - just been strange re-adjusting. But its all good, and I'm still having fun, feeling a lot better now!! Still on a high from my awesome holiday :D

So after being on here on the 18th (Saturday) I went back to base and then went to Chris's house with him, and chatted to Anna (his mum) for a while, as Chris fell asleep!! Watched her cook, she has an awesome vegetable cooker thing!! Henk and Rose and Iona and folk came over later, and Henk was smoking some crazy flavoured stuff with little tobacco (don't worry, its perfectly legal!!) and we listened to muuuuuusic and I looked at all their Harrismith photos, was kool. Got a lift back (I ended up lying on top of everyone!!) and I spoke to Roy, then we went to bed - but were called up at midnight for a map-reading exercise!! They stuck us all in the back of the blacked-out buckie after giving us 5mins to get ready, then took us somehwere and gave us a map and told us to find our way back to base!! It was mental, and we had real difficulty finding where we were on the map - we got to a point eventually, and they took us back, but it was crazy, and interesting also, to see how some people coped with the exercise. We got back just before half 4, and went back to sleep. South African maps are read totally differently to British ones!! :p

Woke up late on the Sunday, as you can imagine, and went for my usual run - had brekkie, wrote a reply to Shonerrrrrr's letter, went to Spar, went on line and wrote Dad's report thing for his class, tried to get Roy's picture on my phone but it didn't work, had a shower, walked to Chris's, James and Iona and Natasha and Henk were watchin a depressing film when I got there, then we watched funny one about a guy trying to rescue his dad's wildlife show, then the rest went home and I stayed for a bit and got dinner and we watched Madagaser (love that film!!) and James managed to get me and photo from facebook on his phone and bluetoothed it to me, so now I have a lovely pic of Royness 😊 spoke to mum, was really good and uplifting, then went back to base and went to beddddd.

Mon - went for an 'energetic 8-sum' run, was goood!! Wanted to do 10, but was running out of time 😞 we had a meeting about the midnight map-thing, and we all had to sit in the 'hot seat' and get feedback from everyone, it took ages!! I was quite surprised by my feedback - apparently I didn't participate much, and that when I chose to lead I'm a great leader and people listen to me, but I rarely step up and take lead,- which I guess is true actually, out here there are so many natural leaders (they're training to be OB instructors after all!!) and things were generally going the way I wanted them to that night, so I didn't see the problem, but hey ho. And people think that I emotionally hold the group together, which is kool. I know that I just need to have more self-confidence and just take lead sometimes 😊 then, got told we were doing the 14k beach run. Oh. My. God. That was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life!! Seriously. We had a cut-off time of 1hr 40mins, so I thought, "oh, that'll be easy" - after running in soft sand for half an hour, your breathing is fine but your legs and hips are aching, and I'd lost feeling in my right leg, so made the mistake of stopping to walk for a bit - then I just couldn't get in to a decent running rhythm again. It was horrible!! I managed it in 1hr 52, and only Thema and James did it in under the time. They're gunna make us do it again next week 😞 I might just run in the sea and see what happens!! Had lunch then practiced kayaking, just really want to do my LOC again now, I was rolling fine. Deon made me and Iona do one lap of the awesome 4some and timed us, so he could set an LOC time for the trainees, ugh. Had a showerrrr, helped some of the trainees with set-ups, replied to Gemma's letter and chatted to Iona, was kool. Henk walked me to La Piazza to give Candi the tea-towel from G&G to give to her family, then we went to beddddd.

Tue - up early for the awesome 4-some swim, was hectic!! Only did 1 lap, then another lap in our partners, then they made us race it, then we had to do lifesaving stuff, I thought my arms were going to die!! Prepped for a course, which is going to be at Willow Point on Thurs (which me and Natasha aint supporting anymore, because we haven't got our bloomin kayaking LOC's), had lunch, then we all went up to Willow Point and I helped piptch the watch tents, then watched the trainees do ascending ropes, whicn was funny - basically, using slings and prussics to hoy yourself up a rope :p then were told we had to be able to do it too, but we didn't see the set-up!! Ugh. We also went over the jacob's ladder and trapeze set-ups. Which we can't revise, as we had o give the trainees our yellow books - nightmare!! Went back to base, hoyed a shower and dinner, then we took a group trip to Spar - me and Iona got chocolate and Chris went and bought a massive slab of chocolate brownie, we were all so hungry for some reason!! Caroline called :D nice chat, so kool about her snowboarding!! Well proud of her, would never have expected her to pick up snowboarding of all things!! And told her about Cape Town and how amazing it was :D chatted to Pieter, then went to bed.

Today, woke up late-ish, as it was technically a leave day as its voting day here!! But they kina implied that they wanted us to do training if we were here... so I went for my usual run, for some reason it was slower than usual :S then had brekkie, read my Scottish paper, wapped my speakers out and played some Scottish music (Idlewild, woot) did some hand-washing of the clothes, wandered to Spar with the gals and looked for specific batteries for Iona which they didn't have, sorted some crazy bible passages (?!) for Deon, I am now queen of the photocopying machine!! Then hoyed it here - Deon's gunna take us to George on Friday so Iona and Natasha can sort out their visas, and hopefully we'll be able to get to the mall somehow!!

So yea, I am feeling way more positive that I did this time last week, so all is well 😊 Love you all loads!! xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx :D

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Comments

[Mum]

Much happier!
You 'sound' much happier - soooooo glad! That sounds like TORTURE running on sand for that distance!!! Why are they making you go out in the middle of the night and leaving you to find your way back - that's a bit like an armt exercise.Still 2more young people now-a-days could be doing with that type of thing!!!" Love you, Mum. xxxxxxxxxxxxx