Spring has Sprung and Summer Beckons...

Home Page: Willmore Adventures in South Africa

Hello Everyone, me again :)

So here we are, 6 weeks into our adventure, and summer holidays and Christmas are on the horizon...

With Spring behind us now and Summer ahead, we have started the experience of having a hot Christmas. We have exchanged the indoors to embrace the outdoors by attending Christmas Carols by Candlelight in Lonehill Park. A relaxed event where everyone came with a blanket and picnic, listened to Christmas songs and joined in with carols. Father Christmas made an appearance arriving rather quickly, and very much enjoying himself, on a motorbike (we decided that sleighs perhaps aren't appropriate in the southern hemisphere...) The children ran around, jumped on bouncy castles and danced by the stage under falling snowflakes. It was a lovely introduction to Christmas in Summer.

The girls after meeting Father Christmas

We have been enjoying all the different flora and fauna that South Africa has to offer, and arriving in Spring was an absolute pleasure. The flower that seems to be as common as daisies is the Agapanthus. But unlike the daisy, Agapanthus stands at about 3 feet tall and makes you feel a bit like a Borrower when you walk amongst them. Everything seems to be a bit bigger here in Africa! The blue flowering Jacaranda Tree has been truly vibrant as has the Bougainvillea. The Yesterday-today-and-tomorrow plant is just starting to flower in its three shades of purple and smells rather wonderful too.

The 3 foot Agapanthus

An avenue of Jacaranda trees

The lovely Bougainvillea

With all these new experiences and all the learning going on, unfortunately my African naivety has really shone through. I'm sure you can forgive me when I confess that I have been dutifully watering a potted plant in our garden that has turned out, quite bizarrely, to be made of plastic! I often laugh at myself but this was a good one!

Joel has also made us laugh with his own take on nature. It's the abundance of birds that catches your attention. And one such bird is the Hadida. It's about 1 foot tall with a long beak, and makes a sound like a high pitched pirate saying "Aaarrr". It's a bit of a shock when this sinister looking turkey lands in your garden. Joel saw one walking around on the grass and said, "Oh look Mummy, there's a super tiny Ostrich!"

The super tiny ostrich! (Hadida)

So Joel and I are both learning about the wonderful flora and fauna of South Africa.

If there was ever an excuse for McDonald's, we definitely found it. Mid cooking we ran out of gas, so we had to locate our gas cylinder round the back of the house and find a place to refill it. It's not that common to have gas in South Africa and most homes have electric stoves. I quote Laurence, "Only if you live in the bundus would you use gas" (middle of nowhere).

Whilst the children have been at school I have had the privilege of meeting the 23 orphaned girls, who I briefly mentioned in the previous blog, at their home. Initially homeless, they now live in a house loaned to them by a man who heard of their plight on the radio. The girls sleep 12 to a room and attend local schools. It is through the good will of the public that they have a roof over their heads and food to eat (not always), because the government do not support them. Through understandable frustration, local people burnt down the office that deals with benefits applications, and as a result, the local municipality have nowhere to work from to deal with all the people in need. So the girls rely on donations largely coordinated through Laurence's mum's church, and the nurturing of the dedicated house mothers who live with them, to survive. It's certainly a shock stepping out of the safety net of the UK to meet these lovely girls.

I have thought a lot about what the needs of the disadvantaged are, where my strengths lie and how I can help. I have often thought that I haven't got anything useful to give and felt frustrated in life about how to help. But the reality is that I have been given such an incredible education. And talking to people who have never been to school before has shone a light on, firstly the importance and power of education to change your circumstances, but secondly for me, a way I can help others. Our church in Lonehill has links with a school in the nearby township of Diepsloot. So I hope that a part of my adventure out here involves going to that school and helping out in whatever capacity they need an extra pair of hands. I will of course update you on this after Christmas when all the schools go back to start the new school year.

Amelie, Elowen and Joel break up for their summer holidays this week. Already? You hear me cry... and then cry! Yes, it's true. Summer holiday 2018 take 2. We will endeavour to stretch out any Christmas decoration making and baking and will report on this is due course.

I hope you are all wrapped up and enjoying festivities up north. We will miss Carols by Candlelight at home this year. Will Father Christmas appear on a motorbike there? Now there's a challenge!

Lots of love, Jess x

Next post: Christmas and New Year with the Elephants and Lions

Previous post: Settling in...

Settling in...

Home Page: Willmore Adventures in South Africa

Greetings from South Africa! A month has flown by already and we are settling nicely into our new country and starting to feel at home. We have experienced so much in this short time as we soak up our surroundings and the wonderful South African culture.

Our days are quite simple as we establish our new routine. We enjoy a relaxed breakfast together as a family whilst learning some Afrikaans. Laurence leads us in pronunciation as a 'g' is a guttural 'h', a 'v' is an 'f', a 'd' is a 't', the vowels are all mixed up, and you have to roll your r's!

We then head to the girls school followed by Joel's preschool whilst listening to a crazy mix of African music, Metallica and Disney songs.

The girls are really enjoying school. They have an incredible timetable with the added bonus of swimming in an outdoor pool.

Amelie has accrued enough points in class to choose an activity for herself. She turned down a day of sitting in the teachers chair for the option of 'Show and Tell'. She has taken in some photos of England to show the class where many have never seen snow before or a Queen's Palace! She has also been star of the week now for using some brilliant adjectives in class. Well done Am.

Elowen has surprised us with her growing confidence in the pool. She now happily jumps in with a noodle instead of just standing on the step. She is also the juiciest member of our family. The mosquitoes unfortunately love her. So we have developed an evening routine, little short of a military operation, of shutting windows and doors before lights go on and applying peaceful sleep to keep the bites at bay. But sometimes they win and Elowen comes downstairs in the morning saying,"I've been bitten by a dragonfly again", (very cute).

After school play with the neighbours and Elowen armed with her noodle

Joel has had an incredible start at preschool. Teacher Lara is in charge of the class of roughly 9 pupils. The children eat a hot breakfast and lunch and have 2 snacks during their day. In amongst all the eating, the children find time to do lots of artwork and lots of playing outdoors. Whether its racing round on bikes, climbing jungle gyms or playing in the sandpit, Joel is having fun. He's really relaxed, which makes us so happy. And he has had a birthday! Baker Boy Joel turned 4!

     

 Joel also has a pet. We have a Weaver bird who lives in our garden. He is endlessly making nests out of grass in our tree. If a lady Weaver doesn't join him in the nest before it turns brown then he has to pull it down and start again. Joel will often point out Weaver, his pet. We are routing for Weaver too!

I have completed my first South African Parkrun, hurrah! It was hard work. Even though it starts at 8 am instead of 9; the heat, the altitude and the hills (I should have predicted hills having moved to a place called Lone HILL) made it a tough 26 minutes and 55 seconds. And to top it off, a man at the end said that I looked how he felt! There is no need to have a shred of compassion for me however as I came home and did this...

But in amongst all the pleasures that South Africa brings, it's poverty is all to clear to see. Whether it's people helping you into a car parking space in exchange for a few Rand (10p); people filling up your car with petrol or packing your bags in the supermarket as part of the job creation in a country where 26% of South Africans are unemployed; or people with limbs missing, begging on the streets; the need is overwhelming. South Africa has just suffered a decade of corruption in the government under the former president, Jacob Zuma, which has affected the poor terribly. But the country is hopeful that, under the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who was Nelson Mandella's choice to succeed him, there will be great change. He is already stamping out corruption and bringing lots of investment into the country.

There is also some incredible charity work going on, which I would love to get involved in. Laurence's mum runs a soup kitchen for the poor, provides food for a house of 23 orphaned girls and has many more projects that she helps with. I will no doubt post about this in the future.

So, in all our joys in this African Spring, we have also loved watching Autumn, Halloween, Fireworks and Remembrance Day from afar. The wonders of social media! It is great to see what everyone is getting up to. And please do share this with people who's numbers I don't have. We will of course be in touch again soon.

Lots of love, Jess x

Next post: Spring has Sprung and Summer Beckons...

Previous post: Our African Adventure Begins...

Our African Adventure Begins...

Home Page: Willmore Adventures in South Africa

Hello wonderful family and friends in the UK and around the world. At last I am able to write with our exciting news. We have arrived in sunny South Africa, hurrah!

Our visas, rather frustratingly, were delayed both at the South African Embassy and with the courier company. But despite this, we ended up having a very special five week stay at my mum's, seeing family and friends, before taking off on our African Adventure.

The flights via Dubai were seamless and we arrived on Thursday 18th October to a beautiful sunny day in Africa. Laurence and his mum, Lynn, met us at the airport and we headed to our new home in a suburb of Johannesburg called Lonehill. We live in a cluster of 10 houses surrounded by high walls and a gate. (The cluster is called Bishopstone.) It sounds a bit alien to the British psyche to live like this but what I have discovered is that it has created a safe environment where all the children can walk in and out of each others houses as they please. Little 5 year old Brighton pops in most days to play transformers with Joel. I imagine the UK in the 1950's used to be a bit like this. I really like it.

Within 24 hours of landing, the girls were in school! School begins at 7.40 am so it's a 6 o'clock start for us now. Mornings are not my forte but I'm actually enjoying being up so early. And who needs an alarm clock when the dawn chorus begins at 3 am! Elowen was very anxious before starting, but the second she met her new teacher and her new class mates she was very happy and has in fact won the 'Star of the Week Award' for settling in so well. Amelie is our cheese to Elowen's chalk. She was so excited to start, really helping Elowen with her nerves, but was understandably overwhelmed by all the new people when we actually got there. She is really loving school though but says she is going to have to learn African to understand what everyone is saying, (they're all speaking English, hee hee).  The school song is in English, Afrikaans and Isizulu and the girls are learning Afrikaans and Isizulu in class.

Little Joel has visited a preschool and will start on Monday (29th). The preschool have chickens and ducks roaming around, and instead of rocking horses they have rocking giraffe and zebra!

Laurence is enjoying working from home and not having the commute to London. He is also loving having his family around him and we have already had his siblings here for a braai and seen all 4 of his parents. They now have a turn at being more hands on with grand parenting (good luck!).

I'm really enjoying seeing Laurence in his home country. It's funny how culturally we are very similar yet our experiences growing up have been quite different. Here are a few things that I have experienced with him this past week...

1. A loud boom will follow when the lights go out in a storm. (The only time the lights go out unexpectedly in the UK for me is when I've knocked the fuse box when putting the clothes horse in the cupboard under the stairs!)

2. When a house has no guttering the rain comes down in waterfalls from the roof.

3. A lizard drops it's tail if it feels threatened. We had one in our kitchen  and on trying to get it out it's tail fell off and the tail continued to wriggle. It's methodology worked as I was left staring at the tail! (It grows a new one).

So, a week in, and we already feel quite settled. We have experienced school, preschool, church, family, and even seen friends Jo, Daniel and Matthew from Southampton. Knowing that we have such loving friends and family in the UK brings great comfort in these early days in Africa. Lots of love to you all.

Jess x

Next post: Settling in...