Let Loose!

Homepage: Willmore Adventures in South Africa

Being let loose with a paintbrush at a preschool has been one of the most fun things I’ve done here in South Africa. And being let loose with a group of volunteers and some struggling Grade 2s at a primary school has been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done here. Being trusted with both these projects as a foreigner has been a massive privilege too. Buttercup Preschool, which I fondly got involved with in 2019 has had a 2022 makeover, and the Riversands Primary School which I helped at until COVID struck in 2020, is back up and running! 2022 is going full steam ahead!

Since the original build at Buttercup Preschool in 2019 where an outside area was enclosed for the children to play in, it was time for an injection of love to improve the inside and outside spaces for the babies, toddlers and preschoolers. The update was not just a fun idea though, it had become a necessity for Tari the preschool owner too. Little did we know that back in 2019 we had enclosed and secured the preschool with such success that no one walking past knew that it even existed, and numbers were down to just 6 (COVID also played a part in this too). Tari charges the equivalent of £22.50 a month per child, which covers full time childcare and 3 meals a day. With rent for her family and the preschool to pay, plus all the food to buy, she was not covering expenses and more children were desperately needed to keep the preschool afloat and keep Tari with a roof over her head. Whether foolish or not, Tari asked me for some help to turn things around. Instantly my Pandora's project box flew open, and my unqualified and inexperienced cogs started turning. What could we do to advertise the preschool? The answer we arrived at was flyers, posters and a painted wall along the front of the preschool. So, off to work I went to help achieve this.

As an aside, this past year has been a wonderful friend making year for me. I have met some fabulous British people where the excuse of being British to justify a conversation has led to some amazing friendships emerging. The reason wouldn’t hold much weight in the UK but in a foreign land, it is strangely unifying, and my British network has grown.

So, to my British friends I went for some advice about Buttercup Preschool. Two friends, Katy and Alicia, had preschool experience and were able to help with the flyers and posters, and one friend, Emily, who is a vet was willing to get her hands dirty and help with the painting. It was great to have a little team around me and to be able to share the experience with others. After about a month of work, the outside wall looked better than we could have imagined, and the inside space looked fresh and inviting. The garden gained a gazebo for shade and some garden toys given by my mum, and we fixed Tari and Martin’s car to provide a transport service as well. With posters up and flyers distributed we waited for some enquiries…And then it began! The phone starting ringing and people started to visit. New faces started to arrive at the school and as of June 2022, there are 17 happy children running around, with new ones arriving every month. Tari and Martin have a thriving preschool once again and I get to enjoy the energy and high spirits of the children every Thursday that I visit.

Emily and some local children
hard at work on the base layer.

Me and Emily painting the finer details.

The little ones helped with their hand prints too.

The finished front wall!

With Tari painting the inside.

Dropping off the finished
flyers and posters.

Alicia testing out the new blackboard with the
little ones after teaching them some songs.

Me, Tari and Alicia.

Practicing letters in the sand. 

Spotting the 'a' in the sentence.

Making a 'ssssss'

The children testing out their new garden toys.

Back in February when the Buttercup update was taking place, the South African government relaxed the COVID rules in schools allowing children to return to fulltime education and not be restricted to small classes on a rotating timetable. With the children back to 5 days a week, the Riversands Primary School was now able to let the children who struggle with reading and writing in English be taken out of class for some extra help. So, our team of volunteers who had done this prior to COVID, needed no encouraging when the law was changed. We were back to school in a flash, preparing the classroom and all the equipment, ready for the chaos that excited 7- and 8-year-olds bring. This return to school had also afforded me the opportunity to take on a leadership role alongside a good friend Kate. Liaising with teachers, structuring the mornings, organising volunteers and children… It’s perhaps a bit late in the game to be stepping into a role like this now but I’m so enjoying a newfound confidence in myself and the satisfaction that comes with doing a job well. The little ones are such a pleasure too. Some cheeky, some quiet, some frenetic, some competitive, they are a real bag of all sorts where there is never a dull moment. But despite all their differences, they are however united by their extreme poverty, their complete lack of necessities like clothes and shoes that fit, and a learning difficulty to top it all off. So, as teachers, faced with these obstacles, we find ways to make the children feel able to achieve, and we use different methods of teaching, often involving a healthy dose of fun and games to realise this. Our hope is that by the end of the South African school year in December, most children will be reading and writing, and that the intervention that we have provided will put them on a better trajectory in life, however small that change might be. And such is the bond that we form with our pupils, that children in the older grades who we used to teach in years gone by come up to visit us all the time. It’s a wonderful community which I love being a part of.

Kate and I who run the reading program together.

Learning his first phonics sounds.

Some of this year's cuties in our reading program.

This year's Grade 5s coming up to visit.

So, June draws to a close, and with it the end of the school year for Amelie, Elowen and Joel. They have had such a happy year filled with friendships, French, rugby, chess, cycling, rollerblading, hip hop dancing, graffiti, and so much more. We look forward to a lovely long break now before we start again in September. And for that break we have chosen a top destination to visit….

Look out England, the Willmore’s are heading home!

We look forward to seeing friends and family soon.

Lots of love

Jess xxx  

Previous Post: Fresh Water, Salt Water, No Water, Floods!

A few extra photos...

Amelie our chess champ.

Elowen with a class graffiti project.

The graffiti panels were installed at the township
creche supported by the French school.

Elowen playing games
with the creche children.

Elowen and class mates reading to the little children.

Joel in a school play...speaking in FRENCH!

Happy Fathers Day to Laurence.

Fresh Water, Salt Water, No Water, Floods!

Homepage: Willmore Adventures in South Africa

Snorkeling in the beautiful freshwater lakes of Kosi Bay, exploring South Africa’s eastern coastline with the thundering Indian Ocean, experiencing the decay of infrastructure which often leaves many without water, and South Africa suffering the worst floods in decades. All this during a visit from my mum who we had not seen for 2 ½ years. The extremes of beauty and destruction, the celebration and the frustration of living on this southern tip of Africa. Welcome to another instalment of our Willmore Adventures!

Seeing my mum for the first time in 2 1/2 years!

If given the choice between electricity and water, every South African will tell you that, whilst both are vital for 21^st century living, water is by far the most frustrating to live without. You can’t wash, drink, flush a toilet, clean…the list goes on… So, when a pipe bursts and the municipality water is turned off, irritation levels are high. Combine it with a bout of no electricity – no traffic lights, no fridge or freezer, no lights, no computer, no Netflix – and South Africans are on the war path! Decaying infrastructure is a daily burden. So, when my mum came to visit us for the first time in 2 ½ years, the simple task of washing bed sheets became a 2-day affair. After hearing the washing machine beep angrily to let me know that the water had been turned off, I rolled my eyes and turned to the taps in the utility room to wash the laundry liquid off my hands. After turning the tap on and being reminded for the second time in a minute that the water had indeed been turned off, I marched into the kitchen feeling a little flustered. To calm my British nerves, I decided that I needed a cup of tea. To the sink in the kitchen I went, shaking my head. I thrust the kettle under the tap and turned it on… and I think we all know what happened next… NOTHING! Nothing is what happened next. Other than the fact that I cursed myself loudly for being so stupid. 3 times in one minute I was reminded that we had no water. It had finally sunk in, I made myself a cup of tea from the emergency bottled water in the cupboard and sat down to gather my thoughts. It’s amazing how we work on autopilot for so many daily tasks. Watching Laurence walk into the kitchen, grab a glass from the cupboard and try and fill it up at the sink was the only redeeming moment in the whole situation. It’s always funny when it happens to someone else.

Elowen and the emergency cupboard water in action!

Two days later, the pipes were finally fixed, and I was at last able to wash the bed sheets. A bird left a present on them in the garden whilst they were drying so it wasn’t plain sailing after that but at least we had water!

The days that followed our water deprivation were a disaster on a much grander scale…

Just as my mum arrived, South Africa had its worst weather in decades. It rained so much that the east of the country around Durban experienced severe flooding and landslides. Homes, health care centres and schools were washed away, and shipping containers were seen floating down the motorway. 443 people died and 40,000 were displaced. The Government announced a national state of disaster and blamed global warming for the flooding, the locals blamed poor infrastructure citing blocked drains as one of the problems. Either way, it had caused absolute devastation. So, it was no water followed by floods in South Africa this April.

The devastation in Durban
 caused by the Autumn floods.

Despite the bad weather, we headed east with my mum, to a pre-booked holiday at Kosi Bay, on the coast just south of the Mozambique border.

Jo'burg to Kosi Bay, on the coast
just south of the Mozambique border.

It is another of South Africa’s gems, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, where there is a network of freshwater lakes called the iSimangaliso Wetlands that lead into the Indian Ocean. It is home to some crocodiles and hippos along with some pretty fish and some pretty tasty fish.

Kosi Bay's tidal
fresh water lake system.

Being tidal, it has led to a unique way of fishing for the locals and the lakes are littered with wooden fish traps. Most of the lakes are shallow meaning that if you don’t have a boat, you can just walk across, and if the school boat is out of action, the local children will wade across to get to school. They would just have to check where the hippos were hanging out that day to avoid an unwanted confrontation. Hippos can hold their breath for 6 minutes and run along the bed of a lake at 20 kilometres an hour, so it would be foolish to think that a human could in any way outwit one. Thankfully the locals are adept at avoiding the hippo population and there has only been 1 human death in the last 20 years. Humanity and nature living in harmony. None of these facts made me feel safe and relaxed, however, when we were given the opportunity to snorkel in the lakes during a boat ride with one of the locals. One eye on the beautiful fish and one eye on the darker water where I was convinced a hippo or a croc would make a beeline for the silly foreigner. Thankfully the hippos and crocs were otherwise engaged that day and we were left to explore the beautiful waters of Kosi Bay without interruption.

The shallow lakes' fish traps

Amelie, Joel and my mum sitting at the front of the boat.

Amelie and Laurence snorkeling/just landed on Earth... 

Like the local Kosi Bay people, we also had to wade across the estuary of the lakes to get to the beach. Tip toeing between the eels and the lionfish, we made it across, and spent a second beautiful day by the Indian Ocean.

Mum and me overlooking the lakes
on our way down to the beach.

The estuary that we had to cross to get to
the beach with the Indian Ocean beyond.

Sending Laurence across first!

The weather turned once again though and we were back to thunderstorms and torrential rain. So much so that we decided to go home early. Elowen and my mum had fallen ill with what we later found out was covid, and a tent wasn’t the best place to be. Our trip back wasn’t a smooth ride either as we lost a wheel to a pothole highlighting once again the decaying infrastructure and the added challenges that come from living in South Africa. We arrived home safely though, after a pretty gruelling 12 hours on the road, and celebrated that my mum had survived her 2 weeks with us in South Africa.

The wheel we lost to a pothole!

Saying goodbye to my mum at OR Tambo airport.

It was a crazy few weeks, but despite our own dramas without water, with Covid, camping in a storm and losing a wheel to a pothole, we were fortunate not to be involved in the devastating floods that hit South Africa this Autumn. And we were really lucky to experience the beauty and uniqueness of Kosi Bay. Fresh water, salt water, no water, floods! Dramatic and memorable as always.

Happy Platinum Jubilee Celebrations to all the Brits this weekend, especially to the Queen!

Lots of love,

Jess x

Next Post: Let Loose!

Previous Post: Easter with Shepherd and the Eggs of Limpopo

A few extra pics...

Happy Birthday Laurence,
in a tent in a storm...

Amelie playing mixed rugby, bear foot
(the African way)

Elowen turned 10!

Easter with Shepherd and the Eggs of Limpopo

Home Page: Willmore Adventures in South Africa

Hello Everyone and welcome to another instalment of our family adventures in South Africa. With Easter fast approaching it seems only fitting to delve back into the world of Shepherd our gardener and to visit his chicken farm in the rural province of Limpopo. An expansion of the farm to include a coup of egg laying chickens has been this year’s success story. So, it’s eggs at Easter here for Shepherd and his young family. 

Let us refresh ourselves on Shepherd’s story, discover more about his family and the common problems that face South Africans, and follow them on this eggtraordinary adventure. 

Shepherd

We first met Shepherd back in 2018 when we moved out to South Africa from the UK. He was the gardener of our rental property, and we got to know him over lunch every week as we learnt about South Africa through his stories growing up in this beautiful land. Shepherd’s wife, Rebecca, passed away in 2019 after a very brief battle with cancer leaving behind five children, two of whom were still at school. It was a really difficult time for him and for his children who were now left to live on their own in their rural homeland of Limpopo whilst Shepherd continued to work in the city of Johannesburg. Shortly after, Laurence and I discovered that Shepherd and Rebecca had had a dream to run a chicken farm, which due to financial reasons had never come to fruition. So, with a desire to see Shepherd’s family recover from the tragedy of Rebecca’s death, and to see him rise out of poverty and realise his dream, we hatched a plan which resulted in the creation of ‘Shepherd and Rebecca’s Chicken Farm’ back in January 2020. It was such an exciting time, and it was also a step closer to Shepherd being able to return home and retire with a sustainable income. 

The first ever batch of meat chickens on
Shepherd and Rebecca's Chicken Farm back in 2020

After a year of Shepherd’s family running the farm on their property in Limpopo, it became apparent that a second form of income would be needed. A batch of chickens had all fallen ill and died, leaving the family without an income for that month. Shepherd decided that he needed to broaden his horizons so that he wasn’t completely reliant on chickens for their meat. Eggs was the solution, and so Christmas 2020 saw Shepherd and his family build a coup for some egg laying chickens. Phase 2 of the farm was complete, and we just needed to wait for the chickens. It wasn’t until a whole year later when Shepherd was home for Christmas in 2021, that he had the time to rear 30 chicks and establish the egg laying side of the business. As January 2022 started and Shepherd once again returned to Jo’burg for his work as a gardener, we waited with anticipation to hear if the egg layers were a laying… The end of January and the first few weeks of February passed, and still there was no news of eggs from Limpopo. The cost of feeding the chickens was eating into the only bit of money Shepherd had, and that was meant to pay for food for his family in Limpopo and himself in Jo’burg. We researched ways to improve the environment for the chickens, and Shepherd had boxes added for the chickens to lay eggs in, and branches in the coup for perching. Shepherd then decided that the chickens would need more food in order to have the energy to lay, so with a final outlay of money to buy more feed, we waited again for the prized eggs. Towards the end of February, Shepherd was rewarded with his efforts…the chickens started to lay, he finally had eggs! It took a few weeks before the chickens were laying like clockwork, and food was increased yet again as they started to eat their own eggs, but as of the end of March 2022, the chickens were laying enough eggs to cover their own feed, and even some extra for profit. 

The arrival of the egg laying chickens, Christmas 2021

Eggs, eggs, eggs!

We are so happy for Shepherd and his family with what they have achieved over the last few years. Our weekly lunches continue three and a half years on from when we first met, and our understanding and appreciation of Shepherd’s life deepens every time. Here is a little insight into the family he holds so dear… 

Shepherd with his mom, Muofhe, who at 83 still
sleeps on the floor every night without a mattress. 

Phindulo (Pretty) , the first born at 29
and a teacher in Limpopo

Pfarelo, the second born who looks after
the family and manages the meat chickens
with the third born, Thabelo (Kingsley).

Shepherd and the two youngest boys, Mutikedzi and
Rikundele during the initial build back in 2020. 

Shepherd, like many South Africans, has suffered immeasurable loss in his life. As a child he lost his twin brother to something that was no doubt curable, and as an adult, he lost his older brother, Ayhashoni, to a vengeful poisoning at work, and who died in his arms. He also lost his younger brother, Tshimangadzo, who just disappeared one day. Someone disappearing is apparently quite common out here, as body parts are requested and used by witch doctors to make medicine known as ‘muthi’. The country is so vast and the practice so widespread that the police haven't the means to investigate. As a result of these significant events in his life, Shepherd tries to protect and support his family in any way that he can. Phase 1 of the chicken farm with the meat chickens gave his older children, Phindulo and Thabelo, a job and a purpose when unemployment is so high in South Africa, and Phase 2 with the egg laying chickens has given his nephew, Humbulani, who is disabled and unable to find work, a job and a purpose too. Humbulani, sells the eggs from Shepherd’s home, and if he has any left over at the end of the week, boils them and takes them down to the local football ground to sell as snacks to the supporters. Retirement for Shepherd moves ever closer and ever more possible as he nears 60. We hope when it comes, it will be an exciting and not a stressful time for him.

Shepherd's nephew, Humbulani.

For the Willmore Family, these past few months have been extremely busy. School and school trips for the children (Amelie is currently surfing with her class mates in Durban), and work and more work for the adults. I have said goodbye to my volunteering with the French organisation, Creche Gabrielle, that I worked at once a week for a year. I will now start back up at The Riversands Primary School in the township of Diepsloot where I taught before Covid and which has finally returned to full time education 2 years after the start of the pandemic. Shepherd has also been helping me in our veggie patch at home providing me with the tools to become more sustainable in our own lives too.  

The Willmore's just before Amelie left
on her week long school trip,
and Amelie surfing the Durban waves...

Saying goodbye to the little ones at Creche Gabrielle

Photo bombing a final imaginary tea party!

Posing with Shepherd in amongst
 the maize in our veggie patch. 

So, it's eggs in Limpopo that we are celebrating this Easter, and Shepherd's step closer to a sustainable way of life for him and his family. Thanks so much everyone for reading the blog and for all your support. I hope you are all safe and well. 

And let us keep all the people of Ukraine in our hearts at this time. 

Lots of love, Jess xxx

Previous post: Saving Lives and Saving Face!

Next post: Fresh Water, Salt Water, No Water, Floods!

Related posts: Shepherd's Dream of Chickens, Life in the Bush-veld with the Cows and the Crocs

Some extra pics from the last few months...

Friday treat at the Bryanston Garden Centre

Mardi Gras style parade at the French school.
Joel is dressed up as 'love'.

Elowen as a cheetah.

Amelie as a last minute monkey.