New year, time to tell you about my summer

Hello everyone !

So as usual, this blog was a little bit died down during the summer - pretty much like school, huh ?
But now I'm back home, and almost back at school, and I feel the need to tell you all about my amazing summer, with three destinations : South Africa, Belgium, and Hungary (I actually wanted to write this article right after South Africa but I didn't get round to do it until now, but I'm still going to talk only about that because it totally deserves it).

The beginning of my adventure was on the 16th of July. I woke up early, then went to Marseille to take a train with Agathe, so we could go to Paris CDG and meet up with the group that signed up for the same trip as we did.
Flash-forward of a few hours, because even though I really want to describe it all, I think you are not interested by all the details of my flights.

The view from the wifi spot (and the hair of someone)

Once we had settled down in the different families of the township we would live in for a week, we went for a tour of it, to visit the different creches we were going to be working at. I ended up in the one furthest from my home, with Agathe and three boys that we became really good friends with.

Whenever we went somewhere kids would just come up to us and accompany us

From then on, the days of the week went by quickly : we went to the creches at 9 and stayed there helping the teachers take care of the kids until 1, then usually the five of us went down to the city and hung out there. I really loved that week, because we were really free to do what we wanted and I had found a solid group of friends (funny how quickly the feeling passed between us, funny but great).

I would've put a picture of the kids but I can't get their approval so this is the view from the creche instead

Two of the days, the entire group of volunteers (10 Italians, 7 French and 2 Belgian, even though it was usually said 8 French and 1 Belgian) worked at my creche, not to take care of the kids (though it would've helped too, they were impossible, and even being 5 for 20-25 of them we could all end up on the floor surrounded by them sometimes), but to repaint it.

Once again, no approval so this is just a kind of bad picture that I took during the painting

I learnt a lot during that week : that the prejudice against townships is not really justified, I mean sure, you have to follow certain safety rules, but generally I just felt really good there, and I know I was not the only one. That I can't survive without water, because orange juice/tea/milk for a week still kept me thirsty. That people can always surprise you, especially if they're from a culture you don't know at all. And the click song.

Eventually, we left on a seven-day-long trip from west to east. In spite of bad weather, we saw some absolutely beautiful things. For me, the most memorable one was on the first day, where we did a two-hour hike up Table Mountain which exhausted us (we fell asleep after, on the bus tour of Robben Island, shame), but the view was definitely worth it. 

 As I said, worth it.

And lastly, we had a week in a natural reserve. It was good but to be honest, not at all what we expected. We saw many beautiful animals and had a lot of fun, saw the sun rise and set on the African plains.

I mostly took pictures when there wasn't necessarily much to see, because just as last summer I was too busy admiring the view, and I don't want to use other people's. So in this article you only see my average ones, sorry !

To conclude, this was a really amazing three weeks, where I saw amazing things, learnt so much, and met amazing people.

Welcome to the new secondes,

Judith