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Monday Apr 26, 2010

An unplanned adventure

In September last year I booked a volunteering trip to South Africa, in January this year I travelled from Manchester-Paris-Johannesburg-Cape Town. It was a spontaneous gap year adventure, which I put absolutely no thought into. Each person I explained my trip to would give me a concerned look  when they realized I would be travelling 'alone' and this only increased when they learned I was going to be based in South Africa. My answer was not to think about about travelling somewhere I had read was one of the 'murder capitals' of the world. I did no research and went into the experience blind, but I think this was mainly because if I thought too much about it I might back out. However in hindsight the misconceptions and ignorance which surrounds South Africa is immense. I strongly believe it is one of the most cultural, unexpected and misunderstood places I will have ever visited.

My name is Natalie and I am currently on a gap year after finishing college where I studied Biology, Chemistry and Maths, simply because not knowing what I wanted to do with my life studying Maths and Science seemed like a reasonable option. At college the idea of a gap year was something many people didn't even entertain, it was expected that everyone would go from school to college to university to full time work. I wanted to take a year out to spend time volunteering on a more permanent basis and on a project that I could commit my time fully to, I also wanted to travel and do something which for me was out of character to build my confidence and have fun before studying a three year degree. In September I am studying Biomedical Science at Newcastle University, I'm not sure where that will take me in terms of a job but I'm interested in human anatomy so it seemed like a good place to start

Despite travelling alone, being based in a volunteer house with other lone travellers all working on various projects within Cape Town made the experience a bit less intimidating. The people I met and stories I have because of them was honestly probably one of the best aspects of my trip and I don't think I would have had half the experience I had without them. I booked my trip with a non-charitable organisation called I-to-I that places volunteers in Africa, Asia, Australia and South America on projects based in disadvantaged communities. My project was in a township called Masiphumelelle working in a Special Needs school, during my orientation I was told by my supervisor that disability in Africa had been related to witchcraft, it was something sinister and 'un-normal', the school began when a previous volunteer saw the poor investment in special needs care and wanted to build a learning environment for the children who had been born with a condition that forces all kinds of restrictions on their lives.

Posted by Natalie ( 11:48 AM )
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