EIL Intercultural Learning

My first week here in South Africa was hectic. It started as it meant to go on as well! After being in Cape Town for a few hours, and just meeting my orientation group, we all decided to hike to the top of Table Mountain for our first day. It was a bit surreal to be honest especially since I had been standing in the pouring rain a few hours earlier waiting to get to the airport. The weather was amazing, the views from the top were unbelievable and the atmosphere was great. We got talking to people from all over the world and sat for hours in the sun looking out over Cape Town.

The following day we went to the  office of our receiving organisation and learned a bit about South African culture and what to expect on our programmes. We had a walking tour of Cape Town which was cool, we saw pretty much all the local landmarks, the markets, our guide even showed us were to get the best food and were to go on nights out, from there we visited a museum that had an incredible ‘Rock Art’ exhibition, with ancient drawings found on the walls of caves and rock faces all over the continent of Africa. Another tour was organised for the following three days... which was EPIC! It included a boat tour to a seal colony, whale watching, a penguin colony, a National Park, a picnic at the Cape of Good Hope... another surreal experience! and wine tasting at two vineyards. So yea we were looked after well!

One of the highlights of the week for me though was shark diving. I was the only one from the orientation group to take the plunge but it was beyond words. We dived in Gansbaai at Shark Alley, the place with the highest concentration of sharks in the world, and I got to see 10 Great Whites Sharks up very close and personal... it was a bit of an adrenaline rush!!

We also went on another walking tour as well, this time around the Township of Kayamandi, where I would be living and working for the duration of my placement. It was my first time in a township and I won’t pretend that it wasn’t shocking. We were shown residential hostels, which were tiny spaces where families were living, we walked between shacks or ‘informal dwellings’ as they’re supposed to be called, and were told how many neither have running water nor sanitation, so raw sewage ran down along the side of the road, which has the added side effect of making local children really sick... we all know that kids can’t resist jumping in puddles, it’s just a bit more dangerous when they do it here.

Our orientation finished up on the Friday with a last session at the  office and then we moved to our host families... but thats for the next blog!!