(origineel bericht op be-more.nl)
‘Amid peace, one’s eyes are opened’
Thank you for reading yet another piece of my weblog.
In this part I will speak about my first volunteering project Umthombo. This is the project for which I volunteer for a total of 2 months. 3 weeks have so far past by.
I chose to write about Umthombo slightly later as I wanted to give a good representation of my I experiences on this great project. This part will consist of 2 or 3 parts.
Quick refresher: Umthombo puts all its efforts into taking care of as many street children as they can.
The first week:
The first week was quiet a strange experience. I was still trying to make connections with the kids and staff. This is quiet difficult altho that is not all there fault. Most of the effort needs to come from there side, where you’d expect it to be our side. Example: If I would go up to a child and ask him a lot of questions, he will close himself. But if I open myself by means of for example playing a game of Pool with them (which we do a lot) the child relaxes more and starts asking questions him or herself. This took a lot of getting used too. Definately because this concept takes time.
Therefore the first week was more a test of my mental strength, and am I able to adjust to there way of thinking.
The first couple of days we where picked up by one of the people of Umthombo but soon we got one of there cars to drive there and back. We got the car because the employee using it had gone on holiday.
Every morning we start with a meeting. In this meeting we talk about the next days and what happend the day before. They try to use as much English as possible. But in the first week this was still hard to understand. The accent is quiet different and the english is spoken more quickly. Took some getting used too.
In these meetings everyone also explains what they will be doing that day. Because I had no experience yet. The first week was mostly spend on all the different internal projects. By reading the weblog you will get to know all the different projects.
One of the projects is Football. (See photo)
I think this sort of speaks for itself. We walk together with the kids to a grass field where they make their own goals. This all seems quiet straight forward, but is not. It is quiet dangerous to walk to the streets on our own as ‘white’ people. Therefore if we go out we try to always take a streetchild with us.
Quiet funny example: Immediately the first day at Umthombo we went with some kids to watch football. On the way back a girl, who was well gifted by god, threw herself on me. The boys immediately reacted and pulled her off me. Until this day I think she wanted to rob me. But at that moment I was stunned. I had no idear what had just happend. Funny but slightly scary.
The Umthombo kids are very good football players. Some of them even play in the world cup for street children!
In this first week I spent most of my time in ‘Safe space’. Safe space is where all the boys until the age of 18 live. This is also the main building. In this beautifully by kids decorated building (photos will follow) you find a play area, a kitchen, a sleeping area, toilets, office space and much more.
At Life space I played with the kids, read with them, played pool, and tried to listen to them.
It is great to see them smile when even the smallest nice thing happens.
A real eye opener!
To be continued…