Mark begint zich steeds meer thuis te voelen in Zuid Afrika!

Introduction & camp

Wednesday and Friday we went to the Elgin Learning Foundation We received some background information about what to do, what not to do in South Africa and some useful tips about how to communicate and get in touch with locals. At the same Friday Rob and I met our co-students with whom we are going to work together in one of the projects.

On Thursday we went to cape town and did some sightseeing. First we went to the district 6 museum. It was all about one of the areas in Cape Town where everyone had to leave and those people were put in a township. All during the conflicts with the apartheid. Afterwards we went to an amazing place called Signal Hill, this was the view.

At the Friday in the afternoon we went to the Back to Basics camp. Over there we had a lot of activities about team building and how to deal with fears, setbacks and chaotic situations. It was really useful and I think I learned a lot. It also was a lot of fun to climb in trees with ropes and and do obstacle courses. Unfortunately the weather was terrible. One of the nights our tent almost collapsed, there was a lot of water coming in and it was ice and ice cold. But we all survived (except for some injuries).

Eventually our team (orange) won most of the activities. It was really nice to get to know each other in this way, also everyone was so friendly and helpful. We were a pretty good team.

Tour trough Grabouw and first visit in Cape Town

Monday was some kind of a resting day. Everyone was exhausted from the camp. We went to two organisations where some of the students are going to work. We had a little tour and it was nice to see what others are doing as well. Paddy also drove us trough the townships of Grabouw which was astonishing to see.. So much poverty and such small houses. Unbelievable. I did not dare to take a picture because I thought the people there would get mad.

Tuesday we went to Cape Town to visit the University we are going to work at. We met the students we met before at the camp and also met some professors and other leading persons of the project. We made some kind of a planning and had the fist few discussions about what we are going to do. Rob, Mieke, Karin and I went to the Summerset area of Cape Town, there we met Martijn Aslander. He is a famous Dutch Entrepreneur. He wrote a lot of books with his kind of view over the world. It was a super interesting conversation about everything he did and how he thinks the world will change in the next 10-20 years. There is a lot of information at his website.

On our way back home we were in a traffic jam, we took twice a long as normal. Time to get used to it..