A Year in South Africa: Birthday Week!

This week I was working with the Senior class, meaning that I got to celebrate my birthday with my 'day twin' - the little boy with cerebral palsy. We've both been looking forward to celebrating the day together for months so when Tuesday finally arrived it was very exciting... We turned out to have two separate parties, one for my day twin on Tuesday and another one on Friday for me - I don't think I've ever eaten so much cake in the space of one week.

As I've mentioned before, this boy is a little obsessed with mermaids. When I opened the birthday parcel that my family sent me, I found lots of mermaid themed items including some napkins, rice paper and a cake topper. I presented him with these things the next day and he nearly collapsed, he wouldn't stop stroking the hair of the plastic Ariel cake topper and carried it around in his blazer pocket for the rest of the week.

The children were also involved in a Lego Workshop this week. Some students from Joburg who are studying engineering travelled up to Polokwane for the week and taught individual year groups about mechanics. All the students were staying with us in the hostel and it was great to have some more company! I went for a run with one of the ladies, Shaz, on Thursday evening and it was great to have a human running partner again - sorry Plato... After we arrived back I got involved in a very competitive game of table tennis with the boys, it reminded me of our France holidays with all the cousins (also very competitive). Now that they've gone I'm going round the hostel asking of anyone wants a game but no one is quite as serious about it as the engineering students, they couldn't handle the fact that they were getting beaten by a girl (I joke).

Yesterday we travelled out of Polokwane to see the Sunland Baobab tree that has a bar built within the trunk! The tree itself is 6,000 years old and the hollow trunk can fit fifteen people inside it. The tree was so big that when Kathryn and I climbed one of the branches, it was like we were scrambling up a bumpy road. After having some lunch we drove on to a crocodile ranch which is the equivalent to a fish farm in the UK - they breed crocodiles for their meat and skin. Some people might not agree with the idea, but it doesn't reduce the species numbers and it was actually very interesting... We decided to buy some crocodile meat and cook it later. Jenny invited us over to her parents' house that evening to cook the meat and we flavoured it with mango, chutney and rosemary. Thirty minutes later it was ready and we sat down to eat it with some potatoes and rice - it was delicious! A sort of mix between fish and chicken.

Next week I'm in Lifeskills and we'll probably be doing the usual stuff. I have to start looking into things to do during the upcoming Easter holiday, it's only three weeks away. How the time has flown.