The end...

Apologies for the late blogging, but Cape town was such a rush i didnt have much time to get on the internet. Plus the internet broke for a bit in the hostel.

My last blog talked about the Great white shark dive which was on tuesday...

so, tuesday night: There was a killer pool tournament being run in the bar so we ll joined in. it was R5 entry which is under 50p. The rules were you get one turn each, if you pot a ball you pass the cue on, if not, you lose a life. Once you've lost all three lives you are out. You can pot the black at any time and if you do, you have to funnel a beer or nominate someone else to funnel. It was really good fun, about 20 people started off. i potted the black first time and funnelled, and it went from there, i got to the last four, (after about 6 funnels) and beat my opponent in the semi final (which was a proper match) then i got beat on the black in the final, was a really good game though.

Wednesday: Sky dive... picked up at 9.45 for a two hour journey out to the sky dive site, got split into pairs as only two can jump at any time. Laura was in the second pair and i was in the last, as you can see from the pics she was bricking it. ... the landing site was right out the front of where we were so i went outside to watch Laura land. could hear her screaming from a mile away but she absolutely loved it. My turn came along, you go up in this tiny little plane, sitting on a mans lap...brilliant. The view was incredible, you could see robben island and table mountain from 9000 feet which is where we jumped from. The chute opened at 5000 feet but doesn't kick in til 4500. It was unbelievable, best feeling ever falling like that. I bought the DVD so you can all look at me looking disgusting. Hit the beach in the afternoon which was really nice, played a few games and took some awesome photos on rocks.

Wednesday night: Movie night. The hostel put a big screen up and project a movie onto it every Wednesday. it was 'The boat that rocked', that British comedy about a pirate radio station on a boat.
Was actually pretty good. ..then bed.

Thursday was a bit of a chill day, weather wasn't too great so just played pool and relaxed until the night where we had a big drinking game session including a big flunkyball tournament. Even played against a German who had a special throwing technique (i scored more than him so its ok).

Friday: we had to check out at 10 so had a shower etc and wacked the bags in a storage room. Weather was a bit better so went to the market and waterfront for a drink. Was really beautiful and i bought the most awesome radio ever, made out of wire and a carling can.
Flew back at 6ish, arrived back at Tekwini at around 8.30, all of us were starving so its a good job we'd booked a big table at Butcher Boys (the place we had a first meal at) Had a fillet steak with jalapeno filling was amazing. Then hit a place called Joe Cools, turned out it was full of the students we taught at Marris Stella, lots of hormones flying about. But we made the most of it and mucked about on the dance-floor, was a really good night in the end.

This morning: Up for breakfast at Europa, had some scrambled egg
with Mozzarella, mushrooms, bacon, and these bread things.

And that leads to me to where i am now...sitting in the Internet cafe a few hours before our flight back home.

This trip has been incredible, I've seen so many things, some amazing, some moving and some depressing. I've experienced a feeling on several occasions that I can only describe as the Oscar Schindler feeling...You always feel like you could do more and help more people...like what you're doing isn't enough. But just seeing the
kids faces light up when we arrive, dancing around like nutters during a session, laughing, joking and running alongside the bus waving when we leave is enough to know that we've done something special.

This has definitely been the best experience I've had and i wont ever forget it. Thank you to those who sponsored us and to Mum and Dad for supporting me.

I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog, its actually been really fun writing it and uploading the photos.

I look forward to seeing you all soon,

Jamie

p.s - The pic of table mountain through a window is the view from the toilet in cape town, alright?

Cape Town baby.

Howzit?

So Cape town is amazing.

got up at quarter past stupid (4) yesterday morning to catch the 6.30 flight to Cape. Flight was only 2 hours and slept most of the way listening to a gervais podcast so was pretty shweet. Got on a little bus from the airport, on which we met a couple who used to go to leeds met (the obvious conversation followed).arrived at our hostel called Ashanti, which is immense compared to Tekwini: There are 10x more showers, all have hot water that doesnt run out after 14 seconds, theres more than one staff member working, the beds have real mattresses, there are lockers under your bed, there are four computers with internet rather than one with a dial-up connection, the bar has a pool table that still has its cloth in-tact, the bar sells hot food for cheap, there is a pool rather than a puddle but most of all: every window you look out of you either see the beach or table mountain, which is incredible. (Didnt mean to sound moany about Tekwini cos i am actually fond of that s-hole, its got character) - (also, theres a toilet in Ashanti that when you sit on it to do a big fat poo you can look out onto table mountain, deeeecent)

Talking of table mountain, (slick), we climbed it yesterday, took about 2 hours to reach the summit and you actually walk through cloud to get there. The view is immense, can see all the coast line and cape town itself (including their new stadium built for the world cup). When we reached the top, the cable cars were about to close because of high winds so everyone apart from Ieuan, Danny and myself jumped on the cable cars...we walked back down. Was pretty cool, some good male bonding and Bear Grylls impressions jumping down the rocks. Got back, eventually, went to the shop to grab some food - i got a pizza toastie type thing, yummy. - everyone was pretty knackered when we got back so ate and played some games like 'would you rather' which got a bit sick, and 'killer' best card game ever where one person is a killer and everyone has to work out who it is but you can lie etc etc, ill explain fully another time.

Bed

Woke up at 4.30am (lay in compared to day before) to get on a bus...to go great white shark diving, booooom baby. Cost about 120 quid but it was absolutely amazing, one of the best things ive done. Was a 2 and a half hour journey to get there on a little bus, not comfy at all but managed to get some much needed podcast sleep. Arrived at the coast and had a nice little breakfast, continental mainly with some good coffee, before briefing. The staff were really nice and knew what they were doing and they said that the weather was good and the visibility was around 10m. A lot of the time these shark dives get canceled due to shitty cape weather but we got lucky. We got given these maaaassive orange jackets to wear which as im sure you will agree look hot hot hot. onto the boat, nice and comfortable and bigger than all the other boats we passed so we could look nice and smug at them. Went to this little island where theres loads of seals and stopped. they do this thing called chumming (i think its chumming) where they bang out loads of fishy oil type stuff to attract the sharks, throw out half a big tuna,

and a decoy seal called Gladdis. So, we sat and waited, and about 10

minutes in a great white came and had a go at the bait. everyone was buzzing as you'd expect but it got better and better, a huge one came along and did a jumping attack on the decoy and i managed to get the snap of it. (little side note - i was the only one who got a good pic of it...and my camera cost 30 squids, you do the maths) They let 7 people at a time into the cage on the side of the boat and there were 28 on board, there were 6 of us in a group so we went last. All sorts of mental stuff happened, as one girl was

getting in the cage a huge great white went mental at the tuna right next to the cage, his mouth wide open about a yard away from her, she nearly soiled herself.

Then it was our turn, so we got our wet-suits on, after a lot of help from the crew as they were already wet and tight (insert innuendo joke here). Laura was feeling pretty sick at this point from all the usual moving around so she went and vommed over the side of the boat before we got into the cage. Being in the cage was unbelievable, the visibility turned out to be 12 metres and you could see the bottom. We had three different great whites swim around the boat while we were down there, one of which was a massive male (they have two penii -plural for penis-) who was going mental at the bait and the decoy seal. at one point he went for the bait heading right toward the cage, missed it and head butted the cage right in front of me with his mouth wide open - i wasnt scared cos im hard...ok i was scared but only a bit.

When we had to get out they asked if there was anyone who wanted to get back in so i jumped straight back in there. Laura went and hurled again, then got back in as well...and hurled again which was a lovely sight. The sharks were gettin aggressive now, coming right up to the cage and showing their teeth, headbutting all over the place. It was incredible.

Got back, had a table-mountain poo, had a shower, then came on here to blog. Pretty eventful couple of days, not sure what we are

doing tonight but we're jumping out of a plane tomorrow over table mountain so buzzing my balls off over that one.

Thats it for now, will come and blog again before the end of the week, fly back to Durbs on friday evening.

Hope all is well back home,

Jamie

p.s i realise ive broken my thign about saying the word 'blogging' or 'ill blog later' and i apologise.

Boat trip, hockey tournament, braai and sharks.

oi oi,

Eventful few days as ever, last time i wrote was on wednesday i think...so,

thursday: The boys had a 9am meeting with the sports council about organising a womens sport tournament tomorrow...as usual the boys did all the work while the girls went shopping for the sports equipment that we raised money for (thanks again). we've got to organise and run a relay race at the beginning of the tournament as a sort of warm up/team building activity. we decided to do a relay where you pass on a massive t-shirt that you have to wack on before you run (over the tshirt...noone wants to see that). Met up with the lazy girls later on for a chill out before going to a fairwell cruise type thing put on by the council. Was really good, got all dressed up for it, then realised we'd need the geeky rain jackets and noone else on the boat had dressed up (trackies all over the place). Either way, we did look pretty buff-ting. We went out to see a little bit and saw a few dolphins swimming alongside us and jumping about, had a few beers (not the dolphins, us.) and some food.
got back at about 7 from that, carried on drinking then went to Thunder-road, a sort of rock cafe, was pretty good...bumped into someone who looks just like luke, my housemate, hence the pic.

Friday: Had a maaaaassive lay in til 10...brilliant. then got up to go to the council to drop off all the sports equipment for the schools and some little prezzies to important people, including our driver Mike who we had to hunt down at a bus depot. (hes a ledgend). Got back, got changed, then headed to Marris Stella for a fun hockey tournament to play against the girls and staff etc, with a braai afterwards. was really good fun, notched a couple of goals so was pretty happy, and our boys team beat the girls...dont think laura was too happy about that one, especially when i robbed her of the ball in front of everyone. we left the tchoukball nets there for her as shes carrying it on with her girls. Got back to Tekwini and had a few more beers before bed.

Today, Saturday:

Up at 7am to go to a hockey tournament, go tthere at 8...noone turned up til 8.30ish so watched soem girls softball on the field next to us (standard was shocking, which isnt very shocking). Turned out there wasnt enough players/teams to do a full tournament so we ran our own one for the ones that were there...my team were called the cheifs, didnt do too bad. Hot day so hit the beach after, surf wasnt great so just chilled and made a big hole in the sand, burried danny and did the english classic of making big tits and a cock for him on the sand (original and brrrrilliant).
Then we went to the Sharks vs Cheetahs game, looooads better than the last game we went to, they won and we all had a few beers. Had a racist taxi driver on the way home which bored us to death cos when white south africans are racist its not actually funny cos they really mean it. we just killed him by saying 'wow, wordplay, brilliant.' and when we didnt laugh he said 'ah u didnt get that one' and i just said ' no we got it' and left it there...twat.

and that brings us to where i am now, in the internet cafe listening to smooooth jazz.

got that womens sport thing tomorrow then early night before heading to cape town at about 6am monday morning,

Sambagahe (pronounced samba-gac-ee, ish. meaning stay well)

Jamie.

Bungeeeeee

Howz it howz it howz it.

thats how they say it here...so.

Big big big weekend here...on saturday we coached hockey in the morning (pic of laura in action) then went in a hired car (named the 'special bus') to Karkloof, northwest of durban. there is a canopy zipline tour there, it was pretty shweet...longest zipline was 180m long and you go pretty fast. laura was quite scared on the first one so being the loving boyfriend i am, i kicked her off the edge. she enjoyed it so i didnt get too much of a telling off. as you can see from the picture we looked like the village people.

The next day we took the spesh bus to Oribi Gorge, a couple hours along the beautiful south coast. We took part in the highest gorge bungee swing in the world. 100m drop, 75m of it free fall into a huuuuge gorge. of course with the excitement came some awesome puns such as "wow, its gorge-ous" and my masterpiece: "lets hope it doesnt go Oribly wrong" ey?...brilliant.

It was amazing. really shitting myself at the top, especially looking over the edge before jumping but it was the best feeling ever rushing toward to ground really fast...even quicker than Usane Bolt (topical).

Sunday was Katie Brammers birthday so we went to Europa, a classy little place near us for a few drinks, nothing too heavy as we were all up early the next day. The girls all went to the other project in Spion Kop to run their sports day. the boys didnt go because we went on that rugby trip. That left the boys to do all the work as usual, so after a nice surf we visited the orphanage. it was just brilliant there. we went at the time when all the kids come back from school and have some leisure time before homework etc. we took a football and a rugby ball and just mucked about with the kids. they dont have any men there at all as all the staff and volunteers are female so they loved us. really felt like father figures for a moment. we play fighted with them WWE style, threw balls about taught them new tricks with a ball...all sorts. they hated when we left and so did we. some really nice kids there that deserve more.

That night we went to a place called "cool runnings" and as the name suggests its full of black bob marley characters listening to reggae. was pretty awesome, very chilled out but again was an early night because we had a talk at 8am.

This was at Marris Stella, the private girls school, we basically talked about uni life in england, finance, opportunities in sport etc. was really funny, lots of banter.

Had the same talk with a different group there at 1pm then rugby coaching at mpumulunga stadium (which makes The Abbey look like the Colosseum) noone turned up so we joined in with the lads who were playing cricket and had a little game of touch rugby (its not how it sounds).

The girls came back on tuesday night so chilled with them all in our room for a bit listening to their couple days away. soudns like it went really well.

Then another 8am start today...this time at Durban High School (private boys school that i played for on friday) and taught tchoukball til 1pm before shooting off to a township for hockey. all went really really well...people love tchouk out here.

and i think thats pretty much it for now, off to cape town on monday so will blog before then and try to do one while im there. might be hard though as its gona be a mental 5 days.

hope the u.k is shweet

jamie

p.s i got the dvd of my bungee

Oooooh, Chimpanzee that, monkey news.

Really eventful couple of days here...

Wednesday - Tchoukball at Marris Stella, went really well again...the head of P.E says she is going to carry on playing it as part of the curriculum so thats pretty shweet.

few hours off after that so hit the beach...played tag american football, was awesome...the surf wasnt too great so gave it a miss.

we then went to deliver a talk to a school...turned up and there was a big cock up witht he organisation of it so we just jumped out of the bus and took half of the school for hockey and the other half doing general fun games...was absolutely immense, lovely kids and they buzzed all over it.

Thursday - Hit the beach as the weather wasnt very good (the surf forecast was really good) When we got there it was raining and cold so naturaly we went and got some surf boards and hit the waves...which were radically totally awesomely gnarley-ly huge. Was so much fun, laura body boarded a bit and i managed to ride my first massive wave standing up (laura was impressed, get in.) Was all fun and games until Macca (Makaela) had her board smash her in the face, making her nose piss blood into the sea which is notorious for shark attacks. luckily it wasnt broken but it was still pouring blood when we left the beach...oh and a bird shat on her head when she was walking back to the bus. good day.

Went to Umlazi to do netball with a group of teens who are better at netball than any of us. session wasnt too great but we did a little bit of tchoukball with them for something different and it went down well...we all decided that were all to write feedback for every other coach and give it to the leader to sort it all out into seperate reviews for each coach. wrote mine this evening, should get it back tomoro...interesting times.

Night out - Damo, a bloke who works at marris stella took us out to Clapham Grand (sounds like an STI doesnt it) turns out its like L.A, glammed up to the max, wasnt the best night ever but the Flunkyball tournament beforehand was ledge.

Friday - Monkey time...we went to a baby monkey sanctuary. was amazing, got to sit inside the cages and have the monkey eat biscuits from your hands, was so cool. the woman who runs it is the south africa equivalent of the crazy cat lady in the simpsons.

Mental afternoon - we were scheduled to play a football match against the sports council...they were late as usual and some bloke came up to our bus asking us what we were going...turns out he is the head of languages at Durban high school and he was having a league match there...he was a couple players down and asked me and Ieuan to play. Was awesome, set up the first goal and scored a penalty to win it 2-1... was a ledge game. One of the players on my team was called Sean Donnelly, an ex south african international who won the confederations cup in 1996. We went back to their school for a post match meal and i was awarded man of the match and given a staff polo shirt. was so cool.

we've now organised a day of tchoukball at the school on wednesday.

got a big weekend planned...canopy zipline tourn tomoro and then orjiby gorge on sunday...abseiling, white water rafting etc.

blog soon,

jamie

Hey everyone,

Another awesome couple of days here in Seeth Eefrica ey?

Last night the boys decided we'd go to this revolving restaurant called 'Roma revolver'...the girls had gone while we were away and they said good things about it.

The Italian restaurant is on the 32nd floor of a big old building in the centre of durban and revolves slowly so you can see the whole of durban while you eat. its amazing, and they let you on the roof to take pics etc. We ordered 3 starters to share, these were Calamari, mussels and snails and they were all lovely...ive come along way since primary school meals of sausage beans and chips on a daily basis.

Then we had mains, Ieuan had rabbit, Danny had Wart-hog, James had Natal shark and i had crocodile washed down with a couple of Peroni's...when in Roma.

All the meals were awesome and the view was ledge, will definitely be paying it another visit. Today, we saw a shark get dissected at the Natal shark board. It smelt awful but it was pretty cool ey? One of the sharks was pregnant and old matey got the baby shark out. Also, old matey who ran it was black and racist, or blacist. He was so funny, one of his jokes was to give his phone to a white girl on the front row and asked her to look after it then went "ah yeh, im the only black man with a white secretary" another hit was "if a shark sees a white man, he chows him up...if he sees a black man, he chows him up...if he sees a coloured man, he chows him up...if he sees an indian man..." he then paused so that everyone could shout "chows him up" then he said "No, sharks dont eat indians...they are too spicy" What a ledgend, or bledgend.

We then went to a rural area to take a cricket lessons, i was one of the leaders so i took the warm up and then an adapted version of Flunkyball (that drinking game i talked about) But the kids had to knock over the stumps then do as many star jumps before the other team reset the stumps and gathered the ball. they absolutely loved it, especially when i progressed the drills to include 40 cans of stella.

Got Tchoukball tomorrow at the private girls school so looking forward to that, then hockey.

Will blog soon,

Jamie

p.s Big up massive respect to my little cousin josh for being scouted by CUFC academy. whether he joins or not its still awesome, well done mate.