October 23rd, 2012

Zithulele is an amazing place and we are glad to be here. Our names are Lena (20) and Vanessa (19) and we finished school in june. We know the Jabulani Foundation through our School in Stuttgart (Germany). Last Year we had a project to collect money for a water tank for the Pre-School of Zithulele.

This project made us excited and so we wanted to know more about the work of Jabulani and the life in South Africa. We liked the work, and this is why we wanted to help as volunteers for a few months. We arrived at the end of August, excited about the people, South African culture and our work place. We live in the student house with other volunteers or medical students. I (Vanessa) help axium with teaching maths from grade 7 to 10, and I (Lena) work in the Pre-School of Zithulele. We enjoy our work with the children, it is fun to see how they learn new things. Furthermore we like to prepare the Arts and Crafts lesson for the Pre-School on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For me (Lena) it is a good chance to get more experience as a teacher because at home I am going to start university to become a teacher. 

Next to the lessons in school we try to help where help is needed, mostly in the Library or hospital office. We also had a Science Fair for kids at the Community Centre of Zithulele. We showed the kids some experiments, explained how certain things work and enjoyed the drinks and food. We hope that the kids are more excited about science now. We really enjoy our time here, meet new people from everywhere, get to know the South African culture and experience the great hospitality. We are grateful for the opportunity to be here, improve our english, learn some words in xhosa, make new friends and be a part of Zithulele. 

In our free time we like to travel around and enjoy the beaches on the Wild Coast. Our lifestyle at home is very different to the way how people live here. We would like to take the south African relaxed life style home to germany.