Jabulani Project

Gap Year Students


Group 1: Nathi, Isaac


It was back to our tried and tested morning routine of getting a lift to Umthombo this morning and sitting in the morning meeting; we will be working in Umthombo only on Thursday mornings from now on.

There was a planned social work programme this morning however the kids came in late so they did a Zulu spelling test. They had fifteen words to attempt to spell correctly, Isaac scored a respectable 12 out of 15!

We then took the kids through some drama games, starting of with wink murder followed by wah, a rhythm game and Nathi's exclusive "where's ma juice!". The kids responded very well to all of our games, they all got involved and loved it!

We finished with Umthombo at lunchtime and went to meet Russel and Mjoli of SISCO street children project, where we are planning to now spend our Thursday afternoons. Russel who picked us up from Point Road and took us to Albert park where SISCO were running a clean up programme, which looked like it had a big crowd. We only arrived at the end but it had apparently been a successful day. They introduced us to two Durban councillors who were very pleased to hear what we were doing. Nathaniel missed the introduction so proceeded to speak casually and jokingly to the councillor, thinking him a SISCO worker, and even attaining his "BlackBerry Messenger" details. However the councillor was very pleasant and said he would like to see more of us.

We then took our first public bus. Our journey was from Albert Park along to the SISCO offices, about a five minute walk, but apparently fifteen minute bus journey which took us on a big loop round various endearing parts of town. When we arrived at the offices we had a brief meeting with Russel and Mjoli where they told us all about the project and what volunteering possibilities there could be (we will be their first volunteers). The opportunities are very promising.

We took a nice walk back to the hostel in 30 degree sunshine after a successful day.