Goodbye CPT

Hello my friends

89 days ago, I started my trip to Mothers City and now is the moment here, to say goodbye to Cape Town. I had a wonderful and unforgettable time here and I don't regret my choice to go to South Africa. I met a lot of new friends from all over the world, I had awesome experiences and I felt in love with a beautiful city. 

CTP has so much to offer and the most of the people here are very kind. I will definitely come back to this place. 

Of course, I visited today my favorite place here again, Lions Head. I hiked up with Andy, one of the best friends, I met here. With a bottle of Castle, we enjoyed the sunset. Five times i went to Lions Head. And seriously, it was to few. Like i wrote several times, it is the most beautiful place in CPT. 

    Today, last evening, on Lions Head

Last week on Thursday I finished my project. Unfortunately the end was not really perfect. On Wednesday there was no lessons because of rain and one day later, we had only one class. The others were writing exams. So I did a lot with Wesley (we were only two coaches last week). We had coffee together and on Thursday we went to cinema. He is really a great guy with a big heart and I hope I will see him again. 

I can say that the volunteering was great and rewarding. It was always beautiful, to see the happy kids when they played soccer. 

   Wesley and me

On Friday, a surprise was waiting of me. I was sitting in my favorite burger-restaurant in Observatory, as I suddenly felt two hands on my eyes. I looked back and I saw Manu, a ex-classmate in Good Hope Studies. He did a travel from Cape Town to Durban but there he had problems with his flight, so he came back to CTP for 4 days. He checked in, in the same backpacker I lived, because he knew, where I stayed. But he told me nothing.
One day later we changed the accommodation to a backpacker in Long Street. There we lived three days in the same room.
After the acco-change I went with an other ex-classfriend to a drum lesson in Long market Street. The lesson took place on the pavement, we were about 20 people, it lasted two hours.
I enjoyed the lesson and I recognized (again) that I miss playing drums.



 

In the evening I had a goodbye-dinner with my Swiss and Korean friends in Kloofstreet. Afterwards we celebrated a last time together a big party. 

A very cozy evening I had yesterday. I was invited by my host-parents. We ate delicious dinner and we had a lot to tell each other. It was really a nice evening and we forgot the time so I left the house after midnight. I'm looking forward to see Johan and Jenny again, when I come back. 

So, now I have to pack my suitcases. My flight is tomorrow (Wednesday) 3 pm. I leave Cape Town with a lot of beautiful experiences and almost 1000 photos (be prepared for my photo-shows, when I come back, because with Namibia, Canada, USA........... ). But of course, I really looking forward to the next 3.5 weeks in Namibia together with Moni. 

I hope you enjoyed my blog during the last weeks and maybe I'll find some time to carry on my blog in Namibia and later in North-America. 

Thank you all for reading and you will hear from me. 

Peace,

Dario

Second Last post from CPT, SA

Hello, 

Slowly, slowly my stay in Cape Town is going to end. I have only nine days left before I'm going to fly to Windhoek. So this post will be the second last from South Africa. 

I'm still enjoying the beautiful Mother City (Cape Town) and I'am sure that this is not my last visit here. 

In my project I have three more days now, on Thursday is it going to finish. For the kids is it also the last week, before the vacation are going to start on Friday. At the moment we are only two coaches, who are working with the children. The other volunteers had left Cape Town and the other coaches went to Sweden for a international tournament. At the moment the kids are writing a lot of exams, so the schedule is changing all the time. I don't have the overview, the other coach also not. So it is always exciting which class is coming and when my working day is finished. :)

But anyway, I'm still happy with the project. The work with the kids is great and they are really really cute (see the picture). But sometimes I have to be firm, because they are energetic and undisciplined. 

For me, it was or still is a great experience and I hope the kids are happy with Coach Dario. 

    Today    

    Last week: Coach Wesley, Coach Dario:), Felix (other volunteer), Coach Franklin and Coach Kyall. 

Football was also Tuesday a central part of my day. I went with Felix and Andy (an schoolfriend) to the Cape Town Stadium to watch a friendly game between Bafana Bafana (South Africa) and Angola. Last Tuesday was a Holliday in SA, the youth day, nevertheless, the stadium was empty. It has 64'100 seats but there were maybe 5000 - 6000 spectators, maximal. 

The game was not bad, the both teams entertained us very well. After a dream-goal of a Angola-player, who could fit in the FCA-Team, Bafana Bafana showed a good reaction and scored two times. 2-1 it was finally the score as well.  

This mans name is Errol Crocker. He is an author and he lives also in the backpacker, where I am at home. I talked a lot with him during the last weeks and days so I decided to buy his first book he wrote (currently he is writting his second book here). Motherless Son of South Africa. Half Biography and half political-critized book. I'm very excited to start reading, unfortunately I didn't find time until now.
This purchase was on Wednesday. Later I went to the Cavendish-Mall, where I visited a hair-dresser - the most expensive hair-dresser I've ever had. During cutting my hair, she meant I have a dry skin on my head. So she asked me for a head-massage and I answered "yes why not". I didn't expected a 40 minutes long massage:) But ok, I hope my skin is better now, maybe the shampoo, who was also on the bill in the end and I got in a bag, will help too:)
In the evening I went with a Korean friend to a asian restaurant and later to "stones" a billard-bar in Clearmont.

On Thursday, I saw Coach Kyall and Coach Franklin the last time, because, like I said, they went to aninternational tournament in Sweden. With Felix, the other volunteer and Coach Wesley, I went in the afternoon to a huge mall in Kenilworth, where we ate lunch. In the evening I visited together with two friends, the karaoke-bar in Observatory, our "Thursday-evening Stammbeiz".

One day later, I hiked up Table Mountain for my second time - together with Felix. He left last Sunday and before his departure he wanted to reach the top. During the hiking up we met two room-mates of my backpacker, two people from USA - they stayed during the last weekend in my room. We had exactly two hours. The view on the top of Table Mountain is awesome!! But the atmosphere doesn't reach this one of Lions Head ;-)

On Saturday I was busy from early in the morning until - early in the morning!
First I visited with Felix, Andy and my Korean-friend the Old Biscuit Mill. There is every Saturday a market, where you can buy delicious food. The atmosphere's of the markets like this or the night-markets in Hout Bay or Muizenberg are always fantastic. Relaxed people, good food, Live-music. Pretty cool.

In the afternoon I fixed a appointment with a schoolfriend. We wanted to go to a drumming lesson in Long Street. Unfortunately the friend canceled the appointment. Owing to all of the other friends were busy, I decided to visit the Bloubergstrand in Table View, alone. And my decision was rewarding. At Bloubergstrand you have a beautiful view to Cape Town and the special thing is, from all the mountains and slopes in Cape Town, you can only see the three main-mountains: Devils Peak, Table Mountain and Lions Head. (see picture below). I enjoyed the view and strolled along the beach. Later I saw a beautiful sunset there - it was great.
In the evening we celebrated Andy's birthday in the city centre. First we ate in a restaurant, later we had a party in the Dubliner at Long Street.

    Devils Peak, Table Mountain, Lions Head (v.l.n.r.).

Yesterday, on Sunday, I had my laundry-day. Fortunately Andy has in his flat a washing-machine, so I took all my clothes and drove to Sea Point. Tomorrow I will fetch my clothes - dry and good smelling:)

Next Saturday I will leave my current backpacker in direction Long Street. There I'm going to sleep four nights in a other backpacker. 

I send you best wishes to Switzerland and I hope summer will start soon;-) You will hear from me next week with my last blog from SA!

Peace, 

Dario

A short compilation of last week

Hello my friends, 

After a week with al lot of experiences, I had today a very comfortable relaxing day. The weather outside is not really good and tomorrow it will rain. But from Wednesday it's gonna be better. 

At the moment we are two volunteers in my project. But Felix lives in a host-family. Recently I share my room with a girl from England. She works also as a volunteer, in the hospital. The other guy from France (Thibault) left Cape Town last weekend. 

Tomorrow I am going to watch a Bafana Bafana-Game in the Cape Town Stadium. They play a friendly against Angola. 

This week I'll work only on Wednesday and (maybe) Thursday. Owing to a holiday (Youth Day) the school is closed, and was closed today as well. At the moment the kids are writing a lot of exams, so I don't know, if I will have project on Thursday. 

Like I said, I was very busy last week. Luckily the weather was good, so the project took place every day. In the afternoons I did activities with the other volunteers or my school friends. 

On Tuesday I hiked up to Lions Head. For me was it the fourth visit. The top of Lions Head is my absolutely favorite place in Cape Town - I love this place. 

    Lions Head with two other volunteers. Felix (l.) and Thibault (r.)

One Day later we took a uber-taxi in the afternoon to Signal Hill, where you have a beautiful view to Table Mountain and Lions Head and on the other side to green point and waterfront. And also to the Cape Town Stadium. It had been built, for the World Cup 2010. The place for a stadium is not so bad, isnt' it? (Look the picture below). After signal hill, we visited the springbok rugby museum at the waterfront. It is a nice interactive museum. Afterwards we had dinner at the waterfront.

    Beautiful view: Table Mountain (l.) and Lions Head (r.)

On Thursday we wanted to climb the Table Mountain because Thibault never visited the top during his stay in Cape Town. Unfortunately the weather was not really good. There was fog and a lot of clouds. So we stayed at the backpacker, where we had a funny time with the other people from here. On the same day my present roommate arrived.

On Friday I had my orientation with two other volunteers. The responsible person of the project, Danielle, picked us up at the backpacker and we drove to the city centre, where we did a walking tour. The most of the places I've seen before (District 6 museum, Waterfront...). But luckily we walked to places I didn't know yet. For example the Boo Kap and the company's garden (the "central park") of Cape Town. I'd never seen so many quirrels before in my life. They were everywhere.

In the evening I was invited to a house warming party of one of my school friends. She, a girl from South Korea, is here until December, so she rent a flat. She cooked a lot of Korean food for us and Sushi as well. It was delicious and the evening very nice.

    Me and the other volunteers (with the four nobel peace price winner from South Africa) at the     waterfront.

On Saturday we visited three Townships together with our driver. Langha, Gugulethu and Nyanga. It was so impressive - to see how the people live there, or must live there. And when you recognize the reasons why... It's a sad chapter of this country and the history so omnipresent. But I don't want to write too much political stuff here...

In Langha we had a drum lesson (see picture below). It was very nice.
In Gugulethu we ate dinner at Mzoli's. It is a restaurant in the middle of the Township. The food was awesome, only meat, no side dish. The atmosphere (with DJ, people were dancing....) was fantastic.

   Drum-lesson in Langha

In the evening it took place a activity of my project, where I met other volunteers of other projects. We went to a silent disco. It was very strange, but I enjoyed the evening. Everybody had its own headphones and was listening to the music in that way. If you put down your headphones, you see the people dance, but you don't hear music. So it looks very very strange:) Unfortunately the evening ended already at 11 p.m. because our driver took us home and there were different destinations and long distances.

                                silent disco

Yesterday I had a sportive day. Together with school friends I hiked up to the Devils Peak. We started at 12 O'Clock and reached the top 2.5 hours later. Unfortunately the weather on the top was horrible. So we couldn't enjoy the view of Cape Town. The only thing we saw, was fog. But anyway, we had a good time together and after we came down, we ate together in the best Burger Restaurant in Cape Town, in Jerry's in Observatory, near my backpacker.
In the evening I went to a bar with one of my friends in Camps Bay, because like I said, I hadn't work today, so I could sleep long.

   Devils Peak with a beautiful view:(

That were my activities last week.
I am now further 16 days in Cape Town and then I am going to flight to Namibia. I am looking forward to my last days in mothers city (I have a lot of ideas/plans what I want to do until I'll leave Cape Town) and I am really looking forward to Namibia and my girlfriend.

You will hear from me next week.

Peace
Dario

A greeting from Coach Dario

Hello all together,

My first week in my volunteering-project is already over. Today started the second week.
The project is very interesting and nice. I'm working in a Primary School in Wingfield, Cape Town. From Monday to Thursday every class has one hour sport bzw. soccer. So my day starts at 9 am with the first class and ends at 2 pm, when the last class is finished. The kids are between five and thirteen years old. Mostly we are three - five coaches (3 of them are volunteers at the moment). By the way I'am Coach Dario:)

During my first week I had to dance before every lesson to a South-African-Beat. It's a traditional thing here. Every new Coach must show his dancing-skills. Unfortunately (or in this case "fortunately") I danced only two days. On Tuesday and Wednesday, there was no sport-lessons because of the rain. This two days were a little bit boring - we had nothing to do. So I could sleep long:) And there are a lot of pubs near my backpacker, where I watched a lot of tennis and soccer...

Back to my work - After the rollcall, we divide the class into to groups (boys and girls). The boys play soccer (one, two exercises and then a match), the girls do other games with the coaches.
The kids are incredibly cute, particularly the smallest of them. Before every lesson, they run to us and hug all the coaches. It can be, that you have ten kids around you and all of them are hugging you... :)
But they can be also very loud, undisciplined, exhausting... After the last lesson I'm always done.

This week all of the classes have assessments. That means, they have to do exercises (not only soccer) and we (the coaches) give them a mark.

I am very happy with the project and I'm looking forward to the next days and weeks. And luckily the weather is better now, so I think the lessons will take place every day.







During the last week I met my friends from the school several times. On Tuesday we went to a friends flat in Sea Point and we cooked together. On Thursday, we went, like almost every Thursday, to a Karaoke-Bar in Observatory (now I'm living only two minutes away from there). On Friday I watched a movie in the cinema with a friend (the guest, (sosolala)).
One Day later I visited, together with my roommate Thibault from France, a junior soccer game (One of the coaches in the Primary School trains a team). Two, three players are very talented, they have skills, I' ll never be able to have it.



Later we went to Long Street, where we had a goodbye-party of a lot of students, they left Cape Town last weekend. We had a lot of fun, but it was also sad - again - to say goodbye...
Of course we watched the Champions League Final, and we were a little bit disappointed, because of the score at the end.
In exchange, sunday was a beautiful sport-day. At least. After the sad news from Aarau, Gränichen, Federer and, and and. I needed a success. And "Stan the man" did it. What a game, I watched it in a bar with a Swiss guy and I think all the people there recognized, that we are Swiss.
Unfortunately after the throphy-celebration, we saw a lot of bugs (Kakerlaken) on the bar-desk, because of that we left the bar immediately and so, I lost mini Stammbeiz :(

Maybe I'll give them a second chance, because the music there is fantastic.....

This week I haven't got a lot of plans yet. 

Tomorrow I will climb the Table Mountain for my second time. My roommate wasn't on the top yet and he are going to leave Cape Town on Saturday. 

Maybe I will hike on the Devils Peak on Saturday and visit the Rugby museum at the waterfront. 

I will see and you will hear from me. 

Peace, 

Dario