It's a wrap! Southern Africa Combo GapBreak comes to an end for another year

COUNTRY: Southern Africa (Swaziland, Mozambique & South Africa)
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching & Care Work
WRITTEN BY: Lucy Coles

It's hard for all of us to believe that this will be the last blog from the Southern Africa international volunteers group, the last instalment of our incredible adventure through Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa.

We have all settled into our volunteer work placements well, despite missing the kids in Swaziland and many describing the children here in Hout Bay as "a whole new level of crazy". Volunteer placements here are either in the township, Imizamo Yethu, or in the Hangberg area. Lara, Katie, Georgie and Dylan work at Sentinel Primary School and Taylah and Lauren are at Little Angels preschool, which caters for children whose parents are completing drug rehabilitation programs.

Jacinta and Jaimee are volunteering at Jellytots and Laura and Miriam are volunteering at Angel Starfish, both of which are situated in the township.

Sarah, Alex and I are meanwhile volunteering at a 'socially responsible company' called Original T-Bag Designs, assisting with anything and everything from cutting fabric and labelling stock to gluing tea-bags onto cards and packaging products for sale.

Our afternoons are spent relaxing in Hout Bay and occasionally (if our project work hasn't tired us out too much) exploring the surrounding areas such as Camps Bay and the city of Cape Town itself.

On the weekends, all of the volunteers have headed in separate directions (literally), with various people hiking up the scenic Table Mountain, visiting Robben Island and shopping in the boutiques of Long Street and at the Waterfront. Others' itineraries have featured tours of the Cape's famous wineries, heading down the Peninsula towards the Cape of Good Hope and Great White Shark cage diving, which Jacinta assures me is one of the best things she's done on the trip so far, with sharks coming right up to the edge of the cage. Dylan adds that unfortunately nobody was eaten.

Now only one more week of project work and another weekend remain before we all go our different ways - some flying back to Australia and others to Europe to visit family and friends. While we're definitely looking forward to seeing you all, sleeping in our own beds and eating meals from home in the coming weeks, we will all be so sad to leave behind this incredible continent where we've made fantastic new friends and had innumerable wonderful volunteer work experiences, which I'm sure you'll hear a lot more about soon.