Backpacking vs volunteering?

Between us, Bean and Myself (and Bali, mitsles and co) have had many years experience working in the international development sector, running “real” volunteering opportunities for interested internationals, and also, working in the backpacking sector, when it was in the midst of its hey day in the 2000’s.  We got to thinking the other day, how the sector has changed.  Here are our five reasons why Ethical “real” volunteering beats backpacking in South Africa.

1. Affordability: If you wanted to volunteer in South Africa with MozVolunteers for one month, the costs would be far less than if you backpacked around, say with the Baz Bus, or personal hire car.  Volunteering also provides opportunities to travel, in free time, around our province, to Mozambique, Lesotho, Swaziland and further.  Backpacking is expensive, you have to factor in travel, accommodation, meals and extra activities.  With us, these are all included in your volunteer placement.

2. In-depth travel, and immersion: Many backpackers complain that they try and cover too large an area of the country in too little time, meaning that they spend most time on the road rather than actually making memories.  When you volunteer with us, you get an in-depth experience of our area, and travel opportunities around to locations and destinations that are “off the beaten track”.  This means, best of both worlds, and a real South African experience.

3. Safety: Hands down, volunteering with us is a far safer experience than backpacking around.  We offer reliable and safe accommodation, and provide in-house, expert advice, and support 24/7.  When you are backpacking you can often end up in undesirable places, at the wrong time, and open yourself up to personal risk.

4. Community benefit: Volunteering with us provides an opportunity for the communities that you are visiting to benefit, as a large proportion of your fee goes to them, either directly or indirectly.   You are also given the opportunity to share your skills with others. When backpacking, you are participating in the commercial sector only.

5. Cultural experience: When participating in a volunteer placement, you will spend large amounts of time immersed in a local community and exposed to local culture for a prolonged period of time, giving you a better understanding of the way of life, and hardships of local, previously disadvantaged people.  Backpacking, on the other hand, you may book on a day tour to a cultural village, this is usually set up just for the benefit of the tourists.

Hiking for Health 2014

Are you keen to get involved with an adventure challenge? something a bit different, that is physically demanding, interesting, different and does good at the same time?

Join us and hike for health in May 2014.

We are starting to advertise places on our hike for next year, we are aiming to get together a group of 20 participants, to raise money for TB awareness in the Southern Drakensberg.  We will hike through the Southern Berg, and into Lesotho, spreading awareness about TB – the silent killer in our rural areas, moving between schools, creches, community groups and villages providing information about TB, prevention and services.

The hike lasts 12 days, and begins and ends at Rivercroft cottage, in Pevensey, Underberg.  Participants are required to raise a certain amount to participate, which covers all costs and a donation.

If you would like to join us,  or would like more information, please contact alex@mozvolunteers.com for more info!

http://www.mozvolunteers.com

Please reblog for us to help spread the word!

Waking up to the mountains… now everyday

The Drakensberg is a place that welcomes you, that holds you in the cradle of its mountains and doesn’t want you to leave.  It is a place that teaches you new things, and cleanses you.  It provides you with new experiences, and shows you how you can live, with just a small change.

Waking up to the view of our beautiful mountain range everyday is a never ending wonder, and something I don’t think I will ever tire of as long as I continue to live.  It is an ever-changing picture, solid and constant there in the background of the living room.  The morning mists make the light from the sunrise shine in an ever changing glow of gold, red, yellow, pink, blue and orange.  It is an amazing experience having morning coffee on the verandah in the still chilly air, breathing the first breaths of the new day and relishing in the cool, clear air clean from pollution of the cities.

In the Drakensberg, you remember how people used to be – our neighbours in the Drakensberg are wonderful people, friendly, welcoming and happy.  Everyone is interesting and interested in everything around them.

You learn how to live a mountain lifestyle, how to ride a pony, how to milk a cow by hand, how to fish for trout in the stream, how to put in a fireplace, and make a chimney work more efficiently, how to cook well on an aga, how to negotiate a mountain pass, how to operate a solar power system, a donkey boiler or a gas geyser.

You learn to live again.

If you want to live again, to leave your office behind, just for a while, join us here at Rivercroft Cottage fibre farm. See http://www.mozvolunteers.com for volunteering opportunities, or contact alex@mozvolunteers.com

Volunteer with us in the mountains

Volunteer in the Drakensberg mountains. Leave your office for the outdoors!

New opportunities

Moving on as we are, this does mean that there are going to be many new opportunities popping up for you, and any other interested and interesting individuals to join us and help with our #globaldev aims.  We are going to be focussing our Drakensberg programmes on women, OVCs (that’s orphans and vulnerable children) and skill development for income generating activities, along with the inevitable HIV/AIDS care, education and prevention.

From December 2013 we will be offering the opportunity to join our community development initiative. This will be a programme that is predominantly funded by international grants anruns such is able to run throughout the year. It is centred on a group of women who we are training to participate in the mohair initiative which is a fibre production business run by our new partner company:river croft cottage. Women are trained to process angora wool (mohair) and their children along with any others in need from the local community are provided with daycare and basic education a the adjacent crèche.  Volunteers will, along with skills development initiatives, HIV/Aids education and child care join in with practical work and teaching at the local government primary school.

During the months of February and June 2014, we will be running our sports initiative.  This is such fun and so rewarding- within a detailed weekly timetable, volunteers teach soccer, rugby, cricket, swimming, wellbeing, yoga and heaps more to different sectors of the community. We also promote healthy living and nutritious eating with AIDS during this program.

In August 2014 we are running the best program ever (or so I think.. and Bean agrees with me) the arts initiative is back! This time with workshops run by acclaimed British artist Gill Robinson, a creative block installation, and sketchbook creation to empower rural women through creativity. Watch this space! This could be the best opportunity you have ever had… if youlike art.

And as usual, health based projects, opportunities for schools and university groups, sports teams and heaps heaps more! We’ll keep you updated as the plans (hopefully) come together, and we really hope to see you here in the little Berg, where the air is clean, the landscape never ending and the people (4 legged and 2) friendly and interesting.  Watch this space for updates!

alex@mozvolunteers.com

http://www.mozvolunteers.com

Travel post-volunteer

South Africa is known as a truly varied and colorful holiday destination. It appeals as a vacation spot for line travelers, families and couples from all across the world.

Many of our volunteers end up taking a couple of weeks after the close of their MozVolunteers program to travel to different areas of this diverse and beautiful country.

I recently took a drive from Stellenbosch, down the garden route to Port Elizabeth. On route I stopped at Hermanus (the whale town) and Knysna (famous for fresh fresh seafood and a giant lagoon). I was pleasantly surprised at the beauty and variety I encountered along this route, the friendly places, and the stunning landscapes. The garden route is easily accessible: after leaving mozvol, fly from Durban to Port Elizabeth. Hire a vehicle and drive through to Cape Town, ensuring to take the time to explore the wine routes of stellenbosch, franschoek and Paarl.

    

:)

What is Africa?

What is the ‘real’ Africa?

Ask this question to any one person, anywhere in Afrixa and you will get a different answer each time.

For me? The real Africa, well, that’s easy.

Africa is certain sounds, or absence of sounds: the silence of the dawn, early morning waves of the Indian Ocean, too loud African house music- we call it ‘jelly legs music’ because young children dancing to it have legs wobbly like jelly, melancholy church gospel singing, cicada beetles and frogs lulling you to sleep and the gentle rumble of a lion’s call in the darkness.

Africa is also the smell of the potato bush.

Africa is the taste of fresh fish, the taste of salt on my lips and above all, a cold beer or glass of wine from the West coast.

Africa is hot and cold. Sunshine and snow with open fires and warm soup.

Above all, Africa is happiness, love, smiles, friendship, a struggle, but one that is truly worthwhile. Why? Because the rewards you get are better than anything else ever could be.

Creepy crawlies and bugs and things

I’m not a person who minds spiders, they have never bothered me, and I know that I can live happily side by side with all sorts of flying bugs, moths, insects and beetles (Bean on the other hand is terrified of spiders, and runs a mile screaming whenever one makes a visit).

One summer in Mozambique, we had just moved house, and after a good spring clean, we doused the outside walls liberally with fendona insecticide (a major necessity in the war against the anopheles mosquito and cerebral malaria). Settling into bed (after the rigmarole of showering in cold water, spraying liberally with peaceful sleep insect repellent, securely tucking mosquito net under sides of bed, cranking the fan up to high power, turning lights out and jumping into bed without disturbing the tenuous arrangement, or getting bitten by a sneaky mosquito in the process), I was about to fall into my usual deep dreamless sleep, when *ouch* I felt a sharp pain on my left shoulder blade, followed by a numbness on the left side of my body. I screamed, jumped a mile in the air, Scott also jumped, but to turn on the light and examined the place of impact. Spider bite. Huge, painful, red, swollen, instantly explosive spider bite.

After a massive dose of antihistamine, some ant-inflammatory and a large glass of wine, I was still numb (probably exacerbated by the wine), just a little sort but fine and even managed to fall back to sleep.

However, a couple of nights later, whilst lying in bed reading (again after the usual bed time rigmarole) Scott looked up at the corner of the door-jamb and immediately turned white (usual reaction to a large creepy crawly). Wedged between the hinge and the wall was the largest spider I have ever seen in my life, at least the size of a large dinner plate, with protruding eyes and fluffy legs. Mesmerised by the arachnid, we sat there for a while, and then in a moment of decision, Scott picked up the bug spray and doused the thing, full spray for at least 5 minutes – he was clearly taking no chances! It may or may not have been the thing that got me previously (doubtful, as smaller spiders usually cause the largest bites), but it definitely got the full force of our truly anti-arachnid feelings!

Luckily (for Bean anyway..!) spiders of that size are less common in South Africa than Mozambique, and I can safely say that we happily left that species well behind us with our move to South Africa.

Recently, however, now that summer is on its way, we are getting the usual increasing snake population here in South Africa. Although most species that reside here in South Africa are harmless and probably just a little curious, sadly, there are a few that can be very dangerous (to animals as well as humans), and although you can keep vigilant, check through your grounds for invaders who are the worst of the species, and never tramp through long grass without shoes, some (poisonous and not) do inevitably slip through the surveillance.

In January this year we had the most fabulous Australian girl volunteering with us. She was lying in bed, finishing writing up her volunteer diary entry for the day, and reached to the lamp at her bedside to turn out the light. As she did so, she noticed a small, grey snake coiled around the lamp’s stem. Very bravely, instead of screaming, or waking Scott or I (we were already sound asleep and oblivious to the maneuvers going on in the next room..!) she picked up the lamp by the shade, and moved it into the lounge. A little later, she realized what had happened (possibly after the adrenaline caused by finding a snake inches away from her head had subsided), and on second thoughts woke us up with the worry that one of the indoor animals may be vulnerable to being hurt by the snake. We removed the snake (luckily a non-poisonous variety) using a golf club, and all trundled back off to bed…

Are you scared of spiders like Bean? Do you not like snakes? Or are you more like me, and only worry about them when they hurt you?

Creepy crawlies and bugs and things often pop into our lives here to say hello, 99% of the time they are perfectly harmless and possibly just curious about what we are doing and who we are. Don’t get scared by them, try and stay calm, and always let someone know if there’s a snake on your lamp, or a spider in your bed -we can quickly set it free (its probably much happier outside anyway!) and carry on with our day or fall back to sleep to the wonderful sounds of the bush, the crickets, frogs and the cicadas: that African lullaby that makes our sleep so peaceful here.

Welcome, Summer.

We have come to the end of our busy period, here at MozVol HQ. Volunteers have been subjected to torrential rainfall, high winds and hale storms reminiscent of snowfall in the northern hemisphere. However, summer is now here, and we are enjoying long, lazy summer days, weekends at the beach with the children from the children’s centre, and breezy boat trips down the estuary hippo and croc-spotting and monitoring.

We are looking forward to starting the reno at the children’s home (orphanage) – over the next couple of weeks we will be replacing broken windows, painting, fixing play equipment, decorating and redoing the kitchen facilities and replacing exterior doors to ensure the safety of the children at all time.

The creche facilities are going from strength to strength, and we are starting to develop the new syllabus for the 2013 academic year, starting in January.

With these two activities in mind, we are keen to have career break-ers join us in the forthcoming months. We are particularly looking for teachers, builders, healthcare workers and others with practical skills.

We are going to be making an effort to market our projects to family groups, in a bid to provide ethical family holidays to our beautiful part of the world, and selling the concept of a ‘mature gap year’, for when the daily grind of office work gets a bit much and you just need to get away… why not take an extended holiday and use your skills to the sustainable benefit of others less fortunate than yourself?

Participants in our conservation project has had a 100% success level over 2012, with all participants sitting the THETA examination passing with flying colours. Conservation volunteers have particularly enjoyed learning wildlife spotting techniques in the Big 5 reserve Hluhluwe-Imfolozi, and taking plaster of Paris imprints of wild animal spoor through the reserves to help with spoor recognition and learning animal behaviour.

Watch this space for our annual sports projects coming up in May and August 2013 and join our community care project (South Africa) for either 3 or 4 weeks in December 2012 and January 2013 through One World 365 and receive a 25% discount.