The Wonderful World of Becca

Monday, October 31, 2005

South Africa Diary - Uncut!

South Africa Tour 2005

Wednesday 19th October
Travelled to Heathrow, spent a good 5 hours there chilling, drinking coffee and the like. Commenced the LONG flight to Johannesburg!


Thursday 20th October
Landed in Jo’burg after a LONG, claustrophobic, hot and sweaty flight! Went on a coach tour around Alexandra. The houses were all on top of each other; very small and shabbily put together. Up to 10 people would live in one of these ‘houses’. It was a real shock to see the conditions this community were living in, but I was comforted to see the amount of churches there were. One church struck me; it was fenced off with barbed wire, and covered with tarpaulin, there was then a large open area with many chairs inside; we were told a service here would last up to 5 hours, comprising of 2 hours of praise and worship, a 2 hour sermon (as the preacher generally got excited and had lots to share) followed by a further hour of worship. The congregation would then go and have lunch all together as a community.

We then flew onto Port Elizabeth, which was a fairly pleasant and short flight. On arrival in PE we were met with much wind, which came as a shock to the majority of us. We checked into the Formula 1 hotel, only to find that each room comprised of a double bed and a bunk, which everyone was highly unimpressed by! In the evening we ate in Spur; a chain of Steakhouses in South Africa.


Friday 21st October
An early start on our first morning, with an outreach concert at Chatty. We were all fairly tired and didn’t really know how the morning would work, so we took it in our stride. It was a good concert, followed by the children from all the different schools singing the South African national anthem to us, which was really moving.

We then went on to Addo National Park, where we looked high and low for elephants. We saw many tortoises, warthogs, kudu, antelope and deer, which a few elephants and much elephant dung along the way. By the end of the 3 hours in our coach, Beckie, Mike I had moved to sit right by the windscreen (as the layout of SA coaches are different), which was much more comfortable and amusing as we’d have been arrested if we’d done that in this country! During this time Beckie and I had a really interesting conversation with Jim about his time with the RPO and CMS. We talked about orchestras and their conductors and he really inspired me to get more involved in music locally.

We ate dinner at Addo and celebrated Veronica’s 18th birthday with a good old CMS sing song! We then returned to F1, with a short pee stop, in a bush, for Beckie on the way back!


Saturday 22nd October
We spent the morning at the Boardwalk shopping mall. The majority of this time was spent in a music shop, where a Scottish guy and 2 Jamaicans taught us lot how to African drum and play the hose pipe. It was a really good experience. 12 of us then had a Chinese for lunch and took a stroll along the pier at PE.

We then travelled to the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University where our first formal concert was to take place. We rehearsed, ate pizza and gave our first concert. It was a great experience which was also shared with the University’s brass quintet and French horn ensemble.


Sunday 23rd October
Another early start, where we commenced our journey to Kleinplaas by coach. We drove through many mountains and other beautiful landscapes. With a ‘Beckie stop’ en route! We stopped for a picnic lunch by a huge gorge and then went onto Kleinplaas.

On arrival at Kleinplaas we checked into the resort, this time to find we were in a chalet/little house for the night, consisting of a double room, a twin room and 2 single beds in the living room. We had a patio, driveway, kettle, fridge, oven, TV etc – very novel compared to F1! Kate and Claire joined us in our house, but we hardly knew they were there. Most people went for a swim, but Catherine and I drank tea and sat by the pool – the weather was SO good!

We then took a trip to Cango Ostrich Farm, where we met a baby ostrich, saw some ostrich eggs hatching, some got to kiss Linda, by holding food in between their lips and Linda going round and eating it and then 6 people got to ride on an ostrich. It looked SO scary! We ate at the farm and it consisted of ostrich meat and rice. It was SO good, mmmm I love ostrich!

In the evening we returned to Kleinplaas where Catherine, Mike and I had a quite night in, errrmmm, or you could say quite a noisy, giggly night in, where we drank more tea and ate lots of chocolate! We were then joined by a rather drunk Beckie who shouted at Simon from our door that he was horrible and she was gonna give him evils (!) and then Jacqui came to take Mike away otherwise he would have yet again been the last boy in a girls room!


Monday 24th October
Nothing like some scrambled ostrich egg to start off the day! Mmmm it was SO good! Bronia and Julia had bought it at the farm and then got up to cook it for us; they’re so good! After a wonderful breakfast, we departed Kleinplaas for the Cango Caves, with many hung-over students including Simon who later showed us what he’d been drinking! I chose to do the standard cave tour; wise move, as I later found out the others had to climb, crawl, get stuck in small places and in some cases get completely lost and separated from their group, mentioning no names, Bronia, Dave!

We had a quick lunch at the caves, which was SO nice and then went on to a farm thing, where I rode a camel and laughed at the staff riding camels and going on the Foofie-Slide (the SA equivalent of a zip wire). Dirkie, our coach driver was particularly amusing to watch and I'm led to believe that Kate caught him on camera! Whilst there we saw a beautiful yellow bird, at which point Kate and I burst into song and laughed lots. Neither of us had ever seen a yellow bird before!
When the second coach joined us we departed for Cape Town, which was to be quite a journey. We eventually got to the waterfront at 10 and were taken by Dirkie and Soli to the Sports Café, where we had a rather disastrous dinner! Then we checked into the F1 and slept like logs!


Tuesday 25th October
After a continental breakfast, or simply fruity tea in my case, we headed back to the waterfront, where we caught a ferry to Robben Island. After a 45 minute rocky journey of most of the tour feeling rather rough and looking very green in some cases we arrived on the island. This wasn’t a great morning; we were taken round a prison by an ex-convict; they do all the tours. The conditions were appalling; I felt awful walking round it. The guy told us many stories, showed us where everything took place and showed us Nelson Mandela’s cell. Many took photos, but my camera stayed securely in my bag! We were then taken on a bus tour around the island, where we were shown some of the quarries the prisoners worked in and a rock pile Nelson Mandela started when he was there.

We then took the ferry back, had a pancake lunch (mmm, so good!) and went to the cable car station. By this point Pav was looking and feeling really rough, so he slept on the coach while the rest of us took the cable car up the mountain. Wow, it was amazing. Very windy and very cold, but the views were stunning. I walked round with Beckie and Bronia, which was rather amusing as Beckie had worn a skirt and it kept blowing right up, so she had to walk around with my jumper tied round her arse! Very amusing! After mooching around up the mountain, taking some pictures, Simon attempting to take a ‘Tour photo’ of everyone and seeing a dassie (a large guinea pig!) we went back down and headed back to the waterfront for a shop and some dinner.

Beckie, Catherine, Mike and I did the ‘tour staff shop’, which proved to be harder than expected as Bronia, Kate and Julia were following us around the Red Shed and the Blue Shed was shut, which wasn’t so great! But we managed to get 8/10 presents that evening, so we were pleased! We then had a Spur dinner, which was all good! We then went back to the hotel and slept!


Wednesday 26th October
We spent most of the day on a coach again! We did the Chapman’s peak drive, which was really pretty, attempted to whale watch, but didn’t really get anywhere. We stopped off for a coffee and a quick market shop where we got the remaining 2 staff presents and then had a picnic lunch randomly in the peninsula somewhere! We then went up to Cape Point where the views were totally stunning! During the drive back down through Simon’s Town Kate and I were talking about my future, which was rather cool! We talked about music degrees and the like! I don’t even know how the conversation started, but it was really cool. She’s knows me fairly well and what I'm like etc, so she gave me some options of places to look into/at. And we talked about orchestras and ensembles and it was all good!

On the way back from there we went to a Scratch Patch, where Graeme paid for us all to fill a bag with gem stones. It was a strange experience as no-one really wanted to do it, yet a whole bunch of students filled their pockets, bras, hats and even condoms full of these things. Back on the coach, the staff found out about this and went ballistic. Jacqui collected in 4 500ml and 1 1.5 litre bottles full of these gem stones!

We then went to a beach where we watched the sun set, it was SO beautiful! Nathanael decided he’d take things one step further and go for a swim in his boxers! He got in SO much trouble; wasn’t allowed out of Graeme’s site for the rest of the night, which was rather amusing for us all! And then I went to ‘The Grill’, another Steakhouse, with Hattie, Evie and Emily and had a gorgeous chicken burger for dinner.


Thursday 27th October
Another early start with a concert at Silversands. We were warned this one would be a bit different as the school was in a run down area, the drum kit was broken and the keyboard adapter stolen, so CMS paid for a new adapter and the keyboard to be fixed, so that we could use it and then leave a little something with the school afterwards. We were also told there weren’t going to be any music stands. Our initial reaction ‘How bad is this concert gonna be?’

When we got there all the children were singing. It took me a while to work out what they were singing about, but when I did, I was in awe; they were singing about Jesus! There they were in a little run down town, with hardly any resources and they were singing about Jesus and they were so FULL of joy. I was amazed and really struck by it. As we went on setting up, these children went on singing. They sang ‘Give thanks’ and ‘Give me oil in my lamp’ amongst some SA songs and others. It was amazing. So we played the concert and in between ensembles the children would sing, they sang ‘Seek ye first’, which really got me; I love that song! Then the jazz band played. Our guys were up in the balcony and I was sat with Jacqui, Julia, Jane and Kate near the children. Our guys started dancing and all the school children copied them. They were clearly having so much fun. It was totally amazing. I was so challenged by their happiness amidst their situation.

After the concert we were able to meet the children in the playground. They all came up to us saying how much they enjoyed it and were hugging us and asking to have their pictures taken. It was lovely, such a wonderful experience. They were all so excited that we’d visited them, it truly was wonderful.

We then went to Canal Walk for lunch, where I went to St Elmo’s and had pizza and chips – mmm! We had time for a brief shop before getting back on the coach and heading for Hugo Lambrechts Music Centre, where we rehearsed for our 2nd formal concert.

The concert hall reminded us all of Fairfield, except with a music better acoustic and it was SO nice to play in! It was a great concert, we all really enjoyed it!

We then returned to canal walk for dinner in the Cattle Ranch, where we waited ages coz Graeme managed to get himself and 2 students lost on the way to finding us, which was quite amusing. We had a really great evening; all 94 of us eating together, we did the tour staff presents presentation, which went down well. Then the staff sang to us! They’d written a song to the tune of ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor?’ (one of our Wind Orchestra pieces) with verses comprising of What shall we do with a late Kate Hughes? What shall we do with Rebecca Carey? What shall we do with a case of leg braces? What shall we do with a dietary deficient? What shall we do with the boys in the girls room? What shall we do with Nathanael’s panties? What shall we do with William Gillett? What shall we do with a load of gem stones? What shall we do with the vomiting Coates’? It was absolutely hilarious!

We returned to the F1 at around 12:30am and all went straight to bed!


Friday 28th October
A slighter later start to the morning, although no more sleep than usual as we’d been so late back. We set straight off to the Kayamandi Trust Centre where an exciting day awaited us. On arrival we were greeted by Nana Wagner; a German lady who welcomed us and had organised our day. We began our day with drum lessons; we were all able to learn African drumming in groups of 9; it was really fun, but quite difficult! Now I know why I'm not a percussionist! During this time the kids in school came out to play and began dancing with our girls. This was followed by lunch; chicken, rice, carrots and spinach!

We were then taken on a tour around the Kayamandi village. There were lots of young people around as school had just finished; Fridays are early finish days. We went into another really run down area, similar to Jo’burg, where houses were close together, small and in really bad condition. As Nana took us around the village, children latched onto us and came back to the Kayamandi Centre with us; they have no gardens, so the streets are their playground.

On return to the centre their girls danced for us and some of our guys joined in. Then their brass band played for us and Brendon told us all about the sound start project that CMS are helping the centre with and he presented them with a brand new trumpet; the first of 30 instruments we’re buying for them; it was cool! Then our guys played the SA national anthem with their guys and the rest of us attempted to sing it! It was really cool! Kate thinks I should spend the rest of my year out there!

We then head off via Brendon and Kate’s SA house, to Stellenbosch Uni; where Brendon studied for his degree. We got excited at the prospect of being able to buy fruit from the supermarket in the student centre, as most of us had a fruit deprived week up until then! Then we did our final concert in the Stellenbosch Konservatorium. It was flipping amazing! We had SO much fun! The jazz band ended the concert and everyone else was standing up and dancing. Us lot did the conga down one side, along the front and up the other side in the last piece; it rocked!


Saturday 29th October
After some initial confusion, half of us headed back to the waterfront for some last minute shopping and the others went to district 6. When we got back we did a small presentation for our 2 amazing coach drivers. Soli got quite emotional, which really was lovely. Apparently we were his first group!

Then we went to the airport; strings checked in and took off; we checked in, hung around, had a coffee and then took off! Matt, Catherine and I played uno for most of the Cape Town to Jo’burg flight – was quite amusing! Then we hung around at Jo’burg airport for a while, had another coffee and took off for the mission of a flight home! After take off everyone swapped seats as they’d done on the way there and I sat with Jacqui and Dave, which was cool! Jacqui must have been a good influence, as I slept most of the way home!


Sunday 30th October
So I was awoken at 5:45am, which had I been in SA still would have been 3:45, for some breakfast! I didn’t have any! We landed at 7am and then took an age retrieving luggage. Unfortunately some muppets in luggage had mistreated some instruments, so a good number of large instruments in the hold had damaged cases when they came out, which meant Brendon had loads to sort out at Heathrow; not good!

Then our coach driver (we wanted Dirkie back!) decided he’d go back to Croydon via Orpington, as you do! So the journey took twice as long as it should have done! But hey, we arrived at Trinity at about 10am.

Final words
Tour was absolutely amazing! God answered so many prayers; good eating, good friendships, safety and fun to name a few also some Becca arrow prayers whilst we were out there! I have a totally new perspective on many things. I have unleashed a new musical life, which I'm very excited about! I'm slowly unravelling the prospects of a music degree and/or working at the Kayamandi centre. God’s rocked my world and I wanna be back in South Africa!

Sunday, October 30, 2005

I'm back!

Hey peeps
This is just a quick hey I'm back post! Had THE most AMAZING time in SA and will post all about it tomorrow!
Time for some sleep - it's 1am according to my body clock! Eeek!
Mwah x x x

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

Off tomorrow!

Howdy folks,
This will be it for a few weeks; I'm off to South Africa tomorrow! Very excited; need to pack properly et al, but it's gonna rock! I'm gonna miss all my folk from Croydon and those I speak to on MSN, but you can all wait darlings, I'll have much to say when I'm back!
Had a busy few days; church leaders day on Sat, which was actually a really positive experience and my church has MUCH to thank God for. Mmmm, I'm in SUCH a good mood today; I'm very happy! Dunno why, just am!

So, gonna be a bit random...
Fave songs of today: Teach me to love - David Gate and Good and Gracious - Gareth Robinson

Fave quote of today: "Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity."

Fave food of today: Natural yougurt with honey

Fave colour of today: dark brown

Fave person of today: Who do you think I am? I don't have favourite people!!!

Fave clothing of today: big black jumper coz it's really cold outside

Fave book of today: well i finished the Da vinci code yesterday; wicked book, but reading 'God's homepage' at the moment and TOTALLY loving it!!

Ok, enough waffle! That'll do!
If you're bored, do this... http://www02.quizyourfriends.com/takequiz.php?quizname=050926182046-652943&c=1&a=08

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

Stupid times!!!

Urgh, Graeme Smith is such a plum! Two things - just spoken to him on the phone and I'm like 'do we need to take towels' and he goes 'well obviously we'll be at Heathrow for about 5 hours, so you might want to buy a burger there, but otherwise the rest of the time, we'll get food in South Africa'! What an idiot - towels man, towels! I dunno what the hec he thought I was talking about!
The other thing that pissed me off - I've not been offered the job with CMS coz I've already got full-time work and James & Steven didn't! So what! I wanna get out of my lil Christian bubble, I was actually gonna take the job if I'd been offered it - I was so looking forward to it! I know I prayed about it and told God that if it wasn't the right thing, I didn't want it offered to me, so I guess I've just gotta trust and stop moaning!!
Stupid man though!

Monday, October 10, 2005

Good times

Mmm, so it's been a few days since I posted. I've still not worked out whether anyone except my Mum reads this and whether it's worth having a blog. Is it?!
Hmmm, what have I been doing? Had a busy Saturday; work, rehearsing for SOUTH AFRICA - woohooo - I go next Wednesday! Sunday, led worship in the morning, had GCU, went to mic nights at church; all good! Today I bummed around in Croydon in search of white blouses, insect repellant, pj bottoms, Ailsa's bday present. Had a successful trip, bought everything I needed, didn't buy lots of un-necessary jumpers and I had a shakeaway! A minstrels one! mmmm...
And with that thought, I'm headed iff to a Holiday Club debrief....

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Zach

I'm on a complete high at the moment. I've seen baby Zach twice today, which was lovely. It's totally hit me today about God's faithfulness and how He protects those who love Him and how He carries them through bad times. Man, this is so exciting, another little Powley!
Other than that I've had a pastoral supervision, been to Communion with the olds and helped at 0-5's today. Tonight I'm going to meet a friend for coffee, which should be cool!
Ah man, I'm totally in awe of God today!

Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Teach me to love

Ok, this one's for Becky. We were talking yesterday about how the church needs a wake up call, how it needs less of the talking and more of the doing. Then this song popped into my head.

I can sing with tongues of angels,
But if my life shows no love, What have I?
I can understand your greatness,
But if my life shows no love, What have I?
Teach me to love, teach me to love like Jesus loved.

I can prophesy to nations,
But if my life shows no love, What have I?
I can heal the sick and wounded,
But if my life shows no love, What have I?
Teach me to love, teach me to love like Jesus loved.

Open my eyes, to see what you see,
Open my mind, to be all that I can be,
Take my life, and do what you will,
Teach me to love, like Jesus loved.

David Gate

And it just occurred to me, whilst typing these up here, that it's based on 1 Corinthians 13! Mmmm. I love that song! I think it's great and it's my prayer for the church.

***

Aside from that, baby Powley; Zachariah was born this morning! Praise God! That's SO exciting!

Monday, October 03, 2005

What a wonderful weekend!

Well I've had a truly amazing weekend! We had my Nan's surpirse 80th birthday party on Sat. It was SO cool! She had no idea it was happening. We had cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents and daughters and sons and friends and LOADS of people there! I met some family I've not met before, which was cool. I had quite a laugh making Pims with Denise and Stewart; we were mis-translating the french instructions! Very funny! And my Nan was the happiest I've EVER seen her! It was fab!
Yesterday I had Junior Church, same old same old, except it wasn't-it was cool! I really enjoyed it! Then my Nan and cousins came over to eat left over party food! And I had church in the evening, where I played keys. We did lots of new songs, which rocked to high heaven! David Gate has written some damn good stuff!
Today I had a job interview/chat thing with Croydon Music Service-all good! Had lunch with Leona - great stuff and have been working a bit tonight! Youth training in half an hour! Woohoo! Well excited!
And I feel fantastic, despite having a cold! Praise God!