Pierre
I am 20 years old, just passed my high school exams and do my compulsory civil service at Leka Gape for one year.
I wanted to do my civil service in South Africa, because I learned a lot about the South African history, politics and geography in school. For this reason I had to look for a registered institution that provides contact to social organizations in foreign countries, especially South Africa.
After some research I found ICJA, an organization that is specialized in the coordination of volunteer exchange in the world. ICJA offers many different social organizations for civil servants and volunteers in foreign countries, among them also Leka Gape.
As all the other volunteers I work in different areas, but one of my main projects is the Aquaponics. The Aquaponics is an organic system, which combines aquaculture with hydroponics.
That means I plant vegetables, feed the fish and chickens and look after the Shelter garden. Another of my main projects is the Child Headed Families project. The aim of this project is to identify all the child headed families in Lulekani and find a long term and sustainable solution for them.
In my free time I teach German to a friend of mine and go to church regularly. As I have a lot of contacts to the locals through those activities, I get a really good insight into the community life.
One of my experiences is that the locals are all the time in a party mood, so that a normal and short bus trip can change into a party ride. Of course, I also experienced the cultural differences, that make our work sometimes more difficult and often patience is needed.
It is also very interesting, that the separation between the black and white South Africans is still in their head and this influences the daily life.
In general Lulekani is like how I expected it to be. I was just a bit surprised when I arrived here that so many German volunteers and interns work for Leka Gape.