The real beauty of Kariega Game Reserve

At the 10th of February I had a real privilege to see some of the stunning landscape and animals of Kariega Game Reserve. Two of my roommates are doing their internship at Kariega, they are landscape designer to be. Anyway, that Thursday I went with hem to get a little taste and feel of how Kariega looks like. First I arrived at the restaurant of the main lodge and by then it all started with an absolutely breath taking view:

When the boys had to make some pictures of a house in the valley I was allowed to go with them. Lucky me! This unexpected but secretly wanted ride through the reserve was truly amazing. A really nice volunteer from the U.S. drove us around and showed us some of the amazing animals. She also told us some fun facts about the animals like how to recognize a male or female. So while our guide told us all about the animals we were enjoying the beautiful animals and the environment. We were very lucky that day because there was a lot of game out like giraffes, impalas, zebras, waterbucks, buffalos, bush bucks, wildebeest, baboons, vervet monkeys, nyalas, some beautiful birds and even a rhino.

But I think that the real beauty of Kariega is hidden in something else than the stunning views and fantastic animals. Kariega is namely a little piece of the South African East Cape that we don’t see that often anymore. This is because of the fact that a lot of volunteers and employees are working every day to keep the indigenous plants out of the reserve so that Kariegas nature goes back to how it used to be.

In short, I think Kariega Game Reserve is the perfect combination of seeing all kind of wild animals in their natural habitat while you’re experiencing the real beauty of the East Cape.

School Visit in Ekuphumleni

On the fifth of February I visited a school in the township called Ekuphumleni. Ekuphumleni is one of the townships nearby Kenton on Sea. I attended a class in the afternoon given to the fourth grade. This class had three teachers. One teacher only speaks English while the other two also speak Xhosa. This is the mother language of the children. 

When I woke up in the morning and went to the kitchen for some breakfast there was a friend of my 'landlady' sitting at the dinner table. This friend told me that she volunteers at a school in Ekuphumleni and that she had lots of work to do for that afternoon. She had to make about 40 sandwiches and she had to prepare a creative work for the kids. Because she actually couldn’t finish everything in time I decided to help her out.

So after a morning of cutting and preparing the creative work for the kids I also went along to go the school. The school in Ekuphumleni is a pretty big school with many children in one class. That thursday there were 31 children present while there supposed to be 40. The English teacher told me that sometimes some children don't come back after lunch time because the school is too far away or because they just don't want to go anymore. That is one of the crazy differences between The Netherlands en South Africa. While children in The Netherlands are obligated to go to school everyday the children in South Africa just decide for themselves if they are going or not.

Anyway, I really liked the lessons which were given. Most of the lessons were about teaching the children English. This is very important because the children need to speak English to go to the university or to get jobs. The kids were taught English through songs, games and stories. It was nice to see that the kids were very enthusiastic. They really wanted to give the right answers and when the teachers asked a question almost every kid raised their hand. You could also see how proud they were when they had given the right answer.

But besides all of this I still got a little sad while I attented this class because of various reasons. So is there not much to work with for the teachers. There is a shortage of all kind of teaching equipment like books, stories, games and so on. I was also told that there is a shortage of qualified and concerned teachers. A lot of the teachers just don't care about the children as long as they are getting paid. Luckely this wasn't the deal with the teachers I met. I also noticed that the children aren't on the level as the children in The Netherlands would have been at the same age. There were even two kids who were already 12 years old.


All in all there is a lot to improve for the education system in South Africa. This is why I am glad to see that there are different organisations working togheter with volunteers and teachers to do the best they can to improve the education of all these children in the townships.