Watch out Polokwane, the Swazi’s are here...

SOUTH AFREEEEKA AGAIN. So we’re having another pit stop in Pretoria the ‘student city’ before hitting Polokwane. After a terrifying ordeal of our taxi not turning up and fearing we might miss our bus the staff at the backpackers find us a ride and we make it to the bus station on time with minimal shit in our pants. Obviously a saying, Ashley and I aren’t incontinent.

View over Pretoria

The bus pulls into Polokwane at ‘Mall of the North’, the BIGGEST shopping centre I’ve seen since the last time I was at the Metro in Newcastle, which was a long time ago. This shopping monstrosity is only 2 minutes walk from where the girls work; Mitchell House. No wonder none of them have any money, they’ve all developed an addiction to a shop called ‘Factorie’ which I admit is fantastic as it is on the level of Topshop, but when you convert the price tag you’re paying more a New Look price... and if you shop on the sales rack (haha, me) you find yourself paying Peacocks prices for awesome clothes!  Needless to say Ashley and I treated ourselves to a little bit of retail therapy while we were in Polokwane.

Mitchell House is a private Primary School and High School with an Enrichment Centre for children with disabilities; the Enrichment Centre is where the girls are working. They have a Junior class, a Senior class and a Life Skills class for the older students; the girls have a really full on day and work from 7:00am until 5:30pm with incredibly challenging children.
They have small classes as the children need constant one on one attention so there are a lot of hands on deck; the children themselves are lovely, no matter what their disability is it doesn’t  affect how friendly, funny, witty or loving they can be!

Our last day in Polokwane was spent at Mitchell House and then going for pre-drinks at Spur Steak Ranches with the best waitress ever – Dudu. Ashley and I also joined in with the new rule that the girls have set up; everyone who visits them in Polokwane is expected to go and get a piercing. Not too sure where this originated, but we obliged and Ashley braved the tragus whereas I just settled for the second hole in the lobe. Nicola also joined in and had her tragus done too, just the thought of it makes me want to be sick, I don’t know if I could handle it!
So after our visit to the jewellers some pain relief was in order... we hit the liquor store just before closing time and then made our way back to the girls apartment to get ready for our night out!

In true British style we braved the cold African winter night in dresses and skirts, determined to look good even if it meant suffering. We then hit one of their regular bars called Ngunies (which came as a shock to Ashley and myself because it was very white, something we haven’t experiences in a loooong time!) and proceeded to dance embarrassingly. We all had a good time, but I regretted it the next morning when we woke up at 6:00am to catch our bus to Johannesburg. 

We must have looked pretty worse for wear because as we sat on the concrete parking lot of a petrol station wearing last night’s makeup waiting for our bus a man approached us with a loaf of bread asking if we were okay... we assured him we were okay but he insisted that we take the bread anyway. After taking bread off a stranger I realised that I felt the lowest I’d ever felt in my life, in turn  this made me feel awful because this must be what homeless people feel like on a good day when someone is actually being kind to them.
To make the story even more unbelievable the same man returned 5 minutes later with two portions of MacDonald’s fries and insisted that we take them as well, he’d driven to MacDonald’s to buy them especially for us. This is the single most crazy thing that has ever happened to me; technically I felt like I should be mortally embarrassed, obviously we looked such a mess we appeared to be either homeless, in trouble or attack victims (or a combination of the three), but it’s hard to take a moral high ground when you’re sat on concrete with a hangover and your hands have just been filled with a portion of steaming hot FREE fries. Silver lining, yep, I see it.

So after the rough journey back to Swaziland via our favourite Park Central Station in Johannesburg we spend a comfortable night in Manzini at Kathy and Richards house, complete with homely meal, warm shower and actual bed before arriving back at hostel to throw ourselves onto our beds, sigh relief, wash our bag full of stinking clothes and sleep.

Holidays, you are wonderful. But is sure is good to be home.

Kate xx