Juliette in South Africa

My story

I started this adventure together with two friends, Lotte and Rosa. We had a flight from Amsterdam to Port Elizabeth with two changes, in London and Johannesburg. In total our journey took 17 hours. As soon as we arrived in PE (Port Elizabeth), a coordinator was waiting to take us to the place where we would live for the next five weeks. The grounds where we stayed for five weeks are quite big. There are three houses you can sleep in. I was in the room that sleeps ten girls.

My other two friends were in the other house, where you sleep two to a room. Eight girls sleep in this building. The bigger building has all the boys’ rooms. To be completely honest, I don’t know exactly how many boys can sleep there (there were 14 boys with us and it wasn’t full). Apart from that, there’s a swimming pool, a small football pitch, a room where you can play games with everyone (with a pool table, a table tennis table and a table football table), a room where you eat together, a Wi-Fi room, and the office is attached to the grounds. The grounds are 5 minutes from a shopping mall and 10 minutes from the centre. Uber is safe in South Africa, so we used it a lot.

The children who come to your sport are all super enthusiastic!

We arrived at the weekend. At weekends you’re free and can decide for yourself what you want to do. United Through Sport also organises various trips at the weekend. I took part in the overnight safari and the bungee jump. You only need to pay for the trip itself, transport is arranged for you.

There are more trips you can do, such as a one-day safari, cage diving with sharks, ziplining and much more. On the first Monday we went straight along to the schools. Five different sports are taught: hockey, football, rugby, tennis and basketball. I was in a group with about four other volunteers. With your group you come up with a warm-up, a game and a final match. A
day runs roughly from 10 to 4, and you visit four schools a day (except on Fridays, when there are 3), spending about 45 minutes to an hour at each.

I would do my five weeks all over again in a heartbeat, that’s how much fun I had in South Africa.

I taught hockey and tennis. The equipment available is limited, but enough to practise your sport. The children who come to your sport are all super enthusiastic! The children speak English to us, but occasionally they don’t speak English, which sometimes makes it difficult to communicate with them. Even though the language is sometimes tricky, the children always stay enthusiastic and are happy to help you.

Because we were there for an internship, we had one office day. This meant we could work on our internship assignments in the office. So we had four days of coaching and one office day. The volunteers there were between 18 and 30 years old. Everyone is around the same age and everyone comes from all over. I really enjoyed my time there, and the group too. I arrived when the group had already been together for 2 weeks. The weekend before, they had gone away for two days to get to know each other.

Unfortunately I missed that weekend. Because I missed the beginning, I missed the tour of the neighbourhoods of Port Elizabeth and the ice breakers. I didn’t really mind, because I arrived in a different setting. I would do my five weeks all over again in a heartbeat, that’s how much fun I had in South Africa. It was truly my home for five weeks! I enjoyed it so much that I’m planning to go to Argentina with The Power of Sports next year!