An English girl going back home.

So, here I sit at Ipe Tombe Lodge in Midrand by the pool in the beautiful South African sun. I left Lydenrust farm this morning. It was truly the most heartbreaking thing I have had to do. It truly was, and I reckon that going to the airport and finally realising I am going home is going to hit me again. i have been crying since yesterday morning. Saying goodbye to the kids was awful, we have a new teaching assistant called Nurse and she can speak both English and Zulu. She explained to the kids that teacher Rosie was going home. Jane asked who was going to teach them now, Liefa asked when we were coming back, and Thando just said she was coming with me. It honestly broke my heart, and I had to walk out of class about three times to go and cry silently behind the wall. I didnt want them to see me so sad, or to make them more sad in turn. And as Debbie said, they build up an image of us teachers being such strong inspirational people that it is important to maintain that, and to be strong for them most importantly. So yes, yesterday was very hard.

This morning I woke up at 5am and started crying around 5:30am. Pauly, the dog who moved in from a neighboring farm and who has been my constant shadow for the past month just KNEW something was wrong. He followed me from room to room and sat on my lap licking my face as I cried. Leaving him behind in my room was honestly heartbreaking. It tore me up inside. I left him my jacket because it smelt of me. It was just so hard. I cant even write about it now without welling up. He was such a good dog, and I really loved him. Then at 6:30am it was already time to set off for town to catch the taxi. I cried more saying goodbye to Ali. I cant believe I even left, I cant believe it even now. It just feels like I am going on holiday and I will be back on the farm within a couple of weeks. This is honestly the most bizarre feeling ever. Also, seeing all the beautiful messages on facebook from everyone giving well wishes, and telling me that I made a difference had me crying again.

I feel like I made a life for myself here and now I have to go. Leaving Ali and the farm was honestly one of the worst things I have had to do....

So, here I sit, the day before my flight tomorrow and I dont know what to do with myself. Teacher Rosie has lost her flock .....and her dog. At times like these, it is easy to become so sad, but I want to take everything I have learnt here and transplant it to my life in England. The Yellow Mongoose will live on, oh yes, the blog is not stopping now just because I am going home! I am going to keep it up as motivation to keep my life going with new and interesting things every single day, because hey, you cant have a blog if you are doing nothing all day! Or there is nothing to talk about! So, stay tuned for my blog extracts and for the new chapter in my life to begin back home.

And, most importantly, I will be back to South Africa. I have a new life and a new family here now. I will never forget that. Not ever.

Thank you Ali, Danie, pauly, Johnnie, Lindie, JL, Leonard, Mene, Wendy, Debbie, Donna, Dana, Edith, Uli, Lisa, Sophie, Little George, Big George, Big Marcus, Little Marcus, Simon, Salan, Lettie, Nurse, Margaret, Willem, Kasey, Francois, and every one else. i love you all!

Lights, camera, action!

OK, so what can I say about this week, other than wow? I dont know how many of my Yelow Mongoose fans know, but last week Ali and I decided to finally do our bathtub pothole photoshoot. And without a doubt, this has exploded far beyond what we ever expected. I mean, we all thought it would be a great way of giving us a laugh in a bad situation, and the local town a giggle. These roads are so bad and we have had so many fatal accidents occur because of them and they have stilll not been fixed, it is so bad that if you dont laugh then you will cry. And all we thought thi was ever going to be was a bit of comfort and comedy in a dark situation. But, now, the reaction, the discussions, the media buzz around the pictures we took Is insane! It has gona so far as to be in almost every newspaper around the country, there are two feature magazine articles being planned, radio interviews have been had, I have been caricatured in a cartoon by one of the top cartoonists in the country, and on top of all this, the volume of comments is staggering. I really cant believe it!

As most of you know, I am not the most graceful individual, and while I have to say, my performance on the radio shows was definitely better than I expected (I managed not to curse, swear, or make a fool of myself in the panic of speaking live) but I wish I had come up with a better response when asked what makes me smile, and I said “rubber ducks”. I could have said so many other things but oh no, rubber ducks is what makes me smile. Haha, it is literally the first thing that popped into my head! But anyway, yes, it has been very exciting during my five minutes of fame in South Africa I have to say ! But I havent reached diva celebrity status, so it is all good, although I did joke to Ali's sister Pat that when I stay with her in Johannesburg before my flight, that I must have the VIP suite now, and all the water must be chilled to exactly 2 degrees haha.

In other news! We have got a new volunteer with us! She is called Lisa, and she lives in the UK but is South African born, and she was here on the farm as one of the very first volunteers about a year and a half ago! So I think it has been pretty awesome for her to come and relive the memories of the farm, and see all the animals. She is very thrilled to be reunited with her beloved baby cat, Jinx, who has now abandoned my bed for greener pastures in the back room. But yes, welcome to Lisa, and I hope you enjoy your 3-4 weeks here on the farm!

Currently, one of the farm dogs from the area had kind of moved in, his name is Pauly, and he is the cutest most loving dog there is. He follows me absolutely everywhere. Even the toilet and when I go for a bath. When I go to dip my hair in the water and he cant see me, he tries to jump in the bath tub, so I have to keep talking to him so that he knows I have not disappeared down the plug hole. I was very happy to have my little friend, but the little bugger today has gone back home to his own farm! After almost a week and a half of love, he has deserted me! How could he! Did our love mean nothing! But I am kind of glad he has gone, because I cant take him home and I was becoming a little bit too attached to him.....

School is in excellent shape though, Ness, our new teaching assistant has been hard at work, and I have never seen the classroom looking so good! It almost breaks my heart to think of the mess our future kids are going to create haha! And we have all their homework books all ready, covered, and laminated. Plus, Ali has been working none stop on the homework folders for the kids for weeks now and the filing for them is almost complete. I still have some exercises to put in their class books, but we are almost set for the term to start next Wednesday on the 15^th. Ali and Lisa went to see all the parents today of our new kids while I was fetching shavings with Little Marcus. Apparently it looks like we are going to have 19 kids, which doesnt sound like a big jump from the 13 we had last year, but my gosh it will be! Thank goodness we have Ness, because the translations she can do are going to make this all so much easier for us all, and it is going to increase the learning of the kids ten fold. Now I can ask them to draw pictures of their families and homes, I can explain to them complex exercises that simply demand verbal understanding, so 19 kids may be a handful, but with Ness here, I think it is going to be awesome! And only 5 days until we begin! I cant wait for the term to start, I really cant! I miss our kids! Although, it is very scary to think that Percy and Siyabonga are going to be our top of the class students. Hopefully they get high off the fact that they know more than the other kids and start to evolve into the new Charlotte and Grace's.

The days seem to keep on getting faster and faster. I dunno why, but I do the animals in the morning, and before I know it, it is time to do them in the evening again. Why is time moving so fast! Only 19 more days on the farm now :( What am I going to do when I get back to England?????? I have no idea, but most likely freeze to death..... Anyhoo, I am going to go watch a movie and then head off to bed I think! Lekker Slaap all! Night night xxxxx

"Ali, you smell....."

Well, today we have had Margaret, Willem, Declan and Francois leave us today! They were only here for a few days but I am gonna miss little Francois. Margaret said that before he came here he said "I LOVE that lady" haha, and he is so sweet. Margaret was joking that the Boer husband I will end up with will be Francois in twenty years time haha. My prospects are looking so bright hahahaha. But we had a lekker last day with them, we took them and the guests Bev and her daughter Natasha to the Lydenburg animal reservation and did a bit of 4x4 action driving in Blue Bull. It was an awesome day, apart from when Ali goes "oh, look at that", so Danie stops the car and we see Ali disappear into the bush and reemerge with the gigantic skull of some kind of Eland or big deer. She was sure that it was completely dry and we were all set to have it in the car to take it home when goo started oozing out of it onto her and the delightful smell of sick drifted through the car. I have never seen little kids move so fast in my whole life, they high tailed it from the front into the back with me in lightening time, leaving Ali with deer brains leaking everywhere. Thank goodness for Margaret and her handy carrying of wet wipes. So in the end Ali strapped the skull to the front of the car and we carried on. Sadly, the smell of decomposing animal brains lingered, and Ali had to spend the rest of the day down wind from us bahahaha and this is from the vegetarian! hahahaha ah funny times.

After, we went to the visit the Welgemoed family so that Danie could say goodbye to them since he leaves tomorrow! I know I keep saying this, but man, I cant believe his two and a half weeks here is up already. His flight is tomorrow at 4 from Nelspruit, so we are all heading out there, I must go because I need to get my new VISA stamp in my passport so I am not an illegal alien and can leave the country at the end of the month, plus I am happy because I love the drive to Nelspruit through the mountains, and fingers crossed, Woolworths the posh food shop has got my feta salad in and chocolate brownies nom nom nom. But yes, it is goodbyes all round at the minute and it always gets me a little down..... On the bright side, a past volunteer called Lisa is in the country and we are organizing for her to come to the farm from this Friday for three weeks. I cannot wait to meet her, I have her as a friend on facebook and she looks pretty damn cool.

And in the evening we said goodbye to the fam and then it was time to do animals, then take Natasha out on a ride on Mandla. Man it is hot at the minute, it is ridiculous, it makes me soooo lazy! But anyways, I need to go and sleep for our full day ttomorrow. Lekker Slaap xxxxx

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Sad goodbyes, and Shoots to Stardom

Hello Hello!
I have been the worst blogger in the world, and it was only partially my fault that you havent had your daily dose of Yellow Mongoose You see, Ali and her daughter Noogs both got the new iphone 5s before Christmas and they updated them on the computer, and with our internet, it completely swallowed all our usage and we were left without internet for about 12 days. Now, it is my own fault for not having posted on the 1st January when I could, and I am very sorry, my only excuse is that I just got out of the habit of writing and taking my camera with me everywhere! But I promise, for the remainder of my time here, you shall have a post every day! And oh my gosh, I cannot believe I only have 25 days left! :( The time has flown by. It is like that feeling you get at the end of the school holidays and you are packing your bag again for the new term and you could have sworn it was only yesterday that you broke up for the holls!

I have loooots of news to share with you all. First of all, Christmas was lovely here. We had Ali's daughter Noogs here, who is without a doubt, the coolest person I have ever met, she was friggen hilarious! She brought her friend Ceri, who was just mint, and then we had Danie's son Toni here with his girlfriend Charlene.We had such a mint time over Christmas, it was just constant Braii's and hanging out on the veranda in our shorts. Which felt especially amazing since I know just how cold it is back home! BUT when the time comes for me to go home, I am prepared, as the wonderful Welgemoed family gifted me with an awesomely cozy beanie hat, with "South Africa" stitched on it, along with some beautiful bangles, neclace and earrings. They are such a mint family! For Christmas from Ali I received possibly the best present in the whole world. I mean really, she got me a picture book of my time here, with all the photos of me doing all my crazy stuff with the animals and the kids. It was such an amazing present that I am going to treasure forever. It really is amazing, and it must have taken her hours and hours and HOURS to get that thing ready!

I also received some tasty biltong, but unfortunately this was pilfered by a hungry Noogs, but it is cool coz I ate most of her chocolate  santas anyway haha. After those guys left we were visited by Danie's other son Niel, and his girlfriend Elisha, which was cool, we all celebrated Danie's birthday together, but unfortunately it rained the whole friggen day, so in the end we hoped in the car and went to Spur instead. We all discretely told the waiters that it was Danie's 55th birthday and to do something special, so at the end of the meal about 2O waiters all came out with ice cream singing "HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY SUPERMAN!" Haha, it was hilarious.



Anyway, on the 1st day of the year, 2O14! We had the most awesome day. We went 4x4ing in Blue Bull and Johnnie Welgemoeed's  new Land Cruiser, which I got to drive. It was SO AMAZING! We went up literally vertical hills and it was the scariest and most fun thing I have ever done! Best start to the year! And then we had a braii and messed around on the quad bikes teehee, so gooood.

On the 2nd of January, after MONTHS of planning, me and Ali decided to finally do our "pothole" shoot. So I armed myself with my rubber duck, glass of wine, book, shampoo, towel, and shower cap and I went bathing in one of our nations great potholes haha. It was hilarious, and some of the looks I got from passers by were priceless, you could just see in their faces them saying "darling, we are never leaving the city ever again". Lmaoo! And the most exciting news is, we took those photos on Wednesday and today it is Saturday and I am all over the front page of the Saturday Star, South Africa's national newspaper AND in the Cape Town paper! It is crazy! We have been having texts and calls all day from people who have seen it all over the country and wanted to ask about it! We even had the radio station comment! It is absolutely crazy! So I have officially had my five minutes of fame in the South African sun. And I am now planning on wearing my shower cap around Johannesburg before my flight in the hopes I might get recognised haha.



In other news, which is so, so, so, so sad, Charles, Ali's great dane had to be put down yesterday. He was peaceful in the house he knew as it happened, and he has been buried behind the dam in the garden. He had been diagnosed with bone cancer about 3 weeks ago and the vet said there was no hope. Making the decision to let him go was so hard for Ali. I felt so sorry for her, and my heart did break for both her and Charles. He was such a good dog, and I cant believe he isnt around any more. He was so loveable. I am just happy that he will never be in pain again  and he is at peace. It was such a hard day :( One of the sweetest things though, on the grave where he was buried, the farm workers Marcus and Simon wrote "rest in peace, buried by the gentleman simon and marcus, we will always remember you, lala kasle" It was the most heartbreaking thing I have ever seen. But such a nice thing to do.

And at the minute we have Danie's daughter Margaret, her husband Willem, and their children Declan and Francois here with us at the minute until tomorrow. Francois has grown so much and can now speak really good English. Which is impressive considering two months ago he would just talk to me in Afrikaans and I would just nod and smile and go "hmmmm yes", heavens knows what I said yes to him about, haha! And then Danie leaves on Monday to go back to Dubaii. We have not stopped here on the farm for about three weeks it is crazy! But yes, that is your catch up and I promise to be more diligent with my posting from now on! Lekker Slaap everyone!!!!!!!!!