Camp Caroline, away from Tongaat

“Never ever going back to Boys Town!”, shouted one of the boys. And he was right, it was the last day he would be at Girls and Boys Town (GBT) Tongaat.

The beginning of December means the end of the fourth term in South Africa and thus the end of a school year.

A GBT contract is for two years (but it can be extended by court) and so at the end of each school year some boys will leave the Youth Development Centre forever.

 

Most of the boys go home (or they go to foster parents, uncles, aunts etc.)  for what is their summer holiday. (It occurred to me that I’ll have three summer holidays within one year time: one in NL in 2013, one in SA in 2013/2014, one in NL in 2014. I don’t complain!)

Sadly enough, not all the boys have a place to go to. For these boys is Camp Caroline (dubbed as Munster Camp for the nearest city) the answer. It is owned by the organisation Girls and Boys Town. In total there are four Youth Development Centre’s (YDC’s) and numerous Family Homes. The YDC’s are for boys only. Some Family Homes have girls, some have boys, but they’re never mixed (probably because they would have to change the name into Producing Family Homes then…). Only the boys who stay in the YDC’s and don’t have a place to go to, can go to Camp Caroline.

 

This year there were only two boys from the Tongaat YDC (where I work) who were going to Camp Caroline. (Well that’s gonna be quiet, I thought)

Well, no. From the YDC in Magaliesburg came 4 boys, from Kagiso came 1 boy and from Maccassar came… 18 boys. (FANTASTIC)

 

Despite the surprise of the amount of boys, the time in Camp Caroline was fantastic. The boys showed a lot of discipline (especially during the first days). The environment of Camp Caroline is great as well. It is just a seven minute walk to the beach. The food was delicious (had several braai’s, woohoo!) and because the staff kept the boys busy 95% of the time, I could relax as well. The boys and staff all sleep in cottages. The boys have eight per cottage (four in one room, four in the other) and the staff have six (three-three).

 

With the boys from Magaliesburg came a colleague too. Lewis Sweeney-Slavin works at the YDC in Magaliesburg. As I explained in my previous blog, meeting up with other volunteers is a chance to exchange experiences and such. Jack, Lewis and I slept in a cottage room together and on the other side the bus drivers.

 

Almost every day we had an outing, which was awesome. We went to different beaches, to a snake park, crocodile farm, to the cinema and so on. I had a lot of fun with some of the boys from Maccassar. The languages they speak there are English and Afrikaans, where at GBT Tongaat they speak English and Zulu.

I’ll give a small history lesson. When the Dutch colonists came in South Africa, they obviously spoke Dutch. When after that the English kicked them out, and after that South Africa became an independent country however, the language remained. Afrikaans is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa and it is really similar to Dutch.

Because of this, I could understand the boys from Maccassar whenever they were speaking Afrikaans. I didn’t tell them at first that I could understand them, and needless to say that this resulted in some funny moments (like me replying in their language whenever they said something to me, and didn’t expect an answer back).

 

Camp Caroline was an amazing experience for me. It gave me a wider view on the organisation Girls and Boys Town. I think the camp is an fantastic initiative to give boys who can’t go home a great time.

On one hand it was a pity that I didn’t stay longer than two weeks, but on the other hand a new trip waited: Cape Town! (That’s for next blog though muhaha)