Busy busy busy

We did some very interesting, cool things yesterday.

The first couple of things weren't incredible but still exciting. For me, anyway. The first thing we did was going to the airport to fetch the other four founders of The Chaeli Campaign. I was excited.

Then we went back to their hotel. They asked in the car on the way there "Can Chaeli get into our hotel?". This is what we found:



So, the answer was clearly a no.

We went to lunch. It was nice and we could charge my chair, which was a bonus.

The really awesome thing of yesterday was that we went to the market. It was awesome! I have never walked for that long in my entire life. It's the longest market I've ever seen. Still amazing. They had clothes and food (fresh fruit and veggies) and a whole lot of other stuff.





After the amazing market, we went for supper at Cindy's house. It was really nice that we could be in a real home in Holland. We had to take the Tram to get there though. It was very cool that I was able to use the public transport with very minimal effort. So cool.

Cindy and her family were amazing. They invited us into their home and we immediately felt like family. We had the most incredible food. Thanks George!! Luka, their eldest son had planned an awesome game of BINGO! It's the best game ever invented. Here's how we were rolling:





More later.

:)

The antics continue...

I know I said I would tell you guys more about my wheelchair saga, so here goes.

We got to Schipol airport, eventually got my wheelchair - we had to walk through basically the whole airport to get to where our luggage was but more importantly, where my wheelchair was. As you know, we were having a bit of battery power struggles. My wheelchair had a single very persistent bar of power (as oppose to the normally very happy 10 green bars).

When we arrived at our hotel, and tried to charge my chair, we quickly realised that our plugs and the plugs we brought were not going to work. Our universal travel adapter wasn't very universal. Still, we weren't really stressing because we figured we could just buy one anywhere. Oh, how wrong one can be.

In the whole of Amsterdam there was not a single South Africa to Europe plug. But, we had Ellen and Sjierly, from KidsRights running around trying to find a solution. They're very resourceful, and even they could not find a plug.

Keep in mind the persistent flashing red light.

I told the people around me that I was going to keep my wheelchair going by willpower. Willpower kept it going for nearly two whole days. Amazing!

Eventually we had to take the entire charger to an electrical shop place and change the plug from a South African plug to a Dutch plug. Interesting times.

After we changed it, we found restaurants that had a place where we could plug in and charge my wheelchair. The people looked at us funny when they heard our request. But generally people look at us funny anyway, so it was nothing new.

Everything went relatively normally after our little wheelchair drama, but what's life without drama?

:)

Airport antics

Our flight was at 12:20, as you know, and we had to do something at the airport for about 3 hours. What to do?



We found ourselves in the Bidvest Premier Lounge - it was pretty epic and quite snazzy. It was nice. It had food and drinks for the people flying. It was really weird though because there are no people to help you, so you kind of feel like you're stealing everything. It's weird.

At 11:07 my mom started stressing that we were going to be late for the PAU (Passenger Assist Unit, for those of you who don't know), so we went then to the bathroom to change into 'Holland clothing'.

The funniest thing was that in the disabled bathroom, there is a hand-dryer. It's really badly placed, in terms of what we needed at the time. We had a LOT of stuff and being disabled adds more stuff to a lot of stuff. It keeps life interesting. But we put all our stuff (keep in mind you have to take ALL your belongings with you wherever you go at the airport) in the bathroom with us. So, we put everything underneath the hand-dryer. Probably not the best idea but there was nowhere else to put it. They work on motion sensors, which meant everytime mom did something with our bags, it went off. It was funny because mom got a fright everytime it happened, which was often. Funny.



Once we had reached the boarding gates, we realised that my wheelchair battery was basically dead. This is not good. When it's your form of moving it CANNOT die. But we're very good at finding solutions - we figured that we could just charge it when we got to Holland as we have international plugs. It didn't really work out that way.


We arrived in Holland yesterday at somewhere around 11. The guy in the plane who organises assisted passengers came to us and said "You have a big wheelchair, right?". We were like "No!" and he looked at us and very concerned he said "OK, we'll look again". Eventually, after riding through the whole of Schipol airport, we got my wheelchair AND it turned on and worked. We got excited.

I'll tell you guys more about it in my next entry. I'm going to bed now. Sleep well, world.


:)

Hup Hup Holland

So, today started off very average - with a Maths exam. Fun times, I know. Then I had to go to the dentist for an emergency fixing of my retainer. It was attacking me from inside my mouth - we sorted it out though, so it's all good.

After my very average day, things got a lot more interesting and exciting. We had to start preparing to go to Holland. Holland, because the ceremony for the International Children's Peace Prize happens there and we have to go and see who the winner is...

Hold thumbs, people.

We going to have a really rad time - we are going to do all the touristy things as well as some other cool things that I'm not really sure about. Excited!

We've been getting ready for hours - I even had my suitcase ready yesterday, which is very unlike us. We're more 'pack five minutes before you have to leave' people. But, we'll roll with it.

Our flight is at 12:20 tonight/tomorrow morning. Whichever way you choose to say it. I don't know if I'm still going to be awake at that time, since I woke up at 6 to study for my maths paper, but we'll see. We're having a small partytjie at the airport. Because we can. And then we have to try and kill some time. Hmmmm....

There will be things to follow, many many posts, with many many photos. So, keep an eye or two on me.

:)

Exciting times

It has been a very interesting couple of weeks. Firstly, I have been trying to prepare for end of year exams (not so exciting, I know, and also not the most successful). But the most interesting news of my LIFE is that about two weeks ago, we found out that I'm one of 5 finalists for the International Children's Peace Prize. How cool?

It's amazing. Being the researcher I am, onto the Internet I went. I found out who the other finalists are:


Liza in Palestine tries to promote peace through sport (woman's football) between Israeli and Palistinian young people. She fights for the rights and empowerment of Palestinian girls in a male-dominated society.

Malala in Pakistan fights for education of girls. This was banned under extreme Taliban rule. She went anyway.

Nicolay in Armenia organises workshops and discussions on human rights. He also writes a regular blog that addresses these issues.

Winfred stands up for abused children in her community. She documents cases of child abuse in schools and around the communities. She also set up a child's court, where kids can sort out their problems without adult interference.

How amazing are all of these fellow young people? We can all do something wherever we find ourselves. That's the message that all of the finalists (myself included) share with the world.

I hope to one day meet all of these people, and many more that are doing incredible work.

:)

Thinking inside the box

The funniest thing happened.

It started off being pretty average. We'd just come back from Erin's matric prize giving at Kelvin Grove - the same night as the South Africa vs Australia cricket at Newlands. Chaos insues. All the roads to get to Kelvin Grove were closed (they had cars and dogs and everything) so we had to go all the way around. Eventually we got in, after an hour. But when we got there we had our own parking with our names on it. Felt very gangster, I won't lie. Haha.

In terms of our family, that was a pretty average start to an evening. Then it got interesting.

So, we had Erin's thing. then we had to get out of kelvin grove again. see, i told you, interesting. By the time we got out of traffic, we were starving. We argued a while about where to go, and which places would still be open. We decided that Spur would be a good bet. So, we missioned off to spur and turned out it wasnt such a good bet. We ended up going to McDonalds.

Now comes the funny part of our evening. Just like the comedy minute on 5fm. Just a little longer. We got to the drive-thru line and were wondering why there were so many cars taking so long. We figured it out. When we got to the order-box the penny dropped. Or maybe it didn't.

I don't understand the point of those boxes. i really don't. The only thing that comes of them is frustration. Sometimes laughter. A lot of laughter.

My dad was driving. So, naturally he had to order the food. Everything was fine until the woman inside the box got our order wrong. They should really try to get more capable people working in those boxes.

I'll paint the picture for you. My dad orders our food and the woman gets it wrong (we say it's ok because she can't hear us, bringing up again the question of the efficacy of the boxes). The order changed drastically from a meal costing R178 to costing R87. Clearly there was a bit of a problem. Dad was literally hanging out of the window speaking to a box. What made it funny though, was the fact that throughout the whole experience, the woman's only rebuttel was "two creme sodas?"

Everytime she said "two creme sodas?", we were dying of laughter in the back seat. It took 20 minutes to get passed the first hurdle of a McDonalds Drive-thru. We got our food and guess what....we didn't really get what we ordered. Although we did get a free Coke.

The way I see it, we have a story that will last forever and we laughed ourselves off a few calories before we ate. Leaving us just as thin as before.

Always a bright side.

Holidays. Oh yes!

New school. New friends. New world.

Things have been ridiculously hectic the last four weeks. I eventually, after about three weeks, figured out the layout of my new school. Quite entertaining getting lost though. Most of the time.

I've never worked so hard at school in my entire life. I've never seen so much history work ever before. At Reddam we work properly.

The school needed to be a little more accessible than it was when I arrived. Ben (superman of Reddam) was making a plan. He was the only person who was understanding what was going on with the ramp-building process. We were all clueless. Tuesday this week the ramp was done. Then it made sense. Before that happened, the boys were really helpful in getting me up the stairs, especially in the rain (every Friday). The ramp is amazing and everyone is super excited about it - particularly the boys who don't have to lift me anymore. Thank you Ben!

We now have three days of job shadow to do for Life Orientation - I'm doing mine at The Chaeli Campaign *gasp*

After that we are on holiday! I'm excited. Holidays are only 10 days or something. It's still good though. A good break. Let's go.