Just another day in parliament...

We planned to sit in on the committee for correctional services but, once again, the schedule was changed at the last moment so we ended up just diving into the nearest committee meeting in an adjoining section of parliament. This happened to be a portfolio committee for International relations and cooperation, which to be honest was not my committee of choice, but nevertheless I thought I’d give it a go.

This particular meeting was an introduction to the new policy before it would be passed in parliament and so many of the terms were discussed in acronym form-making it very difficult to work out what the entire chat was actually about! From what I could understand, the committee persons were discussing a new vehicle to advance South Africa’s foreign policy to address issues such as poverty, under-development and marginalization in Africa and the south.

It seemed as if there was a particular speaker who was proposing a vehicle with the acronym of ‘SADPA’ (unfortunately I did not get the breakdown of this acronym) that would not only be a donor for such African countries experiencing hardships, but it would also act as a development partner.

The SADPA committee looked worldwide at development models in order to create their own and so you can see many models evident within the policy. One committee person asked for examples of how SADPA are helping other African countries. The speaker replied that recently assisting programs have included sending divers over to Tanzania after the sinking of a large ferry has made it impossible for the bodies of loved ones to return to their families. Furthermore, SADPA is also helping with the elections in the Democratic republic of Congo.

Stephanie, Charlotte and I outside the buildings of Parliament.

Another committee member asked how the policy will be accountable: “some people might ask why you are becoming father Christmas…” to which another member added that there is much to be done in South Africa before we should look to other countries on the continent. The speaker responded by pointing out that, for example, South Africa’s involvement in the Congolese elections is wholly needed because there have been implications that would cause a threat to South Africa’s national interests. If cooperation strategies are not extended then migrants and the informal importation of weapons would become a far greater problem here in this country.

It would have been interesting to have followed this line of committee meeting and policy development, but it is also beneficial just to see a snippet of the sorts of oppositional questions parliamentary members put to their fellow members.

A long time coming...

Wow, so taking a look at my blog today I realise my last post was nearly two weeks ago. I guess that's representative of just how busy the office has become! There's been a swift turn-over of volunteers in that time; i've had to say goodbye to some pretty awesome people-my good friend Dylan being one of them [what a great guy] as well as Francesco and Francesca, Lise, Anya, Naomi, Georgie, Janine, Prune and Estelle...but we've all made plans to travel around Europe and the greater world to reunite sometime in the future. Fortunately there are also new volunteers that have joined the office-from all four corners of the globe. Some are on a gap year and some taking a career break but, I have to say, it is looking a little more bare here at PAHRO now that the summer rush has calmed down and it's only us non-students taking over.

Some of the great people i've worked with in the past month!

I'm really starting to get a feel for what i'm doing now. This past month [and it is crazy that it has been a whole month already] i've been thrown straight in at the deep end, which is the best way to learn, but it has taken me until this past week to feel comfortable with the work i'm doing. When you get a case assigned or you take a consultation, you've got to know what the next link is in the chain of communication; working with partnership organisations, knowing what our capacity actually is as an NGO, who to contact in certain situations and knowing where to get more resources from should you need them. These are all things that I think i've learnt from past volunteers who have more experience. I think the best piece of advise for newbies is 'don't be afraid to ask questions'.


Most of what I am doing is simply chasing up correspondence previously sent-whether it's an application made to the Department of Home Affairs, or a legal opinion sent to the Human Rights Commission of South Africa. Apparently it takes at least 41 attempts to find out your client's position before you'll actually know whether he will be given an extra two year's refugee status or he'll be turfed out on his ear-which is a little frustrating at first, but what can you do?


Lately i've picked up a lot of fresh cases, where i've actually taken their initial consultation and begin research into their case myself.  I have my boyfriend to thank for this. I take my lunch an hour after most people so I can Skype with Tavis back in the UK, which also seems to be the peak time for client appointments and thus I can hardly say 'No'. One such case involved a husband who wanted to be advised how to serve a notice of divorce on his wife because they had been living apart for two months and he believed her to be living with another man (as well as her being a wicked, wicked woman [he said]). 

I am only truly happy, as you can see, when I have a full in-tray.

Theo (head of PAHRO), being the incredibly diplomatic man that he is, requested that we ask the client's wife to come into the office to make sure that this is something that they both wanted and also to see whether the marriage truly was irreconcilable. I took this second consultation with the wife as Theo couldn't make the appointment. I was shocked to hear from her side that she had actually taken a restraining order against the man who had, one week ago, been sitting across the table from me. She told me that he had become abusive after she had found out about his affairs with other women and proceeded to show me police reports and phone-pictures of her bruises.


Furthermore, out of her briefcase of magic tricks, the client's wife pulled out a pair of underwear [not belonging to her], sex toys and a pornographic movie which she had found under her own bed. I'm sure this was great practice for my poker face-which will surely come in handy later on in my lawyering career but really, used panties on my desk? Wow.


The lesson learnt from this consultation is to see the legal through the smog [that is panties] and simply to advise based on that fact that a) they both desperately seek a divorce [for whatever reason] and b) it's safe to say they can tick the box that says 'irretrievable breakdown of the marriage' with no qualms. I hope my people skills have been somewhat sharpened.

David, vuyo and other volunteers from ISIBANE.

In other news...I have been working on a social justice project that I am very excited about. It's a partnership we have with an organisation called ISIBANE (which means 'the light' in Xhosa) and is run by a gentleman called David Songololo and his local volunteers. I feel this is deserving of its own post so i'll make sure I have that one up and running after the weekend.


At mock trial, us volunteers are starting to reap the rewards as our young mock trialers have been practising their legal case very hard and last week presented it to Maria, head of our legal case department here at the office. We concentrated this week upon public speaking skills and worked one-on-one with the kids to be able to get their confidence built up. I worked with 'Chad-Lee' who is just absolutely adorable. He's 14 years old and such a quiet sweet boy (he actually reminds me of my youngest brother). He always comments on how my outfit looks nice and then stares at my shoes for about 20 minutes-but he really is just such a bright, intelligent and polite little man! 

Me working with Chad-Lee and Noah, for the defense counsel.

By the end of the session, everyone was on a complete high. Our mock trialers were transformed into passionate public speakers-accompanied by hand gestures and great eye contact to boot. It's less than two weeks now until we do the real thing at the Wynberg Magistrates Court in front of all the parents so i'll keep you updated!

My first week at the office...

It’s been a really great week at work. My caseload has increased so I finally feel like I’m not just pretending I have work to do. I now have six cases, take part in two social justice programs and am conducting research on the side for Theo into ‘Ukuthwala’ (the abduction of young girls to endorse marriage negotiations).

On Thursday I had my first client consultation. Let’s just call the client ‘Albert’. Albert came to the office seeking to try to remedy a mistake made by the Department of Home Affairs regarding the stated place of birth on his ID booklet. His is a Congolese man from the Republic of Congo, but the ID booklet says that he was born in the ‘Democratic Republic of Congo’-an entirely separate country just next door. The DHA, however, do not recognise that there are two Congos and thus the problem begins. This will be my first case from the very beginning, so I’ll keep you guys updated.

I also have cases involving the bringing of a divorce, application for refugee status and the division of property upon being granted a divorce. It’s all pretty interesting actually-and the good thing is, anything you don’t understand you can just research in your own time at the office. One of the other girls on the project has a similar situation to that of my ‘eviction’ case, so we’re going to spend the rest of today prepping before meeting up with our clients and advising them at the Lavender Hill law office tomorrow…I’ll also let you know how that goes.

As far as the ‘social justice’ side of things go (projects out in the community), the mock trial group is also ticking along well. The project invites young children (ages 12-14 or thereabouts) to engage in an after-school club with us every Tuesday and Thursday at the YMCA for an hour or so. During the workshop, we teach them about court procedure and use scenarios to introduce such elements as witnesses, evidence, and case law precedent. The aim is then, once we have practised enough, to get the children together in the Magistrate’s Court to act out a mock trial and even have their parents come to watch.

The project is extremely rewarding-there are only seven or eight children and about eight or nine of us interns so there is every opportunity for one-on-one work in a kind of ‘mentor’ capacity throughout the trial simulation. Ahsan is the creative one amongst us volunteers-he has written the scenarios on more than one occasion, and they include such characters as Mrs Stern [the strict teacher accused of exhibiting corporal punishment on a student] and Shaggy and Sean Paul [two Rastafarian men accused of consuming drugs for non-religious purposes]. The kids find it easier to work through and less pressure on them if we add a little light-heartedness to the mix.

Last week was my first week at Bonnytoun (youth offending prison for boys) and I was lucky that it happened to be the week that a huge soccer tournament was set up and mini-games so that we could coach the boys and encourage them in their sport. Usually, the volunteers that go to Bonnytoun engage the boys in workshops where they can talk about issues such as race, gender, attitudes towards crime, future aspirations, etc. but the boys had specifically asked to take a break from this in order to do some bonding with the volunteers in a different way.

Marco, an Italian volunteer, was very popular with the boys-a sort of big brother figure whom they were quick to perform their exclusive handshake with and welcome back to the group. It was really great to see what a welcome they put on for us all. About 30-40, 15-18 year-old young men all in one big field enclosure gathering around and asking for our names. Some hugged us and others didn’t come too close but smiled and were happy to have some sort of attention.

One of the boys introduced himself as ‘Jessi’ and was pleased to find out my own name. “Jessi and Josie” he said, “we go together well-my English girlfriend!” You can tell they mean you no harm by their joking and jessi proceeded to advise me of how to protect myself if I were to be approached by someone who wanted to take my belongings. Of course, Jessi only knew this because that was what he was in for-the mugging of a young girl right here in Cape Town. And yeah, it can be a little un-nerving at first, knowing that some of these boys have been accused of extremely grave crimes-some even rape and murder-but you have to think, if the workshops are successful for only one boy out of the 40, then it’s worth our time to talk openly with them about alternatives to crime.

I didn’t have time to visit the Bonnytoun boys this week, what with the bigger case load and mock trial on the same day, so I left a message with my roommate to say hi to Jessi for me and apologise that I couldn’t make it. Jessie sent me a message through Charlotte to say that his trial was due to be on the next Monday, which is quite sad really, when you think the chances are more than likely that he will be charged and when he is he will either be moved to the other side of the prison [away from where we work] or, as he is approaching 18, he is morel likely to be sent to ‘Polesmore’-a prison so rife in male to male rape that it soon becomes a way of life for the new kid on the block.

I heard that the Bonnytoun visit was quite eventful this week. During the workshop, a pen was taken and not returned-which is against prison regulations and contrary to the agreement that we have with the prison as well. Apparently, it is the ink that is highly regarded by the inmates, since this is how they draw their own tattoos (which they are very proud of and won’t hesitate to show you). Jessie explained to me last week that there are gang tattoos which one can earn depending on the crimes you have committed: ‘26’ represents ‘money’, ‘27’ ‘a knife,’ and ‘28’ is for ‘gang-members’.

Volunteers present that day told me that once the pen was stolen, Lyndon, our project co-ordinator, waited 20 minutes for its return before telling the group that they were leaving because it showed a total lack of respect. During our IRM meeting on Friday, Theo (overall project co-ordinator and the man at the top) made an interesting point-that next week’s visit would be fundamental in laying down the relationship between the office and the boys at Bonnytoun. If we want them to see us as equals, then they must also treat us with as much respect. I will not be able to visit Bonnytoun this week either, as I will be in Lavender Hill for the law office hours, but I hope to hear how the meeting went.

This week there was also an open seminar up at the University of Cape Town, which looked into HIV incidence in more recent years. The seminar was a little more complex and mathematical than I could understand-but there were a few interesting facts that I was able to pick up. The presentation focused mostly upon two studies: the ASSA 2003 study (by the Actuarial Society of South Africa) and the STI/HIV study. The spokesperson was actually from the university’s ‘Centre for Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Research’ (CIDER), which looks at past trends and uses them to mathematically evaluate the likelihood of events in the future.

It was interesting to find out that between 2001-2009 there has been an overall global reduction in HIV incidence, which includes a decline both Africa and Asia, but that there has been a 25% increase in incidence in North Eastern Europe [according to the study]. The presentation went into some detail as to how much of this decline has been due to an increase in condom usage, and how much is attributable to expanding access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and access to testing. According to both studies that were compared, condom usage has increased from virtually 0 to 300-400 million sales-and although ART is thought to have a modest impact more recently it is thought that it will have a more significant impact later on.

I did, however, get caught in a bad rain storm that day up at UCT, so I ended up spending most of the weekend in bed with a bad cold…giving me more time to write this mammoth blog. I am glad I got to sit in on a seminar at the university though-it was nice to feel like a student once again and the campus is very beautiful, with ivy crawling up the red brick of the buildings that slope into the bottom of Table Mountain. Pretty neat.

The edge of the world [or Africa].

Day # 7 and 8.


We spent this weekend being total tourists. We asked Tyron the mini-bus driver (the same driver that scraped us all up out of 'springbok's club' last thursday) to take us on a half day tour around Boulder's beach and Cape Point. It was about a 30/40 minute drive down to Boulder's beach through Muizenburg, Fish Hoek and Simon's Town. We were even lucky enough to see a whale as we were driving along the route [the bus was close to tilting over sideways with our enthusiasm.]


The penguins hang out in a kind of 'National Trust'-esque area, where you have to pay to go down to the white sand beach [so naturally we went on a frolic of our own to find them in their more natural and free habitats]. I found out that penguins really do smell bad, but they are cute-especially the baby ones who are all fat and fluffy! It was pretty windy that day [thus the bobble hat] so we didn't hang around there too long before moving on to Cape Point [the edge of the world].




Ok, so it's not 'the edge of the world' but it is the furthest South Westerly point in Africa [which is still pretty cool in my book]. We walked along the high coastal path from Cape Point to 'The Cape of Good Hope' and found the most amazing white-sand beach that we had completely to ourselves. The water was cold but after our long trek up to the lighthouse and back it was pretty nice to feel the ocean spray on our faces. We even made a new friend-a wild ostrich [which I, obviously, kept my distance from since they can easily rip you apart "like jurassic park"-nice].


On sunday we decided it would be a fantastically fulfilling idea to leisurely walk up Table Mountain. It was fulfilling. It was not, however, 'leisurely' [in any way]. The five hour hike took us through waterfalls, up ladders and across rocks prone to landslide...but it was most definitely an accomplishment. Needless to say I well and truly stuffed my face at the top of that darned mountain and we happily paid the 90 Rand to get a cable car down on the other side. 


I'm not hurting yet but I know I will be...

Preliminary plan for research project into transitional justice and reconciliation.

Inspiration:

Sitting waiting for the train today made me realise something important about South Africa and life after apartheid. ‘Apartheid’ means ‘separateness’ or being apart. Between 1948 and 1994, apartheid meant, for South Africa, that there was a separation of the people depending on the colour of their skin: whether they were white, black, or coloured. Since 1994, when Nelson Mandela was released and apartheid abolished people have been, in theory, free to go where they choose and mix with others with no formal legal barrier. But in that moment at the train station, however, I had to seriously ask myself: is apartheid really something that we have seen the back of? Do we really have ‘integration’ and togetherness?

The metro rail system here is divided by two different classes-the first and third class. We have been advised, as white volunteers from all over the world, that we should ALWAYS use the first class carriages because being present in the last four carriages would subject us to all kinds of danger…and all at the small price of an extra few pence. There have even been stories around the office of foreign students being dragged from a carriage for being in the 3^rd class compartment by mistake-given the strict warning ‘never sit here-you have no idea of the danger!’

So what is the ethnic breakdown of these two classes of carriage? Need you ask? That’s right, the third class carriage tends to be coloured or black travellers-whilst the first class has several more white faces. So now it appears that there is division between citizens based on their economic circumstance-something our project leader Theodore Kimwimbi has also pointed out to me during the first few days of our induction into the program. I’m interested to know what others think about this theory and to get some different points of view on the correlation between economic segregation and race segregation. I hope that this is the start of some in-depth research whilst I’m over here-or at the very least to spark debate enough to fuel others’ enthusiasm for such a project.

Parliamentary visit #1: Committee meeting re: women, children and persons with diabilities.

·      It’s a shame you can’t take photos here-the galleries are amazing; huge sun beam windows tinted orange etc.

·      There are also many museum cases with historic pieces such as wigs, gowns etc.

·      It’s really informal here-one lady asked who we were [she seemed like an usher] and quickly took our attempt to explain we were volunteers.

·      Security is fairly lax-you cannot take photos but you may have a laptop/camera etc.

·      There is a security point at every building entrance-and the grounds themselves resemble somewhat of a University campus.

·      It is open-so anyone can attend

·      They gave us a pass to enter and asked to see our passports before entering.

·      We could choose from a long list of committee meetings that we could attend: housing, banking and commerce, environmental etc.

·      The physical committee room layout is vaguely similar to that of an English court-with a bench at the far side of the room and the rest of the room filled with two tiered horse-shoe shaped benches with both microphone and speaker facilities.

·      The committee members are mainly of either black or coloured [mixed race] ethnicity. As yet, there are no white committee members, only observers.

·      A camera-man has just set up in the corner of the room.

·      The session is due to start at 9:30am.

·      The shutters come down automatically over the windows, as a projector screen is also set up.

·      The meeting begins. A man is called to take over from the opening speaker-he is blind and is led by the lady to his right at the far end of the room.

·      He begins to talk about the subject ‘access to education and support for learners with special education needs’.

·      The directorate of special education is present and briefly discusses the agenda for today.

·      Each member is told that they can make a presentation.

·      Teenage pregnancy is said to be on the agenda as well as the declining population of students.

·      The man sat at the centre of the bench-an ‘honourable chair person’-begins the meeting with a statement that there are foreign students in the room and asks whether we would like to introduce themselves (one person speaking on our behalf) to say where we are from and what we hope to gain from observing today.

·      Our speaker begins with ‘thank you honourable chair person…’ and goes on t talk about PAHRO.

·      There is an opening speech about the main outline of today and the context in which the committee is discussing these issues.

·      The content of today’s meeting targets access to education and early child development by proposing regular assessment of the system to monitor progress.

·      Action plan designed until 2014.

·      So each presentation by the chair member will cover a particular aspect of this plan and so will cover their entire action plan.

·      Their visions seem very broad and difficult to obtain: an inclusive school system and leading towards an inclusive society.

·      Inclusivity seems to be the focal point during this first presentation.

·      Talks about the convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and what they can do to comply better with this [article 24 ‘speaks to the realities on the ground’].

·      Dignity and the respect thereof is very often talked about.

·      There are two types of schools: mainstream/ordinary schools and special schools [learners with disabilities] so these are the two diff types of schools.

·      What they want to do is make special schools for those with severe and intense disabilities.

·      They want to make the ordinary schools better at catering for those who have smaller disabilities-requiring lower levels of support.

·      They count attention deficit disorder as a recognised disability as well as cerebral palsied.

·      The statistics cover all provinces and not a specific one.

·      Provinces are all acronymic: ec, fs, gt, kz, lp etc.

·      There has been 3 billion rand dedicated to special schools in 2010/2011.

·      Curriculum diversity should be improved so as it is representative of the population of schools and how diverse disability can be.

·      The presentation is, once again, interrupted because one woman believes this is too much and that it will make things difficult.

·      5 minutes is spent discussing whether they can compromise for now since ‘the whole world appears to be watching the committee meeting’!

·      The second presentation regards teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse, sexual harassment and violence in public schools.

·      Talks about the training of teachers to be able to recognise and deal with those children who show signs of abuse.

·      They have conducted their studies based on fertility [births of babies] because, as they so rightly point out, many do not register their pregnancy.

·      They have noted that it is not so much that they fall pregnant and then leave, but that they leave/drop-out and then fall pregnant. So what needs to be concentrated upon is keeping young girls in school.

·      Poor neighbourhoods and schools with age-mixing are worst affected and increase risks.

·      Many young girls get into relationships with older men in return for material goods.

·      Sexuality is not talked about in schools and this is the problem because it is difficult to talk about.

·      The woman that is conducting this presentation is the youngest in the room-I would say no older than early 30’s.

·      Making contraceptives readily available is one of the suggested actions, as well as increasing non-fee schools, access to health care social grants, school safety etc.

·      According to data, young girls do not fall pregnant in order to get these social grants [when births are looked at in relation to the up taking of grants].

·      The eastern cape is the greatest affected area in relation to teenage pregnancy.

·      They want to develop an early warning system; when risk is detected, they would get in touch with support that can help them.

·      Because young women have been known to hide their pregnancy up until the actual birth, it is proposed that a clinic nurse should visit the school on a regular basis in order to ascertain the status and health of young school girls.

·      There are concerns that teachers are having sexual relations with students-and so teachers must be educated themselves on what is legal and what is not tolerated. Schools should also be swift in dealing with such teachers.

·      ‘cool time’ is what students are given after their learning time at school-so it is like play time. The children themselves have actually commented that this is when dangerous things are engaged in and so it is proposed that ‘cool time’ is incorporated into education time so that they are kept safe but get to enjoy themselves through e.g. school clubs, sports and activities.

·      They also want to ensure that girls who leave to give birth are brought back into schools as soon as possible and that they are given a second chance-with some sort of ‘catch-up’ program given to them.

·      One mentality of the past has been to force the mother to stay with the child as a means of punishment for becoming pregnant whilst at a school age. They wish to change this mentality.

·      Increasing uniformity is important when dealing with teenage pregnancies.

·      There has not, as of yet, been any interruptions in this presentation.

·      The presentation comes to an end.

·      Between presentations, there is a joke between the blind man at the head of the bench and one of the other committee members. Her name is clearly difficult to pronounce [representative of the different nationality influences in SA] and, after the 4^th time she pronounces it, he repeats back different phonetics and the room laughs. There is clearly a good feeling amongst the members-and they are happy to joke with one another.

·      The third and final presentation discusses children and crime and violence in schools.

·      UNICEF conducted an audit of 585 schools to look at violence, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy and gangsterism.

·      Corporal punishment has been, in more recent years, reported as not being used as often (recorded in 2006-when the program started).

·      It is discussed that security and metal detectors should be introduced so that those who are coming to the schools are only those who have business with those schools and that students cannot bring weapons.

·      A chair person speaks in conclusion-that disease and poverty are great hindrances to these proposals and that, in order to succeed, children need to realise their rights.

·      This is a very inspirational speech considering the work we are currently doing for children through PAHRO.

·      Questions are taken five at a time.

·      One lady, representative of the department of education, says that, in conclusion, she hopes that the educational department are not the only ones blamed for all these ills and agrees that all departments must work together to achieve this.

·      During the questions, the blind man at the head of the bench hears another committee member speak of ‘autism’ and asks what this means. The committee member replies with a vague description of a person who, if the room was set in a particular way, would expect that room to be so each and every time-and if it was not, then they would be very easily irritable.

·      One of the questions catches my attention: a chair women asks whether it is true that teachers have been found to have engaged in sexual relations with students and goes on to ask how many have been found guilty?

Diving in [off] at the deep end [of the bridge].

Day # 3

After six hours on the train, 15 hours of flying and a six hour lay-over, I finally got into Cape Town Saturday lunchtime. I’m staying with a lady called Eleanor in the ‘Heathfield’ area, which is predominantly coloured (as is Eleanor and her granddaughter Carryn), about 40 minutes away from central Cape Town. There are six of us girls living in the house in total: Italian, British, Swiss-German and Australian-all participating in different projects around the city. The girls took me out to late lunch that day in ‘Camps Bay’ on the western coast of the city and we discussed their upcoming trip up the garden route to Blookrans Bridge to bungee jump off of the worlds biggest bridge bungee. They asked me to come along and by 10pm we were all piling into Michelle’s boutique hotel room-sleeping bag in hand-to get our heads down before the Garden Route drive at 4am.

I watched the sun rise against the black of the Cape mountains and gawped at every ostrich-inhabited field pretty much from Cape Town to Plettenburg Bay (some 324 miles). Spent the whole journey battling with myself as to whether I would actually throw myself 216 metres from a bridge, but with such a fantastic atmosphere out on the ledge created by the guys at ‘Face Adrenaline’ and my new housemates, I managed to rise to the challenge and conquer my fear of heights. And wow, what a feeling! The guys said I screamed quite a lot, but in all honesty most of it was that kind of exhilarated yelp like you’ve just realised you can perform magic or something.

We drove back to the house in time to get enough sleep for my orientation the next day-which was an absolute hoot! There are some really nice people on the program and, even though some will only be around for a couple of weeks, people make friends and bond really quickly. We spent the day picking up home comforts and things that we had forgotten-as well as getting out trendy new 100 rand mobile phones (less than £10) [can you detect the sarcasm in my voice?] but it’s better than getting thumped around the head for the sake of an iPhone.

Dinner at Eleanor’s house is always good. She’s such a fantastic cook, especially considering she caters for eight of us almost every night. Her butternut soup is to die for and it’s always a really homely atmosphere-all of us muck in with the washing up and laying of the table and as a treat one of the girls may have bought dohnuts or a milk tart for us all to share for desert. So tomorrow I start my first day at the Projects Abroad Human Rights Office (PAHRO) and that’s when the hard work starts…