South Africa 2007

one of the first trips to africa for the choko team

Write-up by Estelle Browne

In April 2007, Sixteen very excited and slightly apprehensive people left Cholsey for a self-funded trip to South Africa. Our first few days were spent in Kruger National Park and, wow, were they exciting? We were out at 6.00am each day and did not return until 6.00 in the evening. The animals we saw ranged from tiny dung beetles to gigantic giraffes, with everything imaginable inbetween including the African Big Five – elephant, rhino, leopard, lion and buffalo. This part of the trip was meant to help us gel as a team and to prepare us for the possibly distressing sights we would face when we moved on the Kodumela.

For this part of the trip we had a long daily drive which gave us time think about what we were going to see or reflect on what we had been doing. However, no drive would have been long enough to prepare us for the sight that welcomed us to our first stop – Mamokaile School. The whole school of several hundred children was there to meet us and their amazing displays of singing and dancing left not a dry eye amongst us.

During the next few days we visited more schools, an orphan feeding station, a child headed household (of which there were many) and a creche. These were all on our planned itinerary, but Ledile, ADP Manager, had her own ideas and on our last day we found ourselves being led to a centre for people with special needs.

Centre is a grandiose term for what we saw. A disused almost derelict church with part of the roof missing, no proper floor and no facilities. Despite all of this we were greeted by around twelve people who welcomed us with a song and huge smiles. If some of the rest of the trip had been distressing, this was heartbreaking and we left determined that in some way or another we would help improve their lot.

So that was it. From there on we wet our separate ways. Some went straight home, some spent days relaxing at Rissington and some to explore more of South Africa. We often speak of life changing experiences and everyone of us had no doubt that this had been the biggest.

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