Day 23 - Ruterwacht Girls & Drommedaris Girls Football Teams

After 3 weeks, we're finally starting to see the weather we are used to back home. After going home from Table View in rain yesterday, we woke up to rain and grey clouds this morning. Every cloud has a silver lining though, as Martin and I went for a run in the drizzle, as we had the morning off, and managed to go a lot further than we had been going previously. I could've gone on for longer too. Guess im still not completely used to the South African heat yet. Give it time, though.

Joe asked us to go in to the Learning Centre at 1, which meant we didn't have time to have lunch at the Retirement Village, so decided to go out at around 11:45 to grab a quick meal before moving on to the Learning Centre. We decided to go to a place called Steers, as Lourens said it was basically the South African equivalent of Burger King, and that he used to own a franchise of Steers, before working at Communicare.

Big mistake.

Now, I'm sure the Steers that Lourens owned was nowhere near as bad as this one, and this Steers was based at a petrol garage just down the road from us, so we should've known better, but we (mainly I) had the worst experience I've ever had at a fast food place. It was ridiculous.

It started off with the long wait to be served. It wasn't particularly busy at all, there was a maximum of 3 people in the queue at any one time, and 2 ladies on the checkout too, so I assumed I'd be seen fairly quickly. Nope. After just over 5 minutes of waiting I was finally seen by someone.

I know sometimes it's difficult for some South African people to understand our accent or what we say, but I was saying my order so clearly and slowly. I made sure that it was completely understandable. Nope. After trying to order a chicken burger meal (or 'combo') for Martin, and a large bacon burger meal (or 'combo') for me - with me asking many times not to have cheese on my burger - the checkout kept pressing a different combination of orders, none the right one, before Martin and I just settled on me having a combo, and him having just the burger, in order to get things done. After waiting for 10 minutes we finally got our food, and headed back to the car.

Got to the car, opened up my burger box. Covered in cheese.

No for those of you that don't know me well. I have a weird appetite. I can't stand the taste of cheese and butter, yet I love Pizza's and buttery mash potato. It's odd. So when I saw that my burger was drowning in cheese, I wasn't best pleased, after waiting a good 20 minutes to eat.

Long story short, after heading to Steers at 11:45, we didn't leave until around 12:30. It was ridiculous. Lourens if you're reading this, I know for sure you wouldn't have let that Steers be as shambolic as it was!

Then, as we were driving to the Learning Centre, we somehow managed to take a wrong turn somewhere, and got caught in a load of disgusting traffic as we corrected ourselves. So we ended up arriving at the learning centre at around 1:30. Friday the 13th felt appropriate for the morning we'd had.

After arriving at the Learning Centre we jumped in Joes car and headed off to pay a quick visit to the Deep River Communicare complex, where quite a few of the residents were gathered in the reception. After saying hello and introducing ourselves. They spoke a bit about themselves and what the complex was like, before they asked for a big group photo.

Now, the older ladies were being quite flirty to Martin and I, and we both found it hilarious some of the stuff they were saying it was brilliant, but after the photo was taken, I got a surprise when the woman on my right gave me a cheeky pinch on my bum!! Unbelievable. Joe, Lourens and Martin all found it hilarious when I told them in the car. I was left emotionally scarred!

We then made our way back to the Learning Centre, where Jaden and a little girl called Sharleen (I'm guessing it's spelt like that), who plays for Ruyterwacht Girls, hopped in our car, and we drove them down to Atlantic Football Club to get ready for our girls session.

We ended up with around 4 Ruyterwacht girls, and 7 Drommedaris girls, which was quite good as both teams had only just been made, in order to give more opportunities to girls to play football, which Martin and I agree with completely. 

After a quick passing and moving exercise, it was time. Ruyterwacht vs Drommedaris. Harry vs Martin. As my Ruyterwacht girls were 3 short on players, we were allowed one of the Drommedaris girls to even them up. After a quality game, it turned out that the ex-Drommedaris star scored the winning goal for us to give us a good 1-0 result. I was chuffed. Martin wasn't. Shame, haha.

From the session, we took all the girls, plus Jaden, back to the Drommedaris complex, where there was a big fun and games evening, organised by Joe. We didn't stay there long though, as it was open until late in the evening, but we stayed there long enough to say hello to everyone, have a few covers actions, eat a hot dog, and see our little friends we met on Wednesday at Drommedaris. Inam gave me a massive hug when she saw me, and even pulled out a Valentine's card for me! I was well happy, although she spelt my name "Hagry". Ah well, it's the thought that counts. We also saw Alonso, who told us that he successfully gave all his 5 girlfriends Valentine's cards, before letting out a cheeky grin after we congratulated him!

Tomorrow we have a nice day off, where we hope to go to Houts Bay if the weathers nice, or climbing up Lions Head if it's not fantastically hot. Either way, it'll be a good day.

It's also Valentine's Day, and I'm still yet to receive my card off Maddie, after I sent her some chocolates and a personalised card! Although I gave her a slightly wrong address, which leads to a student housing accommodation, so I'm hoping the card hasn't ended up there. Oops.

Harry