BBC Cornwall

The Pilgrimage has now made it onto the BBC Cornwall website.
Do take a peek. With big thanks to David Watson for organising this!

Here's another video of pictures - this one is slightly longer.
Enjoy

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We're Back!

After another long journey we left a very hot South Africa and have returned to a rather cold England. It was another interesting journey that included a delayed flight from Durban, a mad dash through Johannesburg airport and the niggling doubt about whether our bags had made it on to the same flight.

However all was well and my colleague Dean met us at Heathrow with our lunch, before we boarded the coach back to Cornwall and after reuniting Lydia and then Mike with their parents the rest of us arrived in Truro at 4.30 to a warm welcome from our families.

Personally I had an early night and slept well, and I'm sure the other members of the team did too!!

When I have a bit more time, I'll fill in the last couple of days and add some photographs. In the meantime thank you to all those who were following our journey and leaving comments and apologies for the hiccup in the middle when we lost the internet connection.

Kokstad Day 2

This morning we went back to the Diocesan Office and were joined by the ladies from the Siyafundisa - Teaching Our Children project. They took us to a very poor area of Kokstad, where houses were made of mud or what ever other materials that could be found. No one had jobs and many made their living and found their food on the nearby rubbish dump. The ladies visit regularly and help the families to get ID Cards and provide health advice. It was another eye-opening experience of the inequality of provision in the country and on how easy it is to be left behind by the system.

In the afternoon we visited an Anglican Convent, this is quite new and the nuns are still working through how they can best serve their communities. At present this is by making clerical vestments but they visit parishes with the Bishop and hope to establish a formal role within the Diocese. There are only 7 nuns at present and currently they are very young compared to nuns in England. most are in their thirties and forties with only one who was in her fifties. (We thought of leaving Claire behind to join them!)

We also spent some time shopping for souvenirs, so parents, siblings don't worry, genuine African gifts will be coming your way!!

This evening Wendy (our host at the B&B) cooked us some traditional African dishes, Babote and Milk Tart - delicious!

We will be meeting the Diocesan Orphans and Vulnerable Children's worker tomorrow morning before we head for Durban and our epic journey home. This will probably be our last post from Africa and we look forward to being reunited with our families on Saturday!

CEDARVILLE - Day 11 / Kodstad Day 1

It was an early start and a farewell to our hosts who have been most wonderful in putting up with us all. For some, parting from their host's dogs was also a sad experience, but so far it appears that none have been smuggled into bags as has previously been suggested! David packed up the minibus and we set off to Kokstad.
We arrived at Diocesan Office where we met Bishop Milbo who showed us the Counselling Service that is run from the grounds and the container that was provided by the Diocese of Truro. The service is well used and in the last month alone X people had had consultations.

We are staying at a lovely B&B, The Planes and have en-suite rooms and TV's! After checking out our rooms and dropping off our bags we walked into Kokstad for some lunch. In the afternoon we met with some of the youth team of the Diocese of Umzimvubu including two who we had met on Saturday with St Stephen's youth group in Matatiele. We also met the youth chaplain and the archdeacon with responsibility with youth.

They related how supporting youth work in the Diocese is a struggle and how difficult it is to get around the parishes. We shared experiences and examples of our own and realised that many of the issues faced were common to both Dioceses including rurality and a decline in interest amongst young people. Then it was back to The Planes and a chance to chill out before our evening meal.

CEDARVILLE - Day 10

Today we went to Ramohlakoana and met with Revd Peter and Sindy Ledena, who last year were visitors in Cornwall. Again we had a very warm welcome with lots of singing and hugging. Revd Peter's parish covers a large area up to the border with Lesotho and includes seven other churches or stations. We were at St Paul's, where we had a short act of worship and were taught more Xhosa hymns, before driving to visit one of the other churches St David's. The scenery was amazing with the Drakenberg mountains nearby and over them the border with Lesotho. Once back at the rectory we had a look around the Old Rectory, which will become a respite centre. The Diocese of Truro has raised some of the funds to enable this to happen. Work on the building has been delayed by negotiations with the local community and the local government, but the result is that the project will be even bigger, the local chief has given more land and now the plans include a respite centre, a clinic and counselling service and provision for the elderly. We were given a traditional African lunch of Shepherds pie and pumpkin! Before we left gifts from Bishop Cornish School and Carbis Bay were given to Peter and Sindy and Sindy passes on greetings to the Mothers' Union in our Diocese.

We drove back to Matatiele where we had an appointment with the Diocesan School, St Monica's. This school is a primary and middle school with older pupils transferring to other schools for the final few years of their education. It was PE afternoon and Mike and Tom soon joined in with the cricket practice where Mike was taught how to bowl. The school choir also performed some songs for us and we donated some sports equipment to the school.

We then went back to the project for the street boys and this time met with the youth worker Bertram, who was from Cameroon. We had a short tour of the building and an explanation of how the project works. It was homework time when we arrived and the sight of teenage girls caused a bit of a stir, though when we began to chat with the boys themselves they were initially quite shy!

After a stop for a milkshake and ice-cream it was back to Cedarville and we had a short time discussing all that we had seen and done during our time there. The common themes to emerge were of the hope that was in the place, despite desperate poverty and how the school children we met had hopes for their futures.

As this was our final evening we had a splendid meal together, curry, and Cathy and William came to join us. At the end of the meal gifts were exchanged with the girls receiving bead necklaces and the boys fridge magnets. We gave Cathy and Val some momentos of Cornwall and the Diocese of Truro.