Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine 2019

Aberdeen Grammar School Magazine was definitely one of the most challenging parts of the trip as we were tested by the steep terrain, temperatures dropping to below minus eight degrees at night, and the task of having to cook all our meals on an open fire. However, the sense of achievement of completing the treks outweighed the challenges and was one of the best parts of the month.

One of the main reasons for the trip were the projects. There were two different projects undertaken by the teams, one of which was in a local community in Swaziland. Currently, children receive a cooked meal from local volunteers, otherwise they go without food. We arrived to find a grass field and two fire shelters which came as a surprise to us to see how difficult it was for these volunteers. It was also a shock to find out that this field would be our home for the next six days.

Everyone worked hard during this time to make a surrounding fence and dig the foundations for the new kitchen. During our project, we also engaged with the local community by going to church and visiting the pre-school. This was very rewarding as we could see how much the project meant to the community, and that they appreciated that we came to help them.

The other project took place in a small rural community in the mountains of Lesotho where we spent our time in a local school. We painted classrooms, created a mural on one of the walls, and built a new fence around the school to keep out wild animals. Being able to physically see the contribution we had made to the village was extremely rewarding. Again, we got to interact with the locals and in particular the children, with whom we spent our evenings playing. On the last day of the project, we came together to play a football match against the local team and the whole community came out to watch which made for a memorable end to a fulfilling project.

The last part of our trip was the rest and relaxation phase. After our trek in Swaziland we participated in a zip-wire tour before heading back into South Africa to go to Kruger National Park. Here we saw rhinos, leopards, lions, elephants and buffalo along with many other incredible animals. One of the highlights of our trip was doing a night drive around the Park. It was amazing to see the nocturnal animals we hadn’t seen during the day and we all got a scare when a lion came up against the side of our truck. After three days of safari, we continued on to our final country, Mozambique, to enjoy a great end to the trip, relaxing and experiencing local culture before heading home. Spending a cultural day trying traditional food, getting dressed up and dancing with locals, along with an ocean safari where we swam with whale, sharks and dolphins were among some of the activities we had the chance to do. On the last night of the trip we were fortunate enough to have a dinner with both teams where we shared experiences and stories about the past thirty days, before heading to Maputo to fly back home.

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