South Africa

I am sat in an internet cafe with Jez in Cape Town, South Africa. We are here visiting Pete & Andy who are doing a year here with Ambassadors In Sport. We arrived on Monday evening after a days travel a little tired but otherwise OK.

The city is much cleaner than i had imagined and is not too dissimilar to Rio in terms of cleanliness. We did visit a place called Mannenberg yesterday and did a 'walk' with a local guy called Johnathan. A walk is basically 'walking' (surprise) around the area in a group and talking to any people who want to come up and talk to us. it is a gang controlled area and we were warned not to apporach anybody or attempt to initiate a conversation. I did get into a conversaton with a young man called Royston, a long term crystal meth and heroin user. He seemed desperate to get out of his situation and the last I heard Johnathan was going to meet with him to see what he could do for him. I will keep you posted on that.

We went to a football training session last night with the lads. AIS run an academy out here for boys and men of all ages. I trained with the reserves for an hour or so and had a little kickabout. I was cream crackered after but it was good fun. Afterwards, we went to a little pizza place and watched the Arsenal and Liverpool game - which turned out to be a really boring 4-4 draw!!

The lads are out training again this morning so I thought I would take the opportunity to stick in a quick blog. I will try and keep it updated if possible.