Not to be all Gap Year but...

Yeah so I thought I should put something vaguely interesting on here. I took a gap year and spent a couple months coaching football in South Africa. This was in no real way altruistic but I did get to see/do some cool shit that is borderline worth sharing.

On our first day in the townships, we turned up and our coaching was cancelled because someone had stolen the water pipes from the school we were supposed to be teaching at.

At one school the kids were going crazy and wouldn't settle down for us white folk so their unbelievably scary teacher (who they all called "Mr. Stick") came out to sort them out. And I quote "No misbehaving children, no misbehaving, we don't want that... or else the AIDS will get you!". Remarkably effective though it was tough not to laugh guiltily as the children ran away from AIDS in the air like it was an imaginary dragon.

The most popular part of it all with the kids was definitely when we organised little 5-a-side tournaments. However one time a kid came up to us and pointed out that the others had organised themselves into Blacks versus Coloureds and that this sort of thing was kind of frowned upon these days in SA. Who knew?

Hey look, it's me and some of the kids (note: at least 3 of the children in this cohort were better than me at football). They were genuinely very cool and I did have a great time in SA, it definitely gives you a bit of perspective (cue dismissive jerk-off gestures).