Saturday 1st April 2023
I woke up at 3.30am and thought I'd managed to get back to sleep when the wake-worry voice asked
'What will you do with 23 people if you can't get inside the jail building?' And that was me for an hour. At least in that hour I remembered all the dates, lol. Fortunately the loadshedding schedule had shifted so I woke up to the power returning at 6am and managed a hot drink.
Just after 7am my contact messaged me with the caretaker's second number and assured me that all was in order. Then the caretaker called me and I felt the stress drain from my body. Of course, then I panicked about my information because I couldn't remember any dates in the light of day, haha.
As I'd dressed I remembered that I'm doing this for fun as a volunteer and I must relax and enjoy. This is what my day ended up being. A lot of fun.
I picked up my young assistant and the excitement built as we neared the site. We did a walk through of the open jail, yey! And the attendees started arriving 25 minutes early. By the 10am starting time, only one person hadn't arrived but but 10.03 I was on the roll.
I covered the two historical buildings but had a costume change in between. My first story was by Scots lady Mrs Elizabeth Bryden and I exaggerrrrated my accent and told stories of loss, family and architecture. I then took off my wig but gained a moustache and changed into a shirt. The moustache helped my accent shift into that of an Afrikaans Jail Warden, Jamie Jamieson. Information on characters is often slim so what I tend to do is weave snippets of research into a story and add a bit of impromptu characteristics. When I see big eyes, smiles and nods of heads then I know I'm doing a good job.
Afterwards I had a few enquiries if I was a professional actress and how long had I practiced and rehearsed. So I felt quite honoured that the response was so good. After the museum I joined some of the attendees for a quick drink and I rushed back to ... snooze. I ended up sleeping for about 2 hours as the stress of everything all left my system.
Now, I can focus on my book project (a day late already) and all the other tasks I've been neglecting while this historical tour took precedence in my energy.
I think I'm going to sleep well tonight..
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