Charlie: Only on our third day and already a lot has been achieved. Considering today is the first day when it was expected all would commence, the building team are ahead of even their estimations. However, the weather today is awful, cold and wet (heavy rain showers) still think it will take more than that to dampen Barry, Alan and Mark's spirits. The three ladies have gone off to 1000 Hills Community Helpers and hopefully all being well they will be spending the week there. Both the building team and ladies will update us later on their day.
I met with Walter Frey and Thokozani Mabuya this morning to discuss ‘First step Right’ pre-school. It was a great meeting and they have intentions of working with us initially and making the pre-school their community project as part of their company’s social responsibility. They currently are in the process of buying the land that the pre-school is on which is part of a deal to buy the associated business. More on this as we go through the weeks!
I also met with Phindi and Kevin today. Phindi is a radio presenter and a very involved in charity projects. She has been running exercise classes at a clinic in Umlazi and she has plans to extend her charitable work. I will update the blog more on this as we have some further meetings with Phindi and Kevin.
Liz: Today I had a fantastic day at the 1000 Hills Community Centre. Having been given a tour of the complex which included a clinic, kitchens that feeds up to 1500 people a day, a gift shop selling crafts made by locals and a laundry service, I spent time in the school facility. This included a crèche for up to 6 month olds, an older crèche for 1 to 2 year olds, a larger room for the 2 and 3 year olds and finally a pre-school. The 2 and 3 year olds looked like they could help me so I stepped into their world. Approximately 12 of them (it’s usually double this – its holiday time) were sat having breakfast on mini chairs. They stared then eventually thawed and said ‘hello lady’ repeatedly. Then they were put to bed, packed in blankets, all facing the same way so as not to wake each other for 2 hours. Once the children awoke, it was lunch then play which consisted of them pointing to parts of their body and telling me what it was in English. My role was to learn the Zulu. I won’t write it here as I’ve no idea of the spelling but I can honestly tell you I know most of the parts of my body in Zulu including a short seminar from a 2 year old Zulu girl who corrected me when I thought the translation was ‘back’. She said, “no, it’s your spinal cord”. Enough said.
An amazing place! Inspirational! Well organised and clearly life-changing for so many people of the immediate and far-reaching community. Tomorrow, I’m in the pre-school although have promised to go back to the crèche to prove I’ve remembered my Zulu lessons.
Mark: The building team put snickersgate behind them and headed to Ithembalihle to build on (excuse the pun) the previous day’s progress. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas with typical British rain setting in for the day. We did take delivery of the window and door frames, which will allow us to crack on tomorrow with the hope of better weather. Bring on some African sun!!
Helen: After a quick look round the 1000 Hills clinic the two nurses were left with Sister Margaret. It was the Elderly Clinic day. Around 50 people were already seated outside on the veranda, our heart sank!! After sitting in on a few consultations with Sister Margaret she left the consulting room and it was down to us. We had a translator to help us out as we have not quite mastered Zulu. Drugs were limited but hopefully we gave good advice and treatment. We also had a house call, the clinic ambulance took us to a house where a young boy was quite unwell, he had a high temperature, sweating profusely and difficulty with his breathing, the family had phoned for a government ambulance some four hours earlier and it had still not arrived!!! Not quite as bad as the NHS. Hopefully the young boy received the medical attention he so badly required but I will try and find out and update the blog.
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