Day 2 Shongweni Primary

Day two at Songweni school - the whole team have grafted solidly today to get as much done on the three classrooms as humanly possible - compare this photo to the one yesterday - and we've done 3 of these rooms in two days, the third is nearly ready for the last coat of red, but there's plenty more to do. Doors need repairing and glossing, Budgie is doing a stirling job single handedly sorting out the partitioning walls up in the eaves, blackboards need painting, windows and frames need desperate attention, and we're hoping that we can leave the children with a bright and colourful mural to remember us by, so our last days work tomorrow will need a massive final push if we're to go out on a high. We've been treated to a few more examples of local cuisine today, Carl pulled over to the side of the road on the way to the village and grabbed us a stick of sugar cane, which the local kids munch on all day long like they're chewing on marshmellow - honestly, I nearly lost what teeth I have left just trying to get through it. Tasty though. For lunch we had a local Indian speciality, 'Bunny Chow' (Durban and the surrounding areas has the highest Indian/Asian population in the whole of the country), which is basically a hot curry served inside a hollowed out half-loaf of bread. Which was a challenge in the scorching hot mid-winter weather, halfway through a good days work, still most of us managed some of it, and Anthony managed his usual two (!)

The team are dog-tired, but determined to get the job done, and make sure we go out on a high, having achieved what we set out to do, and even more - we've all learned so much, and we've all stuck together and achieved much more than we'd hoped. We might not get a chance to enter another blog tomorrow - the plan is to finish the job on the school, and celebrate Nat's birthday at a local Shongweni community centre, so we'll be unlikely to find any wifi spots! Hopefully we'll get chance to drop you all a quick line before we fly. Thanks to all who've been following us, it's been good to receive your comments each night. One more final push tomorrow. Job's a good 'un.

Shongweni Primary School

We headed to the Shongweni primary school today to complete stage 2 of our epic adventure. Shaun (Budgie) has been to Shongweni before and with fellow NCHA staff members completed several houses very near to the school. Shongweni village is central to the wider area of Shongweni, which itself is named after the enormous table top mountain(not to be confused with the table top mountain in Cape Town) which dominates the breathtaking landscape (confusingly, the mountain is also called Shongweni).
We arrived on site and were met by Gavin, our host affiliate rep, and the school principle. The principle thanked us for our time and explained that the school had 1098 students with 28 staff members, and the majority of his 'learners' were from single parent families or are orphans, as the estimated rate of HIV/AIDS is 70% in the local area.
Our initial job was to clear the desks and chairs from the classrooms - all the chairs seem almost dollhouse like, and almost all were broken. We then discovered these classrooms were for Grade 1 and 2 - 7 year old to 9 year olds.
Only when the furniture was out did we realise the room was covered in dust - nothing like we have seen before - inches and inches of thick dust and cobwebs that took the entire team wearing face masks literally hours to shift with brooms, mops and sponges (I'm convinced I'll be coughing up bits of Shongweni school for the next 6 months).
The furniture, blackboards and bookshelfs are all makeshift items - no interactive whiteboards and laser pens in this school - (whilst moving a box a blackboard rubber fell out - last time I saw one of them it was being hurled at my forehead)
The dust was never fully removed - in Britain it would have taken a team of specialists - costing hundreds and hundreds of pounds without doubt. We did however remove enough dust to reveal - white and green walls - first painted in 1940 and never touched again until today.
We scraped the walls to remove the flakes of old paint - delicate enough as you felt the walls may crumble.
Eventually we managed to add a lick of paint to the walls - a white base paint throughout - just this one lick of paint transformmed the classrooms making them brighter and considerably cleaner - almost immeadiately you could concentrate more on the job in hand - which made you realise this task will brighten up the room and allow the children to concentrate on their lessons and provide them with a place that they will actually enjoy being in.
Given that this is day 1 of 3 on this particular task - every effort from here on in will add to this, hopefully by the end of day 4 we shall have additional pictures and murals on the walls - actually of course we will - have you seen this team...!
We have completed the base paint in rooms 1 and 2 and have made a start on the clean up operation of room three. Tomorrow we shall paint the walls terracotta and cream - we shall also gloss the window frames which will make such a wonderful difference.
Adjacent to the three classroooms we'd been working on throughout the day, stands a small stone church overlooking the valley, and the team were treated to a impromptu choir practice by some of the local community, and we took the opportunity to take in the scenery whilst listening to the beautiful music.
The enthusiasm of the whole team was on a par with that of the very first day of last week's build, the two days off had definatley recharged the batteries, and we all it felt good to get back into our work clothes and get stuck in on another project. The whole team sends their love and best wishes to all at home. More tomorrow.