I’d like to start with a formal apology to the public of Great Britain, Israel and to South Africa. I’d like to extend a personal apology to The Paul Kruger Memorial Committee, The Sabie Sands Board of Control, The Foreign Affairs Minister of Britain and IITB (International Israeli Tourist Board). All of whom and quite rightly emailed me to address a lack of factual information in my last Blog.
Sabie Sands alone is not in fact the size of Britain. Sabie Sands and Kruger combined are in fact the size of Great Britain. Kruger is indeed the size of Israel but Great Britain is bigger than Israel (not that size matters of course), therefore it would be geographically impossible for Britain to fit three times into Israel. However Kruger is a very, very big reserve and that is all I was trying to say. Now that’s clear!

DAY 9/10

After a great day off in Kruger (the big reserve), I have spent the last two days working in Dunphries village. The tasks Gilbert, Eric and I had on the first day was to make a new kitchen for Denali School. Incidentally, Gilbert and Eric are Charles’s brothers. You may hear that a lot over the coming weeks as Charles has six brothers and six sisters, a hell of a lot of mouths to feed under the circumstances. When the kitchen was initially mentioned, I did feel that this is where I might make my first cock up (it actually would have been the second cock up, the other day I put a full block of butter in the microwave to ‘soften’ it whilst I was making my tea. I probably needn’t even finish this but I forgot about it. When I did remember, well, I had fifteen minutes of cleaning ooze up to think why I shouldn’t do it again). Yes I was a little concerned about making the kitchen, however as everything is relative, I needn’t have worried. The outdoor kitchen was simply four posts cemented into the ground making a area of 9 square metres. It then had four horizontal posts nailed into the top of these vertical posts, making a cube and then three zinc corrugated sheets screwed to the top of the cube. An outside kitchen. As I said, everything is relative. If we received this kitchen in England we’d probably, to put it lightly, refuse to pay. Then again I’m sure your current kitchen arrangements are not sitting outside on the dirt, with two sheets of scrap corrugated metal propped up horizontally by three old oil barrels, whilst you crouch down and put a cast iron pot on an open flame, I know mine isn’t. So when the kitchen was completed, Ester, the school principal was extremely happy with the result. The extent of her thanks was very heart warming. She now had a place that people could stand up in (it was two metres high) and cook for the children. She had a new outside kitchen, relatively speaking.

The more I have the pleasure of working with the people of Dumphries village, the more respect I have developed for them. Their sense of community spirit is admirable and almost enviable for someone coming from a ’developed’ part of the world. I’m not saying that we wouldn’t re-find this spirit if we had to, I think or hope we would, however generally we don’t need to, so generally, we don’t.

Ester, Juliet, Usbie and a third teacher (can’t remember her name) all work at the Diani school. Its an infant school so the education is more of the development kind, basic English, which is so nice to listen to, maths and social activities. The English is taught by the teacher saying a word or little phrase in her shangal accent and then the children repeating it loud and clear in their own lighter tone. I catch myself just standing there listening sometimes at the melodic tones in the voices. They then sing a couple of nursery rhymes, the main one being ’if your happy and you know it clap your hands’ and have a play. When I sing it to them in the play area I have them stamping their feet, jumping and allsorts. I don’t think they understand what I’m saying, in fact I’m sure they don’t as not many do out here but they follow the actions and it makes them and me laugh. The kids also get fed, I think its mostly maize but it puts food in their bellies. The school is very well organised, the kids do as their told and teachers have their meetings. Here’s the clincher, they haven’t been paid for ’TWO YEARS’, two years, but there they are doing their teaching and looking after the kids every single day. All due to a community spirit and because it still needs doing, if they don’t do it, the community suffers. If I hadn’t been paid for two years I’d have no house, no car, no bikes (eek, its getting serious now), little clothes, little food, no travel. Would I still do my job? Nope, especially when the people not paying me are doing very well for themselves.

I was talking to Usbie and he explained that the education services say they are going to pay them, it just hasn’t been sorted out yet. When they do finally start to receive payment and their not sure when, it wont be back dated, it will be from that time onwards. I have spent a good few hours with both Usbie and more with Ester and they are both great people, Ester is I would say, inspirational, she still tries her luck though. When we went to measure up for the Jo Jo tank tap and the guttering, she asked me to dig a borehole instead, a huge undertaking and when we made the kitchen she asked if I could brick it a little. She asks it with a twinkle in her eye, when the ’no’ hits her ears, as she expects, her huge smile crosses her face and again she thanks us whole heartedly for what we are providing. She’s a lovely, warm lady and I really enjoy speaking to her.

I’ve also started to understand the saying I’ve heard on so many occasions, ‘make a plan’. It’s uttered near most all the time before a problem is solved. At first when I heard it I thought it was passed down office jingo, the type of biz we hear in meetings, not unlike ’keep me in the loop’ or ’we need to think outside the’, you know the stuff. I now realise its an analogy for ’this is all we’ve got, so lets get on with it’. Materials are hard to come by as money is tight, transport to get materials is equally as hard to come by and if you don’t have the correct stuff with you or you never had it in the first place, well you just have to ’make a plan’. It’s a really simplistic method, we (in England) over complicate everything with so many options and variants, its just the way things are. If you don’t have options, then the simplest method is generally the best.
Working manually with Gilbert I’ve witnessed this ’make a plan’ attitude on so many occasions. If we’re presented with a problem, whilst I’m there muddling through all the ‘what if’s’ and ’if not’s’ Gilbert quietly says ’no problem’, slips off and comes back normally with a valid and workable alternative. Its refreshing to see and quite humbling really. It may begin to sound like an almost romantic picture I’m painting but at the end of the day its like this because their life is hard, so this is how it has to be. An example of this is Gilbert and I talking and I asked something about things they need and he replied with a quizzical look ‘we make it’, as if to say ’what else is there to do?’ A good example is when I had finished with the wood for kitchen, therefore it was waste (to me), Gilbert asked to keep it. When I asked why, still thinking it was scrap he replied smiling ’to make a chair’. It wasn’t the first time I felt almost envious of his life. I have however seen and heard about the hardships that drive this way of thinking and for that I’m not envious.

The work Gilbert and I carried out on the school was very enjoyable. The guttering work went really well, we worked together and had a good laugh. Gilbert can really work hard, he put me to shame a bit. I brought some beers with me though so that readdressed things. Charles, Gilbert and I had a nice bit of a chill out at dinner time in the shade, supping the beers and got to know each other better. Its also very rewarding to see projects in the village that I’ve been involved in taking shape and it’s such a great feeling to know that these little projects will help the people. Probably more than I can yet comprehend.

Tomorrow is a big day. Lindsay has organised a project with ‘Trees for Africa’ and a number of people from the village. The aim is to plant one hundred and twenty six trees in the yards of six community houses. A real hands on initiative for the community get together. Should be good.