My big project, Finishing the Ward 4 AMICAALL/Nhlangano Town Council Social Center, the PCPP

ITS FINISHED

Peace Corps Partnership Proposal (PCPP) with the Nhlangano Town Council (NTC)


http://swazilandreflections.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-big-project-finishing-ward-4.html

First application draft submitted Feb, 2011
Approved & Funding Begins on PC website May 17th
IT WAS COMPLETELY FUNDED on Sept 8th.
Construction started on Oct 24th.
All exterior construction done by Dec 20th.
Grand Opening Jan 5th, 2012
Round 2 of the Funding arrives in early January.
Interior Only Construction Restarts Jan 16th.
Construction all done Feb 16th (minus a million tiny To Do's)
Project Officially Closed May 4th, 2012

Let the children play, learn & be safe.


As of Aug 25th, 2012, I am no longer a PCV, I am now RPCV (Return Peace Corps Volunteer). This blog is my experience in Swaziland between June of 2010 & Aug of 2012. Enjoy.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Social Center Part 12 (African Improv)

And so the everlasting wait for those elusive doors & windows continues. But at least we seem to be getting closer. Now I hear Monday for their arrival.

In the mean time, it is a lot of small tasks.

And the inspiration for this blog post is probably one of the strangest improv that I have come up with sense being here in Swaziland. Ironically, improvising is necessity and a skill most Swazi's seem to lack.

And here goes the story.

So we have this big pile of river sand that was brought in for the project 7 yrs ago when they build the exterior. But in those 7 yrs, grass has grown into it, trash has accumulated, big & small rocks have found their way into the pile and making it hardly suitable for use in making the cement needed to install the doors & windows or anything else. So for 2 days we have searched for a Shifter to grade the sand to make it usable. No luck and to expensive to buy.

So last night as I was sitting in my place thinking of how to solve it. The answer came to me literally through the air.

I was looking at my fan. And the cover of the fan became the shifter. I pulled it off and brought it in the morning. Everyone look at me like I was crazy, which the idea is, cause it is so out of the box that it dumbfounded all the staff. But they all agreed it worked great.

So Senzo and I began shifting a big pile of sand and today (remember summer is just starting down here) was very hot. A couple of his friends showed up to help out but would talk more than work, granted they were just helping. So as we closed in on the end I had get them to shovel and shift faster so we could all good home early. We found .15 cents

I am quite proud of the improv and just proves that inspiration can come from anything, anywhere.


2 comments:

  1. Talk about creativity ... and, indeed, out of the air, so to speak ... progress on every front.

    ReplyDelete
  2. very smart!! wow, i'm impressed with all the hard work and ingenuity! miss you!!

    ReplyDelete