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Published: August 3rd 2009
Well, it's already been just over a week & the time has flown by! I'm doing really well & the weather is getting hotter by the day!
Over the last week, I've been visiting schools with Moses & trying to plan what I can spend the money on that I raised running the London Marathon. It's difficult, as the schools range from concrete buildings with desks & chalkboards run by a team of staff, to mud huts with a few wooden stools & children using their laps to lean on, which are run by mere locals who volunteer their efforts. You start to think, where do I start? Or you wish you had enough money to contribute to each in some way. So, after sitting down with Moses & talking through possible areas we could use the money for we decided on the following...
Moses sister, Louice, started up her own school along with her husband a couple years back which is situated in the Mtomondoni area which is no more than a 10min walk from Moses home. The school has grown considerably to the size of around 250 pupils, ranging from 3-16 year olds. At the moment Hill
Wheeler school has satisfactory infrastructure with any further development that is needed relying on left over school fees after the staff have been paid, bills etc. This small amount of money means development is rather slow & not necessarily of great impact. Any government funding is generally in the form of crops - usually the country's staple maize. Additionally, the school runs a water pump that unfortunately is currently costing more than usual due to inflated prices as Kenya is facing future water shortages, tying up even more money.
So, the government provides the school with food from time to time and recently Louice has also managed to get support from & secure a food program for the school. However as it stands, the proposed buildings for a kitchen and dining area are no where near finished & they have no money to continue the work. So potentially we have food for the children but nowhere to cook/serve it. Therefore, as you might have guessed, I decided to use the money to complete the kitchen & dining room areas ensuring the success of a food program. Furthermore, providing meals during the school day also ensures that the children will
be eating at least one decent meal, which they might not be receiving at home.
The site is one large building split by a wall into 2 parts - the kitchen & then the dining area with a small window cut out between them so food can be served. Both rooms need the walls & floors plastering, the chimney above the cooking area needs finishing, tables & benches need building for the dining room, door frames & window frames need to be fitted as well as a sink/washing area in the kitchen, a larger preparation table also needs building for the kitchen for preparing food and finally a lick of paint all over! So there's a lot to get done! We've priced up the materials & labour over the last few days & then went to see Louice to make the offer to her. She was over the moon & couldn't thank me enough.
So far, me & Moses have bought the sand, the cement and some ballast, had it all delivered to the site. I got stuck in & helped shovel the sand, which is called River sand, which is sourced ironically from a river bed! It's
the best quality you can get but my life, it is so heavy! The builder guys are strong! I tried to lift a bucket full & couldn't - they all laughed so I stuck to just the shoveling! Processes are just so slow over here as there's no machinery etc. We had to count with the suppliers 210 of these small sand pallets, which were shoveling a fixed amount of sand into the truck - as 60 = 1 tonne and we needed 3.5 tonnes to go into this particular lorry. Tedious or what! It has been good though because Moses makes sure we are part of everything, the sale, the delivery, the work etc. so I know the money is not being wasted. Plastering started on Saturday & already one of the rooms has been completed. So far so good! 😊
Right, I imagine that's enough for now. Hope everyone is OK & I'll look forward to updating you again in the next few of days.
x x x x x Vicky x x x x x
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netty
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hey
hey vicky, Glad you're getting on ok, the pictures look great, make sure you give us lots of updates. Miss you xx