Day 19-23: Project Limpopo

Firstly I would like to apologise for the length of this blog before you read it. I haven’t had the time this week to update the blog as have been so busy and so many things have been going on. Now I have the time, it’s going to be quite an essay! Hope you enjoy it all though…

Day 19: Thursday 14^th April

Today was a very productive day. We completed 6 trusses and we arrived on site to be greeted by the slab complete for Classroom B. Our contractor and his workers had worked through the night to get it complete as the last concrete truck left about 8pm on Wednesday. It looked really good and gave a real scale to the extent of work we still had to do.

Slab of Classroom B

Phase 2 also arrived today and got to the hotel just as we got back from site. It was great to see the whole team together but there are so many of them. I thought 30 of them were hard to keep track of, now there’s double that! Luckily it’s only 4 days so let’s hope there’s no major problems.  To welcome the Phase 2 to South Africa, we took them all out to Spurs for dinner, our local steak joint.

Kate angle grinding the bolts down

Day 20: Friday 15^th April

Today the aim of the day was to raise a ‘fake’ truss to enable a press photo to be taken with the whole team under it. It would be our only opportunity to make it happen so we had to get it done.

Phase 1 team under the 'fake' truss

Luckily we did at about 2pm in the afternoon and lots of photos were taken, many of Phase 1, as it was their last day on site. We ended up doing a lot of them graduation style – throwing our hard hats up in the air, not the safest moment I would like to add!  Phase 1 had a bit of extra time on site as Phase 2 headed back to the hotel, mainly to finish off filming their footage of the ‘Satisfaction’ video they have been filming over the past three weeks. I have heard it is already in production so will let you known when it’s ready. It should be hilarious from the clips I have already seen. I would just like to add the boys have done it all, changing it a bit from the original.

Phase 1 boys 'graduating'

Phase 1 girls

In the evening we headed out for dinner at a local tavern and then back to the hotel for a few drinks before bed and an early trip to the worlds largest Baobab tree bar in the world.

Day 21: Saturday 16^th April

Today was quite an early start after quite a late night, especially for the majority of the group heading out to the Baobab tree that only got to sleep at 6am and we were leaving at 10am! It was a short-ish drive to the tree, unless you miss the turning (Dave!) but we got there eventually. It’s absolutely massive and the bar is pretty cool. I think someone had read it was in FHM’s top 10 bars in the world. It was a glorious sunny morning so we all got a cold Castle beer, sat under the tree and caught up on all the gossip from the night before. We headed back at midday to make sure we made it back in time for the handover BBQ.

Baobab Tree

Bug at the Baobab

Grumpy face in the Baobab tree

On the way back we stopped to pick up some meat and drink for the evening at 3pm, checked everyone into the taxis and headed to a private game reserve about 10km out of Tzaneen for our feast.

Lake at private game reserve

On arriving in the game reserve, we spotted ostriches, zebras, warthogs and impala. It was very exciting for the Phase 2 group as these were the first SA animals they had seen apart from the cows on the way to site! John greeted us. He invited us into the stockade area where the BBQ’s were burning and we would be safe from any intrigued animals. The electric fence was switched on! After a couple of drinks and assessment that the BBQ’s needed longer to get hot, we headed out into the reserve for a walk around. We didn’t spot many animals but there were some great views. We got a little lost in the bush, but after a few right turns we were back on track. We spotted some Kudu and headed back to the stockade for some food.

'Hippy' the Hippo - 5 years old

During the evening, a small group of Phase 1 held an awards evening for the leaving group. It was a great end to an amazing three weeks together and Sam Harding, our compare, did a brilliant job, even if he did lie to me about what my award would be! The awards evening rounded off our evening perfectly and after packing up we made our way to the taxis, only to be greeted by the local baby hippo. By the way, when I say baby, it’s about 5 years old and already the size of a small car! It’s pretty friendly but to ensure the safety of the students we got them all into the taxis quickly. The hippo began to get a little aggressive as we tried backing him away with the use of one of the bakkies. The taxi’s managed to get out and away but the staff team were still stuck. We realised we’d left the fires burning too and the only way to get back to them was to jump the electric fence and then a wooden fence, quite an adventure especially as the heavens had just decided to open too. By this point the hippo was beginning to bite the bakkie, we managed to entice it away with a few bits of bread. Awesome experience feeding a hippo! We managed to escape after a few hairy moments and managed to get back to the hotel safe and sound.

Hippo about to bite the Bakki

Smiling Hippo after receiving some bread

'Can I have some more please?'

A few more drinks back at the hotel to say goodbye to Phase 1 group, an early night was had so to get up early to go to Polokwane for the day.

Day 22: Sunday 17^th April

It was an early start today (really could have done with a lie in) but we had offered to take a student to Polokwane to catch a flight to visit her Dad in Johannesburg before she flew back to the UK on Monday. We managed to fit in a cheeky cooked breakfast at Spurs before heading up the mountains towards Polokwane.

After finding the airport and making sure the student was all checked in, our aim was to get inside the World Cup stadium built in Polokwane. Peter Motaba stadium held some of the world cup matches think Argentina may have played there but was mainly a practice venue for many of the teams. The Kaiser Chiefs had just played there the night before (not the band, the SA football team). It’s a shame we didn’t know as would have been great to watch it, they’re one of the best teams in the country.  We luckily managed to get inside the stadium after sweet talking one of the security guards and stand on the pitch. Think we pushed our luck though as we tried to walk around the pitch. He didn’t seem too annoyed but we did make a quick exit.

Inside the Peter Mokaba Stadium

Outside the Peter Mokaba Stadium

We took a drive around Polokwane, not much to see really and its quite run down and then headed out to a brand new shopping mall just outside of the city to find some food for lunch. The mall had only just opened the week before and was heaving. It was quite odd as it felt just like any other shopping centre and could have easily been in the UK. We had a bit of a wander around, checking out the SA football and rugby shirts and brought some lunch. We headed back to Tzaneen about 3ish, getting back in time for our briefing session to Phase 2 and de-brief for Phase 1.

Day 23: Monday 18^th April

Last night we had issued the proposed plan for the next three weeks with our aim now to achieve two classrooms by the end of our stay in SA. This is a realistic target due to the problems and issues we have had to deal with over the past three weeks and with the funds that we have. The Phase 3 team was eager to go and after saying their goodbyes to Phase 1, headed to site to begin their construction time. 

I stayed behind at the hotel to make sure Phase 1 got off safely. It was quite sad to watch them all go, an end of an era in a way. They have been a great group and are an amazing bunch of people. They didn’t seem very happy to leave but it may have been the 6-hour coach journey they had ahead of them to get to the airport!

Today was a delivery day on site, as the base plates for the main trusses arrived, the timber for the rest of the buildings including the toilet block arrived in the afternoon, steel mesh for the next slabs was dropped off and the concrete trucks arrived late afternoon to begin pouring the dining block slab.

The students were keen to get on with tasks but due to the late arrival on the timber, only the main truss beams got completed. The team began leveling out the site and a small team surveyed the site to clearly understand what levels we are dealing with.

Think i'll leave it there for now as this is ridiculously long! Will hopefully get some pictures added to these soon but the internet cafe computers were broken last time so fingers crossed they're fixed next time we go.

Catch up with you soon,

Helen