Project Limpopo: Day 14-18

Day 14: Saturday 9^th April

After a very frustrating week waiting for materials, the weekend couldn’t have come sooner. We left late on Saturday morning heading East towards Kruger National Park, entering the park at the Phalabora Gate. We managed to pick up a few guidebooks, which had some awesome picture pages in of all the animals to identify them with. It became a bit of a running joke as every animal we saw, Dave (technician) had to stop and tick it off! The drive through Kruger to our accommodation took longer than expected as you’re only allowed to drive at 50kmph. We managed to see some steinbock, waterbuck, and many birds including an eagle, a lone buffalo and some fighting elephants. I originally thought they were a large grey rock but they happened to move just as we were passing. Got some great photos too.

The accommodation at Mopani was great. Small, thatched cottages with open air kitchens and bbq’s. Just enough space for the four of us and a great space to cook up all the meat we had brought earlier in the morning.

Amazing coloured bird

We headed out straight away on our first safari of the weekend, a sunset drive. It started off pretty warm but rapidly got very cold and the blankets were much appreciated. We saw lots of animals including elephants, buffalo, impala, warthog and lots of birds that are brightly coloured. We also saw a crocodile. We watched the sun set over the park and drove for a while in the dark. We had the use of spotlights, which we used to look for sparkles in the bush – the animals eyes.

Sunset over Kruger National Park

After warming up from the drive, the boys managed to get the bbq lit (after much effort I would like to add!) and we cooked the feast, porterhouse steaks, chicken kebabs, steamed courgettes and mushrooms, corn on the cobs and the boys still had room to eat boerwors (beef sausage). Yum! It was an early night for all, as we had a 4:15am start to look forward to.

Day 15: Sunday 10^th April

Today began with a very very early start. Safari set off at 5am. It was so cold but worth it. The sunrise was stunning and we managed to get some great shots of some giraffe in silhouette against the sun.

Giraffes at sunrise

We saw so many giraffe, buffalo, impala, elephant and many more. We managed to get back to the resort in time for breakfast and to check out. 

Buffalo

We then drove across the park to Letaba, another resort. It has an amazing view across the river where you can watch elephants wading through the water. We then headed back towards the gate only to be stopped by a stubborn elephant. It seemed to be quite a young bull that enjoyed walking in the road. We stayed quite a distance from him as he started to get a bit aggressive. However a golf, hedged its bets and tried to get past the elephant, only to be chased down by it. Luckily the car got away. It was quite funny to watch. We saw many more elephants on our journey out of the park, including baby ones. It was quite an uneventful drive from the gate to Tzaneen and back to the hotel. We all had a relaxing evening back in the apartment preparing for a hopefully busy week ahead.

VW Golf trying to get round the elephant!

Zebra

 Day 16: Monday 11^th April
The timber arrived today!!! Wahoo!!!!! This meant that we could actually get on with the project and were not limited by the lack of materials or tools. The workshop was set up and after a little break to establish the most efficient way to use the timber we assigned teams to begin marking up with sections. It took a while for everyone to get their heads round the process but eventually the production line began to flow – marking, sawing, marking the holes, drilling and then placing ready for assembly. By the end of the day we had enough pieces to construct the first truss. Just placing it together to check everything was in the right place. Luckily it was so the process could continue the next day.

Alfie and Josh chilling out in their wheelbarrows

There was also a team working on the toilet block, digging the secondary trench to place the Ecosan toilets (composting toilets). It needed to go down to 1.2m so it was quite a challenge. The team did really well and managed to reach their target by the end of the day.

In the evening we all headed out to Mozambique restaurant at the dam for all you can eat prawns. Amazing!

Day 17: Tuesday 12^th April

Today was much the same as yesterday but at a faster pace. Everyone was getting the hang of the process of making the trusses. Lots of marking, cutting and drilling occurred. We managed to assemble one more truss completely, hitting our daily target and had a set of pieces ready to go for truss 3 for the following day.  We got hold of some clamps too which helped significantly as so much of the timber is bowed in odd directions. It’s quite a challenge to place a bolt through 3 pieces of timber, which have all been drilled separately. However, the assembly has been going quite smoothly and apart from a few missed holes, we haven’t had any major issues.  The majority of the week will be making the trusses. Phase 2 arrive on Thursday so we’re all looking forward to that. Sadly though that means phase 1 only have 6 days left in South Africa L

Day 18: Wednesday 13^th April

Today was a really long but productive day. Progress on site is speeding up and the students have been getting much more efficient with making the trusses. All the timber pieces have now been marked and cut and the final few are just waiting to be drilled. We managed to complete 4 trusses today, which means were on track to complete the 8 trusses (2 classrooms) by the end of the week.

The payment goat to be given to the village Chief

Today was also quite an eventful day as we got to visit the local secondary school and meet some of the students there. We were put in pairs and placed infront of between 50 and 150 students in a class. It was quite crazy and felt quite intimidating. I was partnered with Dave and luckily our class was quite well behaved. They asked a few questions about the project but wanted to know about the UK and our lives there. Our aim of the talk was to motivate them to stay in education and try and get into University. There were a few awkward moments and a couple of language misunderstandings but I think it went well. It was so crazy trying to leave the class and we received many thanks, hopefully we got through to at least one of them. I tried to take a photo at the end of the class and they all went crazy. They then proceeded to take lots of photos of me and the majority of them tried to shake my hand too. Dave had escaped and left me to cope with it all!

Back on site, the first concrete truck had arrived! Yay!!!!! Followed closely by the second. The slab began to come to life but by the time we had left site for the night, no more trucks had arrived so not sure what we’ll see when we get there in the morning…watch this space!