A Great Sunday at the CPC!

Sunday, July 10, 2016

Community Plumbing Challenge 2016

We were really pumped up after our wonderful welcome celebration in Diepsloot.  Our first stop on Sunday morning was mass at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, which is located in the compound where the Father Louis Blondel Centre has been established.  Worship was welcoming, energetic, and full of music and spirit.  The texts for the day were "Love Thy Neighbor as You Would Love Yourself and the story of the Good Samaritan--both extremely appropriate for the work we are involved in!

We also took our first "thank you sponsors pictures."  Yesterday was ASPE day for Team USA.  We will be showcasing our Legacy Sponsors all week--alphabetically, in case you were wondering about the method for our madness!

Work started right away on the designs that each team has developed.  It was a busy morning, cleaning out the concrete units and then starting to build the interiors.  One of the great things that happened right away was a wonderful synergy and collaboration between the teams.  We have a group with a lot of different skills and a wide range of experience this year, and everyone was learning from each other.

 Lots of digging and cutting and drilling went on!

After lunch, Lila and I got a wonderful opportunity.  Doug asked if we could go back into the community to "our" street to see if we could talk to some community members,  We got permission to go with a driver, a WASSUP member, and another visiting educator.  This was a great opportunity, because we are really stressing how important we think it is to put people first, as you know if you have been reading this blog as we have been getting ready to come to Diepsloot.  

It was Sunday, so there were lots of people on the streets.  We talked about some of the literature that I read during the morning which said that "The last Census estimated the population to be close to 300,000, the Mayor estimates about 450,000 and the locals claim that it is closer to 800,000, growing by 200 people a day."  (Wot-if? trust)  I asked our companions if they felt that was accurate and they said yes.  New arrivals are also allowed to stay in the community for two years without getting a job.

I find these numbers almost incomprehensible to think about, but it was easier to comprehend some of this while we drove through the streets.  Literally hundreds of people were walking along the road by the mall and across the fields where a new development is going to be built.  Lila and I asked where they were all going and we were told they were going to watch soccer!

There were some boys out on the street, so we tried to get them to talk.  They spoke almost no English, which is rare in our brief experience here (eleven native  languages are spoken right in Diepsloot), so we had some difficulty.  Another woman came by and was too shy to talk, but she went and found Amina, who was fabulous!

Amina and Lila and I had a great conversation about how the community would like to get involved in having their toilet reinstated--the two units we are working on have been out of use for four years. She talked about how the water faucets on the side of the units are generally used to take water back home--not used right on site.  She said that often taps are left on and water just runs.  She said that her neighborhood has meetings (it turns out she is a neighborhood chairperson) and that they would be willing to have a meeting to talk a bit this week about how they might want to prepare for the new unit.  Lila asked what color paint they might like--and out of this came a wonderful idea!  We said that if they tell us what colors they would like we will purchase the paint and the supplies.  She will call our WASSUP contact and tell what colors by Wednesday so we can go to the store.  In an ideal world we would like to paint together on Friday, but I don't think the timing is going to work out.  At the very least we will give a gift of the paint and supplies and some basic tools for upkeep of the unit.

Work progressed through the afternoon.  By the time it started to get dark everyone was really pleased by the accomplishments of the day and also thinking ahead to our presentations on Monday. 

We went back to the hotel and then the Team did some final revisions without us evil coaches.

Thank you to all of you for your support leading up to this experience, which is really changing us as much as this community!

Tomorrow I will write about presentations, the design workshop, and some of the people we have met at the Wot-if Trust.  It will also be thank you MCAA day!