Monday, July 11--Presentation Day

Monday, July 11 is our "Thank you to MCAA Day"  We appreciate all the support you give to us and to the industry!

Monday was presentation day for the teams.  The teams continued to work until it was their time to come in and present to WASSUP and HealtHabitat, who were our judges for the competition.
We added pictures and new material into our PowerPoint up to the very last minute because the Team kept learning things.  Team USA's presentation was great, and they fielded lots of good, constructive questions from the judges and others in the audience.

ALL the teams were relieved to have the presentation done though.  Big smiles all around.

After the judges had had a little time to talk, we reconvened for a session led by David Donald from HealtHabitat, who led us through a brainstorming/strategic planning talk about the different elements of the team's designs, including discussion of the doors, the locks on the doors, the outside water taps, and the plumbing of the units.

After lunch this conversation continued, while work went on outside.  One of the great things that has been happening this year is the collaboration and learning between the teams.  The team members have been able to help each other learn aspects of the job that they may have had less experience with, and everyone has been learning about safety, which has really been stressed this year.

Overall, a great day!  Things are really starting to come together.  All teams gathered at the bar of the Indaba Hotel in the evening  and then we had dinner in the hotel restaurant.  Team USA had great fun visiting with Stuart Henry, President of the World Plumbing Council and former Representative in the Australian House of Representatives.  It has been great to have Stuart here all week.

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!

No Better Day, No Better Place--Diepsloot, July 9, 2016

Day 1, July 9, 2016

Yesterday was a wonderful day.  Team USA had time to have a good breakfast and then practice their presentation a few times in the morning before the official activities of the day began.  We are all very happy with the way the presentation and our design are developing.  Then we had a quick lunch and visited with some of the other teams and with Dave Viola, from IAPMO.  It felt like coming home--and that was even before we got to Diepsloot!

At 1:00 PM we had a short introductory session to go over some safety and security guidelines and to meet the staff from WASSUP who will be with us for the week.  Then we were really on our way!

Our home base for the week is the Father Louis Blondel Community Centre.  We are guests of the Catholic church this week--we deeply appreciate their hospitality and their commitment to the Diepsloot community.  

Pictures  are courtesy of Gallo Images, taken by Lefty Shivambu.

We got our first look at the units that we will be working on this week, which really started to make this real.  

Then we had an opening ceremony, starting with a prayer by Father Isaac, and short speeches and introductions.  

Father Isaac

                         

David Donald, from Healthabitat

Father Isaac, the ladies of the 
Wot-if? trust, and WASSUP
representatives.

Then we got a surprise!  Christopher Rowan, the Consul General from the United States Embassy came for the afternoon.  We had a chance to talk with him and get pictures taken and he went into the community with us to see the sites where our refurbished toilets will be installed later in the week.

We talked to Mr. Rowan about the student from Fox Valley Technical College that we had a chanced to visit with earlier this spring.  We all laughed about how small the world is--he said that student has been participating in a nine-month leadership and community development program that he has been involved with.  

Driving through Diepsloot was fascinating.  It is very hard to do it justice because virtually every building has a wall around it.  I tried to take pictures as we drove down the very rutted--sometimes almost impassible streets--so that you can get even a small sense of what it is like to be here.

We tried not to take pictures of people on the street, so as to be sensitive to privacy and respect, so I know this looks pretty bland.  There were lots of people on the street because it was Saturday.  Lots of shops selling vegetables, clothes, everything you can imagine--people carrying live chickens home as well.  Doug said it reminded him a lot of Jamaica and Peru.

We also saw "our " street, where our units will go, with the existing inoperable units in place.  that certainly is a wake-up call about what we are working toward.

"Our" street had houses along the street, with the fences and barricades we are becoming accustomed to.  Children were running and playing in a stream of untreated water/sewage that was running down the middle of the road.  All four teams said they saw similar conditions as they went around town.

Our special guest, the Consular General, was splashed with unmentionables as we all tried to get out of the way of a car on "our" street.  Fortunately he said he is still interested in coming back later in the week to see our units installed.


In contrast, below are two pictures of brand new units.

After our tour we came back to the Louis Blondel Centre and had wonderful music and dramatic entertainment.

And then, this happened!

This appears to be what happens when Martha has her first Carling's Black Label since college!

Then it was time to go home, with the day rounded out by a demonstration and a vehicle stand-off as we left town!  All around, this was an exciting first day!

Tomorrow will be ASPE Day for Team USA, and we will have pictures of actual work being done!