Touching base with chesspark...

Yesterday was Tuesday, 29 May….
I decided to revisit Kwathema, curiosity and the sense of incompletion drove me to it.
Upon arriving at the chess academy, I felt the usual sense of urgency. It was soon broken..
Anthony Shoba was there with two other men…I greeted Anthony and acknowledged the others, Anthony warmly replied, “are you not going to greet the others”….I realized then that due to my hurried attitude I had forgotten my manners, not only in that moment but probably throughout the past few weeks.

With this realization I relaxed and sat down. One of the men, Rolly Xipu, expressed his enthusiasm about the work we had done, the other, Tshepo Matseme, a fellow chess tutor at the Kwathema Chess academy, dittoed that.

Anthony was glowing, I asked him about the event on Saturday. He said that the tournament was a great success and that had attracted lots of new enthusiasts, both children and adults. It was the first time he had hosted an outdoor chess tournament, there were 46 players in total, divided into categories of Under 9, Under 11, Under 13, Under 15, and Open.

Both Anthony and Tshepo have extended their passion of teaching and chess beyond the borders of the chess academy. Tshepo teaches chess at a school in Brakpan (a nearby suburb) and to private students. Anthony goes to the nearby Khangezile Primary school, where children remain after school to attend his lessons.
Anthony quotes “charity begins at home but it doesn’t end there.”
They tell me about the educational qualities of chess. Tshepo recalls the effect chess had on his high school career, he noticed that chess playing was improving his performance in mathematics, to such an extent that he received an 'A' in matric for it.
Anthony tells us about the importance of sport at school, it is one of the major elements that attract children to school, it gives them confidence in themselves.
He has big dreams, one of them is to extend the the chess academy into an after school education center where children have the space to do their homework and get assistance for subjects they are not particularly strong in. The other one is to see his students travel overseas to play tournaments, himself having never traveled that far.
Tshepo is an avid reader and we talk about the possibilities of bringing books and reading
into the academy.
By listening to these two men I realize how strong and important education and youth is to them. It is not just about getting good marks at school but about preparation for life as an adult. Those of us who have walked some of this journey, know that it is full of challenges which we are often not equipped for.
The ability to strategise, to be able to foresee the effects of choices, in times of decision making; to be able to know when to give something up and when to hang on to it.
Every game of chess is that and more and it has no detrimental effects if one doesn't win.
I believe that Anthony Shoba has linked chess with life and has therefore has so many children attending the chess academy. They are there, religiously, after school everyday playing game after game.

Anthony has shown them something that they know makes them stronger, he has shown them that each of them has a powerful mind.
It is 3 o'clock and Anthony is getting ready to go to Khangezile Primary to give a class on chess. He received a demonstration board from Carnival City (a local casino) to take with him. I ask if I may join him, he welcomes me.
We arrive at the school, there are about 20 students, mostly girls, all engaged in a game of chess. He takes out the demonstration board and the lesson begins, he is teaching in Zulu and in English, demonstrating 'castelling' on the board , he asks “why do we castle?”
A student puts his hand up in the air, and answers “to protect the king”.
Anthony is a natural teacher, it is evident that he is respected and reciprocally respects the youngsters, he has their undivided attention and interest...
I take some photos and, say ' salagahle' and leave feeling inspired with the knowledge that there are some amazing people in this world who are following their hearts and are sharing their dreams with others.

Launch

The launch of our projects happened this Saturday. I tried to write a blog on Sunday and found myself unable to do so.
The effects of the past weeks and the excitement of Saturday had not yet settled.
So here it is in retrospect...
Our work at the Chesspark in the early hours of the day was still not complete, the screed around the checkered board was wet and therefore could not be cleaned to it's glory, the tiles also needed some serious de-cementing. The tent for the chess tournament was in the process of being assembled and Anthony was busy organizing the day ahead.
The event started at the beerhall, at about 10:30 am, the structure is not used to being used at such early hours of the morning. It was shy against the blue backdrop of the sky...Physically it also possesses a nakedness which completely transforms into a playsuit as the sun starts it's westward journey.
We the went on a procession to all five of the individual projects which ended at the Chess Academy. By this time the chess tournament had started, the 46 players were organized at tables sitting under the canopy of the tent. The new shiny fibreglass pieces were set up on the chess board, waiting for the game to begin....
Anthony's dream had come true, the chess parks very own first tournament was in action... there was a break for the speeches. Anthony made us all aware of the interesting connection between Job Maseko, ( a south african soldier who had fought in the second world war and sunk a German submarine) after whom the street which the chess park borders is named after, and the funders of the project, the German humanitarians of the IFG organization. Talk about 6 degrees of separation...
We ate, boerewors with coleslaw and pap, prepared by Anthony's sisters Zanele and Thembi, and headed back to the beerhall....
Now that the sun was on it's way down, the beerhall had transformed into animated shadows and sounds created by the multitudes of children. It was overwhelming, the energy, the children were in a state of ecstasy, a giant playground was at their disposal and they were loving it with a passion...
A basket ball tournament was in action, music was playing from the first floor, numerous games were in place, incomprehensible by the adults yet fully felt....
Being a member of the chesspark group I take my hat off to the beerhall group...What they did there was cosmetic, practical yet most importantly they resuscitated the the spirit of place...
Not only that, they exorcised it from it's complex past, and it's violent activities into a space of play and positivity...
They had a lot of opposition from a number of bodies, yet their initial idea of playplace survived this and I believe it is through their conviction and suffering that the results have been and continue to be so positive...
There is a lesson to be learnt here, in terms of design and following through against all odds....
What I also loved about the beerhall group is that they represented and were a voice for the children without complicating it with the ego based ideas that grown ups tend to have....There was something very intuitive going on there, they took risks. From an outsiders point of view, I believe that their team was consolidated.... I would be interested to know how their team worked, how it was organized.
As for the chesspark, in many ways we had an easier brief, it was defined for us. Anthony had a master plan, we were there to execute it, which we did. Although the chessboard is an almost two dimensional space, it started underground... Most of us had never had the responsibility of starting a
site. It was not unlike picking up a pen for the first time and drawing. To dig the 52 square meter cavity into the ground 500mm deep, believe it or not, took courage....For Ma shobas shop and sign to rise 3 meters off the ground took courage....
We were not not alone, there was Solomon and Silias-Sunnyboy, the builders, and Phillip the welder who captained these structures into existence..
Without the volunteers and Anthony we would not of completed them in time. Ahaka, Karabo, Sifiso, Tom and myself were there to provide anything and everything that was necessary, from the physical labor to the vast amounts of materials which were needed.
Our group de-consolidated towards the completion of the elements as there was little planning of the launch from our side. That responsibility was predominantly taken by Anthony, Hannah, Peter and Tseleng....
Today is Tuesday, 3 days after the opening of the sites...I decided to go back to Kwathema as I had a feeling that there was something incomplete...not sure what it was I went anyway....

Cradle to Grave

This has been an awsum experience. You guys really dd a great job and I am proud to have been a part of it.
I was quite fascinated by the way you coordinated everything. There was no outright leader by\ut you all knew what roles you had to play and stuck to them, making everything run smoothly. I know you feel you could have done better, perhaps, but what you left us with is amazing. I will keep everyone posted about how things are going this side.

the launch was great, you guys are awsum!!!

reflections

i woke up this morning feeling lighter, with a smile on my face. i felt confident that we had succeeded in what we had set out to do. in retrospect, the launch didn’t perform as planned, but the organic evolution from what we had organized into what it rather wanted to become was satisfying. the children had delighted our jungle gym – and that was what we had strived for all along.

my family arrived at 10am and we set out on our way to kwathema. the drive was familiar and strange. i talked them through the project as we drove.

its our time. mr cindy was on site, watering. to my amazement, the whole structure was animated with little moving bodies. the activation of our space brought warmth to my body, all the while aching from the strangely situated bruises i had acquired along our turbulent journey.
it finally became clear to me. the success of this project was not by any means based upon the realization of ifg ulm’s designing politics brief, nor upon hannahs ephemeral agendas, and not even upon our group’s sometimes controlling and most-times sensible and aesthetic considerations. its success was based upon the subsequent appropriation of the space. our space. the community’s acceptance of it, in order to permit expressions of liberty and individuality.
what we strived for was a mouldable place; a jungle gym. an open-endedness rather than a prescription – a place where people would have a significant degree of agency over their environment.

today, a certain spirit was reincarnated, resuscitated. the little bodies energized with life, excitement, relief, liberation. their spirits lifted the heavy, smoky clouds of struggle, more so than the trails of traditional incense ever would, all swept away by the ever-persistent gushes of wind; that same wind that carried their unassuming kites across kwathema’s sunny skies.

initiations

A roof wetting is the end of the process of the design of a building. In recent times it suggests the passing over of the building from the control of the architect and builders to its owners. The practice apparently came from a medieval custom of throwing a party when the main roofbeams had been lowered together to meet. But there’s also the belief that after a roof was finished, the men would all drink a lot, climb the roof, undo their breeches, and collectively test its resistance to liquid. In Africa, new buildings are greeted with parties and acknowledgments to their ancestors.

Most cultures leave buildings to decay when their life is over. But sometimes there are more abrupt endings. In African practices of inititiation, the hut used to shelter initiates is burned down after they leave.

The beer hall has been initiated in this way before, in 1976, when the youth of KwaThema set it alight in protest against the state’s monopolist control of alcohol sales, and the destructive social patterns of institutionalized drinking.

By burning herbs gently in the corners of the building, the students and community suggested that the building was being renewed, while recalling, through the trails of smoke, some sort of connection to its previous lives.

The chess park is sited next to what was planned as a buffer zone to separate white owned land from the township. The symbolism of chess suggests both the blurring that warfare can bring about and the possibility of erasure, of one space being taken over by another. The resurgence of the little park around the chess board as a vibrant public space on Saturday was a vivid illustration of how the non-spaces of the modern apartheid city, spaces designed to separate communities and water down urban friction, contain the potential for a rich public life.

The launch on Saturday doesn’t end the KwaThema Project, but it marks a moment where the projects designed and executed by the students shift their status. The event suggested an appropriation, an incipient life for the spaces, that will unfold in ways we haven’t predicted. Already little traces have been left: someone wrote FALLEN HEROES on the road outside the beer hall, and already, someone else called for that same person to be arrested for recycling the beer crates.

The KwaThema project is a sort of initiation for the Wits students because in becoming an architect, you're considered wet behind the ears until you get your first building built. So the cause for celebration is multiplied.

I guess the conclusion this brings me to is the sense that you just had to be there. It was a great day in a wonderful project. We'll post all the thank yous over the next week when we finally recover.

the d-day

after only a few hours sleep, i rolled out of bed at 4:15am. i had to be on site by 6am to strike the shuttering for tagging kwathema. the volunteers i had employed were waiting diligently, in the blistering cold, smoky breaths and numbed hands.

after hours of manual un-screwing of the shutterwork, and many a curse to tom’s over-design, we finally struck the first bollard at 7:30am.

the morning became a blur. frantic rushing around, enough phonecalls to warrant shares in vodacom, cold sweat and aimless, nervous wandering around, finally brought us to 10:30am. the day progressed from the burning of traditional incense to the giant tournament at the inaugurated chess park, a raw piece of boerewors, a couple of ciders and then a rush of a million children to the oily snacks at the beerhall. hannah had suggested we serve bags of salted peanuts; we objected, once again, and were glad we had, once again…

the swarms of grubby children, pushing, shoving, biting, crying engulfed us. some older children took the lead with belts and loud voices. ONE LINE. ONE LINE. vetkoeks and hotdogs were dished out, one by one. tears welled up in a volunteer’s eyes at the sight of the last tray of food – children stared at us in desperation. the girls were submissive; the boys abusive and vexatious. maybe we were succumbing to the sympathy vote we have all been told about. the volunteers were mixed with emotion – angry at the disorder, traumatized by the aggression, saddened by the yearning for what seemed like such simple food, exhausted from little sleep and lots of policing.

my day was rounded off by a sneaky drink at stan’s. i felt guilty for abandoning my group in its final hour – but i did it anyway. the sun set and more and more people dribbled in. lawrence recited some poetry he had written about beauty, and phumi followed suit. we attempted some group poetry. once upon a time… there was a man… who came from kwathema… and decided… phillip, the chesspark welder didn’t get it. i would just like to thank everybody for… he kept saying at his turn. well I guess many thanks were in order for such a victory.

Launch Photos

(click for more photos from Saturday's launch)

Control

The big day arrived with an annoying alarm clock bleep, way too early for any sane person to wake up on a Saturday. We rushed off to KwaThema, and got straight into finishing the last few outstanding projects before the start of the launch. Gareth and I hung the mattresses, we all placed the rubbish bins, the grass was glued, and the basins were filled with bottle tops. The African Incense was placed and paint spills were removed. Catherine’s husband Harry arrived to start pinning up photographs and hoards of children looked on with eager, gruelling anticipation in their eyes.

Dennis arrived with his learners from Sakhelwe Primary School, and some of our respective family members arrived. Linda was still painting our paired project sign, much to Ahaka and my dismay, and we made the final arrangements with the Kwasa-Kwasa dancers and their performance for our paired launch.

In no time, the incense was lit and smoke streamed from the building as it once did in 1976. This smoke was cleansing, halting the decay of the building, symbolising its renewal. Catherine was spontaneously drafted into the cleansing ceremony. The choir sang while the smoke burned. A far cry from the violent scenes of rampaging students and screaming residents described by those who witnessed it’s burning. The building has been spiritually healed, its dark, rubbish collecting bowls are now alive with the laughter of children, no person holds the key to this door, it is held open by the spirit of community. In this project we rejected the idea of initially investigating what select individuals wanted to do with the structure, moulding our brief around a person. Instead we made a decision that seeing as though no individual owns the building, no individual should. I think we have saved it; we have saved its history and preserved its message. A building always represents its owner, their strength, choices and history. We have denied the beer hall this burden, and allowed it to represent itself.

We left the beer hall and visited the Recycling Container project. Ahaka and I said a few words, and the Kwasa-Kwasa dancers turned our brief about a dance which involves the recycling of rubbish into a sexy recycling saunter. They oozed and folded their way around the refuse area, flicking and twisting glass and cans into the right bins. They were fantastic, and the crowd seemed to love it. I am very happy with the outcome of our paired project. We supplied a brief to the artists and they returned a sign, full of their own interpretations. I am amazed at how Ahaka studied waste and I studied containers and our result was a piece of mural art, whereas Tom studied mural art, and Robyn studied open spaces and they produced a pavement element. We are happy that Stan will be able to make more money off recycling glass, that the park will now be a cleaner place, and that we’ve been able to organise refuse bins for the area.

We then moved onto the Robyn and Tom’s fantastic concrete plinth, Gareth and Sifiso’s brilliant, bright blue poles and Catherine and Kasia’s beautifully paved, almost mosaic intervention. We had lunch and speeches at a really slick looking Chess Park. The board was really iconic, full of activity, well made and very good looking, with the sign, equally as sexy, bold and striking. A taxi took us back to the Beer Hall which was full to the brim with children. I was very excited to watch them use the building exactly how we envisioned. They sat on the slab to watch basketball, with their arms resting on the middle bar of the balustrade, exactly why we designed it that way. They were having a fantastic time. We handed out eats and Coke to the masses of children, in huge queues and general chaos. Gareth ran a very successful basketball tournament. We cut the music at 6pm, cleaned up, and sat down at Stan’s for a completely hysterical drink with the volunteers. Then it was goodbye.

What an incredible day, such an unbelievable project, such a successful result. Today the building belonged to the children of KwaThema, in the evening it was the youth’s. One volunteer never saw the end of the revelries. He was arrested for stealing beer crates and pulling out flowers. Here ownership was enforced over the building; we all felt it shiver as the police approached. Today resembled its demise, police arresting a youth for being a nuisance, as in 1976. They were asked to come out by those who seem to have assumed an authority over the building. Control is a dangerous drug. What honestly gives them the right? Their involvement in the project.

The Great Trek through Kwathema

Mood: Hurray!

Song in mind: Rihanna-Pon de replay

Location: Chess Park

Mission: Walk to all sites and present final product

It was finally here. The opening day. One would have thought that this would be a day for resting and reflection, but nope, this wasn’t to be. 07:15am was the time we were on site. We could have been earlier if only we didn’t have to wait for Khula for half an hour.

First thing’s first, fetch grass for the mound next to the chess board, whilst the others continue with the cleaning up and sweeping away dirt off the chess board to make it look presentable for the official opening. So, there we were helping to put up the tent, cleaning the chairs, etc. The launch was only to take place at 10:30am.

The walk began at the Beerhall Masimini where Ahaka and Guy introduced their paired project as well, which brought awareness concerning the need to keep the park clean and recycle rubbish. Then, it was Sifiso and gareth’s project where poles at the civic centre were painted. The Great Trek landed up along job Maseko at Kasia and Catherine’s project where recycled materials such as existing and old rocks and glass saucers were used to upgrade the tuckshop stand. Then, it was off to the Chess Park where apart from the official opening, plenty of event were lined up such as the human chess game, dancing, lunch was to be hosted at Chess Park.

From there some people decided to view one more project, which was a project done by Khula and myself at Entokozweni Primary School where a safe children waiting area was created. the idea was to also allow the children to draw a hop scotch on the floor and create hand prints on the structure to personalize the space. Before the structure, a major concern was the speed at which cars pass by the school where kids play and wait. Our idea was to create a safe environment for the children since it is a space where they love spending time after school in any case.

I feel that the day was very successful and I am proud of being part of such a project. The experience was exciting but at times frustrating. I think that we have created ever-lasting friendships.

World shift

After not much sleep we left Wits at about 7.15am. At site, Robyn and her volunteers were unpacking her street sign from its shuttering. We had a list of things that still needed to be done. Gareth put up the no-dumping signs and started on erecting the mattress springs, though Guy took over from him so that he could do the beercrate panels. Guy, Robyn and I intermittently cut up and stuck the fake grass under the swings. A little bit of last-minute painting was done. At about 10am people started arriving. We were delighted to see Lone and Melinda drive up and then our families started to appear. I fetched Thuli, our traditional healer, from the market along with her sister and daughter and installed them upstairs. The choir kids who had been knocking about under the beady eye of their choir mistress got into position and we began just before 11am. The burning of the imphepo required my reluctant participation. We were pleased, though, with the idea of cleansing and new beginnings that this ephemeral ritual symbolised and the gentle, poetic echoing of the smoke that must have risen from this structure 31 years ago. Our three brief welcomes from Kwelemthini, Abedniago and Mr Cindi worked well to give the proceedings a slightly formal edge (the idea had been to have more relaxed festivities in the afternoon but a more solemn feel in the morning). We had also hoped that representatives of each of the main stakeholder groups would take some kind of public ownership over the beerhall by speaking. I was glad we’d decided that none of us should speak as it might have come off as being self-indulgent and self-congratulatory and in many ways the success of the project is really out of our hands by this point. Tseleng, our MC, forgot to announce the good news that it was 99% certain that the council would put lighting in the beerhall. (A barrage of phonecalls to Warren Mathers over the course of the week had resulted in an answer that his department would definitely reconnect the power and that they were sure they could also cover the cost of the lighting, the price of which they were waiting to hear from the civils department.) Then began the procession past the paired projects to the chess park. At ours, we asked KIbas and his friends to say a few words as just before the crowd had arrived they’d been saying that this project should be replicated elsewhere in KwaThema and in other townships, but when it came their turn to speak, embarrassingly Kibas just thanked us for what we’d done. Kasia and I had done our best to improve a space, acknowledging and appreciating fragile local economies and methods – but I still felt that all of out attempts to think about alternative ways of making and improving spaces should be seen as interim ones only that must one day soon be addressed properly by the authorities and thus superceded. I believe there is a risk in idealising the largely non-material, spontaneous infrastructures of townships because this amounts to sanctioning lack and inadequate provision, notwithstanding the fact that these are often accompanied by richly creative survival strategies.
The chess park looked spectacular – and the contest was in full swing. It was at this point that I realised that Khula hadn’t been at our site at all in the morning (and he wasn’t to come back to it in the afternoon). The formal proceedings seemed to be weighted towards the site on which they happened, which was quite sad and the chess park’s builders got a mention for their superb work but our subcontractors didn’t. Back at the beerhall, the planned programme of performances was wrecked by Lunga’s faulty sound equipment – we had some music but none of the nine singers and dancers could perform. It was a perfect, windless day, the first we’d experienced in KwaThema, and so kite flying was eliminated, though a few boys did bravely try. The basketball was at least a success with the prizes going to the professionals, friends of the guys whom Lawrence and I had found on Thursday. The music and activity, and perhaps mainly the swings, attracted a huge number of children from the surrounding areas. I had envisaged that the launch would involve adults as well as children but very few attended, despite lots of promises – perhaps they were as intimidated by the children as we felt! We were inundated with delirious small beings running up and down the stairs, queuing for the swings, and generally having a marvelous time. They were quite scary when it came to the handing out of snacks and coke, but a couple of teenagers appeared from nowhere and fiercely kept them in line.
In the late afternoon light, the red coke crates glowed. It struck me that we might have succeeded at setting out a stepping stone towards a redefinition of this area. We had certainly captured people’s imaginations – by the end of the seven weeks, we were being stopped regularly by passers by to find out what was going on and to discuss possibilities for the beerhall’s future. Its value seems to have suddenly been recognised by residents. It felt as though the beerhall, once invisible, had taken on a symbolic charge (although the strikingly iconic building always had a great power) and I hoped, perhaps naively, that the boy’s power salute might speak to people of action and agency. The visual language we used in the end might be seen as a combination of local methods and materials with an urban, modern twist to illuminate a giant piece urban furniture. There was probably very little about our scheme that spoke to logic or functional need, despite what the Germans had said about the finiteness of our design and its relationship to high modernism – it combined a single practical element (the balustrade) with memory, whimsy, porosity. It allowed for contingency and change; it did not fix meaning.
The whole area was littered with cups and peanut packets by about 5pm and not many of the kids were interested in helping to clear up. Once Lunga switched off the music, though, and Thabang announced hometime for the children, there was a little more peace and the ANCYL guys started up the party again. After re-erecting the danger tape to protect the grass and generally tidying up, we retired to Stan’s for a much-needed drink and some left-over vet koek with the chess park guys. A congratulatory sms from Lone came as a nice surprise. After persuading the poets, Lawrence, Mpumi and Tseleng, to do their thing since they hadn’t had a chance earlier, we had a raucous time making up bad poetry together.As I write this, I feel as though my world has shifted, that things won’t be quite the same again. I have learned so much about so many things. New possibilities for practice have been opened up. I have become more enchanted than ever with the dynamics of group work. It will be strange not to spend every free second thinking about KwaThema.

Launch Day

Launch day at last! I’m a little worried about today. There’s still a little bit of work to do this morning so we arrived early. The launch is only starting at 10h30 so we’ve still got a couple of hours to finish up.

The main task is to install the mattress screens which I don’t think will take too long, and to erect our beer crate walls. We worked to long and hard last night to leave them out so this is a big priority for me!

After about half an hour of dangerous balancing on beams I had finally got the mattress screens hanging from the top beams. Now all Guy had to do was tie them into the bottom beam and we’d be one step closer to finishing. Next was the beer crate wall- I had no idea how to tackle this task, I was tired and not in the mood for another big job, especially this close to the launch. We decided due to our time constraint that we would fix the beer crate screen into position temporarily and the come back later next week to fix permanently into position. With the muscle power of Wandile, Lawrence and Khula we eventually had the screens in position- with a few pieces of wire to hold the crates in position we had finally finished the beerhall for the launch. I let out a huge sigh of relief that it was over- my relief didn’t last however because we still had to get through the day.

The launch started off at the beerhall were the choir that Guy and Robyn had organised began to sing. Inscense was burned and a welcome address was delivered by Tseleng. I was completely overwhelmed at the turnout of people. The beerhall hasn’t been this popular since 1976! It was so great walking around bumping into people and having them tell you what a great job we had done- all that hard work was well worth it!

We spent the next hour or so moving through everyone’s individual projects. I think all the projects were well received. The dancers were pretty good and they really helped to build quite an electric atmosphere.

After the chess park was officially launched it was time for a well deserved lunch. Pap and Wors was the order of the day. No time to site around though because we had to rush back to the beerhall before everyone else arrived. We needed to do a few last minute preparations. I began organising the basketball teams for the afternoon. The teams were, representing the chess park were Ahaka and Karabo. Representing the beerhall, Khula and myself. Representing the volunteers were Wandile and Phumi. The star attraction were two semi-professional basketball players, Ayanda and Mussa. This was going to be a great competition. Khula and I were desperate to beat the chess park guys- our pride was at stake! It was a tight game with both teams wanting to win but it was Khula’s free throw in the remaining minutes of the game that clinched victory for the beerhall!
Wandile and Phumi provided a humorous but solid opposition to Ayanda and Mussa but in the end it was the professionals that took the win!

It was late in the afternoon when the basketball came to and end and it was high time I sat down with the guys and had a well deserved beer at Stan’s. Never has the company been better or the beer tasted so good. Beer bottles were lightly banged together for a job well done.

To all the volunteers- Wandile, Lawrence, Thabo and Phumi- you guys are awesome! It’s been great working with you on this project.

XL

Hip Hop is a culture characterised by bass-oriented music (rap), exaggeration of material wealth, and baggy clothing.
Since I'm a fan of rap music I have a few items of clothing which are baggy. This clothing became very useful on wednesday (the day after the coldest day of the year). I was able to execute triple-layering of clothing yet still move freely. I had two pairs of cotton pants underneath my baggy pants. And two cotton tops underneath my baggy top.

When a certain culture doesn't make any sense to you, don't dismiss it before dissecting it. You might find that there is a part of it which can come in very handy sometimes.

"Hallellua, Ons is amper daar..."

Mood: Can't wait
Song in mind: Mariah carey-I'll be there
Site: Entokozweni Primary School
Mission: Laying screed and drawing 300x300mm lines

One day before opening day and we still had to lay the screed and draw the 300x300mm expansion lines. We wanted to get the structure to a presentable state for Saturday and we were running out of time fast since it's Winter and days are shorter. Thami managed to lay the screed, however, the 300x300mm expansion lines left a lot to be desired and we committed ourselves to redoing the screed in the following week. The idea is for the children of Entokozweni Primary School to paint the hop scotch, hand prints and other adverts as a form of personalisation.

Late Night Crates

Catherine and I left Wits this morning, and made our way to the Carnival Mall in Benoni, we were on a morning of errands, We were at the mall to buy prizes for our Basketball challenge at the launch, we were very lucky to find two well priced Nike sports bags. They will definitely do. Then we went to a nursery somewhere out in some obscure farmland where a lady with a beehive haircut sold us more vygies. Our adventure then took us into Springs on a mission to find shackles for our swings, well we toured the town, twice, and eventually found them after brief confrontations from an ogre looking man and a very sassy sales assistant. Then we had to collect our sponsored Coke from a depot in Nigel. They had might as well refer to Nigel as half way to nowhere, because that’s exactly where we went. In the middle of a dead maize field, in what must have been planned as an industrial development, which no one but Coca Cola and a dead maize field saw as a viable place for development. Catherine and I were intrigued to be sent away from the depot to collect our Coke elsewhere. They no longer do wholesale because of rampant crime. We both looked at the dead maize as we drove out of the depot wondering where the criminals were and why they would rob a place so far from any obvious human habitation.

We finally got to KwaThema at 12:00, where Gareth and Robyn had been preparing an argument as to why the swings should be positioned where they want them. We were frightened by their enthusiasm and newly developed upper body strength so we relented. The rest of the day was filled with controlled mayhem as we rushed around completing everything for the launch tomorrow.

At the Recycling Container site, our painter Linda had not yet arrived, and had finished about 10% of the sign. In our complete panicked hysteria, Ahaka managed to find an excellent artist, Wilson and we immediately employed him. By the time he reached the site, Linda had too, so we had two artists completely reinterpreting the sign, but managing to complete it. They worked until 9pm that evening.

I have no photos of today because of the amount of work we had to achieve, from last minute painting, to the erection of the basketball hoop and general cleaning up. We managed to fix the swings, which look fantastic and left the mattress, fake grass and beer crate wall fixing for tomorrow morning.

Well our day didn’t end as most have, it reached 6pm and we didn’t go home but moved to the back of Mr Cindy’s house with a mass of about 60 beer crates. Here, armed with a drill, hundreds of nuts and bolts and a quartz each, we set about building the beer crate walls. It was utterly chaotic, but we managed, emerging cold, slightly bruised, yet determined, straight backed and glossy eyed.

Tomorrow it all comes together.

The final week

This last week has been a cold blur. On Monday morning the light was clear and sharp as I drove to varsity – the maximum was meant to be 12 degrees and it got even colder on Tuesday. We achieved a huge amount, though, and somehow managed to get to a point very near to the level of completion we were aiming at, though I guess a few loose ends and some open-endedness would not be seen as a bad thing. We got through the week with the help of kotas for lunch which was Gareth’s suggestion and find - they were a good antidote to the cold weather - and with sweet, creamered coffee from the Cindis. It became harder and harder to give tasks to the ANCYL – for some reason I really felt this during this week, perhaps because the pressure was on and I was constantly aware of the fact that everyone needed to be as efficient as possible. The beginning of the week was marred by the fact that both steel deliveries (the long pieces previously ordered from Fleet Steel and the flat and round bar from Mac Steel) delayed January’s welding work. When it arrived, things progressed smoothly with Gareth and January collaborating on a fantastic floating fixture on the stair balustrade. Khula pulled his weight and got going with the lines for the basket ball court. The landscaping also really took shape with the first delivery of crusher stone on Monday proving to us that we needed to address the area on the south east of the beerhall with more grass and stones. When it was complete, we were very pleased with the integration of the scheme into the landscape. Unfortunately over the weekend someone had, according to Mr Cindi, out of jealousy pulled out some of the vygies donated by Peter – an indication perhaps of other claims on the site within the community.
An interesting event was a meeting that I went to on Tuesday afternoon with Mr Cindi and Stan with Tshidi Mohlabane, the regional executive manager of SRAC for the eastern region of Ekurhuleni. They had had dealings with her when she’d been a manager in KwaThema and we went on the pretext that we still hadn’t had the large pile of rubble removed. However, I suspect that their motives were somewhat different as she belonged to the wrong department to do anything about this. Just before we went into the meeting, they told me not to mention the KwaThema Working Group or Kwelemthini or Stuma. Mohlabane was enthusiastic about the project but extremely concerned that we had not gone through the correct procedures to obtain permission for it. I felt that the meeting was a mistake and that there was the possibility of her shutting us down, while Stan and Mr Cindi held that as soon as she saw it she would fall in love and wouldn’t be able to stand in our way! They admitted to me that they wanted someone to adopt the project to ensure its success.
On Wednesday, Robyn started painting the tyre bollards; this little bit of articulation made a huge difference, and Thabang and Lungu completed the job on Thursday. They also helped me to paint the lines across the road between the swings and the trees. In fact, painting got underway in a big way with undercoats being done on the sides of the concrete blocks on the ground floor and the slabs in the landscape out to the north of the building. We also decided to play with the basketball lines, extending them beyond the constraints of the ‘court’. Mr Cindi stepped in to do the undercoats on the basketball backboard. By Thursday morning, everyone had a task, and there was a hum of activity accompanied by loud reggae from one of the houses nearby. At mid morning a man in a BMW sped up followed by a front end loader and an enormous truck. A visit from a bus load of councilors the previous morning seemed to have galvanised someone into action and this man whose company was contracted to the council was sent to help us out. The huge pile disappeared, as did the areas of rubble dumping to the north of the structure, and the lumps of earth at the vehicular barrier to the south, but it took several loads. We replaced the concrete lumps in a more orderly fashion, and Thabang in fact managed to create very low benches by laying pre-stressed concrete beams across the other rubble. This was a great improvement and was later painted, though it turned out to be pale pink the next morning! The bins and no-dumping signs that Guy had ordered arrived. We managed to source crates for our panel from Simon at the Mississippi Tavern on Thursday, getting ten then and there, and having the others promised to us the next morning. We set about working out the details of their fixing and bought the required materials. Fischer sent an agent to help us install our abacus with chemical mortar and it almost immediately had a group of children playing games on it. By Thursday, Veli’s fabulous mural of the power salute from the 1976 uprisings had been completed and he moved onto painting all the particpants’ names on a beam along the side of the court. We came up with an idea of changing the painted advert ’IT’S MILLER TIME’ on the west side of the building to ‘IT’S YOUR TIME’ or ‘ITS OUR TIME’, eventually settling on the latter – a variant of Kwathema’s ubiquitous speaking walls. Veli did this early on Friday morning in a quite translucent red which gave the impression of it having been there for some time. From time to time groups of kids would appear as spectators and either watch or help – often I pulled out the black dustbin bags and got them to pick up the never-ending stream of litter.
At the Thursday braai, our group felt quite hard done by (as usual?): there was no plan for the snacks promised to our site for the afternoon, despite my having asked whether we had to organise these ourselves and being told we didn’t. Also, Hannah objected to our initiative to have Kwelemthini address the beerhall crowd briefly early in the morning. The promotion of Anthony’s chess academy is indisputably crucial, but it seemed as though this was being done at the expense of our project. On Friday, therefore, we organised that Lizzy would do the catering and Hannah fortunately gave us the go-ahead.
Through all this, our paired projects were progressing too. Kasia had found a builder through the Chess Park called Richard who would work for R150 a day. The previous week we had discussed our ideas and so he began on Monday shifting the large pieces of concrete around and preparing the soil for the paving and slab we were going to throw. On Wednesday, Kasia and I placed the plates that she had got from Liebermann Pottery plus some small blue tiles that I had on the new slab, while one of Kibas’s friends chatted to us about how this decoration was going to attract women to their stall! The whole process of the construction of what amounted to an extended plinth around Kibas’s stall was a very organic, responsive and flexible one, with Kasia and I talking through things constantly and changing things as other possibilities arose. The notion of reusing all the rubble on the site rather than dumping it in another inappropriate place grew out of this so in the end, Richard was commissioned to use the rubble as a hard core of sorts for another screeded slab on the south of the stall, where we placed more plates. The trees were happily planted, though they were looking as though the cold might have got to them. The last touch was crusher stone to form a driveway for the carwash, and a specific request for a spot to shine the cars’ tyres. Towards the end of the week, I was very neglectful of the project in the face of the pressures of the beerhall and I’m afraid that Kasia carried it substantially.
Friday saw Guy and I race around trying to buy the last items needed on the east rand which included prizes for the basketball competition and collecting the donated coke which Robyn had organised for the launch from Nigel. I also, probably rather impertinently, went along to the muti market near Cash Build and found a traditional healer who was prepared to help with the ritual of cleansing the building. On Friday night we sat in Mr Cindi’s back courtyard until 10pm bolting together the panels of red beer crates (and sharing beers) so that they could be erected in the morning. When we left we saw that someone had painted a message in the road in front of the beerhall about fallen heroes.

T-Minus One

T minus 1! Last day of work! I don’t know how we’re going to finish today. I need to get the balustrade finished. We’ve got a few more pieces to weld so I’m confident we’ll have it finished by lunch time or just after. My worry is the basketball board, the mattress screens, the swings… oh and the beer crate screens! So much to do, so little time.

Our group called a meeting shortly after lunch to deligate tasks to everyone working at the beerhall. I had to finish the balustrade, drill holes and install the mattress screens, drill holes into the concrete beams for the swings and try and install this massive, heavy basketball board. This is all overwhelming and I’m sure everyone you speak to will tell you that I wasn’t very talkative this afternoon. I had my tasks and I just wanted to get them done- I was running around like a headless chicken.

After completing the balustrade I quickly installed the 5th and final prop. One task down! Now to drill the holes for the swing brackets. This should have been an easy job because I had become quite an expert at drilling holes into this super strong 40MPa concrete but the task took longer than expect because the concrete was so hard in this area. The battery for the drill that we borrowed from Fisher wasn’t lasting more than 4 holes so I had to keep charging it which just took time and added to my stress. In between the charging of the drill and the drilling I helped Wandile, Khula and January with the installation of the basketball board and hoop- this was actually a surprisingly easy job- we procrastinated on this job for so long because we anticipated it being a nightmare task but once we actually came to install it, it was a very smooth easy job.

Finally I installed the last swing bracket and it was time to hang the swings and see how the children would like them. The second we hung the first swing we had children flocking! The swings were an instant hit and kids were fighting each other for a chance on the swings!

With the day quickly coming to an end we realized we didn’t have a beer crate wall. We discussed this idea amongst our group and decided that the idea of this screen is far too important to leave out. We had to stay in KwaThema and get these crates fixed together. I honestly didn’t anticipate this job taking a long time but after a long struggle in the cold air of Mr. CIndi’s courtyard we eventually had the job done by about 22h00. I was exhausted, cold, dirty and incredibly hungry. I just wanted to get into bed and pass out for the next couple of days.

Friday-Ses'figile

Mood: Can't wait
Song in mind: Mariah carey-I'll be there

Location: Chess Park

Mission: Remove rubble and clear up site

We spent time on this day, clearing up the site in preparation from the opening ceremony the following day. First thing in the morning, I took the car to purchase some grass for the mound we wanted to have next to the chessboard, unfortunately, the place was closed and had to try the following day.

loose ends

catherine and guy spent the morning on a mission to tie up loose ends. they collected the coca-cola donation just around the corner in nigel! they bought nike tog bags as prizes for the basketball games, shackles and contact adhesive for our astro turf. they arrived back at site just before lunch.

we ordered kotas lunch from our new favourite shop across the road from stan’s container. catherine had decided that we needed enhanced sustenance in order to get through the day’s tasks. there was a lot to accomplish. our launch is tomorrow and we had an a4 list of things-to-do.

i wrote a list of tasks after lunch and assigned jobs to all of our volunteers, our anc youth league heroes and ourselves. the afternoon was productive but haphazard. i spent a lot of time overseeing work and answering questions. the team worked flat-out until sunset. we had made a huge dent in the list. still outstanding however, was the erection of the mattress springs and the beercrate walls and the fixing of the astro turf.

a group powwow assumed to assess our progress. catherine suggested we stay in kwathema to assemble the beercrate panels. reluctantly we agreed – we had all known that it was inevitable but had all tried to evade the issue.

we assembled the beercrate walls until 10:30pm. mr cindy’s family made us instant coffee and tseleng, who needed a lift back to the city, told us of the aphrodisiac-properties of peanuts. we were glad we objected to hannahs suggestion of providing peanuts as the sole snack for the beerhall launch! tseleng took orders for quarts and traversed the dust bowl to stan’s container in the smoky darkness. we had not eaten, bar a couple of packets of spar maries catherine had stashed in her boot – her motherly instincts always seem to pay off in times of desperation! deliria and fatigue began to set in under the glary halogen spot mr cindy had perched on a chair. insects swarmed the warmth of the globe. we battled, tired, for the spacer guy had made. it was never anywhere to be seen.

hannah was expecting us at the friday session with rene spitz from ifg ulm and then in fordsburg for dinner at bizmullah and finally at the femi kuti concert at mary fitzgerald square. we sms’d her, but she didn’t respond. i guess she was disappointed that she would have a small turn-out from us again, but we had more important things to do – we had two beercrate walls to finish.
we left mr cindy’s feeling exhausted but relieved - we had completely underestimated the time required to assemble 48 crates. all that was left now was for our macgyver-gareth to fix the panels to the concrete structure in the morning. the end seemed nearer; i felt more excited about tomorrow than i had – everything seemed to have come together.

acceleration

after a 2am night and 5:30am morning finishing the shuttering, tom and i headed for the cement and concrete institute in midrand to pour our concrete. we had arranged the session with mathews, their education facilitator. he had obliged and agreed to supply us with concrete and a set accelerator as we had to strike the moulds in two days!

the cnci workshop was surprisingly sterile and clean and organized. mathews seemed very knowledgeable and advised us on a 3:3:1 mix. it seemed too dry but tom assured me it wasn’t.
the work was physical and heavy. my knuckles were battered from last night’s shuttering assembly. the cuts were raw and scabs struggled to latch on as i scooped aggregate, sand and cement into buckets. we worked hard and fast in order to get back to kwathema at an hour reasonable to complete some tasks.

after mixing 36 buckets of stone, 36 buckets of sand, 12 buckets of cement and 26.4 litres of water in 12 batches in the mixer, the moulds were filled. the vibrating table was rigorous and bucked like a rodeo bull. tom, mathews and another man transferred the 100+ kg moulds onto a trolley for relocation to the store.

we left the cnci just before lunch and raced back to kwathema.

i arrived to find much progress. white lines were being painted across the tar towards our trees, the concrete slabs were being primed, the tyre bollards had been completed, a fischer representative was on site chemical mortaring the abacus rods into the brickwork and a front-end loader was roaring across the adjacent site dumping rubbish into a tip truck. veli was completing the beam of names and was soon to move onto the donors logos. i was relieved that i had such a motivated and focused group.

children had begun to gather at the abacus and as soon as permissible, started a game of spin-the-block. they jumped and high-fived and shouted.

i slotted in by attempting to assemble the tyre fixings that had been delivered by fischer. fischer had been so reliable and accommodating and so unexpectedly generous. guy and i battled with alignment and gareth drilled the holes. hannah arrived and commented on the handrail. she said she quite liked the yellow colour of the steel primer. she said it was far more discrete than the red would be.

catherine started to black-out miller for veli to write our. it finally seemed that we were generating big developments.

we headed back to johannesburg satisfied after making such big strides.

Red Oxide

Mood: Anxiety
Song in mind: Hillsong-Glorify your name

Location: Chess Park

Mission: Create a stoop around chessboard

Today, we were continuing with the stoop. In order for the stoop to be red, red oxide can be applied over it, which will over time be polished and becomes part of the concrete surface. We also prepared the area in front of the clubhouse to screed it and apply a red oxide onto the stoop. One of our concerns was with the edge of the stoop, therefore we decided to plaster the edge and apply red oxide onto it too.

Recycling

Today was a day of much activity. The morning started with a visit from Busi, a representative of The Glass Recycling Company. She was here to meet Stan and me to discuss his options in operating a glass collection facility in KwaThema. She was most positive about Stan’s position and felt that her board would approve the application which Ahaka and I draughted for him. In organising the skip, Stan would have an additional form of income and the community would have a real alternative to dumping their glass, or throwing it away in their general rubbish. Stan spoke about a person he would employ to collect glass, thus spreading his earnings further into the community. We were very happy with Busi’s visit as she showed some real commitment and belief in the viability of the recycling of glass next to the beer hall site.

As soon as Busi left, Dudu arrived with her assistant from Mondi Recycling. They were here to head our recycling workshop. In no time, around 100 Grade 6 learners, accompanied by their headmaster Dennis, joined us from Sakhelwe Primary School. They sang songs and thoroughly enjoyed Dudu’s talk about recycling waste and saving the environment.

The rest of the day was spent on various projects around the beer hall. We managed to finish the basketball lines, the props were finally painted, the balustrade was almost completely up and we received the first few beer crates from the Mississippi Tavern, down the road. Catherine finished the painting of the road stripes which stretch out to the next park and the concrete plinths in the landscape were also painted.

We were extremely relieved when a front end loader and a massive truck arrived to remove the mountain of rubbish. They worked for a long period, and made a great difference. Fischer also joined us today to chemical mortar our abacus which looks completely fabulous. Each face of each block is a wonderful piece of work, I could spend a long time looking at the paintings which the children did on our blocks at the workshop. We finished the day at Stan’s, as we do every Thursday, discussing the launch.

Interview Sound Clip:

http://web.omnidrive.com/APIServer/public/z6wuGYW3nhTkLJbpd8agz2yP

Busi, The Glass Recycling Company visit.

Stanley Sibanyoni on ownership of the Beer Hall.

Street pause progress!!!

Richard, the builder who is implementing our ideas is on our wavelength....he pauses with us when we hesitate and understands our inpromptu thoughts.

When we( Catherine and I) first arrived at Kibas's stall, we had no idea how we were going to integrate our paving and tree idea into the site....

We paced our site, observed and discussed, backwards and forwards until we realized that most of our materials and ideas were staring us right in the face...

The concrete lintols which lay there in an uneven fashion were there for a reason, they are steping stones to the slab and act as a platform for drainage.

We wanted to level these lintols so that they would form a level surface, and add paving to increase the surface area, as the stall has the double function of acting as a shop and a gathering spot for his friends.

Next to the stall is a pile of rubble. Rubble attracts rubish, so this space has naturally become an informal dustbin... At first we wanted to remove the rubble and 'dispose' of it.

A fine idea yet, disposing in Kwathema often means dumping onto another site... We decided to break this cycle and start thinking how we can use the rubble on the site. With the help of Richard we are going to use the rubble( which is mostly stones and broken pieces of concrete) to make another slab...In it's place we are putting a dustbin...

We have had a lot of luck with aquiring the materials.... Mrs. Pemba from Pemba hardware, gave us 335 brocken clay bricks and Adrian Turgel from Liebermann Pottery gave us about 100 ceramic saucers....These, together with blue tiles we cast into the concrete slab....

We had so much fun designing the pattern, as the saucers came in different colours...

Catherine aquired some trees from the council, we picked two Sycamores for our site...

Divine intervention

Mood: Anxiety

Song in mind: Hillsong-Glorify your name

Site: Entokozweni Primary School

Mission: Complete Seating and surface bed

Glory to God, when we arrived on site in the morning, we found a third person working. It had become clear that our original bricklayers didn't have the skill of laying bricks. Thami took over the project as if it was his own; talk about self-employment. He completed the seating and managed the mixing and pouring of the surface bed. We finally had hope that we could actually see the project fulfilled by opening day, which is this coming weekend.

Getting Warmer

It’s starting to warm up a little now. I was pleased for this because my hands were really sore the previous 3 days this week due to working in the cold with no gloves. Bring on the warm weather- I’ve had enough of this cold now.

A lot happened on site today. The balustrade was going very well. We started installing some of the round horizontals into the balustrade and this made the balustrade look ‘the business’! I especially like how light the balustrade reads in the context of the building- this is exactly what we wanted to achieve in our design and I got a good feeling knowing that we had achieved that.

A huge front end loader was on site today cleaning up the big mound of rubble that had been left after the last front end loader was on site. It was so great to see that disgusting mound of rubble and rubbish getting smaller.

I finished installing the remaining 2 long props and I have to say- they look great! I can’t wait to see them painted. I think Guy shared my same enthusiasm for the painted props because as soon as he got to site this morning he began priming the props for paint.

white on black

gareth and i met at build plumb and tile. he bought blue paint for his paired project. i ordered the final shuttering and polystyrene required for our tagging kwathema moulds. mario was very obliging and outstandingly helpful after last saturday’s abacus-blocks delay. laserfab called to notify me that our steel alphabet was ready for collection. we went to kwathema via troyeville to collect them. they were so perfect and slick and exactly what i had hoped for. each letter was individually labeled and packaged. rupesh and flavio had been so obliging and generous with our tight deadline and minuscule budget. catherine and guy went to kwa thema via kerry at fischer to collect another fifty anchor bolts.

on site, i assumed the role of tyre-bollard painter. the wind was relentless - we had strung up danger tape around our new grassy oasis and it flapped in the wind like the black bag kites. the noise was so serene and surreal. i felt calm and content. i was the sole proprietor over my bollards; my own agent. nobody to consult and nobody consulting me. my mind was still and my concentration intense. the tape oscillated insistently with the rhythms of the wind.

i completed the khumbuza street bollards and surrendered to the battle of the wide brush upon the narrow treads. the white on black.

Step & Hop in the process...

Mood: Tired

Song in mind: Brian McKnight-Back At One
Site: Entokozweni Primary

Mission: Finish surface Bed

We had to complete the surface bed and lay bricks in for seating before the end of the day, however, we were delayed by the amount of digging we still had to do. We used bricks to create the edge of the slab in order to prevent it from cracking when stepped on. The idea is to create a set of seats that are of different heights which first of all accomodate different scales of school children. This also accomodated proper seating for the lady selling sweets after school. The smaller seat next to the road is made to allow a door of a car to open towards it and this allows a scholar to easily take a step to get into the car.

Creating a Stoop

Mood: Tired
Song in mind: Brian McKnight-Back At One

Location: Chess Park

Mission: Create a stoop around chessboard

In order to create the stoop we will need plenty of riversand and c ement which is mixed with water. The idea of the stoop is to provide an area where the competitors may stand as they await for the other player to make the next move. Why a stoop? It is because of the connotation to the culture found in townships, where a stoop is seen as a threashold and a gathering space.

LUNCH!

This is what we have been eating for lunch over the past weeks.

It has caused some disputes in our group as to which are the best

"quatas" and where to get them from....

Karabo insists on travelling to the far end of Kwathema for his favourite.

They do take a bit longer to prepare, yet I have to agree with him they are

tastier than the ones closer to the chess park!

Black on Black

Catherine and I dashed off to KwaThema this morning after picking up the last batch of our bolts from the fantastic people at Fischer-Upat. We arrived in KwaThema at around 9:30. We started the morning by spreading out our new crusher stone delivery, and laying bricks for a small one course wall which will stop the stone from spreading everywhere. January, our welder, continued with the hand rails and I began to paint the steel undercoat with Lawrence, a volunteer.

Lots happened today. Veli, the painter completed our Power-Salute mural and began to paint the names on the beam. January and Gareth managed to get quite far, finishing another prop, installing two stair uprights and welding on a few more lengths of hand rail. Khula continued with the basketball lines. Robyn made a great dent in the white stripe painting of the tire bollards; they look really beautiful and simple. The white line will also act as a warning for motorists who speed around the corner. We had our no dumping signs delivered today which was really exciting. The beer hall is really coming together, it’s bold, strong, iconic form is being moulded and heightened. The building’s history is evident in the surfaces remaining in the building, the bricks we’ve used to pave, the powerful mural.

Ahaka managed to bolt up the sign boards onto Stan’s container this morning, our sign painter Linda was there punctually and immediately started his undercoat.

The struggle which has emerged around the beer hall is very interesting. I had a very positive, yet angry, conversation with a community member who was appalled at the idea of us leaving the building once it was complete. Mr. Cindi assured him that he would look after it and that any kind of vandalism would result in a ‘black on black’ confrontation. This community member referred to a contestation between himself and a tavern owner on development of the building in the past. It’s all great that everyone seems to have very ambitious plans for the beer hall; I just wish they would see that it is of historical significance, and should therefore not be altered significantly. It is also in a semi stable condition which wouldn’t allow for serious occupation unless mountains of repair work to the concrete was completed. A new building elsewhere might end up being easier.

This evening I was standing alone, taking photographs of the building, when I was confronted by an interested man. He claimed to have wanted to have been a part of the project, but just hadn’t had the time. He expressed his enthusiasm for the work that we were all doing but became quite angry and violent when he worked out that we didn’t have any long term management plan for the beer hall. He referred to his community as a something parasitic and expressed that the community was still suffering as a society in a post-violent state. He certainly had some violence issues to confront, in the way in which he spoke to me. I am very interested to see what happens to the beer hall after we leave. A building designed to now function under the ownership of the whole community will undoubtedly be seized by an individual or group. I have a strong inclination as to who that might be.

We have been promised that our 4m high rubbish pile will be removed tomorrow morning, fingers crossed tightly.

Interview Sound Clips:

http://web.omnidrive.com/APIServer/public/z6wuGYW3nhTkLJbpd8agz2yP

A Parasitic Community

Video:

23 May 2007 (low quality)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuWTgL96pfk

Braving the cold and reality!

The passion is so evident at the chess park, even in the bitterly cold weather, the kids are playing hard and the volunteers working away at the chess board.
Sometimes I forget what it is all about, I get so absorbed with the making of this chess board and the logistics of it.
The board, rising just a few centimeters off the ground is a symbol of something very big in this community... It is of sharing, participation, commitment, reliance, acceptance, togetherness...
It is potent. It is a neighbourhood... and it is wonderful to be a part of it, even if it's only temporary.
Driving home today, I realized that the last few weeks spent in Kwathema, has created a shift in the way I percieve reality...I have had to adapt myself to the world of kwathema..... adapt to living in a neighbourhood...My pretentions are falling away, as here there is no space nor tolerance for them. I think people can see right through me... It is wonderful and frightening at the same time.

There is a lot of intuition at work.... When Tom designed Ma Shobas corner shop, he based the size of the slab on the existing timber structure. After we had laid out the tiles for the chessboard, there were a few left. Those few fit absolutely perfectly onto the slab of the corner shop....I was amazed... Proportionally it is perfect relative to the board...

Blur

I met Robyn early this morning at Build, Plumb & Tile near Cresta where she was buying materials for her shuttering for her paired project. I needed to find a specific colour of enamel to paint my poles for my paired project. I was at Cashbuild in KwaThema yesterday and they didn’t stock the colour that I wanted. After a brief search at Jack’s Paint in Cresta I found the paint I wanted. I had to get it back to site ASAP so that Lunga and his crew could start the top coats of enamel.

My day on site at the beerhall seemed just like Monday and Tuesday- the day’s all just seem a blur. January and I carried on welding the balustrade- this task was really starting to get tedious- it seems we kept on running into problems which meant that I constantly had to supervise January and consult my group whenever a problem arose. I just wanted to work on installing the props but I knew that the props would go in quickly so I chose to spend more of my time on the balustrade- we need to get this finished and looking good soon!

Black Power

Institutional racism is when the actions of an establishment are based on racist decisions.

KwaThema is found east of Jo'burg. I assume that during her infancy, KwaThema did not have electricity because Soweto was born in the 1900's and she only got electricity after the 1950's. KwaThema was born in 1951. Today, the coldest day of the year, the electricity was off during the day and night in some part of KwaThema . At least this did not have a bad effect on tiling at chess park.

Sandringham is a predominantly white suburb found east of Jo'burg. The area is well developed with telephone-cables located underground. Today the electricity in some part of Sandringham went off and it was switched back on during the early afternoon.

Kwathema is the type of area which historically didn't get electricity due to institutional racism. Now, when electricity is crucial, it has not returned by evening but in the suburbs all is fine long before nightime. KwaThema inspires me but the electricity-supplier's attitude towards this community leaves much to be desired.

fleeting steel

guy and i left late for kwathema – guy had to buy paint for his paired project. catherine and gareth went via b&r lawns to collect more grass.

after much leveling of the proposed grassy area by the anc youth league, we laid the instant lawn strips and once again began the torturous bucketing of water from mr cindy’s house. the area that the volunteers had cleared and leveled had opened up the beerhall site to the open, dusty tract of land to its east. the memory of the builidng seemed more interactive now, less prescriptive.

after not much mention of the anc youth league in my previous blogs, i must note that they have been outstandingly dedicated and enthusiastic about our ventures and we will be perpetually grateful for their involvement.

work on site was intense. our steel from macsteel had not arrived as promised and catherine was especially irate – she had assured mike stuart yesterday, that she would kill herself if the steel did not arrive on time! he guaranteed that it would. i followed up on the delivery and was confronted by an un-obliging and seemingly irritated mike on the end of the line. i eventually tracked-down phineus-the-driver who was lost in kwathema. i went to fetch him. finally the bulk of our flat bar had arrived, although the delivery as promised was not complete. fleetsteel had also arrived with our remaining c-sections and were instantly sent back to strydom park as the sizes of the members were incorrect. the laborer responsible for the error was fired.
we seemed to be having such bad-luck with the steel. i was longing for the day where we actually accomplished something substantial - where there was a noticeable development on site.

Step and What?...

Mood: Everybody for themselves and God for us all

Song in mind:Karabo-Nkosi sikeleli step and hop...
Site: Entokozweni Primary

Mission: Pour foundation and lay surface bed

Day Two... I could not believe it! The school had requested us to relocate the project back to its original position. This meant that we had lost an entire day of work-we knew that the project would not be fully realised by opening day. I guess that these are some of the lessons we are gonna have to learn concerning the building industry-that people have their own agendas at times, which is what we felt pertaining to some staff members at Ntokozweni Primary.

Nevertheless, work had to continue. So there were, right where we started. YES, pegging out AGAIN! We have now mastered the method of triangulation-it's unfortunate that we won't be tested on this in our exams at Wits which, mind you, are just around the corner. We managed to dig up the foundations required and poured the concrete in. We could only pour the surface bed in the following day since it was to dark to work anyway. Materials were delivered to site as we had requested.

"Diyabuya Ntate..."

Mood: Everybody for themselves and God for us all
Song in mind:Karabo-Nkosi sikeleli step and hop...

Location: Chess Park

Mission: Complete Seating and Tiling

We continued to lay tiles on the chessboard and held them down with tile adhesive. Concurrently, we dug the holes for the seating. This exercised was directed by one of the volunteers, Gift. We placed bricks inside the tyres to prevent them from growing legs and walking and then cast concrete over the bricks. The concrete was covered with soil.

Group work....

What is interesting and at the same time challenging about group work is, role playing and what function each person plays.
In our group, I believe we have unconsciously taken the 'organic' approach where roles are molded as time goes on, the roles were not discusses and decided on but rather taken on by the players. I cannot say whether this is the right or wrong approach as I don't know what to compare it to.
As an idea for future projects, it could start with designing a team with a neutral fascillitator to guide the process.
For example all 5 of us had the desire to be in the chesspark group. That is a positive start, yet what I didn't and still dont know is why my collegues had picked this project.
We did not give eachother the space and the time to purely disscuss ourselves, ideas and desires.
Relationships begin with curiosity, I believe it is important to explore that aspect before taking on assumptions and going straight for the 'prize'.
Detailing desire.... Detailing our talents, our strengths and weaknesses and sharing them with eachother. ( In retrospect Sifiso has been a fantastic documentarian of our weaknesses.)
We are going through this process now and it is a bit ad hoc, our roles are not defined and because of that the group is delaminating.
Workshoping roles in a prior imaginary space, where changes and shifts can be made without drastic repercutions, could be an effective way to creating a team where players are confident and excited about what they are doing.

Deliveries...

It was a cold day today, I borrowed a bakkie from a friend of mine and arrived at Union Tiles to pick up the concrete tiles for the chessboard.
With an unsavory gut feeling, I realized I had made the mistake of canceling the transport offered by Union Tiles for R236.84. We are running over budget and I wanted to save costs. A few Rands might have been saved yet time was lost. They are heavy, 1444kg and the bakkie could only take half. To load and unload the tiles is a mission, not to mention the driving, which made me feel like an elephant on rollerskates. We are planning to deliver the other half with Tom's bakkie tomorrow.

Steel

Seeing as though yesterday was the day that everything was supposed to happen, and it didn’t, I assumed that today would be that day, and it wasn’t. We really are on track, it’s just that I’m excited to have a day which makes significant, marked changes to the structure. So Robyn and I arrived in KwaThema expecting to find a huge load of steel which should have been delivered yesterday evening. Well it wasn’t there. The weather is minutely better, with Mr. Cindi’s morning outlay of coffee was welcomed as usual.

I offloaded the plywood boards which Ahaka and I are using for our sign. Robyn and I positioned the remaining props. We sent our welder, January off to weld plates and our volunteers began to lift soil where new grass was going to be painted. Soon Catherine and Gareth arrived with a fresh stock of lawn and the basketball back board. The day continued with numerous phone calls to our two steel suppliers, with neither delivering. The phone calls got quite heated, with our need for urgency portrayed very accurately. Some steel arrived finally, but it was the wrong length, so the driver was sent back and was apparently fired. Well at the end of the day we finally had most of our steel.

Ahaka and I spent parts of the day trying to stick our boards up for our paired project on Stan’s container. He was very eager and helped us a lot. The glue was awful, so we used bolts instead.

The end of the day left us with some balustrade flat bar up, three fixed props, new lawn and the beginnings of a basketball court. We also received our two ‘no dumping signs’ today and about 8 refuse bins from the council. Khula has been in charge of painting the lines.

Far From Finished

Today Catherine and I left to KwaThema a little later than the rest of the group because we both had to present our Construction Seminars in the morning at Wits.

The plan for today is to go straight to Instant Trees Nursery for more planting materials and then on to B&R Lawns to collect another 30 strips of instant lawn. We managed to collect these materials in good time and it was now time to get back to the beerhall.

I met up with Lunga at my paired project site to see his progress- this guy and his 2 friends are amazing. I had anticipated that they would spend a full day cleaning the poles before their first coat of paint but when I arrived there they had completely finished scraping all the old paint off the poles- they were waiting around for me to arrive so I could give them the primer so they could start priming the steel! Lunga was adamant that he’d be finished with the first coat of primer by the end of the day, and when I arrived back to the site at the end of the day, he was! Fantastic!

My time at the beerhall was spent working and joking around with January. We managed to get most of the flat steel welded to the C-section uprights but we were still waiting on the remainder of our steel order to arrive. This wasn’t holding us up at this stage though because we still had enough steel to keep us busy for today.

I was really eager to get starting on installing the props that Guy organized for us. I really think they’re going to look great once they’re installed. Once we had established the positions for all the props I began drilling the holes into the concrete beams and surface bed so that I could fix them permanently in place. This was an exciting job and a nice change from working on the balustrade.