atmosphere

The evening roundup at 4 on Thursdays is getting more and more atmospheric as the days shorten. The fires, both the one Stan personally braais our wors on, and the coal stoves all around, add a smoky haze. And the crowd seems to grow. This week the ward councilor joined our gathering, really enthusiastic about the progress that the students, action group and youth league had made.

The two big sites have been worked at and stand to be transformed by next Saturday, the launch of the project. There is less evidence of the five smaller projects yet, but something about the KwaThema project makes one relax about things. A plan gets made. Someone appears to help. The students discover resources: sometimes someone else’s, but mainly their own. The group work is smooth and improvisational and there’s always mutual respect. The ingenious organizational structure they devised where everyone works in a pair on the smaller projects with someone from the other big team of five needs to be sold as a corporate philosophy.

The commitment of the youth league members is also extraordinary. They’ve cleaned a massive area of the dumping ground around the beer hall by hand, and so by sheer human will power convincing the council to dig in as well with a loader and skip. At the other end of the scale, we sourced a tiny usb modem on Thursday that can turn the Chess Academy into our internet hub. And Lawrence, one of the volunteers has been introduced to the blog. More to follow. No doubt.