Freezing

Our group met at Wits early this morning so we could get an early start at the beerhall. We’ve got so much still today and with only 5 days left I’m starting to worry a little bit.

We arrived in a bitterly cold KwaThema just after 08h00 to commence some hard graft. After a quick meeting and a few laps around the beerhall I was ready to start! I have my hands full this week as I need to get the balustrade finished- this is going to be problematic considering we don’t have all of the flat or round steel!

The day that I had to erect the balustrade uprights I was forced to leave out 5 of the uprights because of not being able to drill into the concrete at those specific points so I made it my mission today to get these remaining 5 uprights installed. Today I started getting to know January Msiza a little better- this guy is amazing! He is such a fine welder and does absolutely everything you ask him to do with such a good attitude. I’m really glad we found January because if this balustrade is going to get finished by Friday we’re going to need someone with his skill.

I was standing up on the first floor to the beerhall structure and I was freezing! It’s been a long time since I felt this cold. I didn’t anticipate the weather being this bad so I didn’t dress warmly. As I was battling with the installation of one of the uprights, Mr. Cindi approached me with a woolen beanie to keep my head and ears warm! It was such a nice gesture- Thanks Mr. Cindi!

Now that my head was warm I had no excuse to slack off. January and I finished with the 5 problematic uprights and began welding the handrail onto the uprights. I can’t even tell you how satisfying this was- to finally see this balustrade being completed gave me a great sense of accomplishment!

I needed to get cracking on my paired project with Sifiso so I took a little bit of time out to find a painter. I asked Lawrence if he knew of anyone who would be willing to paint the poles outside the shops near the civic centre- he told me my best bet would be to ask one of the ANC Youth League guys. I got chatting to Lunga, a member of the ANC Youth League who was helping us at the beerhall. I had noticed how he and some of his friends were just standing around so I commissioned them to paint for me. They’ll start preparing the poles for paint early tomorrow morning.