From SketchUp to reality

Today was a big day – we erected the uprights of our balusters. We met early this morning to load up Gareth’s trailer with the c-sections and got to KwaThema around 8.30am. I was very apprehensive about the task facing us, but the Fischer fixings did what Kerry and Richard had promised us and the balustrade team, lead by Gareth and consisting of Khula, Wandile and Lawrence, worked miracles. The ANC Youth League volunteers made another ten tyre bollards for the west street edge, while I collected good bricks for the edging of the grass in front of the swings. When Robyn and Guy arrived, we worked on the placement of bollards in front of the trees and came to a solution of sloping the soil for the grass away from the level of the building, without defining a solid edge which might be seen as too defined a boundary, so the bricks will instead be mortared on the north side of the grass patch.

Robyn and Mr Cindi succeeded in organising a front end loader to shovel away the layers of rubbish which have accumulated on the east of the building in the cleaning process. This was a result of Mr Kwelamtini, the ward councillor, being impressed enough by the progress on site when he visited yesterday to help us out – the council meetings perhaps finally bearing fruit, egged on by Cindi’s persistence. A truck will tomorrow remove the enormous pile of sand that was formed, and a grader is also coming to even the surface. Mr Cindi told me about Kwelamtini’s idea that a public toilet should be rehabilitated in the building which is a brilliant suggestion not only if the building is to be used for public gatherings and performances but also simply to provide sorely needed ablutions in the public realm. Hopefully this idea could form part of the ongoing transformation of the structure by the community. Each time we looked up, the beerhall resembled more and more the Sketch Up model from our presentation two weeks ago. Though a number of people commented on the size of the baluster members, I was relieved at their proportion in relation to the structure and in fact quite pleased at their solidity. I think that anything more delicate would not have stood up to the strength and toughness of the beerhall structure.

At midday, I met Kasia at the site of Kibas’s stall to discuss the details of our work there. We came up with a good solution which works partly with the existing improvised paving that Kibas has developed around his stall and takes into account the fact that cars loop around the stall when the carwash is in use on weekends. We then visited a building goods supplier behind Cash Build, where Kasia seems to have succeeded in negotiating 315 free bricks (we placed out a square metre of the red clay half-brick cobbles to get an idea of the exact number we required!) – confirmation tomorrow. We will meet Kibas tomorrow to discuss our proposal and his ideas for the placement of the trees as well as when the work will begin…

We spent most of the day still uncertain about whether Mac Steel might donate the remainder of our steel (Kerry Kuhlmann had set up this connection), all the while wondering whether we should be biting the bullet and ordering from Fleet Steel. We were severely inconvenienced by John the welder who was originally going to make the jungle gym and whose generator we had arranged to rent this morning. He seems to have some kind of commitment in Springs which he hadn’t mentioned and finally pitched up on site after 2pm minus the generator. The pressure was due to the fact that we needed to spot weld the bolts of the balusters before nightfall to ensure that they weren’t stolen. Just as John and I were discussing fetching the generator, the resourceful January, another welder whom we have engaged to do the work on the balustrade appeared wheeling his welding equipment across the park, proceeded to re-tape certain areas on a very long extension cord, stretch it out to Mr Cindi’s house and do the spot welding. John, who then promised to bring an additional extension cord, never came back (which might be a good thing!).

Hannah, Tseleng and Peter arrived on site at around 3pm and seemed less than enthusiastic about our progress, and the way in which certain problems like the bollards had been solved. Hannah was, however, positive about the idea of grouping trees rather than planting them along the path (I had thought they might not thrive on this exposed plain and that small clumps, that could be tended and would work together in placemaking, might be better). Three sweet children Papi, Xolani and a friend, of their own accord, touchingly joined Guy and I in helping to collect litter on the north side of the beerhall.

The braai at Stan’s was used for workshopping the launch with Tseleng, the most useful thing emerging from this process being a sense of the time at which the procession would arrive at the beerhall and a time period for our part of the launch.