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.