tyre tectonics

wow, what an exhausting day. a dirty, productive day, but also a little pessimistic at times and quite emotionally draining.

after analyzing my previous blog entries, i have realized that my perceptions of kwa thema and this project have changed so much, or rather just adjusted. i reflect now on phoning, ordering, drilling, welding, rubbish, allocating tasks, building, batteries, deadlines…

my day began with a visit to kerry at fischer to rack his brains for more advice on fixings. he was, as always, very obliging and overwhelmingly cooperative and generous. fischer is definitely my number one fixing product for life!

guy and i arrived at the beerhall just after 9am. the first 4 balusters were up! what a sight! our spirits were high and the end-of-the-tunnel light was blazing!

mr cindy and i went to the civic centre to meet with stuma from the housing department. he had promised to facilitate the use of a tlb from the roads department. we walked quickly across the dry, windy route to the yard. the dust storms were stifling and blinding. the arid johannesburg winter was well under way.

after retelling the details of our project many times, we finally got correctly directed to sigfred, the site manager, he was a large, afrikaans, middle-aged man. sigfred agreed to lend us a tlb after lunch. we had just about accomplished another huge task – rubbish.

the balusters were popping up like buoys. the tyre towers were aligned and the trees opposite the swings marked. the rubble was being sieved for soil, the skip being slowly occupied. provitas were being passed around, coke sipped through straws.

i walked over to stan’s to charge the batteries. i noticed that overnight, he had assembled 4 tyre towers just like ours, on the street edge of his container sites! i felt warm and content that our northern-suburbs, privileged, culturally-ignorant ideas for our bollards had been so perfectly replicated by someone so established and wise in the tectonics of his own kwa thema. we had made an impression on kwa thema.

mr cindy and i went back to the yard to direct the tlb. its power and sheer capacity was unreal. it pushed the dirt verge with the ease of a lego truck in a sandpit. the dirty clouds were swept away by the gusty breeze, northwards.

we gathered at 2pm at lizzy’s for hotdogs. we were all quiet and contemplative.

i met tom at the chess park at 3pm to workshop the lettering for our tagging kwa thema project. the boys were shy and quite serious about their tasks. concentration and determination filled the little container. we concluded that capital d’s were not in kwa thema!

back at the beerhall, the ward councilor met us for our launch workshop. as the sun set, winter set in. the huge quarts of beer made the chill more intense.

the beerhall stood proudly in the sunset, its children played, silhouetted by the orange sky. the mountain of dirt defended the ruins of the building and we walked past, quiet and relieved.