"Hallellua, Ons is amper daar..."

Mood: Can't wait
Song in mind: Mariah carey-I'll be there
Site: Entokozweni Primary School
Mission: Laying screed and drawing 300x300mm lines

One day before opening day and we still had to lay the screed and draw the 300x300mm expansion lines. We wanted to get the structure to a presentable state for Saturday and we were running out of time fast since it's Winter and days are shorter. Thami managed to lay the screed, however, the 300x300mm expansion lines left a lot to be desired and we committed ourselves to redoing the screed in the following week. The idea is for the children of Entokozweni Primary School to paint the hop scotch, hand prints and other adverts as a form of personalisation.

Divine intervention

Mood: Anxiety

Song in mind: Hillsong-Glorify your name

Site: Entokozweni Primary School

Mission: Complete Seating and surface bed

Glory to God, when we arrived on site in the morning, we found a third person working. It had become clear that our original bricklayers didn't have the skill of laying bricks. Thami took over the project as if it was his own; talk about self-employment. He completed the seating and managed the mixing and pouring of the surface bed. We finally had hope that we could actually see the project fulfilled by opening day, which is this coming weekend.

Step & Hop in the process...

Mood: Tired

Song in mind: Brian McKnight-Back At One
Site: Entokozweni Primary

Mission: Finish surface Bed

We had to complete the surface bed and lay bricks in for seating before the end of the day, however, we were delayed by the amount of digging we still had to do. We used bricks to create the edge of the slab in order to prevent it from cracking when stepped on. The idea is to create a set of seats that are of different heights which first of all accomodate different scales of school children. This also accomodated proper seating for the lady selling sweets after school. The smaller seat next to the road is made to allow a door of a car to open towards it and this allows a scholar to easily take a step to get into the car.

Step and What?...

Mood: Everybody for themselves and God for us all

Song in mind:Karabo-Nkosi sikeleli step and hop...
Site: Entokozweni Primary

Mission: Pour foundation and lay surface bed

Day Two... I could not believe it! The school had requested us to relocate the project back to its original position. This meant that we had lost an entire day of work-we knew that the project would not be fully realised by opening day. I guess that these are some of the lessons we are gonna have to learn concerning the building industry-that people have their own agendas at times, which is what we felt pertaining to some staff members at Ntokozweni Primary.

Nevertheless, work had to continue. So there were, right where we started. YES, pegging out AGAIN! We have now mastered the method of triangulation-it's unfortunate that we won't be tested on this in our exams at Wits which, mind you, are just around the corner. We managed to dig up the foundations required and poured the concrete in. We could only pour the surface bed in the following day since it was to dark to work anyway. Materials were delivered to site as we had requested.

YO, YO, YO It's freezing! First working Day!

Mood: Cold

Song in mind: Unknown-"Khona ba lambile"

Site: Entokozweni Primary School

Mission: Peg out site and begin digging

"Global Warming," my foot-they should call it global colding. Man, was it cold this morning. I literally had to be ressurrected from my bed thic morning in order to get to Kwa-Thema.

The previous week, we had performed the presentation of the concept of the step and hop to the principal of the school and now was the time to build it. "A huge task ahead," my partner and I thought-especially since we weren't confident about the bricklayers we had employed for this task but "SIZOBONA PHAMBILI!" (we'll see when we get there).

We began pegging out the site in order to position the structure. This was not an easy task as it was sooooooooooooooooo cold! I could barely feel my fingers and as for my toes, hmmm, I don't wanna talk about it... We, however, managed to get the layout right and we left the bricklayers with clear instructions of where and how deep to dig the foundations. Khula, otherwise known as Kuras, and I left to buy materials at the Cashbuild nearby and brought them to site later. We, then went to see the progress at the bigger projects: Chess Park and Beer Hall.

At lunch, I bought Kotas (pronounced "quarters" for those verbally challenged fellow brothers and sisters of lighter pigment). The Kota is god-sent. It consists of a quarter of a loaf (dirrrr!), chips, cheese, russian and vienna-it's a Kasi Delicasy!

When I arrived at Ntokozweni-God forbid-I discovered that one of the staff members had requested the workers to move to another side. Due to time constraints, Khula (please, don't be deceived, it does not mean COOLER) and I took up the pick and spade and worked on the project physically as well. If you think that now we had made progress, go ahead and read up what happened the following day....