Day 3

Child Sponsorship makes a world of difference - one child at a time.'
I awoke early again, my internal clock never being very good at the best of times, as most of you know! I was seated outside on the deck at around 5 am, communing with the 7 or so gecko's that seemed to live permanently on the underside of the deck roof, when I heard a lot of squeaks and the sounds of something flying about and much to my delight discovered it was a family of large fruit bats hanging in the palm by the deck and taking the occasional flight past me. They kept me well occupied till everyone arose.
Today we were suppose to meet the folks that work at the KMP Office, but due to some problem in the works, we were told that we would be going to the first of our schools, to plant some of the trees today. That was no problem for us! We did go to the KMP office, as it was there that the trees were being stored, but did not have the chance to meet anyone. Upon arriving, we learned that the money we had paid to WV for this trip not only provided for our accommodation's etc., but had also paid for the trees we were to plant at the 4 schools we would visit. Each school was to receive 10 tree saplings, along with 2 wheelbarrows, 2 picks, 4 shovels and 4 watering pails. We were told that we would be planting Lychee and Mango trees, as it had been decided by Ian (remember he's an Agric. Engineer) that these were best suited to the areas. We had traveled for about an hour (passing by many more miles of cane fields) to reach the KMP office, which was located in what we would consider a Municipal Yard, where they have been given the use of a couple of offices for the duration of their project. We loaded up the trees and equipment into the WV pickup truck and headed off for the Masiwela Primary School, which was about another 1/2 hour away. When we arrived the children were on lunch break ( yes, it was that time already, and we were just getting started) and most were sitting outside. My first impression was of a very run down looking school with large amounts of litter and garbage laying about, a small dirt yard with no grass to speak of and no play areas. The children were all in uniforms, different coloured shirts for the different ages/grades. The school housed students (which they call learners) from kindergarten( to grade 11. They spotted the WV truck pulling in, in front of our van and you could see the excitement starting, there were lots of waves and smiles. I have never seen anyone more excited to get pictures taken than these children (although I later noticed that the adults are almost as bad). They would actually push and shove each other for the chance to be in a photo and then would go into fits of laughter when you would show them the picture on the camera. Made we wonder if it's because they do not have access to mirrors? Bailey, Jordan and Marie were almost mobbed by a large group of children, who wanted to touch their hair and stroke their arms/skin. The poor girls looked very startled at first. We spent the good part of a half hour or more, taking and showing the pictures. They seemed to think it great fun that we knew the Zulu hand shake, and some would keep it up for quite a time. I was later told that this meant they were very excited to meet us. Some of the older children could speak fairly good English and could be quite conniving in their attempts to get money, our cameras or even addresses. Both Terry and Jordan were approached for their cameras and comments were made about hex's/voodoo in a somewhat joking manner. Jordan was a little disturbed about it, when after the comment to her, she immediately drop her camera and it broke! The older children seemed to gravitate to Terry and kept pestering him for cash. In the meantime, while the picture taking mayhem progressed a number of the children were dragging the school desks out into the yard for their seating during their welcome ceremony for us. We were given seats in the shade, but all of them were seated out in the blaring sun. We were treated to dancing and singing and welcome speeches. We learned that WV has facilitated in the building of 2 classrooms onto this school, along with help in providing uniforms and school supplies. The idea behind planting the trees is to give shade to the school, as they mature and to provide fresh fruit for the children, as so many of them do not have proper nutrition. Although most look healthy, if you look closely you see a lot of red hair which is a sign of malnutrition, as well as the swollen bellies which could be parasites or again malnutrition. We also noticed some of children with lesions on their faces, a sign of HIV. After the welcome ceremony we finally got started on planting the trees, not that we got much chance to plant. The children were so excited to be able to help that besides being allowed to place the trees in the holes dug, we didn't get to do much else. The soil was very poor and very dry and I wonder how the trees will do. There was no running water at the school, but a large tank (that we called Jo-Jo tanks) to collect rain water was at one end of the building and that is where we got the water to fill the watering pails. By having the students (and some parents) help in planting the trees it is hoped that they will take pride in them and look after them, rather than just ignore them, as they are now their trees; it's the 'hand-up, not hand-out' idea at work again. When we were finished up I was trying to get the children to pick up garbage, but was not having much success, they all thought I was pretty hilarious with my hand signals and pantomimes about how plastics hurt the wildlife. I later talked to the Principal and he explained to me that because of the vastness of the area lack of resources and people living so far apart that there were no such things as garbage dumps, therefore people have just got use to dropping their garbage where they stand. He told me that they were starting to teach about the environment, and recycling but seemed very surprised when I told him how long it takes for garbage bags and plastics to deteriorate and how, because of plastic bags such things as malaria are making a come back, because they give mosquito's nesting spots when the rain collects in them. I wish there was some way to get a copy of the 'Doc Zone' program on plastics, sent to these schools to help them make the children appreciate the environment more. I suppose it will all come eventually. It was now going on about 4- 4:30 and we were looking at another hour or so back to Zinkwazi, so we bade farewell to everyone, and headed back. Along the way back we saw a number of women and children, both, collecting water from areas along the road and walking with large buckets and tubs filled, most being carried on their heads. We were told that in some places people would walk for up to 10km's to collect their water for the day. Can you imagine!
Supper was served at the Lodge and discussions of the days events were discussed there and later, on our decks. We were all feeling pleased with our days activities.