There were three tents set up around the village’s soccer field and people were running around finishing setup and getting organized. We circled around the swag to get our shirts and then were put to work trying to get banners, which are meant for the indoors, to stand up to 25 mph gusts outdoors. The light-weight aluminum clearly was not meant to work as a mast, and I eventually chose laying down the banners on the ground in favor of them getting bent or ripped. I was later openly mocked by other volunteers when an industrious Mosotho used a guy wire from one of the tents to put up the banners. Oh well. Maybe my oft-used claim of "having degrees in this" should be curtailed a bit.
We moved on from the banners to mull around for a while, then a commotion erupted when John rode up on his horse and velvet riding helmet and flip flops (no spurs). "Rode" might be the wrong word. I think it was more of a prance. All in all it was very cute. He later gave pony rides to some local kids, which was a highlight of the day for them no doubt.
Eventually we all got organized, the Minister of Natural Resources showed up and got some face time with the TV cameras and we moved off to our project houses. The house we were working on was mostly complete, we were there to just finish up a few tasks. Interior plastering and painting were the tasks available, so I took up a trowel and did my best. After 5 minutes my arms ached and plaster was sloppily applied to a 1 square foot area. It had certainly been a while since I’d done manual labor, and plastering is not as easy as it looks. Turns out it's heavy and sticky. Who knew?
45 minutes later or so about half of my wall was plastered and a blister was forming on my hand. A few minutes earlier the Minister had made his way into the house and was charming the workers. He picked up a trowel and put in some time on a few walls before ducking out to another appearance somewhere else. It was great to see such good press come out to an important charity. There wasn't too much excitement in the day, but it was fun to get out and work on something that had a clear change from the beginning of the day to the end. There are some pictures of the day below.
These horses had some great burlap sack capes on. They looked like they were the kings of the village.
There was a big turnout for the event. Probably a couple hundred people.
This guy had an impressive homemade Hobbit hat on. I don't think his feet were big enough or hairy enough to pull off the whole look.
These are some of the women from the village checking out the work going into the house.
Mel (eating the banana) and some other volunteers turned over and planted a garden for the future occupants. Habitat in Lesotho focuses on serving Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs).
The village women again. There was a family from the US Embassy that put in an enormous amount of work on the house. They outworked everybody for sure. You can see their youngest daughter painting a window.
Sim got the high parts of the wall while I got the low parts. Here is was showing his versatility with Blue Steel impression.
Ryan is an education volunteer in Leribe. He was an all-star plasterer. The house had 3 rooms and, as you can see here, was wired for electricity.
Carrie decided to touch up some window corners. The wall to the right is one of the ones that Sim and I tag-teamed.
2 comments:
sounds like a fun day. lots of people actually doing stuff is always fun no matter how much work is involved. thanks for sharing.
Yo!! So exciting! so were the houses going to families or orphans? It's always fun to do manual work in a team, for others and with as many unneeded breaks as possible! :)
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