We
were excited about an upcoming overnight trip to East London to meet
a bunch of influential big shots with oodles of money. We packed an
overnight bag and left the lullies for the big city. 10 km’s
before reaching East London we got a flat tyre and realized that the
puncture which Theo had repaired with craft Genkem glue the week
before, didn’t hold. Oh well, improvisation has its moments. We
phoned Gwyn, the guy who had arranged the meeting and who generously
offered to put us up while we were in EL. He organized a bakkie to
pick us up and sort us out. What a nice guy.
He didn’t blink an
eye when we finally arrived at his plush upmarket office, lugging our
helmets with visors which are taped on with pieces of duct tape, the
bike’s topbox, a rucksack while my helmet hair stood at all angles
and my right boot was coated in oil.
He gave us the exclusive use of
his house which had a massive flat screen DSTV and a jacuzzi bathtub.
He even paid for the punctured tyre repair. Unfortunately the
clutch housing broke when the bike got strapped onto the back of the
bakkie so the trip cost us more than we planned especially since we
decided to put a new front tyre on since we were in EL which rarely
happens.
The
meeting went well and everyone seemed quite impressed with our story
of the work we do here and we walked away with many leads and have
already had a follow up offer of 50 dictionaries which we are
thrilled about. The next day we visited ITEC Learning Centre and met
management staff who run a well established resource training centre
in East London.
They are mostly involved in community programmes
which develop young learners up to grade R but they also run a
community library. They have set up programmes from empowering
mothers to nurture their babies, setting up mobile libraries for
schools as well as train crèche teachers.
Children visit their
wonderful library where they, assisted by Xhosa volunteers, offer
story book reading sessions, craft sessions such as drawing and
making their own books. Children go there to read books or have short
sessions on the 2 computers with internet access. Their centre was
such an inspiration and we left there with more ideas, leads and a
sense of achievement knowing that we weren’t just floundering,
grasping at straws but in fact we had really achieved quite a lot and
were headed in the right direction. If we could get our centre
anywhere close to resembling theirs, I’d be thrilled.
Seeing
so many people, walking the busy streets, popping in at all the
shops, eating different food and chilling on a couch watching TV was
refreshing. Telling our story over and over to interested people
during the few days we were in EL made us feel alive and gave us a
new zest to continue with our work.
Back
at Qolora we attacked our admin with the same fierce urgency which
seemed to have become a routine over the past few months. We finally
finished our website which had been excruciatingly frustrating and
tiring work. We’d also networked with many people and even visited
the Department of Education which proved to be just as fruitless as
we expected but at least now we have introduced ourselves to them.
They asked the same question many people here ask, which is “what
can you do for us?” or “what have you brought us?”
It’s
always give me give me. Isolomzi SSS on the other had have reached
success by helping themselves and we cant but help falling over our
feet trying to promote their school and assist them. They are trying
to get their computer lab up and running and we have started training
the teachers who want to be equipped to follow it through to their
learners.
We’ve become special members of their School Governing
Body (SGB) which is quite an honor but more importantly, we have seen
the principal be recognized by influential people who will continue
helping him to reach his ever increasing new goals making education a
success.
And
that’s what makes another day in Africa, a day to smile about.
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