Nhakhande Blog

How three muzungu carried the bricks, or the construction of Nhakhande school

Many people ask, how is the construction going? Is the idea to build the school still alive? And I am happy to answer – the idea is becoming the reality! The works if not speeding towards the end, but at least moving little by little. We started on 3-4 of November when the first unofficial meeting with the school’s administration and representative of the community where the school is going to be build occurred.

After more unofficial meetings, finally we had the official meeting with the community, the director and administration of the school, the chiefs of the community (the structure of every community is very “bureaucratic” which means there are a lot of chiefs).

During this meeting we, the three volunteers, have presented our vision and we have asked the community to actively participate in the construction of the school. After all, we are building this house not for us, but for them! And moreover, the aim of the development is not to give the fish, but to teach fishing!

The community received the news very enthusiastic and has immediately decided to start! Already two days after the meeting the community left for the mountains to accumulate stones for the foundation of the school.

And our workers, volunteers from the community, have started to prepare the area for construction – taking out the weeds, leveling the ground, digging the trenches for the future foundation. At the end, before all the holidays, we had the area ready, the stones transported to the construction site, the sand brought and workers ready to start… The only problem why we had to delay the starting of the construction is the shortage of cement in the region. Which meant that the price of one bag has grown almost twice, whereas the cement had already occupied one third of our budget! While we were waiting for Christmas miracle in the form of 150 bags in our yard, the days were passing, the rain was raining, the grass growing and our optimism a bit fading.

Meanwhile we bought the bricks… How do you imagine this? Big truck, loaded with the bricks, slowly turning towards the school and uniformed men unloading the bricks in nice piles? No! First, every single brick is hand made! Second, almost one third of the bricks were transported to the construction site thanks to the strong heads (not hands!) of volunteers and people from the community… you just put three four bricks on your head and march ahead! We are fortunate that the distance to the school is around 600-700 meters.

With the help of the community and later on with the help of the car of teachers training college we have transported 7000 bricks.

And we left on holiday with the hope that the cement problem will be somehow resolved! And I guess the intuition did not let us down – after the new year the prices went down to normal ones and at the moment we are happy, because we have already started to construct the walls! But we have to hurry up, because the school starts 4 of February and the old "building" collapsed during hard rains. Where will the students study? I have no idea...

 

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Building the school… on the paper!

On Saturday (22 of November) there was a wonderful afternoon in our college - around 30 children that are attending the school in Nhakhande (the one that does not have proper buildings and the one that we would like to contribute to) came for a drawing lesson with us, volunteers.

We were drawing My school. We asked the children to imagine their future school and make a drawing. These drawings as a thank you would be given to people who has contributed to the construction of the proper school for these kids.

Monday, 3 of November 2008

...And everything started quite some time ago, when I was passing from the College where I work to visit a local potter in the village. Together with the students we were passing nearby the school.

When you hear the word "school". What do you imagine? Tables and benches for every child to sit on. Big black board on the wall, a table and a chair for teacher, maybe some maps of the world and some pictures on the walls (of course, there are walls and roof, and the floor!), flowerpots on the windowsill (of course, there are windows!). And then there are some shelves with nicely arranged books for children. Is this the image you see when you close your eyes?

Please, look at the pictures of the school I was passing by the other day... Look, how it is and compare with the image you just had...

Very often we read something like: "today in the world there are 120 million of children who are not attending the school and from these 115 million live in Africa". How often we react? And to be honest, me neither - some time ago I would not react. But here I cannot close my eyes and pretend that nothing is wrong with these numbers, because the numbers became faces, names, words, colors and smiles...

I see these numbers every day and they are no longer empty sounds. There are 300 children studying every day in the school that I am talking about, sitting on the ground, or hiding under the close by growing tree, with wind and sun reaching for them all the time...

I think it is wrong to let this school stay the way it is. I want to make a change. And this is where I feel I have no other way, but to appeal for your help, my friends and colleagues, people that know me and believe in me. Even in developing country like Mozambique proper schools (not like the one you see in the picture) are build with money. Even with all my great wish and great wish of my colleages volunteers here, we would not be able to start and finish the construction of the proper school with our own money.

If I don't use this opportunity to ask you for help, I might loose the opportunity to help people here. So this is what I am asking you for - to support my vision of the proper school for 300 children (every year!) of Manje village. If you feel you would like to help, there is an account number at the end of the email, to where you can transfer as much as you feel donating. Even 5 euro can make a change, though it seems to be so little. May it be the drop in the ocean, but it might improve conditions for 300 children next year and for the coming generations. And believe me! These children deserve every cent spent on construction of the proper school for them! And if you feel you know someone else who would be willing to help, feel free to forward this letter.
Please, close your eyes again and imagine the school... I will do my best to make this vision come true and I can promise you that your help will be used in a proper way. I am building the school. The construction is still in my head, but I am sure it will stand there, on the way from the College where I work to the local potter in the village...
 

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