Sarah Turnbull, ActionAid supporter

So, we’re now home... amid tears and farewells at the airport, 4 or 5 of us have already decided to do the September 2010 trip to the Limpopo area - another ActionAid build project.

We’ve had a phenomenal time, there have been a lot of laughs, lots of humping around of bricks, blocks and cement; barrowing; building and site clearing. I think it was harder work for some than others and abilities varied, but hopefully we all got something special out of the trip.

Friday was tinged with sadness when we left the site. Because the locals have so little, we left all of our kit, gloves, hard hats, etc - our bags were a lot lighter on the way home than on the way out.

We had a leisurely Saturday and Sunday then packed up and left Grahamstown on Monday after breakfast. We stopped on the beachfront in Port Elizabeth on the way to the airport to look at some local ‘curios’ and 3 or 4 or us – unbeknownst to eachother – bought wooden rhinos as our momento of SA. Mine is sitting beside me as I type. Everytime I will look at him in years to come I will think of us – Lynn, Gav, Brian, John, Diane, me, Sam, Sarah, Graham and Linda – sitting in that van, howling with laughter (and screaming) as this enormous beast was galloping behind us, intent on doing us some damage – but not being quite fast enough...

If you are thinking about coming on one of the ActionAid trips then you should be aware that it’s hard work – it should be hard work – and there are times when you will be outside your comfort zone – and you should be – but its been such an amazing experience. I’ve seen a few people since I’ve been home and obviously I’ve been asked about the trip and I want to bore for England because I loved it so much, but I’m going to try not to (many may disagree already!).

Rach and I are in almost constant contact by text and phone, and Sam has been sending emails across at a rate of knots – and to think, 10 days ago I’d never met any of them. Rach and I are gatecrashing Gramps’ birthday party in November, and I’m going bag-packing in Liverpool in October as part of the fundraising for next year. I’ve got a bunch of new friends from this trip, both in the UK and RSA and I’m looking forward to seeing them all again as soon as possible.

Sarah Turnbull, ActionAid supporter

Our last day of the build was a productive one. When we arrived on site the blocks had finally arrived and we got straight to work mixing (more) dugga and preparing for blockwork. We were all keen to get started after the previous day and our lack of build progress.

During the day we managed to get 4 courses of blockwork done all round the community centre and it gave us more of a sense of purpose.

We broke briefly before lunch to share some baby and toddler clothes with the local ladies and their children, everyone has so little here that it brought huge smiles of delight to many faces and we all had the opportunity to cuddle a few more of the children and practice our very basic Xhosa.

 Back to blockwork for a few hours before we finished and had an informal leaving ‘ceremony’ with words from the senior local ladies and from members of our team, before launching in to song and more local dancing.

Leaving the site brought a few tears and sadness as well as some satisfaction as we had been able to contribute something to the community.

Saturday was a ‘free’ day and we had some tours round Grahamstown followed by a very relaxed trip to Port Alfred for a late lunch and a wander along the beach (with the exception of Gramps who decided to go for a bracing swim in the breakers and nearly got dragged out to sea.)

Sunday has been a visit to the Addo National Park to see the elephants, which was a fantastic experience as we were lucky enough to see a large herd of females at a watering hole, of which half a dozen were youngsters.

We also saw Orex, Ostriches, hogs, Kudu (we came, we saw, we ate) amongst many others. On our trip back to base we also stopped in at the Addo Lion Sanctuary and saw cubs of 8 weeks old and, bizarrely, a Bengal Tiger.

We are shortly going out for our final meal and then sadly have to leave this fantastic place for the return trip to the UK. Sarah (aka Rach) and I (‘Chucky’ – a long story), Lynn (‘CanWe’ – as in ‘Can we leave the reserve now we have been chased by the rhino?’) and Sam (‘Pumpa) have all decided we want to sign up for the trip next year, so are going to get back and ask for more details and are already planning our fundraising.

If the trip next year is anything like this one it will be a fantastic experience as well as being a huge laugh. I think there have been some friendships forged this week that will last a lifetime.

Sarah Turnbull, ActionAid supporter

 So today we have been on ‘African time’ so haven’t been able to make much progress with the build – we’ve been waiting for blocks and more supplies to be shipped up from Port Elizabeth and by the end of the day they had still not arrived.

Trench digging, a few courses of brickwork, soil shifting and site clearing have been the order of the day.

We did quite a few home visits and took lots of pictures, but it has to be said that the highlight of the day was the detour we took on the way home to Great Fish River – a local reserve with 80 Black Rhino.

We took two vehicles and in our van we only saw one rhino, but what a boy he was. Not overly keen on us, he decided to meander around for a few minutes sizing us up, and decided we might be a good challenge….. then charged straight at us. Brian (aka Bruce) booted it for all he was worth, but this bad boy can make up to speeds of 45mph, and chased us for all he was worth for about 1km. The screaming (and, lets face it, the swearing) and finally the laughter from inside the van was quite exceptional. We finally lost him and had a few minutes recuperation before we had to turn round to make the return journey. He was spotted about 10 metres from where we would have had to pass him so it was decided to keep very quiet, turn off the engine (TURN OFF THE ENGINE????) and wait for him to chill out before we could sneak past.

Needless to say, we survived to tell the tale then drove on and had a wander down by the waterhole, then headed back to Grahamstown to civilization and a laugh over a few beers.

Brian admitted during the recounting of the tale that he only saw the rhino for a split second after he started to chase us and hadn’t thought we were in any danger, and found it highly amusing with the screeches of ‘HE’S STILL COMING’ but did re-assess the situation when he saw John’s video and saw the rhino was within 10 metres of the van whilst running at full tilt.

Sarah Turnbull, ActionAid supporter

En route this morning to the build site we saw a fantastic stag and doe Kudu – a great start to the day.

We started the day on site for a couple of hours, finishing off the concreting and making of the ‘Dugga’ in preparation for the brickwork this afternoon.

We broke off mid-morning to take a trip to the local crèche which was absolutely wonderful. We were welcomed by about 20 children and their teachers, the children were quite shy at first but as soon as we unleashed the footballs brought by Lynn and Sam everyone went out to play in the yard and everyone had a blast. The ‘engineers’ in our group – Brian and John – fixed the swings and we had a hour of enjoyment with the kids.

At lunch, cooked by the local ladies so money stays in the community, we ate Kudu...

Back to work this afternoon we started on the brickwork. Whilst all thought we did reasonably well there were a few courses removed here and there for remedial attention! Willem, who was supervising Sarah (rechristened Rachel) and I, told us we had to do a good job as he would be using the centre so he wanted to use it for a long time.

Our brickwork was – apparently – ‘perfect,’ though he was probably being kind, polite or just misguided!

A few of the guys, now the barriers have been broken down a bit more, are bringing some of their paintings and things from home that they’ve made to show us.We topped off the day with an impromptu game of ‘Keepy-Uppy’ followed by fruit, biscuits and complicated handshakes all round.

The local guys (there are about 15 local residents working with us) continue to work for about an hour after we leave – probably putting right some dodgy blockwork...

Sarah Turnbull, ActionAid supporr

Sarah and I had a conversation tonight with Gavin, our build Supervisor, from Charity Challenge - one that really opened our eyes. We’ve all worked really hard today, shifting cement and making concrete for the base of the Community Centre and we hope we have added something to the build, but the conversation tonight opened our (naïve) eyes.

What we are doing here is inputting some labour, but not only that – we are bringing some visibility in the local community and (more importantly) to the Municipal Council, and that’s the thing that actually brings about more change than our actual physical labour.

We were greeted at the ‘Welcome Meeting’ yesterday – one of the most fantastic things we’ve ever experienced. It was amazing – Mayoral Representatives; the Municipality Councillor; the Country the Director of Massifunde; and a local Newspaper Photographer as well as over 50 senior local residents and councillors who can seriously drive changes here. Singing, dancing, welcomes, laughter, more singing, more dancing, superlatives fail me. We loved it.

Massifunde (ActionAid’s Country partner) offered ‘a hand’ to the Municipal Council whilst at out welcome meeting (it got quite Political) and  by doing this they threw down a gauntlet that told the councils that the NGOs need to be taken notice of. The challenge behind the invitation was that these people (us) have flown from the UK to work with us, you are on our doorstep, you should be working with us and as yet you are not working with us to help local communities.

What we thought was that we would be adding labour and getting a job done and whilst this is important, one of the most important things about this trip is that we are actually here and that by being in SA it brings visibility to what the community and the NGOs need and that by Supporters being here, the needs of the local residents get more focus. These trips and challenges are hugely important, if nothing else they can hopefully ‘kick start’ the communications between the Councils, residents and NGOs and hopefully make a real change to lives.

Sarah Turnbull, ActionAid supporter

….And lots of it, and I mean lots. We have hand-carried and mixed concrete for the base of the community centre - the first phase is 15m x 10m. We have cement dust in our clothes, in our boots, down our socks and in our hair; we’ve got splatters of cement on hats, on glasses, on faces and pretty much all over our bodies.  It’s been one of the most physically demanding but enjoyable days I have had in a long time. I don’t think any of the team will be having a late night… we’re all pretty exhausted!

There are eleven in our party, quite a small group for an ActionAid Challenge but this is the first trip to SA, we also roped in to work today Sifosi from ActionAid in Jo’burg and Sean, who drives us back and forth between Nydwana and Grahamstown - they’ve worked like troopers!

Smiles  and greetings of ‘Molweni’ are exchanged between our team and the locals with whom we are working.

This morning they were still slightly shy smiles from both sides but tonight as we left there were huge grins and big hand clasps, hugs and back pats. It’s been a great day.