moments of inspiration…

I get in these moods. Moods of inspiration to create something. One of these moods came upon me on Sunday as we sat in the “Wovles” cafe in Joburg on our last day of our visa trip.  I was looking up different blogs and catching up on all my interwebs work. (Don’t kid yourself it’s alot of work keeping up with the interwebs.) And I stumbled on several pictures of watercolor paintings that really got me excited to pick up my paint brushes that I brought from home.

This picture of blue watercolors is what started the whole inspiration. How can you not want to play around with different colors after taking a look a the beautiful blues in that picture.

Oh how I love art that started as a mess. I plan on making lots of messes in the days to come.

And finally my hope is to create something close to these watercolor flowers. Are they not so amazing? Don’t worry I stocked up on painting supplies in Joburg. Happy painting!

We are back in Zimbabwe, STILL waiting to find out about funding… but we are still hopeful. (Secretly, I don’t think we will ever know… its my punishment for something I did  in my childhood.) We are back in good health and marveling at how we are half way through the year and will be back in the states for Christmas in a mere six months. (Should I start my paper chain yet?)

 

paper chains, tug of war, and cake…

Last Wednesday marked our end of the project party. We have been working desperately long hours for the last few weeks to complete our project on time. Some days it seemed that the world was against us with rain and more mud than I’ve ever imagined to hold us back from finishing. But we made it to the end and fortunately we only have some finishing touches to do this next week. But Wednesday we partied. We celebrated the completion of 45 new hand dug wells, 22 rehabilitated wells, and 33 rain water harvesting tanks installed. That’s no small feat! There were several hiccups in this project along the way but the outcome is something to be very proud of. And without the national staff here in Gokwe it would have never been completed. I am extremely thankful for their hard work and dedication to completing this project.

We came together as a team for an afternoon of celebration. I was the decorating committee, therefore our party had paper chains. I am famous for making paper chain for long periods of waiting to mark of the days but I thought hey what the heck we can decorate with them too!

The local grocery store called Spar has a pretty decent bakery. The weird thing was it was a chocolate cake but every so often you found a raisin… like a special surprise or someone knocked over the leftover raisins in the cake. I’ll never know.

We had one very friendly game of tug of war and then we got serious. I think we played tug of war for all most an hour and let me tell you there was some fierce completion.

Overall it was a really great time to spend with our staff and really let them know how much we appreciated them and the work they have been doing on this project for the last year.

We had quite the spread of food… we would call it a BBQ but here they call it a Braai. (sounds like bry) It was a beautiful afternoon with really great people. There was even a little dancing at the end of the evening. Its a good thing that it was getting dark and pictures were not able to be taken.

I’m going to miss seeing these faces everyday. We are still waiting to find out if the funding on the next project has been approved, but honestly I’m enjoying my time in Gokwe and finishing up the project here still keeps me busy. I have been extremely blessed and impacted by the work that was done here in Gokwe and am so very happy to have a small part in it.

 

saturday morning project…

There has been considerable silence on the blog lately, its mostly due to the fact that our current project in Zimbabwe is coming to and end on Wednesday. There is so much to be done and we have been putting in long hours of site visits and planning that when we are finally home the last thing I want to do is sit in front of a computer and write. Mostly, I just want to lay flat and watch episode after episode of Nurse Jackie until I drift off to sleep. Which if I’m honest it’s about 1.5 episodes if I’m lucky.

K with our neighbor boy who is wearing a paper chain crown

But I have been documenting these last few weeks in pictures and have many funny stories that will certainly come out later. But I did want to share quickly about my Saturday morning project. One of the projects that Medair has been working to complete is a rain water harvesting project with 12 schools in the Gokwe North area. Each school has 2 to 3 tanks that are connect to gutters attached to the school buildings. During the rainy season each school collects enough clean water from its roof top for all its students and teachers to drink and wash their hands.

Another beautiful day in Gokwe

I spoke with one of the headmaster’s this past week and he told me that due to the rain water harvesting system his school has received that they are now able to attract qualified teachers to come and teach the students. Before the water tanks, he had a very hard time getting good qualified teachers to come to his school. But now with the source of clean water teachers now want to come and teach, which has increased the quality of education that the students are receiving, along with the clean water they also get from the water tanks. Its really great to hear how these rain water harvesting tanks are improving the schools, teachers, and student’s lives.

Rain water harvesting tanks

But back to my Saturday morning project. Each of the tanks are to have a branding plate naming the funding partner (USAID) and the implementing partner (Medair).  So we ordered large stickers to be placed on metal sheets, which will be attached to each tank. My job Saturday morning, along with my colleague was to place each sticker on the metal sheet. As the daughter of a label salesman I was born to do this job.  I can remember when my Dad would bring home boxes of labels to be placed for a special project he was working on at work. I remember sitting and watching TV placing labels on whatever it was that needed them for that particular project. I loved it. I loved feeling apart of what my Dad was doing and knowing that I had an important part of him completing his project. (Plus he also paid us a few cents for every label we placed)

Surrounded by stickers and metal plates

So I was quite content to spend the morning (just a few hours) placing the stickers on the metal sheets and wishing my Dad with his steady hands were here to help me with my project. Life always seems to come full circle. All 33 stickers were placed successfully and are ready to be attached to each tank.

Stickers in the sunlight

This week is shaping up to be another really busy week to complete our project. But on a high note we are having a project ending party… and I am the decorating committee. I’ve got two words for you… paper chains. I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures of all the decorations and the party!