Project Details
July 2013
We are building a playground in the school grounds of a small school attended by a number of orphans that are sponsored by African Children's Advancement Network. There is currently about 300 children attending the school and the school has no playground at this time..
January 2014
We went to Mazabuka, our family of 4, and we built a playground at the school. We built swings, monkey bars, balance beams, a boat and a number of tyre structures. Although we loved building it and were thrilled at how much the children enjoyed it, we were very naive as to how challenging and expensive it would be to do. We learned a lot about building and working in Africa which included the following a) tools and hardware are hard to find and are expensive, b) old tyres are not free and are often in very bad condition, c) timber must be treated with anti termite treatment which can be slow to dry, d) having your own transport is highly recommended.
The children at the school descended on the equipment with much joy and sense of abandon - so it needs to be strong and well secured. We built a swing for one, but there were never less than 6 kids on it and kids find things on a playground to do, that we never imagined!! We were very fortunate to have some local guys help, which saved us when it came to working with the tyres as we needed true brute strength to get those connecting bolts through.
Our experience has been truly amazing and we were very blessed to have met some fabulous people and experienced the love and warmth that is very real in African children.
Our family also learnt a lot about working together and managing the difficulties that come with working in an environment where not everything happens quickly, power outages and unexpected downpours are just part of a normal day, you can't order things on the internet and that patience and gratitude are an unexpected reward.
