Monday, January 23, 2012

230112, Monday, day 5 of rondavel- building

                                        View of the rondavel's first cement brick layers

The ladies making the soil fine in preparation for the mud bricks...


It’s been pretty hot for the last two weeks and tonight it’s raining for the first time in a while.  The rain isn’t really doing too much for the heat, but it’s definitely good to have.  I’m sure the plants are happy and everyone else with water tanks – a chance to refill…

And it seems my caravan - with the roof down - isn't leaking at the moment!  Yay!  Just got to cope with the heat of the day with a low roof...

Tomorrow will be my first official day back at the Christian school.  I’m not too worried, I popped in there today and there were very few children, only one grade 9…  So they had all the grade 6 – 9s in one class doing some quiet work.  I really hope they’re not going to give me everybody together in one class tomorrow, I’m not going to be too happy about that.

Had a nice session with Buyana today, I think he might finally start catching on to  the difference between singular and plural, noun and verb… 

Other than that, there’s a little 5 year old Afrikaans girl, very hungry for some learning, staying in the campsite with her parents at the moment.  She visits me often and I give her books and let her practise some scribbling.  This evening she sat with me while I was making my favourite dinner, eggplant, baby marrow, chilli, garlic and tomato with some cous cous and pumpkin seeds.  She quite enjoyed the cous cous and pumpkin seeds and was very amused by my little Japanese miso bowls which I like to eat from.  She’s decided she’ll visit Japan with me some day.

There is a bunch of other people in the campsite right now as well.  To my right there are 4 guys from Orkney, two older guys and 2 younger sons. Staying in a tent.  They’ve come for a week’s fishing and they’re leaving tomorrow again.  It’s been nip tide, so they haven’t been very fortunate with the fishing…  To my left is another very old caravan with about 4 guys as well.  They’re here to work apparently, although there hasn’t been any evidence of that so far.  They’re here to test the soil and to do some drilling in preparation for bridge renovations of three of the local bridges.  That’ll be nice if that actually happens, but we’re not getting excited just yet.

There has been much talk about the roads around here that are getting fixed and a lot of road workers were staying here before, paying quite a sum for accommodation.  There is also a whole site that has been built for the road workers that had to cost a good couple of million.  Now it has all stopped and all the workers are gone, because someone didn’t calculate how expensive the diesel is going to be and now they’ve actually run out of money and can’t continue with the project.  Insane.

Anyway, my little rondavel is also costing me a little bit more than initially budgeted for, but hopefully I won’t have to stop.  I’m just waiting for my second lot of concrete bricks to be delivered so my man can finish the foundation.  The mud bricks will be manufactured soon, just depends how the rain is going to affect things now.  But the two ladies were there today to ‘make the soil fine’ so that they can make the bricks.  Hopefully this week still!

I must just put the word out there for anyone interested in sponsoring some funds towards the rondavel (it is going to operate as a little library/ reading hut/ perhaps even a little play school) any contribution will be most welcome!  The total cost will be under R10 000…
Please contact me on my email Lavonnebosman@gmail.com
My bank details are: Lavonne Bosman, ABSA, Savings account nr: 428174879, Branch code: 632005

Of course, any books will also be welcomed, so if you have any books (especially children’s or any other graded readers, easy reading – English please or Xhosa!)  Please let me know!!!  And thank you for considering! 

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