The Middle Part

SUCCESS!!! Can everyone stand up, wherever you may be, and just give a whoop! or clap or a Yes! for the Rejoice-MmaPula team? Man, after a lot of hard work, it's refreshing to soak up some tangible results. So refreshing. Today was a normal day in the village. I'm leaving tomorrow for the weekend (going to the half marathon I did last year... and no, no... I'm not running.. I'm OK walking, that's perfectly fine) so I wanted to wrap a couple of things up before I was out on a workday. I walked to the post office this morning and checked the mail, talked to Nick and Christy for a little while, and then went to drop all the building plan quotations off at Kodumela. Normal day, nothing too exciting. I was sitting in the office, ready to head home, when I thought to ask Cedric if he had heard anything from CashBuild, the big store we bought some building materials from almost two weeks ago. He had. Oh, he had. They were delivering today.. and they showed up 15 minutes later. SO exciting!!! People walked out of the offices to see who was coming up the driveway and Ledile was yelling across the parking lot, "MmaPula! You guys have done well! Look, our supplies have come! We must get photos! Good job, girls!". Rejoice and I kept high fiving. Fence materials for Ophelia!(I first wrote about her in You are strong) A toilet for Mokgadi and her family! Water piping for Mokgadi and her family! Steel doors for the drop in center in Makguang! Filing cabinets for 6 drop in centers so we can help them start files on each orphan! Woo!
Oh, this is huge. A project that's taken months and months to get off the ground has taken off and is flying. I first wrote about everything in Heartbeats and now for the updates! For the last few weeks I've been really busy doing a lot of the behind the scenes work for the projects to get started... and I really, really couldn't have done it so fast or so thoroughly if Rejoice hadn't been working closely with me, asking the right questions, getting on the phone to put pressure on people who weren't very efficient, and being a phone call away when I needed to talk out next steps. Man, what a good friend and coworker. I spent days at the office calling places in Tzaneen for quotations to be faxed to us, I spent days walking all through Metz trying to get quotations from local businesses for bricks and other supplies, I spent time going to Rita (south of Tzaneen where a new shopping complex was recently opened) and Tzaneen to get quotes and meet with John and Mary, I turned in the quotations and had Lorraine at Kodumela issue me checks for purchasing, and then finally, I spent some time going back to the places that quoted us the best materials at the best prices to actually BUY things. I have been to town too many times to count. I will admit I was stressed at times, worried if I would make it to the deadline (John and Mary needed receipts for an audit). I sweat A LOT because most days were hot and it wasn't all that fun running around. I know, more than once, I was reminded of how nice things would be if they were closer, if I had a car, if it wasn't so freakin' hot. The day receipts were turned in I sighed, celebrated, and you better believe I slept very well that night.
This is what I treated myself to when all the work for purchasing everything was through. Yum!

The guys from CashBuild unloading all our building materials!

High Fives all around! Mmapula and Rejoice.

Rejoice, MmaPula, and Maite (who so graciously took some photos for us today)

What R20,000 (about 2,000 US Dollars) can buy two Child Headed Households and six Drop-In Centers
Fencing Materials (Ophelia)
6x Mesh
1x Pedestrian gate
1x plain wire 50kg
12x STD
5x corner post
1x fencing wire 50kg
1x cement 50kg
8x stays
8x nuts and bolts

1 standard double bed (Ophelia)

Water Pipe Materials (Mokgadi's family)
130 meters piping and tap

Toilet Materials (Mokgadi's family)
2x zinc 12 fit
5x cement 50kg
1x perline 12 fit
2x timber (for roof)
1x door with frame

2 steel doors with frames (Makguang DIC)

6 filing cabinets for DIC's
You got it.. that's a 3 sided fence for Ophelia's yard, a new cushy double bed for Ophelia that I picked out myself (and enjoyed lying on in the furniture store), a water pipe for Mokgadi and her family, a new toilet for Mokgadi, 2 steel doors to replace wooden ones that are warped and leak at the Makguang DIC, and 6 filing cabinets to start files for orphans. Job well done! Many thanks to John and Mary, Tanya, Rejoice, Ledile, Lorraine, Mosie, Cedric, Enos, Letebele, Johannes at CashBuild, Modiba at CashBuild, and the delivery guys.