Built For The Village By The Village (and a few special guests)
When Solveig Misner returns home to the US, she may be asked if she did anything special for her birthday while she was away in Tanzania. Solveig, alongside parents and villagers surrounding the Ikhanoda Secondary School, helped to prepare flooring to complete two classrooms and their verandas on her special day. The funds for the materials and skilled labor were made possible by another donor in Los Angeles, California, USA.
It took many hands and many trips back and forth to complete hauling the heavy stones used for the preparation of floor foundations before they were ready for the cement.
After the floors were completed the villagers stayed around while PEN Trust offered them lunch from food donated by Feed My Starving Children.
As we said farewell to the school board, they thanked us with a very special honor - they gave us a goat.
How can you help?
*Grevellia Trees for $2.00 each, are needed to plant around the school perimeter
*Additional four classrooms and library/computer room are necessary
*Teacher Housing still needed
*Toilet Facilities still needed
*Ceiling Board, windows and painting still needed for two classrooms
Additional Photos:
This is the pile of rocks that we started with. All of these rocks needed to be brought into the two classrooms to be placed for the floor foundations.
After the work was done - the cooking began. Again, this was done communaly so one person brought a hoe to dig the fire pit, another stones for the fire pit, another wood for the fire, another a pot, another a wooden spoon, another water on his bike, another pans for eating and so on… Solveig is seen dropping in one of the packets of FMSC rice meals into the pot.
The crowd anxiously awaited the food to be completed. They did not believe that the number of small packets we prepared would feed everyone there - they were mistaken.
The crowd waited until all of the food was cooked before starting to dish it out to individuals as to make sure everyone got some.
The school was encouraged by PEN Trust to keep adding on to the school so that is could serve as both an “O” level and “A” level school for the area. PEN Trust donated fuel for 25 triploads of stones and aggregate to encourage them to keep working.