After the emotional roller coaster of the last blog entry, any follow up was always going to pale in comparison. The last few days have being a lot of behind the scenes negotiations and setting things up for the next big day (tomorrow) and there are no massive blockbuster developments, only diligent arrangements to report on. That said, it is all vital and although I will keep the blog as brief as possible, I know that people have been wanting an update and want to see where their money has gone.
We are now running 2 separate charitable endeavors, the main one is at the Mbizi Orphanage where we have already successfully drilled for water on day 5.
But, we have also now have contracted to extend the bore hole for Robin Hood Nursery School where we have done work in the past as well.
Orphanage: We have had a series of quotes and proposals to complete the work to bring fresh water to the house. I naively believed that the main work was going to be the drilling and that the rest would be easy to set up a pump and taps. But I was wrong. It’s much more difficult that I at first imagined and there are many moving parts needing a builder, a welder, a plumber and an electrician. There is not one particular company that does all of these things together to be able to fit the parts, build and install the tank stand with water tank, install the solar panels to power it all and make it all secure from theft etc, so it took us quite a long time to be able to get it all together but we finally did it and they will all start first thing tomorrow morning!
Nursery School: After eventually doing a good job on the last borehole for the orphanage, we contracted the same company again to extend the dry borehole at the nursery school a further 20-25m down. Their borehole used to be sufficient for the whole school to have ample water to fill their tank and flush their toilets without fear of running out, now there is approximately 15mins of water available each day and there is no water security to drink, to wash hands, or to do anything at all. This borehole extension will hopefully change all of that. They will start drilling at 9am tomorrow morning.
Other actions: On Friday (day 8) we were invited to watch one of the orphans interschool’s sports day. It turned out that we were guests of honor once the school found out that we were coming, with reserved seats undercover, next to the very loud announcer, and just off from the running tracks finish line. It was inspiring to see how keen every student athlete was, how determined the teachers were and despite the very clear lack of facilities and equipment, how they did the very best they could.
We have been invited to take a tour of the school this next week, and we will see how we might be able to work with them and to help in the future. On our “Year 2” trip, we were able to bring a good quantity of sports equipment with us from Europe that was a fraction of the cost of what was locally available, and I think it would be amazing to be able to do the same here again in the future for our next trip.
Finally, we were able to take out all of the orphans for lunch today and then to the local park for all the children to play together. It was Mrs V’s AND Bradley’s birthday, so we reserved a table in a local restaurant, and everyone had their fill of delicious fried chicken and chips with birthday cake to finish off with.
We take the orphans out for lunch every year, and it’s crazy to think that the last time they were all able to go to a restaurant together like this was 4 years ago when we took them then too.
All of these things are only possible with your donations and the fact that we have been able to extend our initial plan from just building the borehole and water system to provide safe drinking water for the orphanage, to now being able to fit a 2nd, larger tank that will provide water for the entire neighbourhood as well as a smaller one that is dedicated to the orphans is entirely down to the donations that we are receiving.
It is also down to the amazing support in your donations that we have been able to help the nursery school as well.
So, make no mistake, every donation counts, and the more we raise, the more children can have safe and clean drinking water. I’m sure that you will agree that is an amazing cause to support and hope that if you haven’t already donated, that you may consider doing so here via this link.
Following on from a previous post highlighting the youngest orphan Malvin and his tragic life before arriving at the orphanage, a lot of people contacted me telling me how they liked hearing about the children so that are able to put a face and name to the project so that they can see exactly who their donations will be benefitting. 
This is Anesu. He is 12 years old. He is mute and seems to have various undiagnosed and untreated problems and was abandoned by his mother as a result. He was unable to walk when he arrived and has recently begun to make his own unsteady steps around the garden on his own. He doesn’t appear to be fully aware of his surroundings but the children, his fellow orphans, each take turns caring for him, holding his hand, guiding him, and feeding him. He is finally part of a family that cares for him and although he needs more than they are able to offer him, this is the only love he has ever known. Your donations help Anesu, just as they help all the children here and for that we will always be truly thankful!
Thank you everyone and I look forward to a more exciting update in the next few days!
Tag: zimbabwe
Day 5. Snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.
Day 5 began bright and early with a plan to be at the orphanage with our children at 8.30am for the anticipated start of drilling. Trevor (head of the drilling team) had contacted us late at night saying that he had an appointment at 7.30am with Zinwa (Zimbabwe National Water Authority) to secure the permit needed to start work that morning.
We arrived full of enthusiasm and excitement for the big day, but were quickly disappointed by the continued allusiveness of the Zinwa agent who was to provide the permit we needed to start.
Never wanting to waste a moment of each day we are here in Zimbabwe, we all took this opportunity to let our kids play with the children of the orphanage. For the first few days, they were very shy and reserved and were not the outgoing friendly kids that we know they can be.
But today all of that changed and Anderson and August had an absolute blast playing for hours with the other children. They started wearing their sandals while the orphans were barefoot but within a few minutes, not wanting to be different, they took off their shoes and ran around without shoes as well. This was exactly the experience that we were hoping that this trip would provide for Anderson and August, and they loved every minute of the day also.
Around 10am, we heard that the permit we so desperately needed, would not be possible until at least the early afternoon, so we went for a quick bite to eat at the local sports club bar for a fizzy drink and a plate of chips for the kids. This remnant of colonial times is a cornerstone of the community for locals, and it was a lucky moment for the kids to see monkeys for the first time. There is a playground just outside, and monkeys were climbing on the slides and see-saw, and along the fences watching us just as much as we were watching them. Whilst enjoying our impromptu wildlife show, we received the call that all was go, and we headed back to the orphanage.
Whilst I was driving I received the following message from Mrs V (the orphanage’s matron):
“Can you please come there’s an argument”
As soon as we arrived, there had already been a crisis and the most stressful of days was just about to get going.
We had prepared the area for drilling the previous day, and we had been informed that this was the absolute best place to drill with water breaks at several points over the whole 50m. But already, this was looking unlikely to be an ideal place to drill. The support legs from the rigging truck had already started to be put down and sank into an old well, meaning that drilling was initially impossible.
I do love a bit of crisis management and problem solving, but this was very much outside of my realm of experience. Luckily a more knowledgeable John was with me to make a plan with Trevor. We decided that we’d fill the old well with the rubble from the demolished concrete bench that had been in the corner of the garden, and then compact it with the support strut from the rig, and then fill the space made from that compaction, and then repeat until the ground seemed to be as solid as we could make it.
After around an hour of this, the very first 5m drilling rod was put into place, and started to eat its way into the earth. Slowly at first, but steady and seemingly without immediate issue.
Suddenly, a group of well dressed people came to the garden gate and demanded to see the owner of the property. Mr V went with them, and suddenly as a result, drilling was stopped even before it had really begun. We initially didn’t really understand why we had to stop, but I made the assumption that the noise, smoke and commotion had caused some problems with the neighbours and they were coming to make a complaint. I was wrong.
These were no neighbours, but undercover police. Despite only recently receiving our drilling permit, and with everything being above board and legal, we were told to halt all drilling until every possible license and permit could be produced. Even I was questioned. Who I was, what I was doing there, why was we were helping this particular orphanage. I have to admit, I was a little curt in my answers as I couldn’t easily hide my annoyance that more bureaucracy was getting in the way of our days mission. Trevor and his fellow management team came to speak to the police one by one, each one looking more nervous and worried than the next. It became clear that although we had a permit for what we were doing, the company was clearly falling foul of some recently introduced new legislation to ensure that taxes were paid, and staff were legally employed and insured to work.
I was really quite worried for around 30-40 mins that we were about to have the whole day of drilling halted, and perhaps have to look for another drilling company to take over which could delay everything for days, if not weeks.
Whilst I continue with my crude attempts at a charm offensive, another member of Trevor’s team approaches the police officers and calls one of them away from the rest of the group. It is clear that the two of them know eachother and they speak in hushed tones. The other officers turn their back to the whole conversation and wait patiently for it finish. I look to see if perhaps something was about to change hands, but I see nothing despite my best efforts. After this quiet chat, however, suddenly everything is fine and the impasse is over. I find out later that a token payment was made for the police to leave and not come back again.
“You can drill, thank you” is all they said as they got back into their cars and drove away, and work could begin once again.
We make our way back to the front yard, and the rig starts up. Suddenly, and almost before we are even ready, we “hit water” and a slurry of wetness gushes out of the ground like we have hit oil. There are smiles all round, and we think “That was easy”…
This feeling is short-lived when we notice that none of the drillers are celebrating as we are. The water isn’t from the ground water, but from the old well. Despite our best efforts, the area isn’t secure enough, and the walls of the bore hole had already shown signs of collapse early on. This whole area that we had prepared, that we had divined and that we had already invested half a day into, had to be abandoned. We argued the case that this was the only viable place for finding water in the front yard, but they were adamant that it was not possible. We were devastated to say the least.
It was time to make another plan. One based on hope and gut feeling more than anything else. The other side of the yard, around 6-7m away was also clear (where the gated entrance was) and we were promised that if we drilled there, we were sure to find something. Not the serious amount of water from the first location, but enough to do what we needed. By now it was already after 2pm and the kids had been getting restless having been out all day and we decided to use the time it would take to take down some more wall and move the truck to the new location, to take the kids home and get them lunch.
At around 3.30pm, I returned on my own (although my friend John soon joined me), to find a huge plume of dust and smoke billowing from the new drilling site. Work was well underway and they had already gone down to 20m while I had been away.
Still no sign of water though. We had been promised that there would be water already at this depth in the original spot, so this was a little concerning. With every rod length that was used, there would be around 20mins of intense noise and dust. And with that noise and dust came more and more anxious looks. Even the smallest amount of damp earth that came out of the new hole was brought over to me to show that there was water there, but it was clear that this wasn’t the kind of water that we needed and it would barely fill a thimble, let alone the 5000 litre tank we have planned to fit.
By 30m I’m very worried as all I see is more and more dust from pulverised bedrock. Nothing can disguise the sheepishness of the drillers as they try to avoid eye contact with me knowing that things are not going well.
By 40m I’m in full on internal “I’ve wasted everyone’s money” mode. By this point at the original location we should be hitting the 5th and main break of water. Here in hole 2, all I see is dust. I think to myself about how I had made this decision to move the borehole and all the responsibility of its failure would be rightly mine. I was thinking how I would have explain on the blog, how I’d probably explain on a video and accept my failure to everyone and apologize for letting everyone down. I was stood alone in the thick of the dust and noise and I wondered what we could possibly do to rectify this situation. I am very aware of the sunken cost fallacy (“the phenomenon whereby a person is reluctant to abandon a strategy or course of action because they have invested heavily in it, even when it is clear that abandonment would be more beneficial.”) and I was telling myself not to throw good money after bad. I wouldn’t be able to explain not only making the first bad decision, but then following it up with another one by spending more money on something that was already proving fruitless.
By 45m, I’m properly stewing in my own thoughts. I make my way over to Trevor and remind him that he promised me water and that is why we moved the rig from the planned location to this new location. It is clear from how he looks at me, that he is just winging it. He has no idea if there would be water here or not, he is just hoping there is as much as I am. I tell him: “You know, this isn’t a borehole for my house, its not for your house; this is for these children. This is more important that any other drilling you will do this year. You understand that, right?”
With this he promises to “give a few extra metres” to attempt to hit water, but there is no guarantee. This could still be a very expensive, and very dry hole.
One of the guys who I thought was working as part of the drilling team pulls me to one side and asks me what I had discussed with Trevor. I tell him that we will drill a little deeper. Before being able to tell him that these extra metres would be for free, he tells me “Pull out. Don’t spend any more money on this hole. There is no water here”.
As you can imagine, this does NOT fill me with confidence and despite the sun on my face, I can feel that I must look pale and worried.
It is at this time, at 48m, with only 2 metres still to go, the rig suddenly comes to a halt. They have run out of diesel.
The constant drilling through solid bedrock has taken its toll and the fuel that was put aside for this entire job has finished before the end. There is now a 40min break while fuel is sourced, and everyone is on edge. Everyone is waiting for the gush of water, and it seems like it is never going to come.
When the fuel arrives it’s now 5pm, the sun is getting low and we’ve been working on this borehole in one way or another the whole day and now we are just a few metres away from potential success, or more likely failure.
The engine starts and everyone is crowded round waiting to see what happens next, and suddenly and from nowhere, there is a massive gush of water. We had been sat right on the edge of it, and only a few cm from where we had paused through lack of fuel, we finally hit liquid gold.
I struggled to get my phone into camera mode and recorded perhaps the most joyous 20seconds of video I have ever recorded.
Watch it here.
All along I had felt it was just me stood, stressing and hoping, but all 22 children were also there behind the safety of the windows and away from the dust, quite literally praying that we would hit water soon, and as soon as we did, the house could not contain them anymore and it was like your favourite team had just scored the winning goal in the cup final with everyone jumping around and cheering. I can’t help but feel emotional myself and suddenly the stress is lifted and I feel the emotion of the whole situation.
Luck played a huge part, and I totally understand that too, but in the end it was a success and it is your donations that made all this happen. It was an absolute privilege to be here to see it, but it wouldn’t have been possible without the help from all our friends and family who saw this as a worthy cause. It’s by no means over yet, but the biggest step has been taken and we can’t wait until the first cup of clean drinking water is drank and know that we have all played our small part in making that happen.
As the cheers settle down, and as the hugs slow somewhat, one of the older children comes to me and says: “You have done a wonderful thing. Water is life”
But I know that WE have done it as a team. You, if you have donated, Nicole as my rock and partner, John and Jackie who opened up their home to us so that we could have a base here to work from, and every one else that has helped along the way. This was a team effort in the biggest sense and we thank each and every one of you!
Tomorrow we return to finish the job, but until then 3 words stick in my mind on a loop and it makes me realize how much we take having access to it for granted at home, but here in Zimbabwe WATER IS LIFE.
If you would like to help support us and what we are doing here, the link is here: www.gofundme.com/zimbabwe-school
Thank you everyone!
Day 4. Reconnecting with Miss O, and prep for drilling.
Day 4 started early at 7am and I headed to the orphanage on my own for a change. With the children joining us on this trip, consideration must be made for their sleeping patterns. As much as we want them to be with us and experience every moment of what we are here to do, we also must be pragmatic in knowing that 2 sleep deprived toddlers are not going to make for an easy day for all concerned.
So, this was the day that we needed to clear the front of the yard ready for the drilling rig to come in and start work. For this to happen, a concrete wall, fence and 3 trees needed to be cleared. 
Malvin was his usual fun self and as I was taking a break from moving a bit of earth, he noticed my Apple Watch and the bright colours and from that moment on, I couldn’t draw his attention away from it! He loved scrolling through the apps and pressing the buttons. I think I now have several new alarms that could go off at any time, and a clock face I don’t know how to change, but he had fun doing it. 🙂
Albeit relatively unexciting, this vital step was very important and nothing could be done without it this being completed so I was very happy to get this over and done with early in the morning.
By 9am, everything was done and ready. Now to negotiate, with the drilling company for the best price. John and I met with Trevor the rig owner that same morning and planned to start as soon as a permit could be arranged. As with any bureaucratic country, permits and licences are vital when anything of importance is about to happen. Despite our very best efforts, even finding someone in the department that needed to receive the money for the permit proved impossible and day 4 petered out with no more work on the water pump possible.
While we waited, we were lucky enough to find a moment to drop in and visit with Miss O at Robin Hood Nursery. Regular readers and donators will perhaps remember her from Year 1. We were able to help her then with the construction of a desperately needed new classroom and some upgraded plumbing so that the children had toilets and sinks with running water. Below is the classroom (inside and out) that we built last time.
It was an absolute privilege to see her again and see the joy that she still has for the children that come and spend their days with her for their vital first taste of education. We hope that the school has her wisdom and vitality for many more years to come.
She informed us about her own borehole and that it was now failing to produce more than 15mins of water each day. Watch this space for an update of how we will hope to help her and the children in her care in the coming weeks with your donations. If you’d like to donate for this cause, click here to help.
We managed to spend time with each age group and Anderson and August were able to play with the rest of the children. Although a little shy at first, they soon opened up and became the centre of everyone’s attention. The other children were fascinated in their long straight hair and couldn´t help but to be inquisitive about it and sneak a touch here and there. After all, they had likely never seen a white child their age up close before, and children are always curious!
Back once again after 4 long years…
Year 4, days 1-3.
First of all, we would love to thank each and every donor who has put their hand in their pocket and who gave us money so that they could help those less fortunate than themselves. We have, so far, over 120 donors and every day it is growing! So far, the main event we did for sponsorship was a sponsored walk. Over the course of 3 days, me and Nicole managed to do 228km and raised €5000 doing so! So, thank you everyone. Now it’s our job to show you where that money will go…
Those unfamiliar with this blog, and who are perhaps new to what we are even doing in Zimbabwe at all, I’ll give a quick recap. It has been 4 years since we were last here, after all!
Nicole and I have been coming here since 2017 (known as Year 1 in this blog) and then returned in 2018 (Year 2) and 2020 (Year 3 when we came with 7month old Anderson). But then with Covid shutting the whole world down and the birth of our youngest daughter August, we were unable to return; until now.
In all that time we have raised over €25,000 and brought it here to Zimbabwe to make the lives of children who have less than nothing, more bearable and give them a future that is brighter and filled with possibilities. We have made beds and bedding, fitted plumbing and electrics, fixed rooves and walls, bought schoolbooks and uniforms, and fed and watered orphans and blind children… all with your donations!
This year, our main aim is to provide fresh drinking water to the orphanage that we found in Year 3. Back then, there was a little over a dozen children all in one tiny house, with only the floor to sleep on in the middle of a village called Rimuka on the outskirts of Kadoma, Zimbabwe. At that time, we were able to provide them with a gas cooker, and had triple bunk beds for 12 children made, with waterproof mattresses.
Upon our return to the orphanage run by Mrs V, the number of children has risen to 22, and the risk of a cholera outbreak has also risen. During the intervening years, Mrs V also suffered from the negative effects of diabetes and is now wheelchair bound, and had to have a leg amputated. She, and her husband, still plough on as best they can, but this just shows us more than ever that they need all the help that they can get.
When the rain comes, the water system in the whole area cannot cope, and contaminated wastewater makes its way into the drinking water, and everyone drinks it. They have no choice. It is a risk that everyone, everywhere takes each day.
Imagine being unable to trust the only thing that you have available to drink each day wont be the exact thing that kills you. The current cholera fatality rate is 2.6% and children are the most susceptible to being in that statistic. Currently their main source of drinking water is a pipe protruding from the ground, flowing into a dirty puddle over a kilometer away. The queues can be long, and the water is often brown and unsafe, but it’s either this, or go thirsty.
So, how can we make a difference to provide fresh drinking water to the orphanage?
This is where your donations come in. Today (day 3), we paid for a local and highly regarded water diviner to come to the orphanage and search for the best location to drill a borehole. As it had been so long since we were here, we had forgotten how small the plot of land that the orphanage was built on. Perhaps 40m2 of space was available at the very front of the house, and there was a very real chance that there might not be a viable location there to drill. But… today we were in luck!
The results were that at around 40-43m down below the surface in the front right corner of the garden, there is a relatively strong flow of water. Usual drilling quotes are based upon going down as far as 40m, so we will have to pay a little more than usual, but thanks to the overwhelming support of every donor, this will can be afforded.
With today being a Sunday, we will have to wait until first thing in the morning to phone up a selection of drilling companies and get the best, and cheapest, option available to start drilling almost immediately. In the meantime, we will have to remove 2 section of garden wall (which can be put back after the borehole has been drilled) and will have to remove 2 tree stumps, and 1 whole tree. 
We hope that tomorrow we should be able to make a start on making the space ready to drill, and hope that by midweek we will be drilling. These will all feature in the next blogs.
After that, we need to fit and secure a solar water pump, and connect the piping to a preexisting water tank so that they have an endless supply of clean water.
We cannot wait to show you the progress, and will document it all on this blog.
In the meantime, I always think that it really helps for donors to know who they are helping directly and yesterday we met the youngest member of the orphanage. He hasn’t been there very long, and he is only 3 years old, but he has already had a tough life. You wouldn’t know it from meeting him as he is as happy and smiley as any child I have ever known, but he bears the scars of his life prior to the orphanage. He showed us the scar on this throat where his mother had tried to kill him as she was an alcoholic who couldn’t provide for him and wanted to be “free from the burden of being a mother”. Luckily, she did not succeed. We don’t know what happened to the mother, but the little boy (Malvin) came straight to this orphanage from the hospital. 
If you would like to help Malvin, and the rest of the children, donations are still being accepted of course. Once we fit the water into their house, any extra funds will go on food, clothing, school materials etc. We work really fluidly, so if we see a need, and we have the funds donated already, we are able to quickly put those funds into effect, so the more that is raised, the more we will be able to do for the children while here.
Thanks once again and please keep reading the blog and supporting us with shares, likes and of course donations.
Round 2, Days 11, 12, 13 & 14. Sabotage, vandalism & disappointment.
We’ve had a really frustrating few days and its made it really hard to even want to sit down and write anything at all. So for that I apologise. I know in my heart that we like to remain as positive as possible at all times, but its been particularly hard this week. Our last blog told of how we’d fixed every leak, every shower and every toilet at Jairos Jiri School for Blind Children. It told of how we’d given the children constant running water for the first time in their memories. We were understandably pretty chuffed with ourselves and proud that we’d put your donations to such good use and I wasn’t shy about saying all about it in the blog either.
Then, when we thought we were not long away from turning around and declaring job well done, we went for the first of MANY final walk arounds to check on everything only to be greeted with problems at every turn. A shower is working at night, but then next day its not. A toilet flushes one morning, but by the afternoon it doesn’t. A water tank fills up with ease one minute, and the next its dry as a bone; and all without a reasonable reason. Not one that we could immediately see anyway. It was a very frustrating time I can tell you!
We only have 4 weeks here and every day counts, so imagine feeling like you are chasing around after yourself for days on end and wasting those days. Every day we lose, is a day day we haven’t been able to do something to help someone else. We haven’t been able to head back to see Miss O yet and make a start on the classroom we promised to repair for her, for example. We will 100% make that happen, but the fact that its taken this long and we still haven’t gotten around to it yet, is disappointing to say the least.
So, 4 days of chasing our tails and here I am writing about sabotage, vandalism & disappointment… What do I mean by this?
It’s going to be really hard to for me to explain quite how antiquated the plumbing system is at Jairos Jiri, but the original plumbing has been added to and altered an incalculable number of times, and not to its benefit. This is, of course, on top of the fact that this building hasn’t actually been upgraded at all since its original build in 1981. So, it’s a hodge podge of decrepit pipes running in random directions, from well (borehole) water to intermittently supplied government water to irrigation systems for the fields and water tanks competing for limited resources. So, use your imagination to think how frustrating it could be when someone starts sabotaging your best laid plans and you have no idea why or how.
For example, to get water from the borehole to the girls toilets it has to be dragged up from 50m below ground via an electric pump. This pipe then runs to a T junction where half of it is meant to be pushed into a water tank that is used for irrigation of the allotment that feeds the children on a day to day basis, and the rest is pushed towards another water tank that is then used to service the girls bathrooms. Along this pipework that covers around 200m of ground there are various stop cocks, taps, diverters and valves. When we finally thought we’d finished all the plumbing, and had water running to the bathrooms, imagine coming back the very next day to find no water and all the girls complaining about it to us. We were hoping for a different reaction entirely.
Now we were on a mission to try and find out what had gone wrong. In one day, half of the stop cocks and valves had been closed, the water tank servicing the bathrooms was now empty and we had no idea how, or more to the point, why, this had happened at all. We’d been working with the plumbers for a fair few days solidly moving towards an end product and now we felt like we were being asked to almost start all over again.
So why would the water have been switched off at all?
First thoughts running through our mind was that the staff had been switching it off to conserve water. Short term thoughts going against long term goals perhaps? We are always wary of people we don’t know and who’s interests can not always be clearly defined as running parallel to our own. So before speaking to anyone at the school we ran a series of tests, opening the valves that needed to be opened, and then coming back in a hour or two’s time to see if the had been closed again. Invariably they had.
After a few days of discussions, accusations, traps and still no consistent water to the girls bathrooms we finally got the bottom of it all… It turns out that the water tank that is being used to irrigate the fields, has been the number one, and ONLY, priority. The minute our backs were turned, the farmer/allotment keeper would switch off as many valves as he could to give him the best water pressure, regardless of if that left the 49 blind children without running water. Needless to say, we were fuming.
It takes 3 hours to fill the 5000 litre tank with the pump switched on, but each day its only on for 1 hour and during that hour the water was constantly being redirected to the fields and the girls were being ignored. Today we put a stop to this. We had to threaten to walk away from everything and stop helping the school out (it was of course a bluff, but one they seemed to believe) if the water wasn’t allowed to flow. We really just hope that we don’t have to go in tomorrow and check and find an empty tank all over again, but it does feel like we’ve turned a corner, finally.
So, if that was the sabotage, what was the vandalism, then? This time, it was the boys turn; except they were not the victims, but the perpetrators.
If you’ve been following the blog, you will know how bad of a state the boys toilets were in when we first came across them. We’d replaced every toilet cistern, fixed the large steel urinal so that it now finally flushed, put shower heads in every cubicle and made every tap work as well. So doing our “final” walk around we were absolutely gutted to turn into the entrance and find one of the boys was stood there fiddling with the pipe work on the urinal. When we got up and near, it became quickly apparently either he, or someone before him, had completely taken the system apart and now it was merely flooding the floor instead. We were not at all happy and took him to the headmistress for him to explain what had happened. He claims he hadn’t done anything and it was already like that, but who really knows anything other than the fact that someone had broken the system, and to what end?
We headed back to the bathroom to check for more damage and found a toilet cistern had also been taken apart and the plastic flushing mechanism was in pieces. Luckily it was all inside the cistern ready to be put back together again, but quite why this was done in the first place was beyond us.
Next up was the showers. These were the main focus of all the photos we took on our first visit as they were so disgusting and most of all, didn’t work. So we were happy that even though we hadn’t (yet) made them look any nicer, they did finally work. So, final checks were being done and one by one each shower is put through its paces and works fine. Then all of a sudden, one of them refused to work. The taps had been changed, the water was on and there were no leaks, so why did this one not work? It must be a blockage. After a short demolition job on the shower unit, it turned out that the pipe leading to the new shower head had somehow become blocked. At this stage, we still believed it was an innocent blockage, though. After all, water hadn’t run through the system in months, if not years, so there was bound to be some sort of build up or sediment. I’d already seen on many occassions the filthy water that would find its way out of a newly opened outlet. It would run a muddy red colour and then eventually clear. So, imagine our surprise and dismay that after a full 5 mins of jamming around in it with various wires and a even a screwdriver we finally get to what the blockage is. Its a piece of sponge. Small, but still large enough to have been compacted into the pipe. The shower head had been removed, packed with sponge and replaced as if nothing had ever occurred! Again, why on earth would this have happened in the first place? We were at a loss for words and together with the broken urinal and broken toilet cistern this was 3 of the 8 pieces in the one room out of action in 24 hours and this was meant to be our confirmation walk through that all was in full working order.
So, why did the boys decide to vandalise their own toilets? It was something we found really hard to reconcile with at first, but when put into context, it was less about vandalism, and more to do with the lack of education of what they shouldn’t be doing. It was even more to do with the fact that these children are blind and do everything with their hands and not their eyes. Perhaps the toilet wasn’t filling up fast enough, or flushing fast enough, so they took it apart to try and feel their way to making it work. This, of course, actually broke it, but they perhaps didn’t know that at the time. The urinal hadn’t worked in over a decade, so perhaps the boys were being curious as to how it was now suddenly working and fiddled with it to try and find out. Again, using their hands as their eyes and breaking it in the process. None of this, however, explains why one of the boys decided to shove a piece of foam to stop the water running out of the shower completely.
I know this sounds like a long moan about everything, but I do feel its really important to showcase the rough with the smooth. Its vital that you can see everything isn’t plain sailing but we don’t give up in the face of adversity. Your donations have allowed us the ability to do what we can, even if (at times) the children don’t really understand what it is that we are doing. We won’t stop helping them, we won’t walk away from them despite our threats to do exactly that. Everything we are doing is to benefit the children and its your donations that are helping to make that happen. If you’d like to help out and donate, then the link is here. I hope you see the benefit in helping others and any donation is gratefully accepted. 🙂
So after days of work, fixing everything left right and centre, running into massive overtime as a result of all the sabotage and vandalism, we are just about, finally there.
I hope.
Watch this space, but we hope that there is no more disappointment to come…
Friday morning we head to Harare to the mattress factory to finally get the mattresses final price and quantity ordered for the children. Fingers crossed that they can be tamper free and remain in one piece. Thank you for reading and thank you for your support.
Round 2, Day 8, 9 & 10. Lets get to work…
Catching up on some really eventful days… We’ve been up at 7.30am each day and not back until after 6pm but we’ve been putting your donations to work.
At the start of the week, Jaros Jiri School for Blind Children had no running water, only 7 working lights out of around 60 across the whole of the living accommodation, there were leaks running left right and centre across the whole compound and the barriers to stop the children accidentally falling into the gutters were all rusted, rotten and missing.
In the last few days we have successfully restored ALL the running water to both the boys and girls bathrooms and the canteen kitchen. There are now shower heads in at least the boys bathrooms and we are working on the rest (there is an extreme shortage of shower heads in Zimbabwe apparently…). Some are still just an open pipe that pours a torrent of water over their head, but for now, this is like a dream come true compared to the buckets that they replace. We’ve also replaced all of the broken taps and fixed every leak and sorted an issue with water pressure in the girls bathrooms.
We replaced every broken light bulb in every room. We’d only ever visited during the days, so we’d not really taken much notice of the lighting before, but as we were walking out one day, I noticed one of the long strip bulbs that you usually get in office blocks and kitchens. It was so dusty and old, with the blackened edges that mean that it had blown, perhaps years ago. So we decided to check out all of them and found only a fraction of them actually worked anymore. I know what some of you may be thinking, ‘why would a school for the blind need lights anyway?’ and I suppose it is a fair question. Blindness isn’t a cut and dry condition. Many people can be “blind” but actually this is just a blanket term for a range of severe sight loss issues. One child’s level of blindness could mean having about 10% vision, but for another it could be that they have double that. Neither can fully function in the outside world, but more than anything we totally appreciate that their 10% would 100% need the lights to work at night, or their 10% will be 0%. Upon fully realising this, we made it a priority to fix them before the day was out, and before the darkness would set in. We are proud to say that your donations helped pay for so that the partially sighted no longer felt bed bound the moment the sun would set.
The plumbers that we’ve been using have been a constant source of smiles and jokes. They try their hardest to speak in Shona with us, and we do our hardest to pretend we know what they are saying, but their smiles are infectious all the same. The fact that they are so constantly happy is in spite of the really sad news that one had only recently had a tragedy befall him. He has a 6week old daughter, but no wife. “God came for her after she was cut in the hospital so that I could have a daughter”. We didn’t want to ask any more, but I think we all know what had happened. He says that he has cried every day since it happened and when he talks about it, his perma-smile is nowhere to be seen. Now all that gets him through the day is work from dawn until dusk and the reward of a few beers after work with his twin brother. Its just another sad reminder that we are in a 3rd world country and that life is a lot harder here than in our relative comfort at home. I can’t possibly imagine going through what he has and still getting up each day to provide for his newborn child, but in a country where life expectancy is in the low 40’s, its just another story amongst millions.
The steel workers we’ve been using have been a pretty mixed bag so far. A couple of days of really hard work, followed by some time wasting and trying to drag the job out. We’ve tried our hardest to keep them working but the moment our back is turned the go off and do what they want to do… So when the final day was coming to an end and they started packing up their equipment with the last job still unfinished, Nicole kicked into overdrive and gave them the kick up the arse that they needed. It was pretty impressive seeing her get stuck in like that and there was no confusion afterwards that unless they finished everything, they were not going to get paid for anything! So, an extra hour later and we finally had the barriers up around the dorms.
To put this into context, the barriers are the only thing that separates the corridor areas and 45cm drop into the gutter that the rain water should fall into. It’s impossible to say how many times children had fallen into the gutter and hurt themselves, but its now a thing of the past thats for sure. It seemed pretty straight forward to us that these should have never been left to rot and break, and should have been maintained and replaced as soon as they did break, but lots of things at Jaros Jiri defy logic. We can only identify ways that we can help, but it is a bit of a shock when its obvious that some things get ignored, when others don’t. The staff areas, for example, are nowhere near as bad as the areas that the children are asked to inhabit. This is a perfect example of why it is important to cut out the middle man and do charity work the yourself, get stuck in, or at the very least if you do want to donate, donate where you know for fact where the money is going to. If we see something wrong, we go and fix it. No point throwing money at those in charge and hope that the results are the ones that you want, you can never know what your funds will go towards. Its a sad reality that we have to think this way, but its one we came into with our eyes open and why we’ve always remained committed to helping the children directly and do whatever it is that we KNOW to be what is best for them. If you want to help us to help them, please donate here.
After our amazing friends even more amazing donation, we’ve established that we’ll finally be able to afford to replace every single one of the broken mattresses. We’ve still been looking around for a better price than the one that we’ve been given though of course. $45 each is 50% more than we’d paid only 10months before, but despite an extensive search and the promise of buying 150 of them all in one go this is actually as cheap as we can find and the final price will be $6,750… Its an eye-watering amount of money, but what price can you put to a good nights sleep? 150 good nights sleep over 300 days of term time, meaning 45,000 good nights sleep a year. When put in those terms, perhaps its really not a bad price at all… We’ll be looking to pull the trigger on these at some point next week and can’t wait to install them all while the kids are in class for a nice surprise at the end of the day. 🙂 This will mean the kids will no longer have to sleep on the floor under any circumstances.
Aside from our work at Jaros Jiri, we finally confirmed with Mrs. Magama that we were going to start with a new, in-house tutor at Tariro Orphanage. Emmah Chizinga will be starting work on Monday morning at 8am and we’ll be working closely with her to make sure that her lesson plans work for each and every child in the house and that she is on hand to help with every aspect of the children’s education. English language will be a main focus, but home economics and all other subjects as well. These orphans may be without a family, but it shouldn’t mean that they shouldn’t have the best education possible. It will initially be a month trial, but we’ll leave the money for a years wages so that she can be paid in our absence should it prove a successful partnership. Her wages are being covered in their entirety by your donations, so if you think this is something that you’d like to help with please donate here.
After my last description of driving through Rimuka garnered so much attention (I received a ton of messages from people asking about it) we decided to try and take a few photos as we we drove through. We were very keen to not appear to be just taking photos because we were looking down on them or something, so we had to be a bit sneaky to get what we could. Like anything in life, no photo can really do the reality justice but we hope that you get a good feel for the place.
And with that, we’ll leave you until the next instalment when we hope to have some more news of how your donations have been helping people who cannot help themselves. Last picture of the day, however, will be one that really took our breath away. We were driving through downtown Kadoma as the sun was beginning to set. In a country where dusk can be a beautiful, unaltered beauty the smoke from an open fire rose against the backdrop of the bustle of the local bus station, and the foreground of the potholed dirt road that ran through the centre of town. In one photo, I feel that we captured the essence of Zimbabwe and I hope you like it as much as we do. Thank you for reading and thank you for the support you have shown so far. 🙂
Round 2, Day 5&6. Getting to grips with everything…
We are no longer feeling overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead of us, but inspired with what changes we can make with what we have at our disposal. We’ve managed to raise a great amount of money over the last few days after the blog from day 4 and hope to put that to great use over the coming week or so. With the weekend getting in the way, progress was slowed somewhat, but we have still managed to set quite a few wheels in motion.
We returned to Jaros Jiri at the end of last week and met up with a pair of plumbers. We made a full list of every single item that needed fixing, every pipe that needed replacing and every leak that needed stopping. It was actually a lot more than we initially thought. There were entire sections of plumbing that had been removed and never replaced. No wonder the toilets didn’t work! We found even more leaks than we thought there were before and when the water was finally switched on so that we could test it, we found that the first shower in the boys bathroom would come on, but then never be able to be switched off… Hence, no water at all for the entire bathroom. It really is a shame to see and it never had to get to this point. Just some simple ongoing maintenance would have had these bathrooms in full serviceable order today, and forever. I suppose its easy to point this out, but if you barely have enough money to feed the children, then corners will be cut wherever and whenever they crop up. Its a shame all the same.
Upon further inspection of the broken roof at Jaros Jiri, we have established that it is in fact an asbestos roof. Yes, you heard correct; Asbestos. Thats the stuff you have probably heard about on the TV every now and again with some builder, or contractor or roofer suing their former employer for damages as they have fatal health problems directly related to working with asbestos. So replacement has to be the ultimate goal, but a quote of $20,000 for the entire job is entirely impossible at this stage… So unless anyone knows a millionaire who would like to put their hands in their pockets for this, I can only see that patching up the holes as the option we have to go for. We have a few numbers to call about getting a quote on fixing the roof and this we’ll actively try to make happen this week. Its summer here at the moment, so no rain, but its best to not hope on permanent good weather and get this fixed while we can. So watch this space.
We also mentioned fixing up the kitchen so that cooking could finally be done indoors. We are pleased to announce that today we won a bidding war on a local auction website to buy a large industrial sized gas hob set. JK, our host for this month and the reason we found out about the school in the first place, has also been raising money for Jaros Jiri and waiting for us to join forces to really get the school back on its feet. Its via JK that the gas cooker was found, bid on and purchased. It will be winging its way to the school by the end of the week. We’ve also procured a large industrial gas bottle that we’ll fill up and they will be cooking inside for the first time in years in no time. Along with the sinks all being fixed, and water being on, this will be an amazing change for the school kitchen staff and they will surely think that their christmases have all come at once!
So, tomorrow, Tuesday, we start in earnest. We will be collecting a batch of steel rods to go along with the cutting disc and welding rods that we already have from today and heading to Rimuka, the township next to Kadoma, to pick up 2 welders to come with us to Jaros Jiri. We’ve sorted and counted out 56 broken bed frames and we will get to work on them all day long until, hopefully, they are all done.
Tomorrow will also be the day that we’ll get our final price for the 150 mattresses that we need to buy. We are also buying an extra triple bunk bed for the orphanage so will factor these in when negotiating a total price. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to afford it all. With your help, hopefully we can. These children need them! Donate here if you’d like to help.
Finally for today, we visited the orphanage for an activities day. We were able to bring some donated colouring books and crayons. They went down a treat! We were also able to chat with Shelly and Wendy. They have been helping out at Tariro on, at the very least, a weekly basis since its inception. Wendy brings toys and games to help them have a little fun in their life, and Shelly is more hands on when it comes to their facilities. It was during a conversation with Shelly that we came to the conclusion that to get the education that the children deserve, we could potentially look at a full-time tutor. With wages being what they are, it is supposed that for a mere $200 a month, we could find a fully qualified, but currently unemployed, teacher who could take the youngest children in the morning and help the older children in the afternoons. Helping with homework, giving them much needed 1 on 1 tuition and, perhaps most importantly, teaching all the children English too. Can you help the children get an education so that despite being orphans, they could get the best start in life possible? If you think that you can help, please donate here.
All in all, its been a pretty hectic few days setting up everything for this week… Hopefully we can do you all proud, and by the end of the week we’ll have some amazing pics to show for it too. Until then, thank you for reading, thank you for continuing to donate and keep coming back to check in on us.
If you would like to donate, its never too late to get involved, so do it here.
Round 2, Day 3. Day 3 and reaction to Day 4.
Before I get to what we got up to on day 3, I’d like to address the response we had to yesterday’s blog.
I would really like to thank everyone from the bottom of my heart and Nicole would too. Since this time yesterday we’ve managed to receive over €800 (around $900) in donations and the promise of more to come. If you are one of the many waiting to donate, thank you for contacting us to say that you are going to and we look forward to using it when it arrives! We also received an amazing offer from a couple of awesome jewellers (one of which I went to school with many many moons ago!) in Scotland who are going to hold a sale on our behalf with all proceeds going to the Jaros Jiri School for the Blind.
So, if you would like to donate funds (and we need all the help we can get) this is the link to do that: Donate.
But if you’d like to help up in another way, you can follow the links below to buy an item of jewellery knowing that the money will be going to the same place. Once they sell out (and their stuff is amazing, so I know it will) please don’t be too disappointed and decide not to donate at all, but until then, this is a great way to buy a gift for someone, or even for yourself, but be donating to charity at the same time!
Please check out their pages, like them and show them some support too. They haven’t asked me to say this and are not doing it for promo at all, so all the more reason why they deserve to be acknowledged for donating their time, expertise and beautiful handmade jewellery for a good cause.
So, once again, thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we hope to do you proud with what we are able to achieve with your donations.
I’ll touch on what we have been able to achieve today (day 5) on the next blog, but until then I have to keep you up to date with what we got up to on day 3, before we’d even set foot in Jaros Jiri.
Last year we spent a lot of time with “Miss O” and her nursery school. For those that didn’t read last years blog, she is a local legend having taught just about everyone we had met on our first visit, over a period of many decades. Recent times had not been easy on her or her school and we were happy to help them both back on track and provide the care and education her children craved.
It was there that your donations were able to fit running water to her house and school. We were also able to build a new classroom in our last days and hoped to return to see it in full action. Unfortunately the class room hadn’t been built to the standards we’d been promised, nor had the wood been treated in the way that it should have been and it had begin to twist, break and holes were clearly evident on all 3 of the walls that we’d paid to construct. It was a bit disheartening to say the least.
gaps had appeared in the wood in our absence.
Untreated wood was an inviting place for ants and termites
A cursory look around, however, made it clear that although the problem was a noticeable one, it was one that could be fixed relatively easy. I’m gonna have to get out my hammer and nails, and use some of the left over wood from last time to personally fix what had been done badly when it was made. Then after that we’ll get our famous blue overalls on again to undercoat, paint and varnish the wood so that it is protected and can be used as a classroom for many years to come.
We were also able to return to the orphanage to meet once again with Mrs. Magama and, of course, play with the children. We also took the opportunity to decorate the bedrooms with some Barcelona FC posters for the boys, and luminous nighttime stars for the girls. Something simple to change their surroundings as this was now to be their forever home. A couple of skipping ropes also went down a treat with the girls.
Meeting with Mrs. Magama (the saint who is responsible for these children even being here in the first place and not on the street) was amazing. Her smile lights a room and her kind heart is obvious to everyone from the moment you meet her. In the months since we last met, she has had the personal tragedy of losing someone very close to her, but she is still here working and doing what she can for others and for that we applaud her.
Speaking with her, we were finally able to confirm that we’ll start getting bids for a hot water geyser so that the children can have hot showers for the first time ever. We also decided to add something else on to our list of things we’ll be doing at the orphanage in the form of another triple bunk bed like the ones we made last time. There have been a few further additions to the roster of children and now they number 18 and need the extra space. We’ve already been to the same steel worker that we used last time, using local skilled labour, with locally sourced materials too. We feel its important to support the local community with all our endeavours, and this is vital to support the local economy and is another way that your charity money will go further and support the families of the workers making the bunks.
The new skipping rope gets a run out.
Thomas and Ngoni doing their best to show us where the kitchen sink should be.
We also picked up the kitchen sink so that we could take it and have a stand custom fitted so that it can be installed as soon as we get a chance… Final thing we managed to put in place, was a plan to get the electric connected on Monday. The local electric company received over $3500 as a connection fee back in September, and promised to connect within 1 month. That never happened and the house is currently without power. We are now promised that Monday it will finally happen. Watch this space!
Until then, we have Jaros Jiri and its 150 blind children in our minds and I’ll bring you all up to speed on what we’ve managed to put in the pipeline so that we can hit the ground running on Monday. We are happy that we’ve been able to make a start already and we WILL do all of our donors proud. Watch this space and its been a truly amazing 24hours with all the responses to yesterdays blog page. Thank you.
If you’d like to donate, please follow this link.
Round 2, Day 4. Overwhelmed.
Sorry that we were not able to get a message out yesterday but by the time we’d finished for the day it was so late, and this blog takes so long to put together each day, that I decided to put days 3 and 4 together, but day 3 and what happened will have to wait until tomorrow because what happened today needs to be told, and it needs to be heard.
Now, we are not new to this game. We’ve seen more than our share of inhabitable spaces here in Zimbabwe, and we’ve not been shy of showing them to you either. Many of you reading this will have been following our story since last year and many of you will have been generous enough to donate have whatever you could to help towards what it is that we are doing here too. We have been proud to have raised many 1000’s of dollars and done more than we ever could have hoped to have done with that money. But today (day 4) I felt utterly desperate for the first time.
When we first entered into Tariro Orphanage this time last year we were shocked and we knew that we had to act. We wrote the linked blog piece and it went viral online. First amongst our immediate friends, and then to their friends and then beyond. What resulted was an outpouring of help, donations and love. Every time we were able to get internet access, the amounts donated went up and up and up. We were amazed and we were shocked that our simple blog had had that effect.
I’m not so presumptuous to assume that today’s blog will have anything like the same impact, although I really hope that it does, but honestly I don’t see how we can ever begin to help the children of Jaros Jiri School for Blind Children without your help.
What we have seen today has hit me, and hit me hard. When we walked into the orphanage last year it was a massive shock, but it was small (only 16 children) and it was all confined to a single house. It was doable, it was achievable, there was light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Walking into Jaros Jiri we were just overwhelmed by the sheer scale of what was in front of us and what was needed. Degradation everywhere we looked. Building after building after building and every one of them in a state of disrepair. Not even one single toilet worked in a school where 150 children board every night. Every shower is rendered completely useless owing to broken taps, no shower head and most importantly… no water pressure because of leaks everywhere you turn. Children washing themselves is basically a ritual of pouring cold water from a bucket over their own head as they stand in a shower cubicle akin to one in a derelict house. This place was once a beacon of care in the community and a top of the line, government paid, boarding school for those born without sight. Now its like an abandoned house where children are kept in appalling conditions.
We were shown around the entire school, starting with the bathrooms. It was the first place we came to and looking around this one single bathroom alone, I could already see that it almost made no sense to even start trying to do something here, it was that bad. Looking around I saw so many things that needed to be fixed, replaced or removed entirely. Looking around, my heart literally sank and I suddenly felt incredibly depressed. Selfishly I felt depressed for myself as I was subconsciously hoping to be like a saviour riding in on a white horse to rescue them from their poverty with a few simple fixes here and there. Instead I was just hit by the feeling of helplessness of it all and for that I was instantly ashamed; this shouldn’t have been about me at all. We are here to help and we MUST do whatever it is that we can to help. I tried to forget these thoughts as we carried on our tour, tried to be more positive, tried to think of the things that we could do rather than the many that we simply can’t.
Next up was the boarding rooms. Up to 20 children in each room. Every bed worse than the next. I had seen photos from a previous post on facebook regarding what was needed at Jaros Jiri, but I imagined that the photos were taken for effect and that there is no possible way that every dorm room could be as bad as I’d been led to believe. I was was right. They were not as bad as the photos had shown me. They were much worse.
Every single mattress on every single bed needed throwing away. The cheap foam that had been used too many years ago to count was so thin now that they felt as though they were sleeping directly on the broken frames below. The previously waterproof mattresses were all cracked, torn and useless. No level of hygiene could be achieved with these mattresses, let alone comfort. What on earth were we going to be able to do with this place?
It was at this point I looked up to see various holes in the ceiling. I walked over to them and looked inside… Yep, there it was. Exactly what I didn’t want to see.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the sunshine. We live in Ibiza for most of the year and we have to love it! But I don’t want to look up into the ceiling and see the sun shining through the holes in the roof. Of all the times you want to see the sun shine, this is not it. Nearly 40 years after it was opened, the roof had never been replaced or even properly maintained. In the wet season, the rain would clearly pour into this entire building, onto the beds and soaking the children. The same feeling that hit me for six in the bathroom, hit me again… 150 children, 150 beds, 150 mattresses, broken leaking roof, not enough money. My previous attempts to brush away the dark thoughts were thwarted yet again and I stood there speechless.
Next up, we were shown to the kitchen. The facilities showed their age… ancient and never been renovated or maintained. The cold storage facility looked like it hadn’t been used in decades and when we opened the door to look inside the vilest of stenches fell out like a thick fog. The electric cooking pots that would take hours to heat up and use more electric in a day than a family home would in a week, had been abandoned in place of an extra large iron cauldron outside. This is where they would prepare every meal. Another look around at the many sinks in the canteen kitchen again showed how old everything was. Not even one of the taps worked with many not even there anymore. So there was no running water to top off that there was no usable cooking equipment and no fridges… This kitchen had become just a room where the food from outside was plated up for the children. The sheer scale of what was needed to help fix this situation was again evermore apparent. What on earth could we do??
Eventually I was able to say to Nicole: “It’d be like putting a bandaid on a broken arm. We’d be crazy to even attempt such a huge undertaking, right?”
It was of course a rhetorical question. We will attempt. We cannot ignore. We will do our best. But at that very moment I didn’t even know where to start…
Imagine, just for a moment, that you are blind. I know that if you are reading this the conventional way, this concept will be alien to you, but once you have finished this paragraph just close your eyes for a moment and let your imagination run with you. You are blind, you have never known anything other than darkness and your family cannot take care of you. The care you desperately need is more than they could ever provide. You know it, they know it. You are sent away from all that you know, to board with 149 other blind children. Your bed is so broken that you sleep on the floor. You cannot use the toilets as they do not work. You cannot have a shower and have to pour a bucket of cold water over yourself instead. The roof leaks in the room that you share with 19 others and every time you hear the rain outside you know that everything you own is now wet and your bed is too. You begin to dread the sound of rain hitting the roof.
Now, those of you about to close your eyes and imagine this, all of this has happened in the pitch black. You can’t switch the lights on to help you. You can’t switch on a torch to find a better way or move to a dryer patch. You are in the darkness and that darkness will never end. The only plus that you can imagine is not having to actually see how bad your surroundings are. You’d know they were bad, sure, but you’d never see just how bad.
Open your eyes. Nothing that you see in front of you can be as bad as is in front of these children every day of their existence here.
Now, hours later, writing this blog, we’ve come up with the beginning of a list that we hope to plough through in the coming weeks. Some things, like the leaking roof, are simply too large for us to take on and although we would love to make it happen, we simply do not have the funds to try. Perhaps we can look to fill some holes as a temporary fix, but the blocks are old and they need replacing entirely.
So with your help (you can donate here), we aim to:
1) Replace ALL of the mattresses. Yes, all 150 of them. This can ONLY happen with your help. Going on the price that we got last year for each mattress for the orphanage, we are looking at around $30 each. This means $4500 in mattresses alone. Can it be done? Well the simple answer at this moment is no, not really, but I’m hoping for those reading this to dig deep and help. Lets please see if we can make it happen. Can you donate to help us with this? Every penny counts and we have a lot of children to help…
2) Repair each and every bed. We have already arranged for a welder to come with us one day next week (after we have made a full list of beds that need fixing and the amount of steel and welding rods that will require) and spend an entire day making the bed bases usable again. This shouldn’t cost more than $150, for all materials, time and transport. Can you donate towards this amount or is someone reading this feeling extra generous today and thinks that they would like to personally take care of this amount to help the children?
3) Fix the toilets, the showers and the water leaks so that they can use the bathrooms with some dignity. Now, cosmetically I don’t see how we can begin to make them look nice with the money available to us, but we can damn sure try to make the toilets at least flush and sinks turn on with taps that work! We are meeting a team of plumbers tomorrow to price up this work. It could be prohibitively expensive, but we can only try and will do the most we can for the money we have. Can you donate to help us with this? Every penny counts and we have a lot of children to help…
4) Arrange for some sort of indoor gas cooking facilities, with sinks with running water. We’ll also do our best to fix the cold room… But perhaps even that is a money pit and the money would be better spent elsewhere. Maybe you fancy yourself as a bit of a chef and therefore can’t imagine cooking for 150 children in a cauldron, outside and over an open fire every day and would like to donate to help us with this specifically?
Its a short list, but its a big one all the same…
I was about to say that I don’t want to beg, but then I felt the need to correct myself and say f*#k it… I’m begging for your help. We can’t do this alone and although we have donation money with us already, it WILL NOT be enough to do what we need to do here and at the orphanage at the same time. We desperately need your help and every penny donated will go towards helping those less fortunate than yourselves.
With that I leave you humbled and hoping that this blog has reached an audience enough to make a difference. Please, even if you can’t donate today please share, please tag others, please like it on facebook, please do anything you can do spread the word. We need your help, more than we’ve ever needed it before.
Thank you for reading, thank you for following and I hope that you keep reading after this too. We will write all about what we are able to do with your donations and we hope you think that what we are doing is worth it. Dignity is priceless, we hope you agree and these children deserve that at the very least.
Round 2, Day 2. Return to the orphanage.
We woke up bright and early with a list of things we needed to do today. First up was to organise transport so that we could move freely during our time here. Now, many who read last years blog (and yesterdays in fact) will remember the shocking situation that Zimbabwe found itself with roadblocks stopping innocent motorists and demanding money for the tiniest of infractions (if indeed any had occurred at all!). Anything that was remotely on the edge when it came to roadworthiness would result in fines, just for driving around. So, it was a welcome bit of news that these roadblocks no longer existed. Since the change in President late last year, they were removed over night. This meant that we now had access to a new supercar. Picture is included below.
So now we were equiped with an absolute beast of a new car, it was time to head out and to see the children for the first time since March. A lot had changed for them since then. Obviously we’d been able to change their day to day living conditions in their previous house and bring a bit of joy into their lives with everything that your donations were able to pay for last time around, but behind the scenes much more had happened and they were finally in a new home! Its not finished yet, and there is very little in the way of funds left to complete it, but it is a home. A forever home.
We’d love to be able to take the credit for some of this, but in truth Andy (who walked with us in our Ibiza north to south sponsored walk) has been toiling away for years raising money in and around his home town of Stevenage (twinned with Kadoma) and via his architecture firm there and this newly built home is down to him. We are proud to be a part of it and lend our hand. We are proud that the furniture we bought, the beds we built, the cooking facilities we installed into the last house all made a straight transfer over to the new home. This is all with your donations, and if you want to continue to help us help them, please follow this link.
For those that remember what the old house looked like, you will all agree that this new one is a vast improvement. This is where the children will grow up and become adults. This will be their home until they go on to their own lives with their own families and thinking back to that first visit to see them last year we never could imagine that they would be in a place like this.
All said, they still need some vital elements to turn this house into a home, most obviously; electricity. We’ll aim to get this connected and fully functioning by the time we leave. The fridge/freezer we bought them last year sits useless until we can connect the house. The children do their homework by candle light and their days mainly have to revolve around the rise and setting of the sun. Can you donate to help us get the electricity connected?
One thing that really hit home to us this time around was the lack of hot water. They have a nice new bathroom, but can’t really take advantage of it while having to live with cold water. We will look into installing a solar powered water geyser to give them a constant, and free, supply of hot water so that they can shower, bathe and wash as we would all take for granted. Can you donate to help us get hot water installed?
Another improvement we’ll try to implement is to install a kitchen sink. There is a tap, but that simply pours into a bucket and is distributed from there. Can you imagine your kitchen without its sink? Nor can we. Can you donate to help us get a kitchen sink installed?
After all the work in assessing what lay in store for us for the next month, it was time to play with the kids and bring them a present. Having brought 237 pairs of sunglasses with us, there were still quite a few spare to go around and the kids loved them! We’d been donated a few that would be perfect for the youngest children, along with the rest that were best of adults. We brought two options, a bright orange pair and a black mirrored pair. To my surprise, it was the black pair that proved almost universally popular! If you donated glasses at all, these are the smiling faces that you have helped create. Thank you!
Nicole also had a great day back with the children:
“Everyone would ask me how I was feeling about going back to Tariro and my response was always ‘I will go in the same way I did last time and not even think about how the kids will react to us, whether they are surprised or even remotely excited’. I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
I was wrong. We pulled up and Hilda tried to open the gate for us to drive though and into the new grounds. I felt hot and nervous and almost felt like I wanted to just get out the car. I couldn’t wait and just wanted to hold them all and see how much they had grown in the 11 months. The smiles on their faces was amazing. MacDaniel came running over with his usual cheeky grin from ear to ear with Thomas not far behind. Then suddenly all of them were there and they all gave me hugs and I felt very at ease.
It was so nice playing with them and letting them take pics of themselves with my phone again.
We gave them some donated sunglasses (thanks everyone!) and that went down a treat. Even Macanaca was strutting around like a 1 year old supermodel in her new eyewear. How very different to the little malnutritioned baby we remember seeing sitting on the floor unable to move.
Macanaca then…
…and now.
We were able to have a walk around the new house and its certainly a step up with grounds where they are able to eventually grow their own fruit, veg and even have herb garden. Seeing the change that has happened in their lives over the past year has be such a rewarding experience and I’m so proud that we were able to be a part of it.”
All in all, it was a very rewarding afternoon. We have our new list of things to do and we’ll be starting with the list as soon as we can. Thank you for following the blog, check back tomorrow as we’ll be visiting the Jaros Jiri School for the Blind. We expect to see a lot of work needed and that’s where your donations will come in and help. If you haven’t yet, click on the link and see if you can spare something, anything at all. 🙂
OurManInZimbabwe 