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Was it worth it......YES IT WAS

swings

All done

Three and a half days late the playground was finished. It was only six swings, one seesaw, a climbing frame and some ropes but to the local kids it was everything.

Getting the kids involved

We wanted to get the local kids involved in the project so as they would appreciate the playground more. So we got them to move all the stones and litter. Then we got them to do some minor things like sanding down the swings. There was tonnes of kids who all wanted to help so........why not.

The playground

We finished the tee pee and we had 4 days or so to spare, so we decided to fix up a dilapidated playground that had been abandoned by every child in the area. We went to the council and told them that we would fix up the playground and pay for all the materials ourselves. Obviously we got the green light.

Finito

Well after many experiments and lots of "trial and error" we finally got the tee pee built and it was painted green 'cameo style' (but i couldn’t find a photo). We designed and built it from scratch and it is now the prototype as it were. So the next batch of people to go out will stay in it and build their own one the same way.
The tee pee is fully waterproof, has a stone and brick fire pit, and a chimney to let the smoke out and stop the rain getting in. So all in all a big success.
We built it entirely from local resources and it eco friendly. The poles came from the nearby forest, the foundations are sand bags with 10 to one sand and cement, the floor boards came from the local saw mill, the chimney was hand made, the fire-pit is made of brick and the canvas and paint was bought in the hardware store.

Ebs

This is "Ebs" he is one of the rehabilitated street children. He was one of the lads helping us out and ask anybody, he is such a dood.

The god-awful sand bags

The logic behind the tee pee was to build something "eco friendly" so for the supports for the floor sand bags filled with a ten to one ratio of sand and cement were used. The thing with sand bags is they don't fill themselves and we had 1000 to fill.

Some progress made

Once the poles arrived someone got the mesurements wrong (phill) and said we had to deepen the foundation holes. As we later found out there was no need to do alter them at all so we ended up wasting loads of time aimelessly digging.

It begins

We started to did out the foundations only to find that beneath the surface was a solid bed of large rocks, stones and gravel. But we had beastly Dave so it was easy.

Before the work began

Back in Cape Town

Hey everybody! We got back to Cape Town this afternoon after a week and a half's hard word over in Riviersonderend. All in all it was a seriously insightful and rewarding experience for all of us, and we managed to finish the teepee and also completely fix up a battered old public playground within the town. We've got millions of photos, seriously there are millions, and so we'll do our best to let you see as many of them as possible, but if you can get onto Linzi's facebook page then she's got a lot of them there already. Sorry for the lack of information over the last week, but youll understand that we werent exactly in a massively technological area!

Anyway, more posts to follow. Until then. Max.

Apologies for the picture! Dave insisted. He was tensing though, obviously!!!