The word ‘Challenging’ has taken on a whole new meaning!
When the founder of the CoCo’s foundation said before the trip that we will face challenges throughout the 2 and a half weeks, I don’t think even he anticipated the problems we would have!
The 2 days from hell started when we were told that the 800 breeze blocks we had moved 100ft by hand the day before had to be moved again as we had dug the foundations in the wrong place! So a very demotivated, frustrated team got ready to move them… again… 1000ft this time! As a team we have had some amazingly uplifting experiences and equally some very low points, we have all worked together so well in helping each other emotionally.
With the challenge of not being able to get a vehicle to the site because of how remote the area was, and that there was no water either, we had to go and fetch the water from the croc infested lake to be able to mix the cement by hand. We were so far out in the sticks it is impossible to do anything!!
So from our 4:30am start, we finally got back in at 8pm very tired, very hungry and very frustrated to find we had no water to have a shower or to make a hot drink and no electric either, this had been caused by one of the biggest electrical storms I had ever seen!
When we got back to the build site the following day, we started laying the breeze blocks to form the base of the house, we went to find the lady we are building for ‘Esther’ to find out where she would like her small vegetable patch. She was in her make shift bed in the house she is currently living in, she looked so sick. Esther has full blown aids and is still trying to look after her 4 sons.
We helped her around to the other field to show her the progress we had made on her new house, it is incredible when you give someone who has nothing, and I mean NOTHING a small glimmer of hope, how this can change her posture, her body language and how her face just lit up, it truly was a beautiful moment.
Without all the wonderful people donating to the Creations Team for The CoCos Foundation over the past 2 years we would not have been able to do this, we cant change the world all at once, but we can make a big difference to a small number of people.
