Jac’s Africa Diary: Weds 5th Sept - off to build & dagga dagga

We all met for a great cooked breakfast at 6am at Kings Grant.

Then, running a little late, as we all had such a good night’s sleep after our flights, we boarded the bus with our rucksacks, hard hats and building paraphernalia and set off for Mziki village.

Alf our driver, is great and full of stories and a few dirty jokes! He, Sue from Habitat for Humanity and Gavin from Africa Exposure are all staying at Kings Grant with us.  40 mins later after rattling through the bush dirt tracks past the wonderful countryside, peppered with small round Kraals, we arrived at Mziki village.

We peered through the now steamed windows to see two plots side by side where foundations had already be laid and and one course of bricks (yes….just the one!).

Sue called all the villagers who are working on the two houses to join us. We stood in a circle whilst a lovely lady called Eunice said a Zulu prayer.

We were given our work cry of dagga dagga dagga, oy oy oy. The villagers find this very amusing as dagga is Zulu for cement!

We were split into two groups and worked with the two women who will be benefiting from the new houses, Lalisile Dlamini and Tholakelle Ngubane, and the local Mziki village site supervisors. (See more about Lalisile and Tholakelle here.)

Each team nominated a member as a ‘water fairy’ to make sure we are all drinking lots of fluids throughout the day.

There was a cool breeze coming up from the valley so the 25 degrees did feel cooler which was great for us to work in.

Bongiwi is the supervisor for our house. She’s 24 and her family live in the huts in the kraal next to where we are building. She is one of 13 children and her family will be having a house built in phase two of this programme. She is currently living with one of her elder sisters in one of the houses up the hill from our build site.

So we got stuck in.  Moving breeze blocks, off of lorries and placing them in piles around the outside of the house.

All the while mixing dagga dagga….lots and lots of dagga dagga!

Enjoying lunch and chat with Bongiwi

Having arrived at 9am with a tea break at 11, we were hungry and very ready for lunch at 1.30.

At lunch we had an opportunity to ask the two families questions about themselves and their lives.

Tholakele said that the new house will change her life. At the moment she and her family live in basically a run-down hut. They have to cook on open fires in the centre of the room and the smoke from the fires cause respiratory problems. Also white ants get into the mud and wattle and the walls just start to crumble.