Bula from Nadi, Fiji!

We have set up base and are happily preparing for next week in between swims. We visited Sabeto District School on Tuesday and met with the School Chairman, School Manager, Head Teacher and Kindergarten Teacher (see photo) and all is set for next week. 

We have two Australian families joining us, plus two more families have generously donated cash to the project. One participating family has engaged their Australian school in fundraising for their project contribution – well done Amir and Rahima!

At the request of the school staff, we plan to construct a big sandpit and various climbing, balancing and swinging items out of timber, chain and tyres. The plan is to keep it simple to construct and easy to maintain.
 

We are seeking to engage the local community as much as possible to foster some stewardship of the final product, as well as giving the team members a better sense of “working alongside” rather than “doing for” the local community. The head teacher is very excited about involving the older students to work alongside us for some of the time and for them to get credit towards community service aspects of their curriculum. The school committee are going to engage some local blokes for some of the muscle work on Monday morning – we have around 30 post holes to dig! The villagers are also assisting with sourcing tyres and tools. Some local ladies will be paid to look after the little kids in the team, and the kindy committee will be catering for the team.

John has been having fun sourcing timber, sand, concrete and tools. He was at the hardware store yesterday purchasing an electric drill. The choice was a Makita for $500 or a cheap brand for $100, needless to say which one was chosen as we only need it to last 5 days…….

We are planning to take heaps of photos and video footage and put together something usable – Riley and Rahima will be working on a short movie as part of their school work (they are missing 3 weeks of school!).  

The school had specifically requested some models of body parts to assist with their science program and we were able to present these thanks to the generous support of Medic Oncall .

Meanwhile back home, participating families have been busy with visits to the hardware store for last minute purchases of items that are either unavailable here, or ridiculously expensive.

The kids have nearly finished their school work for the morning and will head to the beach today before welcoming our first family tonight…..safe travelling Jacqui, Rahima and Amir!