First day in Shongweni

Today was our first in the village of Shongweni, outside of Durban.  It was a great but very busy day.  We had an early breakfast and then headed to the build site.  We passed beautiful fields of sugar cane and wound through the valleys to the hilltop where the home will be built.

We met the family at the site of their new home.  Some of the South African members of the team, including Faunie the foreman, had poured the concrete slab a couple of days ago.  And before we got there they had put up the corner posts that we used to level the rows of blocks.  We got right to work, and the day flew by.  Check out our progress:

 

We also met the teenagers who will live in the new house along with their aunt and cousin.  They were much better at mixing concrete than we were! We had some fun with the local kids, who taught us a few games.  In return we taught them the hokey pokey, head-and-shoulders-knees-and-toes, and attempted to teach them duck-duck-goose.  They were a lot of fun and we're excited to spend some more time with them at VBS tomorrow and Wednesday.

We had a brief power outage when we got back to Warren Guest Cottages, and as I write this the power has just come back on.  We're headed out to an early dinner and then to bed as we have another busy day ahead of us tomorrow.  Thanks for reading!

-Rachel

P.S.  This was our Monday post, but due to camera and internet difficulties I'm posting on Tuesday morning here.