We have a wall!

Phil, Marisol, Hazel, Gillian - the Yanamilla School working party

Yesterday was a fantastic day! It was wall-building day at Yanamilla Primary School and we made loads of progress! If you haven't read previous entries on the school, please take a look, so you can appreciate how far we've come ...

A minibus full of CCS staff and volunteers headed out to the school at 8am, laden with sandwiches and water, in good spirits, though not quite sure what to expect. It was heartening to find that when we arrived, there were already loads of parents, teachers, and children waiting to get started. The parents' meeting had worked!!

It was all a bit chaotic at first, but we eventually got organised into groups for different sections of the wall, and children and small people like me gathered stones, while others started digging foundations.









Our new mayor arrived with about 15 friends and tools, which was fantastic, and the parents could hardly believe their luck! A journalist also arrived and interviewed Gillian, myself, and the mayor - good publicity for the school, but I hope I don't get quoted verbatim as my Spanish is still pretty rough and ready!


Group photo with the mayor (the one in the hat)

A few hours later, we had foundations all round the school - layers of stones and mud, and all ready for the adobes. This is when the really hard work started, and it was beginning to get very hot and sunny, unfortunately. We had to move adobes to various spots, but I only managed about 3, and then left that to larger people, and switched to collecting water and mixing mud.







Unfortunately we eventually ran out of water - the source from the hose dried up so we scooped all the water out of nearby puddles and then had to resort to using our van and human bucket chain to ferry water in from a nearby stream - without the water we wouldn't have been able to continue as we needed the water to make mud to stick it all together!



By 4pm it was time to stop - we didn't finish the whole wall, but we made excellent progress, and the school already looks very different. We were all very hot, sweaty, and muddy, but very satisfied! Various groups of parents will carry on with the work in shifts next week. We're also going to follow up the offers from the scouts, army, pre-police school, and inmates.








Hot, sweaty, and muddy, but very satisfied CCS volunteers

I will update again soon ...