And a BIG THANK YOU to all of you who have contributed to the school fund so far: Ann and Martin, Katie and family, Gillian, Mum and Dad, Callington Methodist Church - we've already decided to spend some of the money on secure cupboards, adobe bricks, and a builder. And once the wall is complete, we have more to spend on stucco, paint, classroom floors, windows, etc. Though we've also sent a document to the new Gobierno Regional, and we're hoping that they'll be able to help. And we had another meeting with the new Mayor last week, and he has certainly promised to help, so we'll have to wait a bit now to see what kind of help materialises. Hopefully we'll have sorted a few things out before the new term starts in March.
Since my last update we've managed to organise 2 more wall-building days with volunteers and parents - not quite as big as the first one, but worth it nevertheless ...
2nd wall-building day, concentrating on the back wall
Towards end of 2nd wall-building day
3rd wall-building day, with some new volunteers
End of 3rd wall-building day
The wall now goes all the way round the school and it is well over a metre high, and I can only just see over! It needs to be more like 2 metres high though, to make things really secure, so there's a way to go yet and I'm not going to see it finished before I leave next Monday. Another charity has promised some playground equipment to the school, but only once there's a secure wall, so somehow the wall-building needs to be finished! And it's urgent because it's now the rainy season and so if the wall doesn't get finished in the next few months it's in danger of getting damaged, as it currently has no protection.
Front wall
Back wall (gap is where new classrooms will be built)
Also, we've pretty much run out of adobes - those left have disintegrated in the rain, which is what I had feared. With all this in mind, and with my time here running out, I talked to some of the keen parents at the wall-building day last week, and we forced an impromptu meeting on the Head, to find out if there was any money from the parents' association to buy more adobes, and to discuss how they were planning on completing the wall. It's been very hard to organise parents when the Head is so ineffective and uncommunicative and when the parents' association doesn't really work very well together. It's been a real challenge; you have to make so much effort and spend so much time on anything to make any progress, so I'm glad I've been here for 10 weeks to get stuck in, though I feel like I've only just started! Up until the end of term the most effective way of communictaing with the parents had been to send notes home with the kids and to bypass the Head and the parents' association completely. But now it's the school holidays, that doesn't won't work anymore, hence an attempt at another meeting ...
It was a semi-successful meeting in that the Head said that the association had 200 soles (about 40 pounds) that they could use on buying more adobes for the wall, and I said that if they could confirm they would do this and organise the parents to finish bulding the wall, then we could contribute another 400 soles for the rest of the adobes (2,000 more adobes needed in total), plus we could pay 100 soles to pay for a builder to come and oversee things. We paid for a builder the last 2 wall-building days and it worked well - and you never know whether any parents who know what they are doing are going to turn up, so it's a good insurance. We left it that the association would meet the following day, confirm all the details, and put it in writing ...
We rolled up the next day to find that the meeting hadn't happened, or not with enough people anyway, and that they couldn't agree amongst themselves about the 200 soles! We were asked to come back this morning, for a meeting at 9.30. We came back to find a couple of people gathered, but again, no proper meeting, no paperwork, and no confirmation!! Though they had started on making more adobes, so there's a bit of hope ...
It was a semi-successful meeting in that the Head said that the association had 200 soles (about 40 pounds) that they could use on buying more adobes for the wall, and I said that if they could confirm they would do this and organise the parents to finish bulding the wall, then we could contribute another 400 soles for the rest of the adobes (2,000 more adobes needed in total), plus we could pay 100 soles to pay for a builder to come and oversee things. We paid for a builder the last 2 wall-building days and it worked well - and you never know whether any parents who know what they are doing are going to turn up, so it's a good insurance. We left it that the association would meet the following day, confirm all the details, and put it in writing ...
We rolled up the next day to find that the meeting hadn't happened, or not with enough people anyway, and that they couldn't agree amongst themselves about the 200 soles! We were asked to come back this morning, for a meeting at 9.30. We came back to find a couple of people gathered, but again, no proper meeting, no paperwork, and no confirmation!! Though they had started on making more adobes, so there's a bit of hope ...
New adobes - need to dry out for 2 weeks
I was getting close to just saying that we'd spend the money on another project on Ayacucho instead, but after an hour and a half of Rudy making them see sense, driving off to find the association treasurer, we finally managed to get them to agree and sign a document - one that we'd had the foresight to prepare ourselves this time! So in a couple of weeks' time there will hopefully be another 2,000 adobes ready, and then it'll be up to the association to organise the parents into action. Hmm ... CCS will keep me posted; I'm just keeping my fingers crossed, as there isn't much more that I can do now!
Once we have a wall, I'll liaise with CCS re what we can spend the rest of the donations on, and by then we should also know how the Gobierno Regional can help the school. We tried to get a meeting organised with the Gobierno Regional before Christmas but even though we received a letter giving us an appointment with Social Services, when we got there, there was no meeting ... another long story! So instead we now have to submit a report on the school to the new Gobierno Regional - I'm taking it in on 4 January ... so watch this space!
Once we have a wall, I'll liaise with CCS re what we can spend the rest of the donations on, and by then we should also know how the Gobierno Regional can help the school. We tried to get a meeting organised with the Gobierno Regional before Christmas but even though we received a letter giving us an appointment with Social Services, when we got there, there was no meeting ... another long story! So instead we now have to submit a report on the school to the new Gobierno Regional - I'm taking it in on 4 January ... so watch this space!
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