Day Two: the beat goes on

Day two began with a visit to the Bhubezi Community Healthcare Centre, a rural clinic established with support from Virgin Unite, Pride 'n Purpose and others. The clinic provides much needed primary healthcare and HIV/AIDS treatment in this area, which has high HIV infection rates and little access to medical treatment. It was inspiring to hear from some of the doctors and outreach workers, who are so passionate about their work despite the enormity of their task. The visit also helped us gain a better understanding of the challenges facing Newington and the surrounding communities who are working to reduce the rate of infections and ensure those living with the virus can receive the treatment and support they need.

Following our visit to the clinic we had the opportunity to visit the nearby Sizabantu bakery, a micro-enterprise that has received a start up loan and business planning advice from Pride 'n Purpose. The all women run bakery provides bread to local orphans and their delicious bread is also sold in local stores. It seems demand spiked the day of our visit, as we could not help buying up about a dozen loaves straight out of the oven!

It was then back to the creche where more sand was delivered for the sand bags and work began on the veggie patch and jungle gym.

The earth was rock hard, so we really had to put our backs into prepping the soil for the 6,000 seedlings that will be planted later this week. We certainly gained a new found respect for the local Newington farmers, who grow all of their food this way.

Assembling the jungle gym presented some special challenges, as the directions consisted of a photo of what the finished product should look like. Undaunted, Mark our former Army man and Heather, discovery previously untapped drilling talents, were on the case along with various others of our group.

Loads of neighbours joined in the work, including an industrious and ever increasing group of little boys with a boundless energy for transporting sand bags.

The Induna, who has donated the land for the creche and whose little grandson will be a pupil, stopped by with a gift of sugar cane for us to enjoy.

We worked furiously for the rest of the afternoon, with some of our group succumbing to exhaustion induced silliness:

By sunset the creche was in fine form, with several more walls in place.

We returned to Ulusaba for a pasta supper before collapsing into bed. Though we were all thoroughly exhausted, we felt great about our day's work, and warmly welcomed into the Newington community. More tomorrow!