Day-2

Day-2

8:50 am- Met up with Sanele to thank him for all the help he gave up while we were back in New York.  It was a fun reunion amongst friends.

9:15 am.  Arrived at the Madakeni Junior Secondary School (with Sanele in tow) to meet with school officials.

9:30 am.  Sat down with the Principle of the school, our very good  friend Mrs. Madlalisa and her teachers to re-aquaint everyone to our project and update them on our fundraising.  It was the schools first day back from classes after a week vacation so our timing could not have been better.  The school, the teachers and the children all made us feel welcome.  Our growing familiarity to this area is a great sense of comfort.

10:00 am.  The meeting goes well and they are thankful that we have come back, since so many other charities that have promised to help, have failed to return.  We mention that it would be helpful to have a school official  come with us to Umtatha to visit the Board of Education and to negotiate with possible vendors for school materials.

10:03 am. Minutes after saying this we are in our car with Mrs. Madlalisa and Sanele heading towards Umtatha.  Along our 100km ride, the four of us talk about Coffee Bay, The World Cup, Music and the possible whereabouts of Osama BIn Laden.

11:30 am. Arrive in Umtatha.

12:00 pm Find Parking. You think it's tough to find parking in NY, try downtown Umtatha at lunchtime!

12:10 pm.  We meet with Thobile Jombile and Simphiwe Madaza at the South African Board of Education.  They are head of the schools in the region (over 300 in all).  We discuss our project and our goals.  We talk about the two schools we are trying to help and tell them our frustrations about finding too many vendors who are overcharging for desks.  They vow to help us find fair prices and help track down building contractors for the future.  Mr. Madaza is coming to Coffee Bay tomorrow to discuss a plan.  This is a good sign.

1:00 pm.  Sanele departs and we go look for a place to eat lunch.  We are in the Capitol of the Eastern Cape so we have many options.  We pass over a few South African chain restaurants like "Steers" and "Debonair Pizza" and ignore the KFC (who knew?) and settle for a quick soup and sandwich place.

2:00 pm Lunch is over and we take Mrs. M to a hardware store where we purchase 140 liters of paint and paint supplies for her school.  The store looked like a mini Home Depot with large aisles filled with paint, fencing, posts, and other building supplies.  This will be a good store to know.  We will organize a painting day later this week after we figure out the desk situation.

Overall today was a very good day.  We bought some of the materials we need and made contacts that could help us in the long term.  The price of desks and finding a reliable vendor continues to be a concern, but hopefully it will get worked out over the next few days.  We hope that we won't have to make the long and arduous drive to and from Umtatha too often.  It takes up a lot of the day, but we will do what we have to.

Tomorrow before we meet with Mr. Madaza, we will go visit Mrs. Mangisa at the Bekiziswe school.