This article is from page 63 of the 2008-03-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 63 JPG
IT’S 5.45am, South African time and the phone is ringing in the hotel room, an alarm call to get going. Downstairs in the SIlver Springs the dining room has opened early for the Irish. The bus for Mission- vale will leave at 6.30am. An array of every kind of cooked food, cold meat, cereal and exotic fresh food greets us as we stumble in, bleary eyed. It’s our first day on the Build- ing of Hope project. We arrived yesterday after travelling for thirty hours and thanks, Aer Lingus for adding more than three hours on to that with the loss of the Heathrow connection. There are almost 170 Clare volunteers who will be cross- ing you off the Christmas card list. And it’s only 4am back home for God’s sake! But the cheerful banner crew are undaunted. We board the bus and before a hammer is lifted we re greeted by staff of the centre, singing, waving Clare and Irish flags and then we get the tour of Mission- vale and the surrounding township. The level of deprivation is hard to take in on first sight, it contrasts con- fusingly with the neat, clean dress of the children who come to school in
the centre and play in the yard where later we eat lunch.
After the first lunch-break, kitchen staff start gathering up the leftovers.
“Do you compost that or feed it to the dogs or what?”’, a volunteer asks. TMC oD remot Misa URN Ce TIN LONG ers will eat whatever we have left. There is not enough money in the kitty to provide packed lunches for them as well as the Irish volunteers and we are used to eating while they are used to going hungry. It’s the last day that anyone eats a full lunch. But then, there’s none of us likely to starve anytime soon.
By day’s end at 5.30, 6pm or later as the week marches on, there are little clusters of children waiting in the playground. They love to talk to the Irish, and the smaller ones wrap themselves around you, climb on laps and stroke the women volunteers’ hair in fascination at the straightness. They are mostly orphans, hungry not just for food but for affection also.
By day two a lot of the volunteers have bought bags of sweets to give to the children who wait at the gate for work to finish. It’s a heart-rend- ing exercise.
The children, anxious for any bit of a treat mob the volunteers and it’s
impossible to have something for everyone, there are so many.
The staff and African workers on the project ask on day one _ that volunteers leave them their clothes When they go home. The women want trainers, t-shirts and shorts. The men ask for work-boots. One of the Africans is using a whacker with no shoes on his feet.
Each evening, the volunteers hit the showers and go down for food and cold beer. Some evenings, with the red African dust lining our throats, the cold beer is the first priority. By ten everyone is singing, laughing and oar Denes
Missionvale may exist in the midst of poverty and death. But being here, and helping to build hope, we have never felt more alive.