New Brighton Facelift!

As promised, here are some before and after pictures of the stuff that I, and the rest of the Masinyusane team, has been working on.

Years of neglect, and the cycle of poverty has taken a toll not only on the people, but on the buildings.  Jim (the founder of Masinyusane, and my boss) is adamant that a student feels better about herself if her environment is kept in a tidy condition. 

Jim hired old students who have made it to university to come home and help do some of this manual labor.  In a sense, I really like the efforts that we are making to be sustainable, and provide this support network to the kids who need it.  But my uptight, inner perfectionist was on fire.  Painting is meticulous, and a person doesn’t notice the 95% job well done, he notices the 5% of the job that is sloppy.  The trim, the cut in work, and the paint splatter on the ground.  A proper paint job needs to be taped off.  Well, #TIA, I suppose.  

I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to show these guys that slowing down, and proper planning can result in a far better end result.  Meaahhhhh, It mostly just resulted in me doing a whole lot of touch up.

Here is the gym that I spoke of last week.  It was dirty and dingy, with one flickering light in the corner.  The floor is crumbling, but that doesn't stop the 20 or so men in there at any given time working on their fitness!

 

Pulled everything out, and swept for hours.  This is Azola, a former youth leader that is now studying isiXhosa at university.  She was back for the winter holiday, so Jim obviously put her straight to work.

 So this pounding of the carpet happened for a few hours before we eventually gave it up and bought a new rug..

 

We had some helpers with the fresh coat of paint. (while blake sits..)

 

The boys were adamant that we needed to slap some inspirational quotes on the wall........ Im not very artistic..

 

This is a Tamsanqa High, just down the road from Lawandlkazi.  We spend a few afternoons here giving the building some TLC.

 

This picture sums up how I have spent the last month..

Finished product!

 

All in all, I am really proud of the work that we accomplished, but with that said, I think I needed this to remind myself that I sometimes need to chill.  Not everything is perfect, and there is always room for improvement, but I need to appreciate the work and the relationships that I am building.