Day 3: Ngwenyeni Creche

This morning we were up bright and early, equally excited and unsure of what the day would bring. Mandla, Pride 'n Purpose's community liaison, joined us for breakfast and we learned about his work alongside Lindsay to serve the local people.

We piled into Ulusaba’s open roof range rovers (normally used for game drives) and were driven a short distance to meet our bukkies (that’s pick-up truck/ute here in South Africa) which would take us into Dumphries village for our first day of work in the community.

Dumphries is a traditional rural community of approximately 3,000 adjacent to Ulusaba. The residents are largely from the Shangan tribe. Poverty is a very serious issue here, and Pride 'n Purpose works very closely with the community to provide for basic needs such as access to food, water, and health services, and also helps people to help themselves through education, social and economic empowerment.

Today we focused on refurbishing the Ngwenyeni Creche, which looks after approximately 50 children between infancy and 6 years old. It’s run on a completely voluntary basis by several “mamas” who care for the children while their parents are at work.

The creche, housed in a plain concrete block structure, has very little in the way of educational resources. The walls are bare cement, there are no toys, save for a rusted jungle gym in the front yard. Thanks to the mamas, there is no shortage of love or cuddles for the kids, but still we thought we could help create a more stimulating educational environment.

We got right to work, painting the building inside and out. We outfitted each of the two classrooms with ABC murals and blackboards. Mark Laiolo, our resident artist, impressed us all with his imaginative rendering of the alphabet. The children helped us with a tree mural outside, using their handprints stamps to fill in the leaves. Even Mama Zita, the head teacher, got into it!

Outdoors was load of fun too, as we entertained the kids with bubbles and showing them how to use the new jungle gym. It didn’t take long before everyone wanted to use it!

Late in the afternoon we packed it in for the day, and headed back to the lodge for a game drive which was generously organised by Karl and Llane, the managers at Ulusaba. We had an amazing sunset drive, sighting lions with their recently killed eland (a large antelope), elephants, hippos, wildebeest, hyenas, impala, jackal, and a load of stunning birds, including a group of pied kingfishers which were Christie’s favourite.

After another delicious braai, we all passed out. This was a good day.