helping with some electric homework!

one of our sports mentors (rasta) with a
well worn soccer ball...anyone willing to help?

what started out as a simple visit to our sports mentors to inform them that the rain had washed out any chance of running our sports outreach in the iraq/zwelitsha informal settlement this afternoon turned into an opportunity to help two young school girls with their homework.

after chatting with the guys around a very warm wood fire about the need for some more footballs to be donated for the sports outreach over a cup of ricoffe i was asked to take their sister and a friend to the local library to enable them to do their homework, when enquiring as to what their homework was about i was told that they needed to find out about electricity.....some what ironic that the tin shack that they live in doesn't have access to electricity, or basic sanitation for that matter, but i thought that it could be an opportunity for me to take them to visit the very local, and even more ironic, water turbine powered electricity plant which lies around 2kms from their home.

chilling round an indoor fire with coffee

the girls enjoying a coffee at the visitor centre!

so we made the short trip to the palmiet dam power station, run by eskom, the same company who have completed our recent upgrades at the village of hope, and after a few minutes we made ourselves welcome into their 1st world visitor centre where the girls were presented with a pack of glossy brochures informing them about how electric is made.

back home with their info packs to help with their homework

we were also shown a short video giving some depth to the setting up of such a power station in one of the worlds 6 floral kingdoms, the cape fynbos, under the kogelberg biosphere....all this was a little overwhelming to the two girls who had only asked for a lift to the library where they would have had to scan books and paid for photocopies of info which really was on their (and their school mates) doorsteps, after a cup of coffee at the centre we returned to their tin shack, to a warm fire but alas no electricity for them to enjoy!

sometimes one has to just connect a few dots to make the day for people, if only we would take the time to do this (even me sitting here in south africa, a missionary to this land) for our fellow man.