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     At last we managed to get the boxes of stationery delivered in Cape Town to Little Libraries run by Camille.  You can see from her letter at the bottom how THRILLED she was with all the stuff and enthusiastic to get delivering. She has a FB page and has reported on it, so we should take a look under Little Libraries.

For the colouring books and crayons we thank Knit-a-Square who donated a whole lot of stationery to redistribute to our creches.

Nethi is an amazing teacher. Every time I have been at her school, I have left with a smile pasted all over my face. I love how she stimulates her pupils with the little she has, even inventing a poker game with maths and domino cards to teach her children about numbers.

As you might have seen on our FB post, some of your stationery, namely all colouring books and some crayons went to a school where we delivered tables and chairs. This lady loves to teach about numbers so the colour-by-number books were especially a hit.

Note from Camille : I felt very overwhelmed when the huge 8 boxes arrived on Wednesday. I piled them in our lounge as we were about to leave for the Klein Karoo to deliver a little library. Upon our return, we opened them to sort their contents. Thank you so much for the various things. I have made a plan for the following items: stationery will be split amongst a few schools - colouring books will all go to a school for which we are buying tables and chairs so they have never had the pleasure of sitting at their own chair and colour things in before - playing cards, dinky cars and the few National Geographic will be redistributed during our upcoming trip to Lesotho (very excited about this!) I will keep you posted about all that as we are getting on. Thank you ever so much for everything and your support. Camille

For the skipping ropes, we thank Knit-a-Square - they were included in the parcels they sent us recently.

KAS OFFICE PROPERTY SEARCH

HI EVERYONE

Just to keep you up to speed with our property search …. Wandi, Mabel and myself met up with an agent (Mike) in Soweto and the property owner of what seemed like half of the Blackchain shopping precinct (opposite Baragwanath Hospital ). We viewed three of his properties – firstly a huge one beneath pavement level which they are gutting and refurbishing.  It was FREEZING cold, huge and full of staircases !! 

Then we saw  property which Mabel liked which was on the first floor, a glassed area of about 300 sq metres where parking would be next to the pavement and on a first come first served basis – a bit of a nightmare prospect!

After this we saw an office which both Wandi and I rather liked – 170 square metres at ground level with a small storeroom in which there was a hand-basin. In all three, it would be a case of sharing the upstairs Mall toilets – and we did see quite a bit of running sewerage around, not to mention the pong.

However, we were still considering the third option – at least the van could park at the entrance of the parking garage to off-load and that would be a walk of about 20 -25 metres carrying the stuff.  But, being “shopping mall” space with corner window frontage the per square foot costs would have been more than for the other two larger spaces.

In all three cases, the rental would not be less than we are paying right now … so only transport costs would be saved in the long run. I must say here that the thought that we may get “cheaper” property in Soweto may well turn out to be a pipe dream rather than a possibility !

Anyway, then Mike then took us to Pimville. It is further into Soweto from the N1 freeway (Baragwanath is only about one kilometre inside Soweto from that Eastern border). However, Pimville is closer to Chiawelo where is closer to Chiawelo where Lindi and Wandi live – and it is bordered on the Northern edge by the Chris Hani Barawanath Road (the old Potchefstroom road) and it’s actually a nice area of Soweto. (Sorry no Pics!)

There, we saw a large 500 square metre space which was previously a pub. The landlord is dividing it into two separate spaces, both with own toilets and one side will incorporate the old pub kitchen. That side we loved – it opens out onto a lawned area which is for common use of all shopping mall tenants, but would suit any of our gogo groups sitting in the sun and sewing. 

It is adjacent to the “back” parking area which is large and was absolutely empty yesterday. It would still entail a 30-40 metre walk to hump bags, but we would have to indulge in some kind of trolley for that. It is at ground level, the windows are quite heavily barred with a sort of honeycomb pattern  - good for security.

The shopping centre has guards – good for toting bags – and three bank ATMs – it’s a small complex, with mostly small shops (no big name supermarkets etc.) but a nice mix of fast foods which would suit volunteers ….. and ……. wait for it …..

It is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Pimville Post Office !!!!

And it’s on bus routes.

Ladies – on your knees with me, please !! Pray we get this property – it has so much the “right” feel about it. All three of us agreed – THIS is where we want to be.

Of course the costs still need to be worked out, but Mike is going to keep us posted as to how the renovation goes and we will go back there in a few weeks to meet the landlord and get an even better idea of how we can work the space out.  We may need to consider the non-lawned side to meet cost requirements … but that will also have its own toilets. Oh, and no sign of sewerage leaks here !

 RONDA