Treesleeper Update

I don’t know if I’ve written anything about what is going on at Treesleeper since I posted about the success of the beads project a couple of months ago. Here’s what is going on at Treesleeper right now:

 

Raleigh International arrived at the camp almost 3 weeks ago to start volunteer work on the new cultural center. I wan’t around the first week, but the goal that week was to dig trenches for the foundation. The soil at Treesleeper is full of soft limestone rocks, so digging is a lot of work. The volunteers quickly tired of such tough, thankless work and basically stopped working. We had to hire some local labor to dig the trenches while the Raleigh people worked on backup jobs around the camp.

 

I arrived when the foundation trenches were more or less complete. Since then, a week and a half ago, I’ve been digging a lot of sand for the concrete of the foundation. The routine has been to drive to the sand pit, dig, drive back, unload, and repeat. It’s been hard work, but we were rewarded yesterday when almost all of the sand was used in pouring concrete for the foundation. It was also the first day the volunteers have really worked hard in a coordinated way. They had a goal – to pour all of the concrete – and they were all working together to achieve that goal, so they seemed more motivated than usual. It was good to see.

 

Today was our last day of work. Tomorrow this group packs and leaves and on Monday a new group arrives. The camp workers and I will have a few days to recover from the three weeks of grueling work. On Saturday I will go to Etosha with everyone from the camp (Paul, Moses, George, Me, Stasja) as well as our Dutch volunteer builder. It’s an expensive trip for the local guys, so we decided that each foreigner will pay gas and entrance fee for one local. The guys don’t get to travel much, so this will be a fun trip. Moses may even bring his 3-year old son. Sunday will be a big braii (barbecue) day for me, Stasja, and Bas (the builder). We have a lot of kudu meat and plan to spend lunch and dinner at the camp cooking and eating. I’m looking forward to that.

 

In other camp news, the adventure never stops with the beads project. Things were going well until one of the women, Kapuku, left to volunteer with Raleigh. Now, only two ladies are left and they aren’t very proactive, i.e. they don’t do anything on their own. They have had a dozen bead orders from Raleigh for two weeks and have not taken the first steps to making beads. I had a meeting last week with Eda, Paul’s sister who is involved in the project, to see what their plans were, and she seemed motivated to work. It’s been a week, though, and she hasn’t done anything. It seems to be her way of saying she isn’t really interested in working on the project. It’s indirect, but clear. Bead making will likely begin in earnest again when Kapuku gets back, but that won’t be until the end of the tourist high season, which means that the ladies involved will be missing their biggest opportunity of the year. They’re aware of that and it’s their choice; I can’t do much more than advise them what to do at this point.

 

That’s what’s new at treesleeper. I have five more weeks of hard work here punctuated by a visit from my parents. Then, on September 4, I begin my journey home. Pretty soon, I’ll be back in the states!