The toilets at the eLangeni Primary School are URGENT problems! – Day 19

This morning we toured the Sandra Lee Center. It is an orphanage started by Robin (American) and her husband (New Zealander) in 2003.  They house 29 double orphans aged 2 – 11 years old and they do such an amazing job!  The children only live 8 to a house, each with a full-time house mother.  These houses are amazing – TVs, stoves, washing machines and plenty of space and toys.  She tries to do everything as sustainably as possible.  They have chickens, goats (for milk), fruit trees, vegetable gardens, rabbits (for meat), egg laying hens, and bees (for honey).  She has a spare house that will eventually house more orphans but in the meantime I have talked her into letting us rent it as our GHFP guesthouse for our future service-learning teams.  I am so excited to have our rent money going toward programming at this orphanage!  We’ve already discussed using the rent funds to start a pig farm on the grounds so the children can add pork to their diet.  

Then we traveled to the Maziya child-headed home to take Philo her ringworm medication I purchased this morning.  She indeed has it on her back and face.  The anti-fungal cream should take care of it.  While we were there, we got the pleasant surprise of seeing adorable Mazwi washing his sibling’s clothes in the nearby creek.  Katy and I agreed that no matter what he is doing – it is too cute.  I am sure he even burps cute!

Afterward we had a meeting with the OVC (orphaned and vulnerable child) eLangeni soccer team called the Vultures.  Carmel Clay Middle School sponsored them last year and purchased brand new uniforms for the team.  They wanted to report their success as they won position 3 in the league.  They were soooo proud!  While at the primary school, we followed up on the library building progress.  It will be completed tomorrow – we are excited to start decorating and organizing all of the books!  We also checked out the toilet situation that the headmaster was so upset about…and now I understand the urgency of this hygiene program.  Kait could not even take the pictures as just approaching the toilets you could see and smell the feces.  The toilets are so overflowed that there is about a half of an inch of feces on the bathroom floor in every stall.  This is unacceptable, no child should be exposed to such unsanitary situations at school – they definitely need more (clean) stalls!  **If you’d like to donate to the hygiene program, you can do so on our website: http://www.ifightpoverty.org/donate.html

All donations will go toward building a structure with 8 new pit latrines as well as a hand-washing station with a soap dispenser.   

 My Mazwi washing his siblings' clothes with his little friend in the creek behind their house.

 Toilets at eLangeni Primary School...and yes...that is what you think it is...

 One of the stalls in the bathroom with poop on the toilet seat and floor.  There are 634 children using only 8 pit latrines so they are all overflowing.

 The eLangeni Vultures OVC soccer team with Sydney and Katy.