Sunday, March 17, 2019- Early in the morning, we got ready to go to school with the trucks, with the IT room and the library's furniture and equipment (computers, printer, photocopier), books, children's gifts and other equipment and stationery for the school. . It was recommended to leave before 9 o'clock in order to avoid the police, who may stop and check you on the road. However, we were greeted by the flat tire of one of the trucks in the yard of our accommodation.
Since the jack belonging to the car was broken, the boys set off to find tires, while I continued sleeping for 5 hours in the garden room and finished the previous day's blog in the meantime. We started sometime between morning and early morning - and of course we only made it to the corner of the street, where we had planned to wait for another truck that pulled into the tire. Zsolt from Trabant Expedico also came with us and the poor guy only wanted good things when he wanted to record the morning traffic with a camera in his hand as part of a short interview with Andi. The police saw it and a riot erupted: we lost at least half an hour, looking at papers, reprimanding, shouting, calling and deleting the recording... we really started to feel that this thing is cursed, we will never reach the school... Mr. Haidara, the school its founder started towards us, as they wanted to be sure that we would really arrive (we would find it and there would be no more policemen on the road). We met about half way, there he waved from the side of the road, and then he started ahead of us, leading the convoy. (He probably didn't even believe that we would find it, even though the path is very simple: immediately right after the bridge, through the market, right again at the Bank of Africa, straight ahead past the sign "With Maggi every woman is a star" and the small "Sanzelizé" shop and at the corner of the Tounkara cleaner, turn right again, then turn left on the first street, then turn left again on the second.)
At the school, there was great joy when the trucks arrived, and a lot of helpers gathered, who quickly carried the cargo to the appropriate rooms (before that, the electric cables had to be raised with a long bar so that they wouldn't be cut off by the roof of the box car). Jim coordinated the trucks, Andi was upstairs as a traffic controller showing which package should be taken where, then he sorted the bulky stuff (Andi will tell you more about this), and I in the IT/library room the book boxes and disassembled furniture. We hardly had any space left for the assembly, and the helpers and I rode behind each other: Jim started assembling the benches with them (then he went back to the co-foundation event to complete the work we had promised). Finally, Gábor Kammer, one of our drivers, also got in because he couldn't bear to watch the people assembling the benches start drilling the iron instead of the wood so that the benches could be screwed together again.
This solution greatly accelerated the assembly process. Andi and I set up and screwed the bookshelves together, then, when the foundations were finally in place, I started to put the contents of the book boxes and label the shelves. Then it became clear that the backs of the shelves were not nice, but Andi remembered that we brought 2 more posters in connection with the handwashing project in November, then left at home, made by the Igazgyöngy Foundation and four smaller paintings made by the students of Mihály Táncsics High School ( "Here we live, This is how we live paintings"), so they were nailed to the ugly back of the shelves at the cost of a huge struggle (at least eight people participated in this nailing process). And the IT person called by Mr. Hajdara installed the computers, one after the other and to our great relief, everything worked perfectly!!!The Andi team then checked the gifts and other donations brought to the school, while I unpacked the books and organized the library. Although we were already very tired and skinned, we still worked very quickly, because we were pressed for time, tomorrow is the inauguration! It was terribly hot, we were dirty from head to toe, and we would have given anything for a bucket of ice cubes, because our mineral water heated up to 30 °C in 1 hour, and even though we drank it, it didn't quench our thirst.
Today, I not only acted as a traffic controller and furniture fitter, but also as a package organizer. The children also carried the gift packages and kept walking around looking to see who received a package, whose name was on it, whether they had it and how big it was and what was in it (you could see the contents in the transparent plastic boxes. If they found their own I could almost see physical pain on their longing little faces that they couldn't take it away, couldn't open it. Meanwhile, I tried to reassure everyone so that they believed that everyone would get a gift, since we also made it for someone whose supporter didn't send anything. They had to be constantly scolded, because only they stood next to their package and watched, and my heart broke, but tomorrow is the big ceremony, when everyone gets everything.
Then I was also overwhelmed when it turned out that approx. There are no packages for 8-10 children. In the 40 °C room with no air movement, I started again to look through and repack the packages (there were more than 80 packages!) and then it turned out that among the ripped open packages that the customs officials had found, backpacks were also included in the crates, luckily, that I noticed a backpack in a box that I packed... So now I started over for the third time, unpacked everything and finally found all the children's packages!!!! When I finished here, I helped Ági in the library until the toys came out and the people there started to look at what was going on. So, right in the middle of the big drilling and carving, library arrangement, computer installation, I started teaching how to play which games on an already assembled bench... then I stopped because I noticed that the team that wasn't sitting in front of the hastily set up portable air conditioner, it all stands around me and plays and explains to my current "opponent" how to move, what to do or what card to throw... So the teaching of the game stopped, and the work continued, especially after Jim, who had returned in the meantime, turned off the air conditioning, explaining, that if they don't lead out and close all the windows and doors, it will just go to waste. In the meantime, a first-class boy came to be admitted to the child support program... well, that happened.
We had everything ready by early evening - we couldn't believe it! Relieved, we got ready to go back to the accommodation, where we can finally shower off the dirt and drink several liters of cold water. But it didn't happen that way. Because during the afternoon, while we were working on the school floor, a huge cookout took place in the small area in front of the reception and the caretaker's room: a dinner was prepared in honor of the work we had done, and in the evening we celebrated in the IT and library room that everything was finally in order. So we sat down on a bench and while dinner was ready, we played intense games with the headmistress and the children: memory game, amoeba, jenga, puzzle...
The child has come out of everyone! Laughing and laughing, we took books from the library and explained about Hungary, Budapest, the world (we also brought French-language albums and atlases about Budapest and Hungary). Jim also applied the printer software to one of the computers, so the school's first own printed page was ready! In fact, during the conversation, the first school printed page of the entire district was revealed, since no other school in the Bozola district has a computer room or a library! And I explained how the copier works. We inaugurated it right away, because tomorrow's speeches and the program of the ceremony were already photocopied for us. In the meantime, Mr. Haidara (now with 3 (?) wives) also arrived and asked me to choose 5 young students to whom the local potentates will present the gifts in the presence of the TV. I selected our best students, among whom there was only one boy: when Mr. Haidara explained why there was only one, and I showed him the certificate statement (of course, we had one!) he accepted the decision without argument. After that, we finally got down to the delicious, picturesquely served dinner (there was also lunch, but by the time I finished packing, it had disappeared...).
We went to bed quite early today: we were already asleep at 1 am. Finally happy, relaxed, satisfied, but terribly tired. Tomorrow is inauguration, farewell and we're going home...