Arrival and Day One

The HPE team arrived at Cape Town airport in a few batches but to no less fanfare. 

The Mellon Team were on hand to welcome us all and a fantastic troop of dancers and musicians from the school we'd be helping were on hand.

Here is a picture of Laura and Niall with the kids in the background. 

Cyn immediately put Nial to work being her porter. The bag was 30 kg...right on on the limit, loaded with sweets donated by friends in the US and football kits for the kids donated by neighbors.

Madiba (the "local" term for Nelson Mandella) is everywhere here, as you'd expect. 

The t-shirt pick up and registration process was flawless and we went straight to our briefing session.

Full of excitement with brand new steel toe boots on, we made it to breakfast and got our coaches to site.

Here are a few shots:

The tradespeople who actually know what they're doing are NOT dressed in red, but in a colour designating their trade or position. See if you can spot them as we go!

Here is the entrance to Masiphumelele township.

Hustle and bustle on a Monday morning.

Plasterers, Plumbers, foremen, electricians, medical staff, bricklayers, and many more make up the rainbow of colors we see on site. We are "Laborers" (do whatever the foreman or tradesman tells you) and we wear red!

Grace B and Ruby B---today was Grace's birthday!!! What a way to celebrate.

The kids could see what we were doing as they moved classrooms during the day.

A few of us went over to a neighboring in school to refurb the toilet blocks. We were there all day and will return tomorrow to finish the job! And what a big job it has been!

Here are a few pics and will post before and afters tomorrow once we've finished. 

At lunch, JP had scored the most trips to the Medics amongst the group.Good start! :)

Putting the steel toes to good use steadying the ladder on an uneven surface. #healthandsafetyfirst

We are having a good time, working hard and remembering what we're here for as we look into the faces of the kids!

Thanks for coming with us on this journey!

More tomorrow!

One More Sleep!

In 16 hours, my colleagues and I will be on our way to Cape Town, South Africa to participate in the 2015 Mellon Educate Building Blitz.

We are all beyond excited and have spent months fundraising and working toward this trip.

If you're reading this as a supporter of one or more of the team, we thank you!

Each of us has our own story for why we have signed up and what we expect to give and receive out of the experience. Over the week, you'll hear those stories and afterwards, our reflections on the event. For the last month or so, we've been collecting donations of clothing, books, stationery, footballs and other items for the Masiphumelele community from friends and colleagues.

Today, we learned that those donations weighed 255 kilograms and it's now boxed and ready to go to Cape Town. The South African Airways Cargo team donated the cost of the freight to our cause.

We are all so very grateful to all those that have donated money, goods and services to the trip--see, they're all ready to go!

Talk to you from Cape Town!

To learn more about the event, you can find it on the Mellon Educate UK website.
And if you would like to donate to Mellon Educate via the Hewlett Packard Enterprise Team, here is a link to our JustGiving page.