A safe fire in Munsieville

Day 2
What a start 7am, meeting in the garden overlooking the most maginifcent scenery when LeRoy our arerobic instructor arrives.
No breaking in gently as there is obviously a need to build up our stamina now rather than later.
We all survived only to be told next class is same place, same time thursday morning
After our well earned breakfast we met Jo from the Pariffin Safety Association who came to speak to us about the safe use of household energy, followed by a practical demonstration ...more about that later.
Statitics he shared were frightening, 3600 shack fires this year so far, 280 deaths mostly vunerable under 5 year olds with countless horrfic injuries sustained.

He is a man passionate about getting his safety message across. Giving them the information needed , identifying the dangers and the changes needed to make their shacks safer places for all.
He realy made us think about this huge problem starting with the purchasing of cheap pariffin which may not be safe to start with, storing it in unsuitable pop bottles with no child safety lids and using stoves which are old and unsuitable for the task in hand.
We then got our first glimpse of the Munsieville shacks as we drove in as a convoy to the spot Joe was going to set up his dangerous pariffin appliances to show just how much fumes and smoke these can produce. Scarey stuff ,even a rat ran out and away through the crowd to escape.
We must have been a parculiar sight as slowly we were surrounded by the curious residents
( mostly dressed in the bright orange and blue uniforms of the Community Work Partnerships who are assigned to clean up the rubbish ( Garbage) which is visiable all around us).
It gave us the chance to chat with these good people and advertise the Health Fair this Friday.

We then travelled over to the Childrens Embassy which will also be formally opened on Friday and after a quick lunch the hard work began. Between us we finished off a little walled garden area and Robert and Adrian literally got dug in as they dug and prepared an area for a tree at the front of the academy. Sounds easy but the soil is not great with mostly stones and they have the blisters to prove it.
Seeing Munsievile up close today makes you think....how do people especially children survive in an environment quite alien to most of us on this assignment?
There is very little in the way of commidities , from where we stood we see a single water standpipe at the top of a hill by the side of the road, a few fruit and vegetable stalls on the corners and children with no shoes amusing themselves using the red coloured clay stones to draw a few pictures on the road yet, still lots of smiling faces interested in why we are here in their township.
Tomorrow we will be split into our assigned groups and I will be off to visit the actual creches and speak to the Mamas and see where Project Hope has made a difference and where we may be able to sow a few seeds of change which will help make life better for those we will eventually leave behind.