The Opening Ceremony

This was one of the best opening ceremonies that I have been to, really well organised by Ellen and with some unexpected surprises.

We left the camp at 8 in the morning, to prepare for the opening ceremony, which had been arranged for 11am.  On arriving at our newly built kitchen we had time to make our mark by signing our names on the kitchen wall, above the entrance into the store room.  The ladies, who were going to use the kitchen, had cleaned the floor from paint splatters and everything was newly swept out, it was ready for the official opening.

Benches from the classroom were arranged outside and the order of speeches was changed for the tenth time, the main issue was who was going to translate as December was taking a cultural tour around the community, and he was the best person for the job.  Meanwhile, Kate and Bex had organised a tie dying workshop for the women from the resource centre for 10 o'clock. I had never thought of doing tie dying before - it was a great idea.  To begin with there were three ladies and this swelled to eight participants and 40 on-lookers.  Kate demonstrated the method using sign language and Bex mixed up two different colour dyes for the t-shirts.  The ladies looked confused.  Small coloured bundles of material were left to dry in the sunshine and it was explained that they could open up the bundles after the opening ceremony - which they had been invited to.  They still looked confused but were very happy with it all!

Elizabeth, the lady in charge of the NCP building and the children with it, introduced us to an elder from the Shewula community.  The chief had sent him to represent the elders and this was a great honour - he arrived in traditional dress.

Eventually the ceremony was ready to start, just that we were missing December (but he was in the vicinity as he had been crafty and brought the cultural tour for the Dutch people to our opening ceremony) and we were also missing Robert.  Robert was the man in charge of the AIDS orphaned school and had helped with ordering sand and cement.  December and Robert arrived at the same time, December with the Dutch people in tow and Robert also in traditional dress.  It was going to be a big occasion.  A large number of people were present, I guestimated around 150.

Elizabeth started the speeches and December translated it all, although I am sure that he added his own bits to the speeches that he translated!  Elizabeth thanked the girls for all their hard work, thanked their parents for letting them come to Swaziland and for putting their trust in the Shewula community for looking after their children.  The speech did last a long time as she was very grateful for the building.  I then gave a much shorter speech, basically to thank the girls for raising the £1,400 to pay for the materials and for the wages for Matola the builder.  I even began the speech in SiSwati but after two sentences had to resort to English!  And then Robert gave a lovely speech about how happy he was to see this 'structure' and how grateful the community was for our assistance.  Needless to say December must embellished what Robert was saying.  Ellen then gave a speech on behalf of the group and gave books to Robert for the locally run school.

At this point there was an unexpected addition as the girls from the school did a traditional dance for us as well as a couple of songs, one of which had my name in it.  I am not exactly sure want they were saying but I got the gist and it was very humbling.  Shewula is my second home.

The girls then sang a song for everyone and they loved it.  I think this is the first time that I have brought a group out that can really sing, they did Sense Africa proud.

The ribbon was cut, people crammed into the kitchen, juice and biscuits were served and more dancing was done.  The ladies opened their tie dye t-shirts and loved the affect, and after an hour and a half it was all over.

But what a tremendous achievement. Thank you girls for supporting a well needed project in Shewula.