Wednesday 2 Dec.

This morning sees us travelling through to Sharpeville, my favourite community so far. After a quick stop in Tembisa to check in with Maria on the progress of the beaded keyrings, we headed through to the old Sharpeville police station, we’re supposed to meet with Mary but just outside Sharpeville we received a call letting us know that they won’t be meeting with us. Just our luck. It’s getting to a point now where we start to wonder just how serious some of these people are, this is our job and we mostly enjoy it but driving around constantly and meeting with dead ends is beginning to get a bit too much. Another point is contacting these crafters! How difficult can it be?? We take down a number with a name “Are you sure this is your number?” “Yes”. Now, when we call, a husband or brother answers, working in the field or town, with no idea who you are or what you’re saying! Unfortunately it’s not just some of the crafters that seem to be uninterested, you wouldn’t believe how poor some of the responses are towards what we’re doing, whilst most municipalities are eager to help, others put us on hold or direct our calls to another official who then does the same thing!! Having a telephone to your ear for two hours and ending up where you left off sucks. Period. One good thing that’s come out of all the driving is that I get to listen to decent music as we’re using the Astra (the bakkie is suffering from a slow leak, and its radio suffers from Classic fm!). Anyway, despite our less than satisfying turn out (or should I say non-existent), we managed to locate 20 craftsmen for our Makarapa and Vuvuzela workshop! Next week Tuesday we start the workshop and we still need to negotiate prices with the caterer, tomorrows gonna be rough and I still gotta cook tonight!