Sunday 30th October 2005
Day two of the Niall Mellon Township Challenge went off without a hitch. The 200 volunteers arrived in the township at 8.00 am, despite many having enjoyed Cape Town's hospitality the night before!
The entire volunteer contingent went to Beluga Restaurant
in Greenpoint for dinner on Saturday night, where they were
looked after spectacularly. Sore heads aside though, great
progress was made during the build on Sunday. As it is the
weekend, many of the township residents were around during
the day chatting with the Irish volunteers. With no school,
most sites also had a small swarm of children crowding around
the builders.
By lunchtime, most teams had built at least four houses to roof level. But there was no time for rest, and work began immediately on new sites. Healthy competition is developing amongst the colour-coded teams, but it is too early to say who is in the lead.
It was another beautiful day in Cape Town with temperatures around 23 degrees. This was a welcome drop on the highs of yesterday, where the mercury reached a sweaty 29 degrees. Despite many warnings about the importance of sun-screen, a couple of builders had to be treated for sunburn. But, thankfully there are no major health problems amongst the volunteers. Medics are on standby in the township at all times, in case of such an eventuality.
Overall then, spirits are high and the volunteers are determined to make their targets for the week.
