Kacherry CBO – One mission Accomplished
By: Maureen Bird

I came with only 3 sisters on the trip, gained 8 more plus 7 brothers. By the end of the week, I had 28 more sisters ( the Kachere volunteers) and several new brothers, the brick layers. The CBCC (community based child centre) and CBO (community based organization) offices had all it’s brickwork and roof completed – a wonderful start. Our main job here was to parge the interior walls. There seems to be a special technique – fill up the trowel with mortar, throw it at the wall and hope that 50% of it sticks. Then smooth it out and try not to remove it all. It took days, so we left the final steps and high parts to those who knew how to do it better. At the same time, I joined the brick layers building the 2 hole latrine. They were not so sure at the time, but with lots of mortar slapping and lifting bricks, they were slowly accepting of a woman in the roll. By the end, they called me “best friend”.

The women of Kacherry are unbelievable. Most of them are HIV positive and on ARV’s. They are willing to do anything. They carry 20 – 40 liter pails of water on there heads from 200 meters away for the mixing of the mortar. They joined us in parging, painting and even brick laying. Yesterday we painted.

Today was the formal turnover ceremony. There was in excess of 200 villagers in attendance including the GVH group village headman plus about 10 other village chiefs. There were speeches of thanks from the chiefs, Dignitas, Rotary and villagers followed by lots of dancing and singing. We did the “Hokey Pockey”as our performance and chief Charles joined in . The banners are “all hands together” with the Rotarians hand prints and the villagers lined up to add there hand prints to show unity. I’m the newbee but so many of the more experienced felt that this was the most impressive bonding experience.