Diary 2 July 25/26 Wednesday / Thursday 26/07/2012
It was a very tiring hot day yesterday (Wednesday ) when the aid trailer was unloaded. George and Graeme the drivers commented on what a heavy trailer it was with the building materials also told how we had been fined for being slightly over weight. Thankfully the French hire company Sarl Goddard had given us their more powerful heavier tractor unit or else we would have been very very seriously over weight. Once again Sarl Goddard have let us use a tractor unit free of charge which is such a blessing and huge help to us.
Alex had organised a team to unload part of the building materials before the trusts arrived to collect their boxes. The steel girders were the most time consuming to get off the Mustard Seed trailer and were then loaded onto a tractor and trailer several times .... Once the bulk of the girders were off the rest of the boxes could come off.
It was good to see everyone again at the unloading. I will mention some of the encouraging conversations I had in a moment. How FI fitted all their things into their hired truck and Nelu's car along with his team of youth club helpers is beyond me!!! Kathy Langston had sent a car and trailer and that was over flowing .... I was concerned that they did not have any rope to tie the top boxes onto the trailer as the roads are very bumpy ...... Vasile from Vineyard had to do 2 trips with their minibus and that was full to bursting both times .... The Agape van was very very well stuffed and ended with 4 of them in the front so the smallest seemed to be on the floor. But I trust they all got back home all right.
It was lovely to see the look of delight of one of the Agape girls faces when she saw the washing machine with the name Agape on it as it was for her and the new sheltered apartment she is moving into. (As a stage in the programme of education and life skills Agape assist the young people move into an apartment and for that they obviously need furniture etc)
Ken and Florence of Vineyard are DELIGHTED with the kindergarten chairs which we had collected from the shed at Trinity Rectory - I remember that collection as the minibus died (suddenly without warning) and had to be bump started in a very small space in the Rectory yard which I found quite terrifying as I had never done a bump start in such a confined space!!! Florence commented that they have never had matching chairs for their kindergarten before and ate chairs are complete with ferrules on the legs.
Possibly the most encouraging conversation was with Nelu from FI as he spoke about the huge success of last winter's bread distribution programme which he called the "most successful project ever". He is so glad we are fund-raising for bread for this coming winter and has promised to send me some video clips and extra pictures as well as details of numbers.
After most of the unloading was done and the trusts had collected their boxes and thanked me and everyone in Jersey, I left to come back to Cihei with Vasile and Florina where we unloaded the second van full of aid into the kindergarten (thankfully children on holiday).
In the evening we had a cracking thunder storm - it didn't last long but was so close! Such spectacular sheet and fork lightning. We don't have storms like that in Jersey, the lights kept dipping and various electric appliances switched themselves off ..... Then it stopped and apart from an occasional clap of thunder in the night and the fact that the rather browned garden looks so much greener today thanks to the rain, you would never know. But thankfully it is COOLER and far less oppressive now.
With that I will sign off as lunch time is approaching I believe and I must go and offer to help with making lunch or jam (apricot) which is happening in Florence's kitchen. I excused myself saying I needed to do my diary, the press release and some emails.