We launched an appeal for books in the Sleaford area and were staggered when over 18,000 books were donated! We won’t go into detail here about storage, sorting, transportation etc. but if anyone is interested we will be pleased to pass on any information you may want – just email. Oh yes, and we also took a piano!

A small group of charity volunteers went to meet the container at the school some weeks later. It took five days of hard work to change the large, empty room into a library-in-waiting, starting at the local saw mills for the timber and buying up every available wall-bracket in the town. When the container arrived it took only 20 minutes to unload all the boxes (386 of them) as every pupil wanted to be involved and the excitement was almost tangible.

Fortunately for us one of our group, Estelle Drayton, is a librarian and so the task of sorting the boxes then the books into proper sections was well organised. Back breaking but well organised! Every inch of wall was covered in shelves full of books and in between we hung laminated, educational posters to brighten it up. Half of the floor was carpeted for the children to sit on when reading or being read to and the piano was installed and polished.

On the day of the official opening the teachers were so overcome that several just burst into tears. It made us realise how difficult their job had been – teaching with no books. There was much chatter about being able to teach the older children how to conduct research, being able to set projects that the children could read around and story reading classes. The teachers themselves wanted to read just for pleasure.

During this visit Ed Drayton, who is an electrician, had been rewiring blocks of classrooms that were damaged by storms. There had been live wires sticking out of walls and dangling from ceilings and the recommended way to switch lights on was with a good, strong twig!

The water system was completely dismantled and overhauled, it needed a few bolts replacing but other than that it was sound. Phil Shelbourn was the engineer with us on the initial project and he was very interested to see how the system had fared. Several joints had to be located, dug up and repaired where there were leaks but considering the use and conditions it was doing remarkably well.

Extra willing pairs of hands were Martin and Heather Crossthwait – in Africa for the first time. On these visits everyone has to pitch in and turn their hand to whatever task is on the go and on this project that meant anything, including digging up pipes, pulling electricity cables, repairing the roof and ceilings, shelving, cooking meals, taking on the school team at soccer, teaching English and entertaining local dignitaries.

Talking to the teachers since then we have been told that the library is very well used, not only by the teachers and pupils at Nyamane but also other local schools, the nearby Teacher Training College and the local community. In 2007 another container, mostly books, was sent to replace worn books and spread them out between three other primary schools.

The piano is a big success too. Pupils travel long distances to take music examinations on it and when the High School are preparing for choir or dancing competitions the piano is borrowed and taken by ‘bakkie’ up the hill!