Teshie School Project – Volunteer Diary - Day 9

Day 9 - Wednesday 19 Aug. 2009
After the high of yesterday today the crew knuckled down to completing the work plan before departure on Friday. The general consensus is that it’s hard to believe that only 3 working days remained from this morning. Five of our volunteers return to Ireland this evening and without doubt they will be missed. Despite the intense heat the remaining team members gave their all to ensure the work is completed.

Electrical Progress:
A major milestone for the Electrical team was the switch in of the mains connection to the technical complex today. This was a particular triumph for Brendan O'Connor as he personally witnessed the connection before he passed command over to Jimmy Harkin and Daragh Mulligan. Work in the technical school is now 80% complete, with upstairs fully fitted out. There is a small amount of work to be completed in the downstairs workshops but progress remains on schedule with full completion expected by Friday evening. In the Technical School toilet block and the Canteen area work also continues on schedule.

Painting Progress:
Painting of the Technical School work is now almost complete in all upstairs rooms. Due to the re-plastering of some areas of the downstairs workshops, parts of some rooms had to be primed and painted again today. By evening this task was completed in the majority of the rooms. Painting in the Technical School toilet blocks was finalised today also. In the Canteen area the only remaining work is the internal final coat of the kitchen. It is expected that all the “artists” will gather together shortly to finish the Technical School before the final departure from site on Friday. Painting equipment was handed over to Ivan McAuley from Martin O'Brien to lead the team for the remainder of the week.

IT Progress:

In the Resource Centre the Web course for teachers from the school continued. Today Vinnie Heffernan and Charlie Horkin concentrated on teaching HTML to the teachers. The course participants did initially struggle with this new technology, however, by the end of the teaching day the majority of the attendees were showing great signs of improvement on their newly learned skills.

Tomorrow will see the final day of this course before a new group of pupils from the school attend a second Writer course on Friday.

General:
The traditional lunch break, ran smoothly by Mick O’Connor and today's helpers, Anne-Marie Twamley and Majella McCarron, saw another feast of bread rolls produced. The big change on today’s menu was that the ham was replaced by chicken ... not that many people noticed! Treats of the day were pineapple, Milky Bars and Doritos. Things are improving! An extra treat was a cake to celebrate the birthday on Thursday of Catherine Byrne. As some of the team were leaving today we surprised Catherine with a cake and local carvings as gifts a day early. Just before we were due to depart site a group of teachers from the school arrived to present each member of the volunteers with handwoven scarves made locally. Later in the day Mick handed his ‘hard hat’ to Sharyn McMenamin to take over feeding the troops and looking after their general well being for the last 2 days on site.

Sadly we had to say goodbye to the first set of team members who were due to fly back to Ireland - Paddy Stapleton, Jim Dollard, Mick O'Connor, Ger McCarthy, Brendan O'Connor and Martin O'Brien who in true ESB Teshie tradition walked through the gates of the complex escorted by colleague Daragh Mulligan. There were more than a few tears from everyone as goodbyes were said. Guys, we will really miss you all. Thank you so much for making this the most amazing experience of our lives. We'll see you all at home shortly.

A report by Sharyn McMenamin (ICT Group) and Michael O'Connor (ESBI).