What Happened to Your Hard Earned Money?

Because of the support of family, friends, and friends of friends, we raised approximately $5,000 and successfully completed the water project at the Masia Primary School at the beginning of this year.

I’d like to extend a special thanks to Martha Shaughnessy and her friends for their generous contributions and Dan Woog for writing an article about (or subtle advertisement for) me in my old hometown paper, The Westport News.

I’d also like to thank my parents, Jim Steffen and Erika and Sheldon Hearst, for their tireless support. As my time in the Peace Corps was coming to an end I asked them to help me raise funds. And raise funds, they did. They not only helped complete the fund-raising for the water project, but, incredibly, they raised an additional $5,000. Barrack Obama, be warned.

With this money I created a Sports and Education Fund for the children of my community: I bought uniforms and equipment for the local boys’ soccer team, girls’ netball team and boxing club; educational gifts for a new preschool; and 5 computers for one of my primary schools that is creating a computer literacy program.

For their heroic last minute contributions, a big thank you goes to my Aunt Carol and cousins from Carmel, Indiana and my Mom’s close friends, many of whom have known me since I was in diapers. You know who you are.

Thanks for all your support. The community members of my village and I truly appreciate it!

Please check out the pictures below.

Peace,
Eric


Water Project




















Drilling the well.


















Two teachers (Mrs. Mpondi on the left and Dorah, my host mother) look on.


















Soil samples were displayed from each meter that was dug. You can see the dry, brown top soil on the top left and the wet soil on the bottom right. We hit water at 30 meters but drilled to 61m to make sure we had a deep reservoir of water.


















Building the tank stands.









































Boys Soccer
















The boys in their new uniforms. The goalpost in the background had cracked from wear and tear. We welded it and gave it a nice new coat of non-corrosive paint.


Girls Netball





















Elelwani puts up a shot on the old hoop.


















We bought new hoops, welded them to the poles and erected the poles in cement.


















Khuliso, the teams best player, fastens the new nets to the new hoops. Tshamano demarcates the field's boundary in the background.


















Who's taking who's picture!? Playing with my favorite netball fans.







































The girls in their new uniforms.


















The girls voted to change the name of the team to "Mashudu's Angels". Mashudu is my Venda name, which means "lucky".



Boxing





















Ben Kelsey, the previous Peace Corps Volunteer in my village, setup a boxing club. Here, a future boxing star punishes a punching bag!


















We were able to buy the boys 10 uniforms - 5 red, 5 blue.



















We also bought the team new gear, including head protection (seen here), gloves, punching bags, speed bags, punching mitts, jump ropes and wrist wrap.


Computers
















Here are the four teachers I trained on the computer: Mr. Netshingani, Mrs. Mashau, Mr. Mushiane and Mr. Tshishonga. (Say that 3 times fast.) We worked together everyday after school for 1 - 2 hours for many months. That type of commitment is rare in South Africa's rural public schools.


















Mrs. Mashau supervises. She and I created a 117 page computer curriculum together, which the other teachers are seen going through.


















We bought the school 5 new computers.


















As I left, the school was close to completing a new computer room. ..."Close" being a relative term, of course.