House Party at Uluvadu

Guest Blog by Eira Evans, Charlie One

After 9 weeks of hard work the big day had finally arrived at Charlie 1. The inauguration ceremony of all 5 houses took place.

Many hours had been spent in a Raleigh chain moving materials into the village. Over 3000 bricks had made their way up the chain, 3 elephants worth of sand, rocks and 3000 roof tiles. There were times when we lacked energy and were tired but we whiled away the hours singing, dancing and laughing.

The venturers had been busy on the previous day painting their mural – a map of the world.

On 14th December we were joined by our Project Partner – CTRD, the masons, friends and family of the villagers and were extremely happy to have Anna, Polly B, Polly C visiting for the occasion.

We all awoke to find the village beautifully decorated. The villagers had not slept as they had been busy preparing for the big day. A day they had awaited for over 2 years.

Banana trees had their leaves curled into ribbons, hundreds of hanging plant streamers lined the entrance into the village. Each house was decorated with intricate chalk drawings and brightly coloured ribbons. It felt like Christmas morning when we climbed bleary eyed out of our tents.

Anna opened the ceremony by unveiling the Plaque on the side of Onathi’s house. The day was filled with emotion as Leela, one of the recipients of a house, had us all in tears with her gratitude and appreciation.

A ribbon was cut at each house and we all got the chance to light an auspicious candle.

Vijay from CTRD translated all the speeches and as I read my speech on behalf of the Project Managers, I finally got the chance to express just how much humility they had taught us and generousity they showed us. All of the group received a shawl followed by a slap-up meal made by the villagers.

 We in turn provided each house with a group picture.

We were all looking forward to sharing the first night as guests in their new houses.

The houses will provide the villagers with a warm and dry place to live with their families. A basic human right has been delivered and we hope that this will be the beginning of a number of improvements to the lives of the villagers over the coming years.
All text by Eira Evans and photos by Polly Baldwin http://www.dynamicpictures.co.uk/ (unless stated otherwise).