Project Update: School Renovation

The renovation of the three academic buildings at Mnyamana Primary School was my first big project that I started working on in September and I have made some progress.

I have been struggling with completing the proposal since I've been getting mixed messages of what was required and who I was submitting it to. In short, I completed the proposal and presentation 2 weeks ago but found the more difficult part was submitting it to the Department of Education (DOE).

Both the presentation and the proposal are larger than 25 MB which is the maximum file size that can me sent through Gmail. Someone suggested that I upload it to a file sharing website. I signed up to 5 different file sharing websites and they either wouldn't allow me to upload a file that large or kept timing out. So I downloaded a program that was supposed to allow me to upload it to the website faster and resume the upload where it was if it crashed. I installed that and for some reason it wouldn't do anything. I was getting really frustrated at this point because here you buy data bundles which allow you to connect to the internet and you pay per MB transferred. You can imagine that trying to upload 86MB of data that fails several times can burn through a lot of data quickly. Between trying to upload those files, downloading uploaders, and browsing for uploading programs to download I used approximately 400MB of data.

At this point I gave up on using the internet to transfer the files and sent the DOE an e-mail saying that I would "make a plan" (a very over used phrase) to get it to them. My first idea of burning the files to a CD and then sending it to them in Nelspruit was not a very favorable one. It would take too long to get there if at all. And if it managed to get there it would probably be lost within the DOE building somewhere. Then I had a mild epiphany; FAX! So last week Thursday I submitted it to the Department of Education via fax. In this age of technology I sometimes forget that I am in a developing country and try to use methods that exceed the current capacity.

I finally got in contact with the Director of Special Projects from the DOE in Nelspruit after a week of promised calls and confirmed that he had received my proposal. He is submitting the proposal to a board of investors that handles distribution of funds that have been donated to the DOE. Now I get to do my least favorite thing, wait. Their next meeting is in late June or early July so I won't be able to get the funds until after I return from the U.S. so it is a little frustrating. However, I have reached a milestone with the project and can go to the U.S. with a sense of accomplishment.