In loving memory, I introduce to you Mbambano Park

Those of you close to me know that my grand father recently passed away. It is a sad thing to be so far away when something like this happens. I remember saying good-bye to him as I departed for South Africa, I had a funny feeling as though it may be my last time seeing him in this lifetime, sadly I was right.

What began as a community clean up project has blossomed into a memorial park for my grandfather, Everett Lohnes. We started with an illegal dump site, with many men, 300 garbage bags and a lot of hard work we are slowly turning this dump site into Thembalethu's first public park. This has been a wonderful opportunity for the community, with 80% unemployment here it is nice to be able to employ my neighbours, and we are all taking pride in the work we are doing. I also employed my friend and neighbour, Nanza, to build two large benches and a table. Over the past 2 weeks we have cleared most of the garbage, leveled the land by moving soil from another area, made a path and my personal favorite, planted trees. It gets very hot here in the summertime so on either side of the chairs and table will two large olive trees. These trees will provide shade from the hot sun as well as protection from the wind. Along the perimeter of the park are flowering shrubs and perennials. On the exterior away from the former dump area are fruit trees.

We are nearly done, we are currently priming and painting the chairs, and cleaning up the last scraps of trash that once littered this beautiful landscape. I am so proud that I can barely contain myself. Although some are fearful that our work will be stolen or vandalized I am hopeful that people will see the beauty in what we are doing and take pride in this one of a kind park. With every tree I plant, every grain of soil I move I think of my grand father. In living memory of Everett Lohnes, we give you Mbambano Park, or translated into English, Unity (Togetherness) Park.

Watch for updates and new photos to see how Mbambano Park is evolving.

Some of my friends here in Thembalethu who helped me with this project.

Two hundred garbage bags of trash collected, another 200 or so to go!

Nanza making the table

The photo above is the "sort-of" before photo, this was taken last week, after 3 days of work,

but as you can see it is still a mess.

This photo was taken today, planted are olive trees, flowering shrubs and the border is flowering Gazania. You can see over the hill that the guys are still down there picking up shards of glass, bits of plastic and other odds and ends. The table and chairs will go between the two olive trees.

I am so proud, I just cannot believe the difference.