The first corner post at Malibuseng went up today… (we failed to mention it in the first post but Malibuseng is a local orphanage that Sentebale has helped to set up, we are now fencing it to increase the security and the quality of life of the children that reside there, for more info on Malibuseng or any of the other projects we are involved with please click on the links on the right)This might not sound as a big achievement but given the discussion that broke out yesterday because of the position of the fence going to inspect the site at lunch time today and finding the first post being cast was quite an event.
Yesterday we spent quite a good part of our afternoon trying to mediate a dispute between the neighbours and the orphanage. It seems that the official limits that with had been given by the lands department were not good enough for some of the neighbours.
They argued that we should leave at least 8-10 meters between the edge of their site and the fence of Malibuseng. Quite an understandable wish if it was not for the fact the the lands department had marked on our drawing only 3 and the fact that 10m would mean having to knock down a corner of the building…
By the end of the discussion, we were all exhausted, having even proposed to leave 7 meters, which was really as far as we could go without having to move the waterline to the site, we left feeling rather defeated.
This morning other people from our office went over to try their luck, this time they took with them officials of different departments and even the local chief was summoned! An agreement was reached eventually but sadly one where we were forced to concede almost and extra meter.
It is disappointing that we had to compromise so much and that none of the other parties was able to do the same, despite that at least now we can proceed with our work and hopefully soon the fence will be finished and this entire episode will be a thing of the past.
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