Friday, March 25, 2011

I’m listening to classical music while trying to fix the library plans AGAIN! Finally after 2 weeks of daily conversations with different Council members in the construction department and mini visits to site where they walk around but don’t do anything, yesterday they FINALLY put in the pegs. However, the pegs they put in were not at the original location. The previous pegs, were not permanent and have since disappeared. The new pegs are permanent but not the location of the last pegs, so my site changed in all the wrong places. So I had to re-draw the site plan AND try to design a building that fits into the space. So I’m very lucky that ZESA (power) has decided to stick around so I can do all these drawings. Then having to talk to various people to get their input and opinions and doing different options to see what different things look like, it’s almost like starting from scratch. I thought we had this all sorted but I guess that’s not the case. I was going to ask for a variance to encroach on the boundary line by 500mm but it would take until June when all of Council has their quarterly meeting to get approved and we can’t wait that long. So we make the changes and send Council the amendments package, which they won’t read but approve, which is fine with me. The head of the construction department yesterday told me after he finished the pegging that he didn’t want to see me until the job was done. I laughed and said I would see him when I needed his help.

We continue to come up with new ideas for the resource center and all the things it could be used for and what we want in it. A big thing is that there is nothing to do here in Nyanga, if you want to go out, meet friends, whatever there is no movie theatre, no coffee shop, no take out, if you want to eat out, you go to one of the hotel or resorts in the area. We are thinking of ways to keep people entertained, out of trouble and something to keep them stimulated and something unique. The existing library is to be used for conferences, meetings, etc. but what about when there isn’t any. We wondered about making it a art gallery. There is currently a wee bathroom with a storage room around it that we are thinking of converting into a kitchen or even better a small canteen or coffee stall. From there sandwich’s, coffee, snacks whatever could be sold, bring your computer, look at some art and it’s a cooler version of Starbucks! It also means that people in the library don’t have to leave to eat. There isn’t anything like this in the area. If I was a student from 100km down the dirt road and I came on a Saturday for the library and computer room, I’d like to eat and have coffee. Also we thought of maybe having a big backdrop or screen to show movies, both educational and entertainment and then during meetings or conferences you could plug your computer in and run a slide show. This would give Nyanga a social life or weekend life outside of drinking and just hanging out in the bush doing nothing. This is one of the exciting parts of my job that I enjoy. We also thought of having the students paint inside the children’s area and part of the outside of building like a mural to give it a unique look to it, plus if students from all 70 schools were involved it would add to the community of the building

No comments:

Post a Comment