Our base camp and new, beautiful Education Centre were both badly damaged by the freak flood that ripped through camp on the 14th of February.  It was just unbelievable to hear the news and the accounts from Adolf and Shitunda who were in camp at the time.  Our main store room fell down and most of our expensive camping equipment, solar, and P.E.A.C.E. Project materials all washed away!  It was just devastating to see in reality, especially the education centre which we had just started to use and was so stunning, with amazing landscaping! 

Starting anew…

However, in true EHRA style, we brushed ourselves off and got on with the job of rebuilding. We knew we would need to do flood defense work before we started with the rebuild and to great luck, former volunteer Fred Hoogerwerf sent a message explaining this is his area of expertise! So Fred has given us good instruction from drone photos of what needs to be done to protect the buildings and camp SHOULD this ever happen again. However, we had to wait until the end of the rainy season because the ground was still too soggy and wet to build, plus we wanted to avoid being surprised by another flood. The end of the rainy season came at the end of April. Since then, we went full-steam ahead with rebuilding the camp. 

Thanks to a great fundraising appeal and the amazing support we were able to instantly employ 20 men from the local village and go about the cleaning up. Base camp is almost back to its former glory, with a new and improved larger tree platform! Under the platform, we intend to create a fully shaded, relaxing area where volunteers can read and relax after a tough build week. The ruins of the EHRA storage room have been removed entirely. The flood defense is almost complete on the education centre and once done, the task of rebuilding the damaged walls will start.  Sandrine Biermann, the architect, will come and draw up new landscaping plans to get the centre's beauty back.

So watch this space! 

Rachel xx