The HatchFlight Foundation

The new building requires 900 bricks, one mason and a team of four workers.

The groundwork for the new building started two weeks ago.

This is the younger class standing outside of the first classroom!

This is Mamalacki in her banana field, which was cleared to build the new classroom! Fear not, her bananas have been moved up the path...

This is Mamalacki's banana field before the new classroom was built.

It is the night before I leave for Tanzania. The last week has blurred by in a fury of gathering supplies, packing my bags and mental preparation. I salvaged and cleaned a heap of warm clothes from the lost and found of the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club, typed up the Swahili translation of the Sing'isi Nantucket Cultural Exchange Curriculum and went over it twice with my friend Alan Shaidi (owner of Zizini on Main Street in Hyannis who grew up in Tanzania), purchased over $100 of school and art supplies for the Hopeful English School and the Sing'isi After School Program, and somehow managed to get myself organized and ready to go.

"Given the intense globalization process which is presently underway, I see the importance in developing positive connections between cultures, in order to realize the similarities and better understand the differences which exist between us all. I am so excited to begin this venture, and begin fostering relationships to ensure the sustainability of the [Hopeful English] school." -Ashley Mott

I brought these Native American arrowheads to show to the children at the Nantucket Boys & Girls Club. As children growing up in South Carolina, we used to search the fields, creeks and rivers after heavy rains. Below on the left hand side is an axe head. On the right side is a spear tip found in Abbeyville South Carolina.

Today we broke ground for the foundation of the Hopeful English School! The banana trees that belong to Mama Lacki (Janet) were chopped down to be replaced by the school building. Janet is known in the village as Mama Lacki, as her first born child is Malacki. The banana field has been replanted just up the road from the school. It was an exciting morning in Sing'isi.
Tomorrow, Ashley, Thompson and I are heading to town to buy some building supplies including bricks, cement, and sand! The mason estimates that in two weeks, we will be up and running. Amazing, considering the work is done totally by hand, no power tools.