Rang Maidan is the Hindi name for our project.It means “Colourful Spaces”. As some of you know, we are currently in India, where we are partnered with an Australian NGO called Playground Ideas, and an Indian design studio called Gudgudee to build 50 playgrounds across the country over the next year. This project is focusing on building playgrounds made mostly from used tires, in low income government schools. Our team is great – from Australia, America, and India, we are a well-rounded and diverse bunch. Currently, 2 of the 50 playgrounds have been completed. At the last school in Sehore, Maharashtra we found that discipline is a huge part of the schooling here. After hearing about this, we both felt how much these children would benefit from having a space where they can just be kids. They definitely need to play!

Tire Playground

India itself is, well, India! It’s the place that travelers around the world seek out on their journey – whether it be to find inner peace, enjoy amazing food, learn yoga, or just see some really (really) unbelievable things. Broaden your horizons! If you’ve never traveled before, or perhaps even if you have, India will not fail to surprise you. There is an undeniable magic in the air here. Sacred cows roam the streets freely, knowing they cannot be harmed. Tuktuk drivers race about, narrowly missing one another without even blinking an eye. The occasional Sadhu walks barefoot – often covered in ash with a painted face. This is India! And we are so happy to be here. 

The state where we are currently residing, Uttar Pradesh, is the most populous province in all of India. It currently boasts a population of a whopping 223,897,418 people. Uttar Pradesh’s population is over 6x that of Canada, while its land mass is 41x smaller. It’s a bit crowded, to say the least.

 It took long and we loved every second of it. We finished building our first playground: “TuKu” (PLAY in Acholi language) and it was a more rewarding experience than either one of us could have imagined. Of course there were some challenges, such as accessing the refugee settlement areas, acquiring permits from the Office of Prime Minister, cutting trees for lumber, to transporting tires on our rental motorcycle. Once we shipped the elements and pieces to the site we thought the rest would be a breeze, until we found out the site is sitting on 5 inches of soil and the rest is solid rock! Our weapons to go through the rocks were heavy metal rods and pick axes. Overall, there has been so much love, laughter, sweat and blisters. We truly wish it could go on forever.

We could have not find any place more suitable than this for our first project. We were able to bring laughter, play, and love to the orphan children, many of whom lost their parents right in front of their innocent eyes, and had to flee to their neighbouring countries, living with less than bare minimum. We miss them already! They were our greatest teachers! After all they have been through they are all still just sources of love and peace. The moment we arrived to their home with the playgrounds materials, they all joined us in digging with their shovels. The first time we visited them they were just hiding in the shade from the scalding sun, and we didn’t hear laughter, we didn’t see play. Now, the kids run to the playground at dawn and fill the space with laughter and play right until dusk. Even one of the residents of the villages close by told us how her son runs to playground before she wakes up and doesn’t come back home until it’s dark. She was more than happy for this, to see her son enjoying playtime.

My new beastly sweet brother Olara, Mr. Uganda that I have been coaching here came along on the last day to give us a (super powerful) hand.

The total cost of this playground was $2420 CAD, which is less than what we were expecting.

100% of all funds raised through our non-profit go directly toward building playgrounds. We were able to fund this playground from our birthday pledge and gofundme. We cannot thank all our friends enough for supporting us and helping us making this happen. Love you all. Thank you for giving us so much love and support – we really mean it when we say that the love we receive from our friends and family around the world is being shared here. It keeps us going and motivates us everyday.

We are stoked about what is coming up next. 50 playgrounds in 1 year! We are teaming up with Playground Ideas from Australia and Gudgudee from India in the biggest project of its kind in India.

Basically one playground per week. We are building these playgrounds in low-income public schools where there is no space for kids to play.

It was only few months ago when Sohnia and I decided to sell everything we own, leave Canada and build playgrounds for children, and now we are embarking on a journey to take on the largest multi-playground project ever.

Since we couldn’t get our Indian visa for more than 30 days from Uganda, now we are heading to Nepal to get our visa there and then, we are off to India.

Stay put for more updates!

On Friday we set out before sunrise to pick up all the playground elements and supplies and head to Adjumani. The road was so bumpy, both of us were worried about the stuff falling to pieces in the back of the truck. Luckily it all remained intact! When the kids saw us coming, they were so excited. They all helped us to unload the equipment and supplies. I’ve never seen anyone so happy to unload a truck full of stuff. The children are so eager to help – as soon as we began digging, they ran and got their shovels and joined us. The past few days have been incredible. We all worked hard and every little bit of progress was so rewarding. The playground is nearing completion and everyone is very excited!

As we built, I remembered how a few weeks ago, we met someone who shared something very encouraging with us. We were at a restaurant in Senior Quarters, which is kind of like the quiet, dusty, Muzungo area of Gulu. We were greeted by a man whom we had met a while back when we were trying to find a place to stay. He began asking us more about what we had told him the first time we met, that we are here to build playgrounds. So, we told him how our first project is in Adjumani District, near the refugee settlements. Reza asked Jesse if he had ever been to the refugee camps. Jesse said that he used to live in a camp himself, here in Northern Uganda. Reza asked if it was when Adi Amin was in power and Jesse replied “No.. Not then. And Adi Amin.. He wasn’t too harsh anyway”. He said it was the lords resistance army, also known as rebels, in the civil conflict with the government of Uganda from 2000-2005. He told us how when he lived in the camp, there were lots of people that came. Some of these people built playgrounds, and they brought things for the children to play with. They brought soccer balls, kids toys, games. He told us how much of a difference this made for the children in the camp. He said that the soccer games, the playgrounds, the playing, kept the children occupied, happy with their friends instead of being idle, or in the streets putting their lives at risk. It was really incredible to hear a firsthand account of the impact that play had on children in hard times. It was a special moment and we thanked him for sharing, and off he went.

We used these heavy poles to break through rock…

Before we left Canada I came across a quote by Lilla Watson: “If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together”. To me, this hits on the deepest truth that remains hidden to us underneath the illusion of separateness: We are all connected. We only appear as separate on the surface but if one person in this world suffers, we all suffer. It’s not about us and them. Its about Us, We, as a whole, the human race in its entirety. So, let us work together. And, let us play together too!

We didn’t plan to hang with wild elephants. We have been going deep into bush at least once a week for some Mother Nature time, and this week we decided to get to Nile river, about 100km south of where we live. We left home on Boda before sunset, such a chilly ride. 3 hours and 20 stops for warming up later we got to the river, but we were stopped by the army from accessing river because of security reasons! We were told if we road a bit farther, there is a park that we might be able to access from there, so we did.

We had to negotiate a bit at the gate until the park ranger let us in without pervious arrangement, no guide, and no truck. He said we should ride straight to the safari lodge which was 20km into the national park. As we enter and looked at the name of the park on the sign, we recognize the name! This is the park that we were told has the most variety and abundance of wild life. Sohnia asked me, do you think it’s ok we ride our 100cc crappy motorcycle into a national park in Africa that is full of lions, elephants, hippos, and other crazy animals? I said yeah! As we start riding through the rough road we saw many trees that were recently broken down by elephants, saw a few antelopes and other animals and birds, and a few kilometres later, we got a flat tire!

I was trying to keep it together while I was pushing the bike in mid day heat in middle of the safari zone, and Sohnia was in a battle with all those tse-tse flies that were biting us left and right. After couple of kilometres of that fun we got lucky to see a truck passing by. We left the Boda and got a ride out of the park. I bought a tire and tube from the closest village, and asked the guy to come with me to help me change the tire. After we got the bike ready for road again we pinned it to the lodge.

What a beautiful lodge, with a swimming pool just above Nile river. From there we didn’t had to go far to see tons of animals. We chilled less than 100 feet away of huge herd hippopotamus, right beside them we saw bunch of elephants. There was about 12 of them and Sohnia start just walking to them! To her spirit animal! A bit too close! Elephants kill the most people in Africa just after hippos.

Pumba

Wild elephants

From there we saw bunch of monkeys, baboons, more antelopes, boars, exotic birds…

on the way back we decided to choose longer road to see more animals. Right away we saw ourselves surrounded by a herd of giraffes. Sohnia said, I saw a video that a giraffes attacking a car! I said don’t worry we have a bike not a car 😉 As i started riding closer to them, they start looking a bit pissy! So I did a quick U/-turn and pinned it. What a day!Now plan is to go back there once a week, and hope to not get flat again.

As for playground process, we were able to sort all the material, even timbers for post. It’s not like back home that we can put an order and delivery through Home Depot. We had to go through bunch of people until we got connect to a person that knew of the old man in a forest. We rode to the forest and found couple of eucalyptus that looked good for fort’s post. Next step from there was to find the old man to get the permission and negotiate price for the trees.

Now we are waiting for the metal elements of the playground to be welded and once that’s done we will ship to the the camp and start fabricating, installing, and painting.

Home Depot

Monkey bar almost ready