56 year old Maurice Costello of Ogonnelloe, Co. Clare has been on eight Niall Mellon Township Trust Building Blitz’s. When I ask him what brings him back to the Cape Town Townships he smiles and says it’s the friends his made, not just in his fellow Irish co-workers but also in the people of the townships in which his efforts have helped people to move out of a shack and into a home. In once such place, Imizamo Yethu and while building there for a second year running he met and befriended a woman whose house he’d helped build the year before. She remembered him by name and asked him in for tea that first day and then the next day she asked him and the entire team, she fed them everything she had in her cupboard and they laughed and joked and talked about the future. Her boyfriend was out working and when asked if she was hoping to get married she said that she would some day when she had the money. She was desperate to be a mother but wouldn’t have children outside of wedlock. It was then that the lads led by Maurice decided to make an offer, when they were ready to marry, she was to contact Maurice and every man sitting at the table pledged to help her pay for it. The following February and only two days before a scheduled team reunion he received a letter saying that she was hoping to get married in June. The wedding would cost €800.00. The night of the reunion every team member stayed true to their word and he sent over the €800.00 necessary to pay for a wedding. He held back a further €400.00 which he then personally hand delivered when he returned to build. He wanted her to put it toward furniture for her house. She was overwhelmed and in return he and every single man who contributed received a personal thank you note and wedding photo. Now a number of years on Maurice still visit with Jolene and Kenny Mageza every year he’s building with the Township Trust. They have the two children that Jolene longed for and they know Maurice as the Irishman who seemed to come from nowhere to help build their home and marry their parents. Maurice grins as he gets up to go, it’s a nice to be nice he says and with a nod and a wink he’s back to work.