As it is Sunday, the larger group attends mass right at the end of our road. They had to que up to attend, which many of them had never done before and similar to what I experienced last week, the service was beautiful with beautiful music and singing. As they attend mass, I actually head to the internet café where I need to get some things done (and post the latest of the blog).
In the afternoon, we get to work on getting up as much paint as possible, as none of us thought to bring clothes to protect the floor or the students furniture. Andrew puts on David Bowie and we are all working, singing and laughing as we scrubbed up paint. If someone would have walked in, it would have a been a funny scene of 10 of us squatting on the floor trying to remove as much of the paint we had dripped with handmade contraptions – water bottles with nail holes and metal scrubbies to get it up. The jokes got worse, which seemed to go hand and hand with the worsening of the solvent fumes. We got most of it up and moved on to the furniture. By the end of the, it looked really great. We had accomplished a lot and at least there was one floor complete with the 1st floor almost there. The ground floor continues to need a lot of work, which we will pick up again when we are back next week.
As we clean up and get ready to leave, many of the students return to the school after their break. As they run to see who the strangers are, they jump in delight to see Hammish, Cameron, Judith and Nigel while they introduce themselves by their sign name and ask how they are. They are curious, full of energy and all want to shake our hand or give a hug.
When they start to go in to the dorm, they are surprised and extremely excited, running around with smiles from ear to ear. This is why we all came, to see what a small difference in what we do can impact a child’s life and how they go to school. Without having to worry about if their bed is there, broken or the mosquito nets are working and hanging, they concentrate on school in order to better prepare them for secondary school and what to do after secondary school.
I walk back through the village saying hello and thanking them for welcoming us to walk through their village every morning, as it is not often they have so many of us passing through at one time and what we don’t realize is that this is their home where we could potentially disturb the normalcy of their lives. They have been welcoming, kind and giving – particularly when I have asked for chapattis, cassava chips or vitumba, which are fried rice balls/cakes eaten in the morning. All of which are delicious.
The light is magical, particularly as it becomes deepened with orange and pink reflecting off of the reddish earth. The young children are double dutch jump roping and begin to laugh as I walk up to see if I can join in. Others are playing football or running out to greet the strangers walking through their community. Always yelling “jambo” and wanting to shake our hand or give us a high five. It is a perfect way to end the day, as it gives us all the chance to reflect on what we have achieved, the vast amount that is still left to do and why.
It is last night at the convent before heading off to short safari. We stop for a beer prior to dinner as a group before sitting down. Dinner is always somewhat similar but tonight we had chicken and a gorgeous tomato salad along side our rice and greens.
It is the World Cup Finals tonight. We are all routing for Holland in the hopes of winning! The boys (and men) head off to the Irish Pub, an expat bar in Slipway where many expats will be gathered to watch the game. The girls head to the local café (the bar in the complex). We attempt to watch the game on an old 13 inch TV, actually once we are able to locate the game – which took almost 30 minutes. A funny experience to say the least. We all make it through half of the game before heading to bed. Really a rather boring game of course until it went in to overtime at the end. Maybe it was a good thing we did not see the entire game, as Holland went down in defeat.
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