Description

“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” –Mark Jenkins

Thursday 16 August 2012

Day 6 - Thursday 16th August

After breakfast (pictured) we spent the morning in the school, starting with the P3 class (8-9 year olds) with Kenneth, and then break time playing ball and taking photos, followed by P2 class (7-8 year olds), all on my own, no teacher, and no instructions! I marked their English work from the previous lesson and then set them some maths homework – ten questions – which they copied down into their books. By this time it was 12:30pm and so Kenneth said they could go home.  Turns out that the star trooper from the brick moving session was a little girl called Sylivia, who is in the P2 class (pictured). I also met a lovely quiet girl in the class called Gauda, who was using half an old elastic band as a rubber, so as they left and were walking home, I noticed they were trailing behind the other kids so I decided to quickly nip back to the room and get her and her two friends a new rubber each (thanks to Waz and Emma for the stationary donations – there are 3 ecstatic young girls who also say thank you to you).
Lunch was nice (pictured) and traditional; tomato rice, avocado (another gift from the villagers), ground nuts (the pink stuff that looks like vomit) and dark cabbage with carrots.
After lunch we were aiming to return to the baby class and finish putting up the revamped posters, but Caroline and I were exhausted and decided it would be wiser to get some rest to enable us to continue (Caroline is feeling achy in her joints which is a slight worry, but no fever or nausea). I slept for a couple of hours and awoke to the sound of Caroline single-handedly trying to discipline the children outside our room – a couple of the lads were bullying the other girls, one in particular called Joanne who was in tears. Caroline came in to get me, understandably stressed – where were all the other volunteers? And where were all the staff? – the place seemed deserted. I got up and went out whilst Caroline got some colouring things from the room to try and calm them all down. It worked like a charm, we told the boys they could not do any colouring as they had very bad manners and so they moved away a bit to play football.
Unfortunately shortly afterwards when it was time for the children to leave, the boys took the chance to start on Joanne again and pretty soon she came running back down the drive for safety – Caroline investigated and found the boys waiting in the bushes along the road – so she helped Joanne across the road and into the arms of a woman she knew. Hopefully she will make it home unscathed.

No comments:

Post a Comment