Friday, 27th October

Kawama – Day 6

After another early start, we arrived for our final day at Kawama, feeling tired from the previous days’ efforts. We were a little emotional as it was our last day with the children, but also animated as we discussed potential formations for the afternoon’s football.

In the morning, a few of us visited the other local community school, Kamatipa. We were told it was in the same state as Kawama was seven years ago. Although it made some people emotional to see the school in such an underdeveloped state, it inspired us and showed us how far Kawama had come.

Later, other pupils were asked to create a short 5 minute video presentation with the title ‘small aims, significant gains’. We interviewed a few children on how they helped members of their family or the general community on a day-to-day basis. Although we did not hear the story first hand, Jodie told us about a young boy who holds on to his blind grandfather and leads him around Kawama in order to keep him safe. The kids were intrigued by all of Mike (a Beyond Ourselves volunteer) and his camera gear, and made a huge crowd around him.

For lunch, again, the team enjoyed nshima and cabbage, this time with sausage. In the afternoon, one group did craft with grade 4. It was really satisfying to see the children’s happy faces after the collage board was complete. Before we left kawama School we gave our thanks to the Kawama staff who had kindly given up their time for us to be able to join in with their teaching activities. They each received a Cranleigh 150^th anniversary t-shirt.

For the majority of us, the two football games were the highlight of the day. The girls drew 0-0 and the boys had a very close match, unfortunately ending with a 3-2 loss. Honourable mentions go to Jack and Max’s goal-scoring and to Mr Britt and Mr Barker for rising to the challenge. We couldn’t have asked for a better last day. We said our final goodbyes to the kids who were reluctant to let us go. As we, for the last time, drove away from Kawama, the array of happy children chasing after the bus will be an image many of us will never forget.

We now look forward to the long trip home and seeing our loved ones in Heathrow early on Saturday morning.