Day 3 – Church

After the exhaustions of the day before and a great night’s sleep we all woke up raring to go. The agenda for the day consisted of visiting the local Kawama Community Church, part of the Pentecostal Church of Zambia.  We set off at 8:30am in our Sunday best –  flip flops, long skirts and trousers. On arrival we were greeted by a number of young children clearly delighted by the presence of a new team. As soon as we entered the church, the difference in culture was obvious! There was a very happy and upbeat vibe filling the vibrantly-decorated church. The basic breeze blocks were draped in gold, purple and yellow in order to liven the atmosphere. After listening and ‘dancing’ to their local choirs we were kindly invited up to the front to perform our own rendition of some Cranleigh favourites – in which many notes were both hit and missed at the same time! The church reacted enthusiastically to our performance but then went on to completely outshine us with their beautiful harmonies. The songs they sang were catchy; Alfie and Richie caught on to their hymns quickly and joined in with the locals, but much to our surprise they were not invited to join the choir. Our paternal and maternal instincts were tested with both Cecile and Calnan managing to make children cry! Before long Maisie initiated a huge game of Hokey Cokey, which the children attempted to understand, and caught onto quickly. Eventually we had to say our goodbyes – despite our attempt to smuggle some home with us, we were quickly caught out as there was no space on the bus. They continued to run after us for what seemed like a mile! The rest of the day we spent preparing for tomorrow’s challenges and catching up on some lost sleep.
Written by Maisie (Matt Damon)  and Matt F.