Our 3rd day at Kawama
25 degrees at 8am in the morning, after a late night watching the football semi-final, we arrived to a swarm of excited children chasing our bus for a kilometre along the dirt track to school.
We quickly got stuck into our activities consisting of painting the new toilet block, continuing to build the perimeter wall (The Great Wall of Kawama) and finishing our murals. We found these particularly interesting as we were able to brighten up the classrooms, whilst being able to listen to the children’s lessons and witness how the children were so eager to learn.
After another traditional meal of Nshima and beans, we took on the whole of grade 4, 5 and 6. We successfully introduced the game of netball, led my Miss Mallory (Malarone). They took to it quickly and, despite it being an unknown game to them beforehand, shooting was being done with accuracy by the end of the session.
After this, half of us were warmly welcomed into locals’ houses- it was a very touching experience as they were so proud and happy with the limited resources and worldly possessions they had. It was such a culture shock for all of us to understand that a family of 10 lived in a 2 bedroom house and another that we visited consisted of 7, living in a single room. The other half were lucky enough to visit a local income generating craft business, ‘Kawama Krafts.’ A host of authentic gifts were on sale and many of us did not hesitate to buy presents for loved ones.
Later on in the day, we were fortunate to attend the ladies’ chapel service, having missed church on Sunday due to travel issues. It was a great experience to hear their prayers and songs, so different to our own. We did, however, have the opportunity to perform one of our Cranleigh favourites, ‘Jerusalem’ which we sang in our usual ‘out of tune’ fashion.
We all agreed that this was the most thought provoking and tiring day so far.
Tatiana St Pier and Allegra Clark
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