The day kicked off with a colossal buffet of Nutella and waffles for the healthier students (Maddie and I) before a full day of manual labour. Our group got on a bus at 8:30am heading towards a local primary school, which had been shut down a few years ago and was recently reopened. The school now has about 200 students in four classrooms. As we walked into the gates, every child was lined up in a “guard of honour” and clapped as we walked by.
Once everyone had a drink of water, we were put to hard work; manually mixing cement, carrying the bags of cement to and fro, laying tiles and paving. Cement mixing was made fun given all of the water fights, prompts made by Mr Davis that “we would never dare throwing water at him”. And of course we did.
After about 3 hours we retired for lunch as it began to pour down with rain, only to finish when we were ready to work again.
The children were very helpful with clearing away rubbish for us and starting sword fights with polystyrene wrapping from the tiles. While some of us took few/many breaks between work, the students were always around us and waving, saying hello and smiling at us.
At the end of the day, when we finished for good, we were given some time to give gifts for the students. We then presented the almost finished tiling (it will be finished by local tradesmen) and a generous donation to the principal. We then had time to play with the kids before leaving. Many of us played ball games such as volleyball and soccer (and we seemed to remember our volleyball skills being significantly better prior to the trip).
We then ended the day on a high note with well-earned showers, swimming and a cake for Courtney’s birthday. Dinner was out at the night market before a night of extravagant and serious shopping.
By Harmoni Mose and Maddie Marquardt.
