Sports Day!

The last day at school brought a lot of emotion yet excitement too. Today was sports day! Although it was our last, it was the best yet; the shorts were out, the sun cream was on tap and orders were made to wear our wide brimmed hats - even to Liberty, Hannah and Tasha's disdain. 

When we arrived at school, group A observed a grade 2 lesson on weaving for doormats; the lesson was well prepared by Teacher Precious, the children knew what they were doing and conformed; the lesson was an overall success. Concurrently, group B observed a grade 3 science lesson on series circuits. The lesson didn't go as smoothly as Precious', as it was less prepared and the children were left without anything to do and at times without supervision from their teacher. However, nothing could damage our mood as we were all looking forward to sports day and our last meal with the teachers in the church.

Next was our the Roding Valley led lessons. Group A, led by the artistic Patrick Baidoo, introduced grade 5 to clay building. The children brought in their own clay and with the help of Mr Baidoo and his assistants, created small bricks to represent a small-scale traditional Zambian home. 

Just a few doors down in grade 4 group B, led by the resilient Mrs Hodges, who at the last minute had to change her lesson plan to making paper chatterboxes. Assistant Liberty and her excellent demonstration resulted in a great engaging lesson, full of animation from the children, combining maths and English with paper making (a module in the grade 4 curriculum). 

After that it was time for sports day. The kids got changed into their house colours and headed to the field full of energy, orchestrated by the incredibly enthusiastic Kalum. The atmosphere was intense and thriving as the first sprints were underway. Will's green 'dream' team were the victors of the first race and Teacher Maureen embraced the victory leading Zambian chants which quickly spread around the houses, creating an ecstatic and breathtaking atmosphere. After a series of sprints, the children took part in races with cups of water balanced on their heads. Unsurprisingly, the girls were pro's; the same couldn't be said about Will who had a go and only made it 30 metres before being soaked. Mr Baidoo also had a go and used his Ghanaian skills to cross the finish line.

The cup race was shortly followed by wheelbarrow races and piggy back races, concluded with an over and under game. The scores were counted and it was revealed that Liberty and Chloe F's orange team were the overall winners on the day. 

At lunch, we all bid farewell to the teachers and Angelina and Ospeck, with Olivia giving a brilliant speech thanking them for welcoming us and opening us up to live-changing experiences. We then sang happy 60th birthday to Angelina and gave the teachers and cooks presents.

After leaving the school we headed to the shopping mall to. With the feeling of a strange family shopping trip, we headed to Shoprite to buy everything we needed to make lunch for ourselves and the Youth Praise team who will be prepping us tomorrow for church on Sunday. When we got back to the Town House, we sat down together outside, all adopted a role, whether it was buttering or foil-wrapping and prepared a wonderful lunch.