The first bit work is finished! The morning sessions ran even more successfully now everyone's got their heads around what to do and lovely things are being produced. One group gave out a load of disposal cameras to the older children in the hope that they will take photos of their families and general day to day life in order to produce scrapbooks about themselves. Not only will this be an amazing insight into their lives for us, hopefully they'll produce lovely books for them to keep.
Another group is working on on project that will hopefully form the basis for linking this school to a Tower Hamlets school. They produced sheets and sheets of lovely work about their school, complete with drawings, photos and all sorts of nice things. We've been trying to create a similar collection of things to send back to England - a "present for England" as we tell them, to a very excited response.
The afternoons are also running smoothly, possibly the smoothest I've seen! The outdoor games team tirelessly sweat through frisbee games, the arts and crafts people emerge glittering and gluey but with great work, the walls of the drama room are bouncing with excited laughter, the storytellers are reading lovely books and the computer team get to see the look on the children's faces as they use a computer for the first time.
In the next section of work we're aiming to put on a play (I kid you not...) and so for now we're done with our seperate groups and we're hoping to see many rehearsals of Eston Park's version of 'Giraffes can't dance' over the weekend!
Setting off early tomorrow morning (knew we'd have to pay for today's 'lie-in'...) for Una Watuna, where hopefully we'll see lots and lots of elephants :)
I was talking to one of the girls from Athidiya earlier and she was telling me (in almost fluent English) that she wasn't doing well enough at school, despite being really intelligent. So I asked if she was studying and she told me that she wakes up at 6.00 to go to school from 7.30 to 2.30 and then goes to classes from 3.00 to 7.00 every day (either at the centre or elsewhere) and then, on top of all that, has four pieces of homework to complete each evening. She sounded so frustrated, and I instantly was too, about how she can be working so hard yet not achieving what she should be. It's hard to know what can be done in situations like this, suggesting a bus fare fund to send her to the library is no good when she has so little free time as it is but leaving this really bright young woman to continue as things are is a horrible prospect. I guess I'm starting to understand more and more the frustrations and hard decisions that are as much as part of all of this as the great stuff...
Suggestions?
Katherine
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