Somewhat surprisingly, it has just started to rain heavily outside. Today has been very warm, with just the occasional cloud giving us respite from the scorching sun.
We travelled out to The Walk Centre this morning and received a very warm welcome from a group of smiling faces. They sang us songs and welcomed us to their school before disappearing back into their classroom to finish the lesson that was underway.
Today was a sort of bank holiday in the region and all the state schools were closed. The Walk Centre was still open but only around 70 children were in attendance as many of their pupils have older siblings not in school. That didn’t stop them showing the Stafford Girls the usual levels of attention and interaction outside of the classes.
After meeting and playing games with the children, the girls were tasked with painting the interior of one of the new classrooms, a job started by a previous group of volunteers. They only had a few hours before lunch to do it but they managed to finish it right the way up to the ceiling and all around the newly installed blackboard.
They stopped for lunch and then helped serve the children theirs before and afternoon of playing commenced. Lots of skipping, clapping games and football was enjoyed before the children put on a little show to close out the day and see the volunteers off!
The African Adventures team then took the group to the Hilton dumpsite, a place the girls would have been somewhat familiar with after the two rounds of tasks in the School Geography Challenge, which were based on the area. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience for all the volunteers and a lot to take in but I’m sure, over the coming days, that it will be something they discuss as a group and it will stay with all of them for a very long time.
In the short term, the group decided they wanted to buy some extra items to donate the following day, along with half of the donations they had brought over from the UK, so we made an evening trip to the supermarket to do just that.