Amy's blog

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Another busy day for the group, Frances was early to rise and at school by 7:00, the rest of the group took a little longer to emerge but eventually we were all awake and getting on with our list of jobs to be done before the presentation assembly on Friday morning:

-finish the alphabet boards,

-make a start on bunting,

-fill up buckets of water just in case the water system goes down due to the strike by the water workers, luckily it hasn't (yet),

-continue building shelter,

-finishing touches on painting the playground,

-make swing seats to replace the broken tyres,



Tim and Robert made their (hopefully) last trip to Cashbuild (sad face from Tim) first thing. Then they headed straight to school. Tim continued working on the shelter, for which he'd dug the holes for yesterday. He had a little bit of help from one of the 'Uncles' too. Meanwhile, Robert disappeared off to the children's playground and continued painting his Ndebele-style designs. We'd mixed up a special pink, just to finish off the colour pattern.



While Frances, Tim and Rob were at school in the morning, Suzy, Eva and I stayed at the guest house making bunting using one of the sewing machines that Hilary had bought on a previous visit which we found very useful-30m of bunting is a lot quicker on a machine than by hand! We also managed to add the finishing touches to the boards and completed the number line so it was laminated and ready to put up in a classroom. So all in all a successful morning.

After a quick lunch Suzy, Eva and I made our way to the school armed with entertainment of different kinds for the infant boarders who finish school an hour earlier than the rest of the school, we took Hama Beads, floaty material squares that flew away in the wind and were very fun to chase after, memory games which the children have got the hang of and can now play without someone to guide them, we also discovered the Scatch play-set the St. Andrew's group kindly donated and had a lot of fun with them. Before we knew it the older children were out of school and wanted to join in, some of the older girl boarders joined in with the Hama Beading and I played Uno with a group of them too. An hour flew by and it was our time to go back to the guest house to rest before dinner; fish (or chicken for those who prefer it), pap, spinach and gravy followed by a very tastey cake (to celebrate Amy's great GCSE results!)



Now, by the light of the evening stars, Rob and Tim are making the swing seats and Suzy is making more bunting- soon we'll have enough to cover every railing and fence in Siyabuswa! Evelyn is waiting up for Hendrick, who is on his way home from Johannesburg airport, having spent the past week in Kenya. Eva and Frances are loading the cars with all the 'goodies' we brought with us from England, ready for the presentation assembly tomorrow at 7.30am (so that means a silly o'clock breakfast and several changes of clothing!).

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Comments

[Richard Hudson]

A busy day!
What a lot you are doing! What are the bunting and shelter for?--I'm intrigued!