Thursday, by Alex and Issy

We awoke to a miserable and rainy day in Kigali, yet faces were still smily and excitable for the day ahead (excluding Laila and Mollie ofcourse). Letisha and Anita, the cooks for us coming in from the local community, cooked us a wonderful breakfast once again, with eggy bread and yummy pancakes.

We all prepared for our day ahead in the school for the 4^th day, knowing tomorrow is the last day we will see the smily faces in team gorilla, leopard, lion and elephant. We all packed into the bus, singing voices at the ready for the Kigali radio. As we approached the school we could already see the kids as they ran after the bus to greet us, as we got off the bus.

By this time the miserable weather had already made its first disappearing act for a short while, but we all knew it would return.

We got into the classroom and the first thing you saw were the eager faces ready to learn new things. Team Gorilla started off the day with a spelling test, it was amazing to see what they already knew and the skills they picked up on by the end, the progression of their readying ability by the end of the lesson was incredible. Some children went from not being able to read a sentence, to then reading a short story. They loved the maths that came after break, their energy and enthusiasm for times tables would never be seen in England.

Whilst team Leopard started of their day by a game of Simon Says, and we were all stunned as to how much they already knew, and had learnt from the previous day. We then proceeded onto reading time, and finished of the lesson with one girl from the class, called Deborah, reading a book out to the class in English, we were all shocke to find out that she was only 13 years old.

As per usual the rain had come back, meaning the half an hour breaktime had to be moved indoors. The whole school (roughly 200 students) all gathered in Team Lion classroom, seeing as there was no other indoor space. Inside there was a few students playing the drums in one corner, and everyone was up and dancing, when the CRED team stole the show by throwing some shapes.

After our lessons after break, we returned to the appartments for lunch, surprised by a lovely roast dinner, while accompanied by the translaters helping in the school. When we returned to the school for our afternoon fun activities, we soon realised what we had planned was not working due to the rain which the kids are not used to and do not like to get wet. However, team lion made them suffer and stayed outside the whole time playing with shaving foam and bubbles but mostly having a shower in the rain. Team leopard, gorilla and elephand however enjoyed an afternoon of indoor crafts in the dry.

We finished of the day with our usual goodbyes and the kids chasing the bus away, all aware that tomorrow is the last day we will see them. We returned to the appartments, eager to listen to the story of pius this evening after dinner and how the genocide affected him and what it was like to experience such the devestating effects of this epidemic.