AfriDACA Monday

Monday’s blog is written by Jodie, Toby and john

Since the last blog we have had our first day teaching in the Acholi community the group was split into two teams some at big church and some at small church. Everyone was up and getting ready around 7ish! The breakfast was great again this morning with a lot on offer, as always, and everyone was in high spirits as the day before when we visited Acholi the atmosphere was amazing.

We all got on our team bus at 8:20 and set off to Acholi, which is around 15 mins away.  When the bus pulled up it was very quiet however when we all walked up the main church  the greeting that we received was amazing; all the children cheering and run up to us hugging  and hold our hands. That was a surreal moment that none of us will forget.

The teams soon split into their separate areas and began teaching. The first lesson was numeracy, in both teaching spaces. We all found it difficult to restrict the children who did not have the bands on but we could not allow everyone in, especially at big church as there were two doors that the children ran between.  Both numeracy lessons went extremely well and we were all shocked at how much the children knew already. The second lesson of the day was literacy; again these lessons went really well and everyone enjoyed this lesson including the team. After this the children had porridge whilst the team had a snack and drink. Then it was straight back into the teaching crafts which was the last lesson for the morning group of children; this is the time in the day where everyone can have fun and play games and sing songs.

Then the children go home and the team have lunch which we made this morning, cheese or jam butties. We all met back at big church to eat together and see how both groups got on. Once we finished lunch the small church group went back up and we repeated the lesson all again with a second group of children which again went well, there are a few things that we have looked at and had to change due to the space and the abilities just to make sure that the children are learning new things. At the end of the day at Acholi we all met back at big church, collected all our resources and headed for the bus however this time it was not so quiet as children were everywhere  hugging and high fiving all the team and shouting to us. When everyone finally got on the bus we set of back to johns and we can honestly say that the majority of us are really tired.

Hello John here just wanted to add some extra information to what we collectively wrote so here goes. The Acholi community is surreal; it is amazing in lots of different ways children using bottle caps to collect water, odd shoes and boys with girls’ clothing all of which are things that have come as a major shock to the whole team. One of the hardest things so far for me personally is seeing the gap of poverty and children asking you for water, food and anything they can get their hands on. Would be much appreciated if anyone could update me on the Liverpool scores thank you. NOTE to Toby’s dad the paper planes went fantastic and it wasn’t a waste of your time for printing them all off - thank you for that

Cannot wait to hear all you lovely comments love from all the AfriDACA team xxxx