Rwanda Wednesday - Lucy and Lauren

Hi everyone, all good over here! Although we are being eaten by mosquitos! Thank you all for your comments although it makes for a very emotional debrief (especially for us Thornburiers!)

Team superman (Lucy’s team) started the day with superheroes, making comic strips, and making superhero finger puppets. All the children loved learning about new superheroes, although some knew a lot of them already. Whilst learning about superheroes, we asked the kids who their heroes were. They said there heroes were Nina, Matha and Gidion (teachers at the school) because “They taught them very well” After break when the children had porridge, we made loom bands. The kids went crazy for them! They absolutely LOVED it.  

Team Mo Farah (Lauren’s team) stared with English where they had to make up their own superhero, many of them said their superhero’s name was someone from team Mo Farah! Then we played bingo, the children LOVED it! And were very excited when they got a full house! After break we gave them T-shirts to decorate with pens, paints and stickers. Many of them were trying to find the letters of their names to stick on them. When they had finished they all put the T-shirts on!

This afternoon was very emotional (crying face because we have no emojis) The head teacher of the catch up school brought in 25 children from the streets. We started off by playing with the parachute, and then we made masks and loom bands.  The street children loved playing with the parachute especially when playing cat and mouse. We went inside to make masks and the children loved all of the glitter and stickers. All the children were so proud of the masks they had made and loved posing for pictures with them on. After this we moved onto making loom bands, all the children understood very quickly and loved the charms to put on them. The street kids preformed many songs for us, they used the drum and all started dancing around. After this we took a group photo with all the things the children had made. Last night some of us prepared bags to give away to the street children. They included a shirt, colouring things, bubbles and a bouncy ball. All the children’s faces lit up when they saw what was in the bags, they put their new T-shirts on and were so happy with them. Some of them even started posing for us to take a picture. By the end of only a few hours, the street kids were beaming from ear to ear! 

At the end Helen made a very heartfelt speech which made many members of the team cry. One of the street kids asked “when will we see you again?” which was very hard to take on board. 

The CRED foundation provided all the street kids who went to the catch up school today, with a HUGE meal of rice, minced meat and beans. Although on the street they don’t have meals, some children were telling us they would find potatoes on the floor and eat them raw.

The catch-up school work with the street kids to help them get on the straight and narrow. After the catch-up school have helped them stop sniffing glue ect, they try their best to find them foster homes and give them an education. Today was almost like an open day for the street kids to show them what life could be like if they stopped the bad habits they have picked up from the streets.

Overall today was eye opening to see and emotional to hear the stories of how the street kids live. Missing everyone at home! Can’t believe we are half way through already, it has gone so quickly!

Lucy and Lauren xx  

PS Sophie would love to have a comment from someone. And so would other team members who haven't received any comments yet!