Friday by Abby n Amber

Hello everyone!

Today we had our final day at St Maria Goretti. We started the day teaching the younger children who we hadn’t yet had the opportunity to teach. Despite only having a small about of time with them, we made the most of it and all enjoyed ourselves.

After doing our activities, we went off back to our normal classes. Our lessons were fun based and mostly consisted of painting, games, sports and gift giving. The children’s faces when we all gave them our gifts which were things such as pencil cases with pens, pencils, rubbers, rulers and colouring pens in. There were other things like activity books, stickers and balloons. Their faces lit up like little children’s faces do on Christmas day. They were all so grateful for such an ordinary gift, something in everyday life we overlook and take for granted.

When the school day had finished, we went for home visits, everyone was shocked to see how some of the children that we had been teaching lived. The houses consisted of a living/dining room, with a table and few chairs, alongside the living room and two bedrooms. Inside the boys bed room there was a wooden bed frame (no mattress) and a mosquito net. The second bedroom was the mother and daughter’s room this was similar, however they did have a mattress on the bed. They also had a storage room, where they kept their food. Their kitchen consisted of a square of concrete and coal. The family had to go outside and round the back of their house to use to toilet, they told us that they were sharing it with 4 other families, this shocked me as at home, i have two flushing toilets in my home and have never realised how fortunate I am to have them. The family also told us that their average income was around 20,000 kwacha (around £20) a month.  But I think the thing that shocked me the most was the fact that it costs 30,000 kwacha to send each of their children to school for a year (around £30) which to us doesn’t sound a lot but to them is a fortune, especially on top of all their other costs (e.g. clothes and food).

The saddest moment of the day was the goodbye celebration from the school which was after the home visits. All the children were singing goodbye songs and dancing, there were also a lot of soppy  to speeches, which made almost everyone, shed a tear even the children. Overall today has been a very emotional day! I think we will all miss the children’s cheeky bright smiles and the hospitality! 

Side note;

Amber- hi mum, dad and Courtney, love you all loads, see you soon <3

Abby- hello mum and dad love you both loads! Mum I really hope you haven’t forgotten to feed Gus and Toffee!! See you soon xx