Friday

Today was another early start over at NVI. As soon as we arrived, we couldn’t help but notice how great Yunusu’s workshop looked! The glossed bricks were gleaming and the white undercoat looked pristine. Today, we needed to put the final coat of colour on the outside and inside. Thankfully, there were no lizards which needed rescuing this morning, so we could get on straight away. The outside of the workshop was to be painted in a beautiful, bright ‘Harvest Gold’ and the inside a clean cream colour. We all got on with the cutting in and all commented on how lovely the colour was. It looked great against the glossy bricks. It didn’t seem to take us long before we were finished and we could see the end was in sight. All that was left to do was paint that floor inside and get the guttering up. We can’t wait for Yunusu to see it! After lunch, the hard work continued in the Business Studies department, where the team cleaned and got the first coat of paint on one of the classrooms. Thankfully, the carpentry students had made a ladder and scaffolding deck to help us.

While most of the team were busy in the business studies centre, our two teachers Rachel (Broadheath Primary School) and Lyndsey (Bowden Church School) snuck off to visit their partner schools. Broadheath is partnered up with Masese Co-Education Primary School and Bowden with Walukuba East Primary School. This was the first time that anyone from Broadheath has been out to visit Masese, so Rachel was very excited.

Rachel: We went to visit my school, Masese, first which is on the top of a great big hill. I knew that to get to the school we had to go through part of Masese slum. Although I had an idea of what I thought the slums might be like based on photos I’d seen and what I had seen on television, the reality of being there made them seem far worse. I was quite overwhelmed. When we arrived at the school there was a beautiful, if somewhat hazy, view over Lake Victoria. Before that though, there was more slums. Seeing where the children at the school were coming from, made me really think about how lucky myself and the children I teach are and I am very thankful for that. Unfortunately, Christine who is the head at Masese was unable to be there, but her deputy showed us around and arranged for a time that I could go in next week to teach. It was lovely to see and speak to some of the children and see their school. I just can’t wait to go back and get stuck in! After saying goodbye, we went back through the slum and over Walukuba East. We met with the head teacher there called Alice. Although Lyndsey had been to Walukuba before, there had been a different head then. Lyndsey gave Alice the many letters written to the pupils from Bowden and a gorgeous calendar she had made with photographs of all of the children from Bowden Church School. Lyndsey also arranged to go into school to teach next week and is also really looking forward to it.

After the team got back together, we all went for dinner at a lovely Chinese restaurant called Ling Lings. It was lovely to be joined by Edison and Japheth . Japheth is an ex NVI student who built Yunusu’s workshop!