Group 1 - day 2

This morning’s session was a shock at first, due to the fact the welcome wasn’t quite what we expected, especially after yesterday’s events. We arrived at the first school receiving more strange looks than we were preparing ourselves for, almost as if we were aliens which in their eyes we are in all honesty. Yet we didn’t let this knock us down and went into the first sessions buzzing. We finished the session feeling double that. It was the first numinous experience of Zambia for me and hopefully there are more to come. However, there was a strong reality check at the end of the session as we realised how tiring this week is going to be. The second session was as successful as the first but still a great experience. We ended our work on a real high at the Wesley school and were followed by what seemed to be half the school on our walk to Temweni which was our last school of the day.

The welcome at Temweni was a complete antithesis as all the children were screaming and jumping around as soon as they saw our white faces, with every one of them wanting to touch us. The first girl I met asked to touch my hair and said it felt like nappies which personally I wasn’t quite sure how to take it but took it as a compliment. There seemed to be a lot more fascination of us with the Temweni pupils. I never had so many children staring at me at once but then decided to make the most of it. Both Brandon and I were sitting on the steps of the outside of the school and decided to get up and start hoping on one leg, then every other child started doing the same. This got me a tad exited and I stared going in on the dancing, drawing for all the best moves and the kids loved it. My first experience of a Zambian rave. Later, we started coaching but quickly realised there were far too many children even though we explicitly said 40 pupils max but around 75 turned up, TIA. The session was as expected and very hectic but in the end a great time, we left the school in very high spirits getting onto the bus which led us to one of the other groups at a nearby school.

Remy Hart-Badger