The teachers went and taught and I headed out to get a special gift for Sai. I have just been told that Sai found this blog last night so I still can’t talk about what I was buying. It was an adventure though! Scott got permission to use a friends car and off we went into the city. We knew that we needed to go to the area of town where all the Indian shops were. This is in the heart of the capital and is always bustling. People and cars everywhere! I was lucky to be a passenger instead of a driver because the traffic and people were crazy. Being in the passenger seat was stressful enough! We found a spot along side of the road and parked the car so we could walk from shop to shop. We knew what we were looking for, but didn’t quite know the brand we wanted. There was lots of talk about what would be best and what would be easy to repair if it broke down. Some of the items we looked at were nice but had to many foreign parts and seemed to be built in such a cheap way. On we went shop after shop looking, talking and trying to decide. After looking in the Indian shops we decided to go to the big shopping complex where the Game store is. Game is a South African chain that is similar to Target or Walmart. We found a nice option there that was quite expensive in comparison to what we had seen in the other shops. Again it seemed like although it looked nice it was made poorly and had foreign parts. In the end we knew we needed a simple model that could be easily repaired here in Malawi and one that had been made with strong parts not plastic. Can anyone guess what we were buying yet???
We went back to the Indian shops and found a man who was very helpful and a great salesman! We agreed on which “one” we wanted and loaded it into the car. I was happy with the decision and I got to pick the color 😉 I decided on green!
I got back to the village just in time to have a quick snack and then run off to meet the group at the Kindergarden. The team had been begging to spend some time there so we arranged for the students to stay a little later than usual. I arrived before the team and had a chance to see Catherine (Sai’s wife) and their new baby Tamani. I had been so excited to meet her and having some time to sit and hold her was great. Catherine gave her to me and off she went to work with the students. Once my team arrived the kids were all a buzz. We laid out big grass mats on the ground and pulled out huge boxes of Legos for the kids to play with. The children were very excited to get to play with the teachers AND the Legos! It was great how all 60 kids could just sit happily building with the Legos and laughing with the teachers. We all played for about an hour and then we headed to the field.
Our teachers worked along with the kindergarten teachers to lead some games on the field. Follow the leader, songs and other silly games that the children loved! Eventually we had to let the kids go home and we headed back down the path to the village. We still had donations to organize and certificates to finish for today’s awards ceremony. Everyone got busy bringing donations up to the main area so they could be sorted and we got all the markers and paper out to finish certificates. I couldn’t believe the amount of donations the teachers had collected for the school! Wow it was both overwhelming and awesome! The group was great working together to make a plan for all the supplies and books. They also had gifts bundled up for each teacher. We were lucky that the generator did kick on and we had power and internet for a couple of hours. It was a busy evening, but we did take a break for dinner and then got back to work preparing for the last day at Kauma.
We all keep talking about the fact that in just under 48 hours they will all be back on a plane headed for home and village will be quiet 🙁 tonight will be our final reflection and I’m sure we will have some fun together. Everyone is winding down and talking about the highs and lows of the trip. I always hope there are more highs than lows and usually there are. I have loved this group and look forward to hearing everyone share their thoughts on the trip tonight.
The team has just left to walk to the school and I’m here waiting on the truck that will be carrying the 2300 pounds of maize. I will load all the donations and food for today on the truck and ride with it to the school. Hopefully later I can post again about the day at the school. It should be an eventful day and hopefully full of good things!