One Week To Go

One Week To Go

                We cleaned the school on Saturday.  It wasn’t what I expected, there were no mops, so we used an old sweater soaked in water and disinfectant but it worked like magic. The water that we used to clean everything came out of the school’s water tank, so we tried to use each bucket as much as we could. After a while, the water would be really dirty and we would have to go change it out and use the new bucket as much as possible. Scrubbing the walls was one of the hardest jobs because the mud on the wall was as hard as a rock. Sawyer and I scrubbed for what seemed like hours, and probably was. At the end of the day, I was so tired, but it was definitely worth it. It was funny because one of the teachers said that her room was so clean that she didn’t want to go into it. The cleaning staff was really thankful, and at the end, I had a good feeling inside of me because I knew that I did something good.  I knew that we had made a difference at the school.

                Yesterday we went to an orphanage that was out of the city. When we were driving out to the orphanage, I saw the incredible African countryside, and it is one of the most beautiful things ever. It’s full of green and at some places looks like it’s been untouched. It reminded me of home because of the mountains and how amazing it looks.

When we got to the orphanage, the kids were ranging in age from 3 years old to 19 years old. At first, the kids were very shy, but they warmed up really quick. We went to the field out back and played soccer for a long time, and then we played a whole bunch of other games and threw a Frisbee around. I am way better at Frisbee than at soccer so I played with the Frisbee way longer than playing soccer. There was one boy who was around 10 or 11 years old and he was like an acrobat. He could do flips starting from just standing on the ground and climb up his friend so that it looked like they were a totem pole. I stood there and thought for a second that I could flip right there off the ground. I gave it a second thought and realized that if I tried it would not end well. At the orphanage we found the cutest puppy ever named Ziggy. He belonged to the orphanage, but they didn’t have a lot of food or medicine for him, so he was very skinny and sick. The orphanage was amazing and I wish I had the chance to go there again on this trip. It filled me with joy when I saw the kids, with huge smiles, showing off all their tricks to us.

                Today, I taught in the 4^th grade class. It is very different from the prep class, but it’s still very exciting. The kids are older and more mature, but they still have a lot of energy and are very funny. There is one boy in my class named William, and he was showing me his notebook that was full of drawings that he drew. They were amazing; it looked like they were done by a professional. It was funny at first because he was really shy about showing them to me, but I kept telling him that they were great. When I said that, he had a huge smile on his face, which then made me have a huge smile on my face. I tried drawing a picture, but his was better by far. I was super happy at the end of class because I knew that I had just made that kid’s day, and he walked out of class with a huge smile on his face.

                It’s crazy to think that we only have a week left in Africa. It has gone by so fast, and I don’t want the day to come when I have to say goodbye to all the sweet, huge smiles of the kids at the school. Time flies when you’re having fun!