Today has been the first morning in Kids of Africa (an orphanage for many young Ugandan children that have been abandoned) and has been a fairly good start. Many of us were woken early ( 5:30am to be precise ) by the children who were preparing to go to school. We all had a lovely breakfast at 7:30am which consisted of sausages, buttered bread, cereal, and much more.
Our team was split into 3 groups for the day, my group of 7 were to teach 5 schools, another group took 3 and the last took 2 schools. The trip to our training ground started well but we had to stop because of an unknown issue with the tag rugby equipment being mixed up, while Mike sorted the issue we proceeded to the field and found 2 schools ready and waiting. Eventually my school turned up (African time) however, it was the football team not the tag rugby team so for a while we all teamed up to teach the other 2 schools.
Eventually all 5 schools turned up and we all pitched in, our main focus today was to familiarise the children with the warm up games we play (bulldog, stuck in the mud, netball rugby, etc...) so that the specific skills of tag rugby can be introduced through fun games rather than drills and lessons.
After a good morning session (and a small water fight between Mr Brown and Mike) we all headed back to Kids of Africa for lunch and rest. Lunch consisted of water, coke, rice, soup, banana's, spaghetti with sauce and good English tea ( I love a good cup of tea ).
Around 2pm we all walked to the school that we were helping to improve and make better for the staff and children. The staff spoke to the acting head teacher and we were split into three groups: 1 group did construction of another classroom, 1 group painted the outside walls a beautiful sky colour, and the last group (my group) helped the children in their classes.
Jasmine L helped a class with R.E (Religious Education), Brandon and Amy helped with English while Olivia and me helped a class learn History, in Arabic (which we both understood of course)!
Soon though we went outside to work, I helped paint and Olivia helped in the other class, painting went by quicker than I expected but the heat was very nasty, when I took my latex gloves my hands and the gloves were soaked in sweat ( good job I planned a shower later )!
We finished around 4 and took a quick trip into the local shops for food and soft drinks. See the pics below, it's not your average high street. We returned around 5pm to Kids of Africa and played football and jumped on the trampoline with the kids before leaving for dinner and our evening talk with the teachers. We then played games and read in our respective orphanage houses.
All in all our first day felt very promising and I feel that the tournament day on Friday will go very well, and my team will win.
Thanks for reading everyone, this is Robert Conner signing out.
Peace.
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