Day 19

After a tough night's sleep, including 2 members of our group being ill throughout the night, we woke up for breakfast. We ate and then moved out into the car to go to the holiday club half an hour away. We stopped at the sector office to report to the authorities our presence in the area. We finally arrived at the holiday club where we were greeted by a classroom of 35 children who were singing for us. After a short introduction we began our activities in our teams. We followed the first day's programme similar to the activities we fulfilled in the last 2 holiday clubs. The children here spoke more English and so made it easier to communicate what we needed to do. 3 hours later, we returned to the guest house for a light lunch of soup and bread. The ill members were resting themselves and were planning to join the group for the afternoon. Unfortunately after lunch they weren't feeling too well so stayed behind for some sleep. The rest of the group went to look around a local secondary boarding school. It allocated for both boys an girls. There were around 350 boarders and 150 other day pupils. The dormitories were very basic for the amount of people sharing it. The beds were pushed together and looked very claustrophobic. We were then shown around the classrooms. 60 pupils are in each class. 3 to 4 share one desk which compared to our schooling system would not be allowed. It was hard to imagine how any structure is managed in a lesson of this size. As the lessons changed, the teachers moved but the children stayed in the one room. There was a small computer room which had 15 computers, not all had keyboards and the children were meant to be sharing the computers. The school had internet connection, however no longer have access to it. Per term for the day pupils it was 50,000 Rwandan Francs which is about US $100 and 80,000 RwF for boarders. Although this may not seem a lot, but it is still too much for some families especially those with more than one child of school age. The group played volleyball, rounders and basketball. The volleyball went about as well as the football game we played earlier in the trip. Rounders seemed too complex for them to understand. They would hit the ball and run to the first base where they asked Annie - “Good game, who wins?!” The basketball leaders coached the children.

This evening we returned, the sick pair were feeling better and the rest of the group were covered in dirt and grime from the dusty fields which we played on. We had some dinner, and then prepared for the second day of the holiday club and went to bed.