Day 17: Farewells and new camp

We had a busy start this morning as we had to have our tents, and as much of our other things, packed up before breakfast at 7am. This meant we could leave earlier than usual to continue working on the final adjustments of the library without affecting the time we had to have lessons and then be able to leave for our next campsite straight after school.

Our last day of teaching and spending time with the children at school was amazing in terms of looking back at everything we had achieved and being able to laugh and joke with our specific groups of kids. EOK and HK felt both excited and sad about our last few hours at the school and this was a shared feeling among everyone else too. Beforehand, we had prepared bags of paper, pencils, random craft materials like pipe cleaners, sequins, beads, an Africa book bus badge and a small book donated by Miles Kelly publishing for each child. To end our lessons we handed them out and it caused much excitement. It shows how much they value things like paper and pencils which we take for granted. AS and MHB were surprised at the children's response to the gift bags being brought out, they went crazy! They obviously aren't used to being given gifts. MG and EOK thought their groups behaved very well and stayed calm. 

KB gave a short speech and officially opened the library, challenging the teachers to continue our work in bringing books to life and encouraging every pupil to read more; and challenging the students to use the library regularly, borrow books and look after them. We concluded our time there by performing songs which had been prepared by each group during the week and getting the chance to show all the children the newly transformed library, (which looks wonderful with beautifully drawn pictures, craft displays made by the students during the week, brand new book shelves and benches made by Bonkey and painted walls by Leveson).

It was great to actually show the kids what we had been doing for them and we hope it will encourage them to read more and improve their English. And we really hope the Book Bus returns very soon to continue what we started and keep the children's energy and enthusiasm for reading alive. Especially now they have a fully functional library of their own

We then went outside to say our final goodbyes to the kids and Kate; as she was leaving us to return home after the two weeks we had spent with her, we also had numerous amounts of hugs from our groups and spent as much time as we could saying goodbye to them. 

We set off for our next campsite swiftly and stopped for lunch at another school and had a standing lunch so we could make just a quick stop then get back to travelling.

On our journey, SA, HC and KB stopped to pick up some groceries and much to our enjoyment also brought back mars bars and coca cola/sprite for us (extreme privileges for us here in Africa)! We arrived at our 5th campsite and set up camp once again, enjoyed our drinks and now have a little while to relax before dinner and our view is brilliant once again as we're still next to Lake Malawi.

EH, EOK & AS