Happy Birthday Emma

Emma was not overly impressed when I crept into her room at 7.30 to kiss her good morning for her birthday but we had to be in the school at 7.45 so we had to face the frost and leave early.  5 of us headed over to school and the headteacher was so delighted to see us loaded with 2 suitcases of books and equipment for school including pens and pencils, crayons and pencil sharpeners! 

The children stood out in the freezing cold for assembly while their classrooms were heated by paraffin heaters to warm them up. They all had their thick winter coats on and hats and some even had zebra striped ear muffs.  They did their usual singing and reciting of many varied bible verses and then their National Anthem before they marched into school singing 'We are the girls and boys of (the name of the school)'.  I had to address the school and the head teacher read the little letters that my children had written from my school.  It was very special.

I went to visit the library (more like just an empty room) and then the computer room which was interesting - 40 computers all of varying ages but all with floppy disk drive!  They have not got a printer in their so the children can never print anything so I guess that is my next fund raising challenge.  Fiona and Carole went off into class 2 and Jo and Gemma headed off to the oldest class and i chose to go into year 1 where I already had a good relationship with the teacher from February.  The class were doing subtraction with their abacus which I learned they had to pay for themselves. It is a private school  and the children pay £390 a year which has to pay staff salaries, all their books, water and electricity. The books i took with me will not only double the size of the library but also help guided reading as the children learn to read but have no chance to read anything!

Had lovely time chatting to staff in the staff room and then went back to BG to fetch some of the others who had not come over.  There was a single member of staff there who was keen to look for a wife and was quite sad to find that all our girls were  'spoken for'.  2 staff members were keen on taking James and Emma home (seperately) for their own daughter and son!

We had a very tasty traditional Basotho meal of pap, boerwurst, spinich and chakalakah (my favourite) and emma opened her cards and presents which we had brought with us.We then relaxed a little in some very hot sun out the back of our house.  The time passed quickly and it was time to go and play with the chidlren. The rugby balls came out again and we had fun helping children walk and swing and slide.  Becky continued her work of creating a banner out of childrens hand prints which she had started in Playgroup during the morning.Two of the workers here came to me and asked me if Emma would mind being treated to a lesotho birthday tradition which involved them throwing 2 buckets of water over her!  Apparently that is what they do and if you are a boy you are beaten with sticks so I guess it was good for Emma that she was a girl except her jeans did not dry in time to go out later in the evening!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in our houses and then got ready to go our to Spur for Emma's birthday dinner - there were 18 of us including Bryan and Anita's family and they tried to squeeze us on 2 tables!  That didn;t work!  We stretched to another table and had a very pleasant evening eating steaks and schnitzels. It wasn't a quiet evening and the evening ended with all the waiters singing to Emma and giving her an ice cream with a sparkler in it!

Back home to sort gifts out for the Basotho Ladies here at BG and everyone gradually drifted off tom,bed. Cannot believe that tomorrow is our last night here in Nala House at Beautiful Gate, it has been a short visit but I beleive a worthwhile one.

I think tomorrow will involve trips into town when members of the group are not busy so  it will be another busy day. 

Till then, night night, keep warm and sleep well. I will try and do both but i think the keeping warm might be hard - last night was pretty chilly!

Jenny x