We woke to glorious blue skies – probably for the first time since we’ve been here – and knowing that the major task ahead of us later was painting the school, it was somewhat of a relief. But first there were those 36 boxes to sort out. Thankfully, the clothes and linen that had been collected by staff at Nature Publishing had been thoughtfully chosen so we were relieved not to find thermals and thick pullovers. After the initial sort, it was off down to the Medical Clinic to deliver a box for men, women, children and household linens. They were very grateful indeed as every item would be put to use by the poorest families.
Next, we arrived at the Village School just before it closed at 13.30 annoyingly before the paining and brushes arrived. But we were heartened by the number of parents who had turned out to help and the number of kids who stayed behind. When the paint eventually arrived, we discovered it needed to be thinned and mixing bowls were pretty thin on the ground. But, we battled on and before long people were hard at it. The original plan was to split into two teams, one to start on the interior and another on the outside. But mums, dads and their children had picked a part of the wall to paint and were sticking to it and in no time at all the entire outside of the school and the lavatory blocks had had two coats of paint and it was already a huge improvement.
No sooner had we finished and returned to base, then the heavens predictably opened again and we couldn’t help worrying about all the new paint being washed away…
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