Christmas Market

This week I was back with the Lifeskills class and our time was either spent practicing dances for the Christmas concert, or getting things ready for the Christmas market which is being held later today. Because the Lifeskills class are older and more independent, some of the kids are doing solo performances for the concert. You Raise Me Up by Westlife and Umbrella by Rihanna are two of the chosen songs that are going to be sung, and I can assure you that I now know these songs better than the artists themselves. We've also interpreted some actions for both songs just to jazz it up a little bit.

Lifeskills is the class I have been placed with for the concert on the 27th so we're stopping the rotation of classes for next week meaning we can continue practicing with the children. I'm helping one of the boys during the dances which is very funny. He's quite a lazy individual and he sometimes needs encouragement to lift his arms or move his feet so I'm almost taking the role of a puppeteer! But the kids are already performing the dances and songs so well that I think the concert is going to be a complete hit. Sadly being with the Lifeskills class means that I don't get to take part in the Sid the sloth number, but I can dance from the sidelines... Can't let those moves go to waste.

Today the Enrichment Centre is hosting a Christmas market and we've been preparing for that all week as well. The children in Lifeskills have made about fifteen bottles of lemonade and ten jars of pickled cucumber to sell later this afternoon. As the gap students we've been put in charge of decorations, so for the last couple of days we've been painting, sticking, cutting and pasting. Hopefully the outcome will meet expectations!

This week we were also lucky enough to have the Swaziland volunteers join us. They arrived on Wednesday and helped out at the Enrichment Centre all week - it was great to have the extra hands and show them around our project. I felt so proud introducing them to all the kids. Telling them about each child really showed me how much I've learnt about each of them over the past ten weeks. I know what each personality is like, what they find funny, what they don't find funny and what they need help with. It was lovely to suddenly see this proof that my connection with each of them is growing.  On Saturday we decided to go out for a meal and see a film as a goodbye treat. The film we chose was Interstellar and it completely blew us away... It is now my new favourite film and I insist that if you haven't seen it yet - go! When the movie finished everyone in the theatre just remained in their seats with this look of awe on their faces.

In other news: this weekend we had the privilege of looking after Stuart the mouse who is a very cute individual. We had to hide him from the cleaners but he'll be leaving the hostel on Monday so the pressure will be off. On Thursday I experienced one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen - the picture below doesn't really do it justice. The way the light hit the clouds against the vast, flat African landscape made everything seem tiny in comparison.

Sunset

Stuart Little

Stuart Little

Sid costume

Christmas market decorations

Christmas market setup