Tuesday 30.04.2013

"Often during the holidays you can get as few as 50 or so kids on the first day" says Kelly our team leader. "Then as word spreads that can quadruple or more by the end of the week".

So we`re going to have our work cut out because this morning we were met by a crowd of upwards of 120 children, waving wildly at the bus as it drove by and then pursuing it with delighted cries of "Book-busee!" and "Kelly!"

We were at Zweilopili Community School, at Morelight in the Dambwa Compound of Livingstone, only twenty minutes or so from the centre of Livingstone but it might as well have been on a different planet.
After a greeting from the head we started straight in with the books and activities we had planned in the comparative serenity of the Bookbus the day before



but soon realised what Kelly had meant by the need for flexibility as,after a reading of Rumble in the Jungle, we were swept up in a tsunami of eagerness and energy, cries of "teacher! teacher" as hands reached for paper, crayons,scissors and glue to make their elephant headbands and exotic looking birds, older children ensuring that younger siblings were not left out.


The noise was deafening, the pace relentless, the fun enormous, the children`s enjoyment seeming out of all proportion to the simplicity of the activities.

In any event, by the time the bus left in a cloud of dust and a chorus of goodbyes and see-you-tomorrows it felt like we`d probably learnt at least as much as they had and earned our lunch into the bargain.

The first part of the afternoon was variously spent eating, sleeping, discussing the morning`s events and exploring the town a little more (including that coffee at Wonderbake) but then it was back to the drawing board to prepare for tomorrow - books? activities? games? songs? Whatever we arrive with it`s guaranteed the kids will respond with massive enthusiasm and big smiles.*

*We`ll try and take pics as and when we can of the actual sessions but these things need to be done with tact, respect and permission and probably not on the first day.