5. Painting, Painting, Painting
When you embark on second visit somewhere you are always hoping that you can live up to the expectations of the first visit and its successes. Last year, the team managed to paint a fantastic learning wall, focusing on Maths and Science in particular. There’s no doubt it was of high quality (see last year’s film for proof!) – however, when Seth the Link Teacher asked us to paint another classroom for Social Studies with a depiction of the solar system, a miscellany of maps and a range of DT processes and procedures, the bar was certainly raised. Despite the extra pressure, the amazing painting sub-team under the watchful eye of Ms Moore have delivered something truly extraordinary, with vibrant colours and precise detail leading to an outstanding classroom taking shape. The classroom is starting to look absolutely fantastic and will be a great blessing to the teachers and students here, and without question heap the pressure on next year’s team to produce something worthy of the Turner Prize one assumes.
Meanwhile, the building project is moving forward well – yesterday we were joined by a group of around 12 local tradesmen who had all been requested to join the project as part of the community contribution to the wider project. It really got things moving and now all the walls are complete, window frames and door frames in place, and the outer wall is complete for the veranda. Although it can’t really be likely for the whole building to ready to move into by Friday, we are really hopeful that we can finish the structure in order to leave the fun job of fitting out the accommodation to our intrepid teacher team due to arrive in October. Behind the scenes this morning at 6.30am, around 40 women from the community arrived to carry gravel sourced from the local lagoon, again, part of the community partnership that this project is creating. It was an inspiring scene to wake up to – not really one that you could imagine seeing in any British community. Again, we think we have it sewn up in our nation, with our technology, progress, connectivity and gadgetry. Yet we live here in a small rural community where 40 women get up before dawn to carry gravel from the lake to the school in shifts. In which British community could you ever imagine this, or even close to this. There is certainly more to learn than to teach here.
In the IT room, things are moving forward well – the channels for the cabling are made in the floor, the new door and security windows are in place, and the student team have begun painting their display work. Tomorrow the ceiling will be installed and we should move into the final stages of the electrical work. It will be an excellent facility and one we’re confident of completing this week for sure.
There are now just 2 days to go in our project work, and we’re moving well as a team. There is a sense in which something is growing and developing. Confidence, faith, love even are here, and the team is functioning well. It is also fascinating to see the impact of Alice being here, and the inspiration that she is constantly providing to the rest of the student team. There’s something about hearing her own personal story that is compelling, intriguing and just a wonderful role model for our team – especially since she was sat at the same table this time last year, thinking…what if….?
So, the obvious question remains – will one of these young travellers follow in her footsteps…?