Day 7
Akwaaba! Today was a very interesting day, after the hard labour of yesterday we could put away our sand paper and replace it with paintbrushes. Leah, Alice ,Clara and Elspeth painted in the ICT room where Elspeth’s height was put to good use by getting her to paint near the ceiling whilst the shorter members made do with rollers on long sticks. Meanwhile our specially elected design team – Emilia, Emily C. and Ellie- repainted the wall with Chloe B., Hannah and Zoey C.
Chloe C, Zoe S and Emily S were “stuck” with the “sticky” job of varnishing the tables we had sanded yesterday. Break quickly came where half of us sucked orange juice out of green oranges and the other half sucked out ice cream from plastic bags. The next part was dedictated to cleaning where the design team enthusiastically scrubbed the floor near the mural, over in the ICT room the teams there cleaned all the wood ready for a new coat of paint.
Chloe C, Emily S, and Zoe S were whisked away to the Kindergarden where they taught the children our classic games like Duck Duck Goose.
After lunch (during which we bought more icecream) the mural got properly underway with the border being drawn and then painted, near the end we once again took advantage of Elspeth’s and Hannah’s height and got them to paint the top border of the wall. In their words “At first it was flattering but then it became so intense that I wished I was more vertically challenged, but we persevered to the sweet melody of encouraging songs.”
In the meantime we begrudgingly had to bring the sandpaper back out and Leah, Alice, Clara sanded and varnished the chairs. The wood in the ICT room was being painted by Emily S, Zoe S and Chloe C who transformed the room into a more completed final piece. Isaac from partner Ghana painted the ceiling and ended up with a white spotty face which the girls found very funny.
After a hard day at work they were rewarded with juice and crackers, which is very valuable here as they are used to a lot of rice. Overall it was a very productive day J
Day 8
Today it rained… a lot, felt like home. Unfortunately this delayed our progress at the school, we didn’t leave till 10.30am, 2 hours of sitting around! We get to the school and felt we needed refreshment so promptly bought oranges. When we finally got cracking Zoe.S, Chloe.C and Emily.S had to paint the window frames in the rain. The pressure was on for Emily C, Ellie and Emilia who started drawing the designs on the mural. Ellie and Emilia had to practice the schools’ crests on paper before approaching the wall. Alice, Elspeth, Clara and Leah began the mini project of decorating the wall in the ICT suite. Hannah, Chloe B and Zoey C continued sanding and varnishing all the chairs and tables.
Lunch arrived to our delight. This gave us an opportunity to run to the local shops and buy ice cream and biscuits despite needing to walk in the rain to get there.
Now we were recuperated, it was time to get on with our next tasks. With crests and bunting sketched on the mural, we painted and relied on Emily Cs steady hand. Alice, Elspeth, Clara and Leah began sketching and painting their planned design onto the ICT suite wall. Mixing colours was not for everyone as proved when Elspeth somehow made a black out of trying to make purple. Leah however was apparently flooded with compliments on her colour mixing.
The others carried on with the varnishing and sanding. Throughout the afternoon, they were relieved from this job and allowed to paint some of the flags in the bunting on the mural. Hannah, Chloe B and Zoey C also got to paint the floor of the ICT suite while Elspeth, Leah, Clara and Alice washed the paint brushes away, Elspeth sat in a pot of turpentine (not on purpose) which “burned a little bit”.
Zoe C, Chloe C and Emily S artistically painted the sea and land of the world on the mural. Zoe and Chloe did subtle varieties of blue in the sea while Emily made sure to make North Africa look a little dryer. The result was beautiful.
