On our arrival we went straight into the hall to set up for today's activities. Today we were doing some Easter activities for the local crèche. Around 60 3-6 year olds turned up. We had 3 different sections, but first we sang happy birthday to 1 of the boys and Harry told all the kids the story of Easter. Me, Harry and Azille took a section each, we split the group up into groups of 20 and they visited us all once. Harry had egg painting, Azille had colouring in and I had a normal crèche session. I had the task of dealing with them letting out all of their energy after sitting quietly painting and colouring. It was hard work but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. I love seeing the little 1s enjoying themselves,my heir little smiles at that age are adorable.
You'll have to read Harry's blog about the egg painting but my part was a bit chaotic. The first group just wanted to run riot and I had 1 disruptive kid that didn't make it much easier, I tried a lot of different games but none seemed to reach out to all of the kids. For the 2nd and 3rd group I switched to what I knew best, our movement game, with a twist. We started off doing bunny hops and chickens keeping to the Easter theme, I then just switched it to any animal that I or the kids could think of. There were some funny 1s coming out, 1 girl suggested a zebra, I don't know about you but I'm not to sure on what noise or movement best represents a zebra but I went with it. It worked really well and the kids enjoyed themselves. I finished up with an Easter train and moved them on.
We finished up by handing out 'bukkies' (bowls) with chocolates and sweets in. The kids loved their little Easter treats and we walked them back to their crèche. I don't know if the teachers will be happy with them eating all the chocolates and sweets when it comes to nap time but hopefully we wore them out a bit anyway. When we got back into the office Lourens called us into the office. He seemed really pleased with what we had done which was nice, his 2 daughters had taken part and they enjoyed themselves as well which was good. He then started showing us the photos he had been taken, I have to admit the majority were of me, I was wearing my yellow Arsenal top and I stood out a bit, but he managed to catch me bunny hopping, lion roaring, penguin walking, chicken dancing and doing a funny hop. I'll keep those embarrassing photos to myself for now.
We then just sat around the learning centre, chatting to people and just lazing about. Everyone was finishing up for a long weekend for Easter so everyone was a bit more relaxed. I uploaded some photos and that was the extent of my work. Harry helped put up some posters. And after a little while we headed to Drommedaris. We were greeted by all our little 1s, they were soon hanging off of us, giving us big hugs and telling us all about what they'd been upto. We will really miss all these kids we've met, I've enjoyed the clubs and schools but the little 1s are the hardest to say goodbye to. We went into the centre and tidied up the library that Joe is making for them, someone has donated loads of books for the kids and Joe is making an old store room into a library.
We then headed to the Italian club for possibly the last time. We are trying to organise going down there next week to say goodbye to all the Drommedaris boys and girls but nothing has been planned as yet. Onto today, we had a session with the boys, as it was Easter we didn't expect many kids and in fact only 8 turned up. We decided that we would just have a kick around, this would count towards mine and Harry's little match scores. It was our closest, most competitive game to date. Harry had to win and you could tell, he took the lead early on, I cleared 1 off the line when it looked like a certain goal and both teams were playing well. Harry was always that 1 or 2 goals ahead and whenever we got into the game he still had that 1 goal cushion. Me and Harry put our bodies on the line and both ended up seeing stars, a clash of heads, totally accidental caused a short break in play. After that we pushed everyone forward in search of an equaliser, unfortunately Harry's team caught us on the break a few times, it's the point in the game where it's better to lose by 3 than lose by 1 and not go for the equaliser. We lost by 3 or 4 in the end, most of them coming in the last 3 minutes. It mean we are all tied at 5-5 going into next Friday's last session. We will end the De Beers coaching clinic with a game, our fate is in the hands of a group of 8 year olds. We've both agreed that due to our competitiveness we will be on the touch line for that game. It's coach v coach. To be honest I've coached these kids before and they are your typical 8 year olds. Give them a ball on a pitch and every single player follows the ball. So we might as well just flip a coin in my opinion.
So as I said we now have the weekend off and we start by going to Danielle's house for lunch tomorrow, we've only seen her 3 times since weve been out here which is a shame, but everyone has been so busy and fitting in meeting up has been difficult. Oh well a nice catch up tomorrow.
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