The 6 am wakeup call, with tea, was followed by a brisk walk around the conservancy, with Timothy, we finished at about until 0745am - great exercise as its very up and down and the walk back to the lodge is definitely up!
At 0930 we met Timothy again and headed to Nkiloriti school to see how it was progressing - when we first went it was operating as a nursery school in one classroom ( prior to that it had been under a tree.)
It now has 4 classrooms and children from nursery to 11/12 years old. The roll is 61 with 3 teachers - only one funded by the state the rest funded by the Ol Lentille trust. Lots of the children were out of school because they had migrated with their parents who were searching for grazing for their cows, sheep,donkeys and camels. This is unusual to this community as most others leave the women and children behind so the children remain in school - which is what the law demands!
The school had run out of food and were in desperate need for books and pencils - so some of things we brought out with us hit the spot.....and there was glee at the sight of pencils and biros.
Although the school is registered with the government they provide nothing except the head teacher which in a poor area like this is unacceptable.
The children sang to us and looked very happy and content under the watchful eyes of their teachers; but they could do so much better with a little more help. Children in England have no idea what it's like to want a pencil or an exercise book.
John left keen to do more and when we get home he will be off to see if he can find exercise books and also talk to Oxfam about some of the clothes they don't sell as these youngsters compared to the other schools have very poor clothes and could do with a little help in that department to.
I took some photographs of the very willing and excited children ( today's photo is one of the girls looking out of the window).
We returned to the very different world of the lodge - for a relaxing afternoon - a swim, a massage and at appropriate intervals until bedtime - food; we were however still thinking about the children and troubled by their lack of basic materials that would give them a better start in life.