23rd and 24th

Wednesday 23rd 

Cassia:

I had a lie in until 7:15am, got ready and had my daily porridge and toast. I had to re-wear my paint-covered clothes as we headed back to CHADA (the care home that we have been visiting) to do community projects. Today my group was doing the activity I was most excited for - recycling! It was quite satisfying until Hugo was cutting up a bottle that contained a gigantic cockroach that jumped out at us. It was the second giant cockroach I had seen that day. The first one was caught in a clothing peg after being spotted in the bathroom. After that jump scare we sorted the plastic into different colours and next was the fun part. We were told to choose 2 colours for our bracelets that we got to make. Our group decided on blue and purple. It was cool to see as all our bracelets were different but kept the same colour scheme. We then each had our own recycling bracelet and I won 2 bangles for answering a trivia question correctly. Then we headed to our coaching and I went to Baobab primary school which we had visited for 3 days in a row. It is good because it means I have started to get to know some of the children better than I did in Zambia. Coaching is really fun and easier than I expected. 

Heading home always means a rush for the showers, especially since tonight we are going out for dinner. The queue was long a brutal but I made it through. I put on some relatively nice clothes (jorts and a shirt without dust on it) and we all headed to the restaurant. I had a margharita pizza which was very good, but I was still hungry, so I made a pact with Hugo, Finn and Talulla to get some chicken. It did not go as planned, as Talulla describes below...

(Talulla's input) At 7:45pm the order was place: a whole peri peri chicken. We chose peri peri, thinking it was like a Nando's - that was mistake number 1. When it arrived we were so excited that we decided not to share it with anyone else. We even took a photo with our chicken because it was so exciting. Finn and I fought over the biggest piece - that was mistake number 2. We took our first mouthful and all was well until the spice hit us. Within seconds tears were shed. The level of spice was so unbearable - African peri peri is not the same as English. Our lips were burning like a thousand sounds. We sprinted to the bar to get an SOS milkshake, and stuck our faces in them in desperation. Afterwards we sat in shame, agony and embarrassment as everyone else enjoyed their disco. Karma is real!

Shoestrings bar was lots of fun! We watched a group of singers and dancers perform traditional dances and songs, and some of us were encouraged to go up and join. Later on there was a man fire breathing and dancing with ropes with flames on the end. We all got involved with the drumming workshop where we were given a drum each and taught a few rhythms/techniques. After the show, the bar was playing disco tunes so we had lots of fun doing the cha cha slide, YMCA and macarena. 

P.S. Missing you mum, dad, Fab and Louis, but mostly Ember and Luigi

Kalya: 

The sound of a constant ringing in my ear, woke me up at 7.30 am, bright and early, but of course the snooze button was pressed immediately. 7.10 am it was time to get myself ready for the day. For breakfast I ate a delicious porridge with toffee syrup, banana and apple. I also had a slice of toast and jam on the side. 

We then headed to CHADA for the last time. Our aim for the day was to finish the painting of the 3 buildings and continue with some construction that we had started earlier in the week. I decided I wanted to paint. Lily and I painted the skirting onto the buildings which was very satisfying. Lunch was one of my favourite meals...spaghetti! We were also very lucky to get dessert too...pancakes!! Jen and Phoebe used their artistic skills alongside Mrs Heugh-Lait to paint a mural of our tour logo onto the wall of one of the buildings. They also included the Zimbabwe national flower, the flame lily. At 1pm we headed out for coaching. I have been going to Grace Mission private school. Today we had to choose 4 teams for the tournament. The matches went well for all of us, my socks are now extra dirty, sandy and unfortunately very stained. 

Once again there was a race for the showers as there always is. We played a quick game of volleyball before watching the sunset and eating dinner. We need to go pack our suitcases now, to prepare for our journey for Livingstone tomorrow. 

P.S. I am having the best time here but miss you all. See you all in just under a week. x