Thursday - off to camp!

If you go down to the woods today..... The idea of 200 children all together in the one place for 2 hours - and we're to take part and run some games. Created a certain amount of nervousness. In fact, there were 220 children there and it was like a giant holiday club day outdoors in the forest. This is the camp for all of the children from School on a Mat in its different places.

When we got there, the children were all sitting on their mats, waiting. For all of the morning the children were so co-operative and well-behaved. Chantly, the MC for the day was doing well to keep them entertained. We had to introduce ourselves; Trevor and Mary from NZ were there; the American team came too. To begin with, we all stood at the front being watched, but after an hour, we were sitting amongst the children having fun.

First of all, the games. Sokleng had some very good games that we will copy. There were the skis! Thia had made sort-of skis that were built for 5 people. You have to put your feet in the loops and then work as a team to lift your left ski and then your right ski and so on... and walk together. We were the demonstration. 2 teams, mainly from JG, but with some US assistance, had to race across the clearing; it was not competitive, was it? There is some discussion about who won the first leg, but the second leg was clear! Jim's team won by a mile once we had worked out which left to move first!

Then there was a balloon game. 2 children had a balloon which they were to burst by squeezing their bodies together. It was hard to do. There are 2 reasons for this game: 1)it is fun; 2)it is hard to do, but teaches the children that life can be hard and helping each other can make a difference.

Then Sokleng, with a great big smile on his face, said that he needed 5 people. He then tied 5 of us to a small metal ring which we had to manoeuvre over the top of a bottle of water. It was hard enough to do the first time when we could see what we were doing, but the second time those of us tied by the string had to turn our backs and be guided by other people. We had to do what they told us in order to complete the task. We did it!

We also led some games ourselves. Rosanne demonstrated some aerobics, which the children and some (!) of the team members copied. Then we played a traffic lights game: the children had to stand still when the red frisbee was shown, run on the spot with the yellow one and run in a circle with the green one. Finally we played 'duck, duck, goose' again, with 10 circles of children on their mats; they played the game well, avoiding the on-coming traffic that was other children and the avoiding the trees! Jeanette was chosen so often that she felt she had run another half-marathon.

At breakfast, Mao asked Jim to tell a Bible story; short notice, but the story of the prodigal son went down well, even if the children were distracted by the arrival of the food.

One group of children did a drama about water and sanitation.

They take a sound system into the forest, play music, bring food and water for all of the children. The poorest children were given a present that included a toothbrush, some toothpaste and some soap. At the end, they all piled back into their tuk-tuks, paid for by CHO and went home; 15 children in 1 tuk-tuk - health and safety? Eat your heart out! High-fives all round as they left.

If this is good to to do at home with children for our Holiday Club, it is certainly good to do here; we helped to give these children 2 hours of fun and games; we told them a Bible story; who knows what impression that has left!

We spent the afternoon painting again; even Pastor Jim broke out in a sweat. We were overcome with emulsion! We even had to push the truck twice - the key has broken and it needed a jump-start!

PS happy birthday to Archie, Eric and Sandra's grandson.

pps there is no facebook update yet; it will come later.