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Friday, 21 May 2010

African Adventure - Day 5

Following last night's "talent" show (the less said the better!) we retired to the African Village for a night in the huts. Earlier in the day we had all taken our sleeping bags, pyjamas and cuddly toys from our rooms in the Hall to the village. The children soon settled down to sleep and the staff headed into their own huts to sleep. All was quiet in the village, except the male staff hut which reverberated to the sounds of Mr Pearce's snoring!

We awoke this morning to a beautiful Spring day. The sound of birdsong permeated the air and the sun streamed in through the trees. After returning to the hall for showers and breakfast we set off to the beach to solve our final, but perhaps most important problem - cleaning the water we delivered to the village so that it was fit for drinking.

The children collected a range of different sizes of stone and produced a water filter from a bucket, a hose-pipe, a funnel and a piece of cloth. They set about filtering their water to remove most of the dirt.

The final step involved a trip back to the village to pour the water through a slow-sand filter. This removed the last of the dirt and made the water clean enough for the staff to drink.
A filter like this costs just £40 and by successfully completing our challenges over the course of the week we were told that our efforts would enable a village to benefit from one such filter, changing the lives of thirty or more Africans.

We were left with one final challenge - to see just how many more filters we could provide over the coming weeks. With this in mind we hope to hold some fundraising activities next half-term to help us change yet more lives.

The whole experience has been both challenging and fun and I and all the children have had a fantastic week together. However, all good things must come to an end, and so for the last time, this is Mosuwe, signing off.