Day 15 – More from Bahir Dar – Jacob and Rachel 

The day began with another early awakening, but instead of getting straight to work, we took a boat out onto Lake Tana to find the hippos that inhabit the area. Unfortunatley we did not see any hippos which was rather disappointing, however the sight of the pelicans, local fishermen, and beautiful/konjo scenery made the early start worthwhile and gave us a positive beginning to what would be a very challenging day.

After a late breakfast, we made our way to Shimbet School and arranged to send several groups out to the market to buy paint and more paint brushes (which were requested by the students of the school who wished to help out and ‘get stuck in’) as well as getting corigated iron for the roofing of the dining area of the centre, and all of the drilling equipment so that we could get started with the mammoth task of fixinhg all of the desks in the school that did not need welding, but were still in bad repair.

Although it seemed vast and daunting challenge, we managed to start and finish the second coatings of paint in classrooms 4-6, and fully repaired roughly 60 desks – unfortunatley we don’t know the exact amount of desks fixed as the mass movement and organisation of desks and seats into the various classooms meant that we were unable to keep an exact count.

The day would not have been such a huge success without the exceptional effort from the whole group, as well as many of the students from the Centre who all worked with the determination to complete this Herculian task.

We returned to the Ghion having achieved a great deal. Fed and watered we had a well deserved rest.

Hope everyone at home is okay, we’re still having the time of our ives.