1 month in..

So.. Last post I mentioned that Rory and I were off camping with our boys and the Montfort boys. It’s been almost 3 weeks since then and like most days here, time has flown. Believe it or not, I've been here for over a month now!

Rory and I on the beach where we camped

Sunrise from the tent

To those of you who are familiar with camping, I can assure you that this was unlike any other camping you or I have ever been on. In fact sleeping conditions in my opinion were better when I was doing Gold DofE; purely on the basis that you had a tent that you could zip up. Needless to say I was up the challenge! As you can see from the picture, the structure of the tents that we’d be sleeping under was bamboo, some rope and a massive canvas over the top, so that at least we were waterproof. The whole camping weekend was designed so that the boys could appreciate what help Montfort and San Damiano were providing to them; considering that a lot of the boys are from poor backgrounds, it made them realize how fortunate they are to have such good facilities at their respective hostels. The weekend was much like the obstacle race we’d done and was full of activities, including some absolute classics such as a sack race, tug of war and a human tower. Rory and I got stuck in and we were even able to help the boys win the human tower; as you would expect I was at the base! In the evenings the boys played guitar, sang round the campfire and shared jokes with us. On the second night, Rory and I bought the boys some marshmallows to have on the fire because the majority of them had only seen them on a movie. There was no way Rory and I was going to let them sit round a campfire and not experience this! We also made the boys some chili con carne and I think that this was the first time I've actually enjoyed something I’d cooked. As I mentioned in my last post, mosquitoes were indeed an absolute nightmare because the tent structure we were sleeping under was completely open but luckily Rory and I were able to both sleep under my mosquito net. I expect I owe mum big thank you for tucking a net into the bottom of my bag as yet again Mum had seriously stepped up! All in all the camping weekend was a huge success but it had taken its toll and therefore we were extremely tired and needed a mattress to sleep on. The boys were given the afternoon off when we got back to rest because they had school the next day, so Rory and I didn't mess around and went straight to sleep. This was by far the best sleep I've ever had and I slept flat out for 15 hours, missing supper along the way!

Hog Roast at the camping

The boys in the tent 

Our tent for the weekend

Sack Race

Me and some of the boys messing about

Teaching has been extremely fun and I've enjoyed every lesson so far. I've been trying to make my lessons as fun as possible by chucking a few games such as: Hangman and Bingo but to be honest, I’m not sure whether I've enjoyed them more than the boys because I do love a bit of Hangman!  Nevertheless I think what has been most interesting is the realization of how hard it’s being on the other end of the table! This is because the variation in the standard of the English of the boys means that often some boys don’t understand when others do, so it’s about finding the right balance of which I’m learning day by day. This last week we've got the form 1 and 2 boys starting a project on their favorite celebrities. They had to do some research on the computer and ultimately produce a profile of their celebrity on a poster and present it to the class. The boys have seemed to have enjoyed it and we've given them the incentive of winning a big dairy milk; unsurprisingly as soon as we introduced the prize, the boys worked harder! I also love the amount of time each day that we have to play sport with the boys and most of all that the boys are as competitive as me and put it this way I don’t know many people who are. As I mentioned on my last post I've been playing two of the local sports: footsal and takraw as well as finding time to do some jogging and play football on the field. I’m spending the most time playing takraw as it’s a completely new sport to me. I've got to a level where the boys trust me to kick the ball back over the net but stupidly yesterday, I got ahead of myself to do one of these flips they do and well yeah, I expect you can fill in the rest.. For those of you, who don’t know what it is just type “takraw” in you tube. We have also been jogging a couple times a week and it has been very hard to adapt to conditions because the hills and heat here are considerably greater than back home! However, Rory and I smashed out a 10 km run this week so I’m feeling fit; I've even naughtily managed to find time to loose 5 kg!

Egg fired rice attempt 1

Banoffee Pie!

Being men we are not naturally that good cooks and like anything it requires a lot of practice. When I say practice, I most definitely mean we not a lot of it; it seems to take Rory and I at least 3 or 4 times to perfect a recipe. So far we've tried to make egg fried rice which we made a better job of making look like bad scrambled egg and most recently doughnuts that tasted like stale bread! However, it has not been all bad and last week we made a banoffee pie for the staff here. Unfortunately you can’t get hold of cream but what mattered most is that it was the first thing we’d made that was edible! 
The staff loved it; so we are planning sometime soon to make enough pie for all the boys. (all 60 of them!) On the subject of food I've tried some more amazing food such as: a yellow watermelon and found myself a new favourite fruit called ‘Dragon Fruit’. This dragon fruit gave me a huge shock in the morning, as much like beetroot, it makes your urine red.. I thought was internally bleeding.

Doughnut attempt 1

 I am completely settled here and I like the fact that often it feels like Rory and I are older brothers to the boys. In particular I find it funny that the boys have started to give us nicknames and the best one yet for me has been: “Wayne Rooney’. The boys have not yet said whether they are judging this on looks or my football capabilities but for my sake it’s hopefully the latter.. I dare not ask!

Another wedding

He didn't trust me to do it!

Rory and I at a wedding reception

Sweatyy!