13.12.13 Friday. Friday 13th!

So we slept in this morning, Friday 13^th indeed.  We didn’t leave until 7am, which meant that we didn’t reach the ferry in Soma until after 10am.  Unusually the queue was horrendous and time was against us all the way, we managed to cross by 11.30 and then headed straight to Kataba, after ringing to say we would be there by 12.30.  The schools which operate in a morning close early on Friday and this was one of them.  The head teacher asked the children to stay behind as we had a special delivery for them from St Anthony’s Primary School in Bradford. Everyone was waiting for us when we drove into the school yard and they were not disappointed.  We had a large delivery of sports equipment for the school, much excitement as the packages were unwrapped and the pupils saw new footballs, basketballs, nets, rounders bat and ball sets, and sets of markers for the field.  We also had some hula hoops which only the head teacher had seen before and despite his advancing years managed to demonstrate much to the amusement of the staff and pupils.  Football jerseys were modelled and many photos taken.  We also had some T shirts for the girls which were donated by Hello magazine, and I took some photos of the girls’ team modelling the shirts and reading a copy of Hello, which I intend to send off to the magazine.  We also had several boxes of books for the new library which St Anthony’s had paid for last year. When the excitement had died down, the children were told to go home and then Steve and I were invited to join the teachers for their lunch, being Friday it was beans with fish and bread, the beans being part of the World Food Programme which this area received.  On then to Kumbija where Baatchi, the caretaker, was waiting for us.  We are sleeping here tonight before returning home tomorrow.  We had more items to unload here for the new term and to arrange in the classrooms. We had a meeting with Mr Sowe the head teacher here, and then Steve went off to Farato with some food items for Mrs Bah to cook for our evening meal.  The sun went down over the playground just as dinner arrived, and we shared our meal with Baatchi before retiring for the night.