A lot of coordination was required, and what with a totally incompetent school Head getting in the way, having to deal with problems in Spanish, and all in incredibly hot sun, this was a challenge that I could have done without, and I have no plans to repeat this one!
Several trips round town in the van at some unearthly hour to pick up various stuff, call in on the local newspaper to see if they could come, then back to the house to pick up party snacks, CD player, prizes, and other volunteers who had bravely offered to help ... and then off to the school. We had to go via the centre of to to pick up a 'show' that a water company had donated - this comprised a clown, a santa, and 4 other dancers, and a lot of luggage! The week before we had been round to visit various companies, leaving them letters and talking to them if we could, to ask if they could help the school. We didn't get a huge response but the water company offered to pay for a show and to supply fizzy drinks. We'd also been to various large shops and had managed to collect quite a nice amount of party snacks.
We had managed to raise enough money to buy a lockable cupboard for the winning classroom, and so this also had to be delivered to the school - there were a few hitches, and a couple of attempts, but eventually it got there too. About an hour late, but we were running even later ...
All the kids were already very excited when we got to the school. We asked them to bring out their chairs to form a semi-circle around where the show would be and tried to keep them entertained while various things were being organised, e.g the water company tried to erect a kind of stage with publicity banner, but it kept falling over so took ages. We also displayed our prizes at the front, and kept the kids in suspense re the winners! And at this point we also discovered that there was no electricity in the school that day! It's only in one classrom anyway, and apparently some of the cable had been stolen and so it was no longer working. A fairly major problem as the show was all about singing and dancing, and we weren't going to manage much of a party atmosphere without music! Apparently the Head had been told about this the day before and was supposed to have sorted it out, but hadn't for some unknown reason ... very frustrating man!! Evenetually the water company came to the rescue and went to get an extension lead and we used power for a neighbouring house!
About 2 hours late, the show started. The kids absolutely loved it - probably the first time they'd had anything like this in the school! Quite a few other kids and parents also turned up - it was quite an attraction! And at the end we gave out the prizes for the Clean Classrooms and then handed out fizzy drinks and party snacks. At this point the kids went completely wild, but hey, it was a party!
As I'm way behind with blogging and trying hard to get up-to-date before Christmas, I reckon these photos can now speak for themselves ... it was a great, memorable day, even though a tad fraught, and way too hot!!
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