We passed a Ferrari and a Bentley garage and a couple of nice golf courses on the way out here this morning! It always feels a bit bizarre going from one lifestyle to another and I still wonder at how extreme it still is!

Not running on 100% today I am feeling a bit fluey!! But I did get to go to visit the local school. It’s a secondary school. Once again I was flummoxed by what I saw. First of all, we needed an armed escort by the police to get to the school, secondly the school has security guards and has to lock the kids in.
There was a choir singing for us again the most beautiful African Melodies in the air, the beautiful smiling faces, proud to show off their singing and dancing.

There were a number of students in yellow t-shirts with badges displaying each county in Ireland. I was paired up with the rep for Co. Kildare. He was a smart well turned out articulate 15 year old whose name unfortunately and ashamedly I couldn’t remember, but I will get it off my photos! He wants to be a doctor. He has no idea how that will happen from a financial point of view, but he is working towards that anyway. The yellow t-shirts reps were chosen as they do best in school, it was an honour for them to show us around. We saw clapped out classrooms, broken windows, drenched floors and old style school desks. There are over 700 pupils there with 20 teachers. I don’t know how they do it. Their copies are impeccable, their enthusiasm is undaunting. Discipline of the pupils is not the problem here, it is safety and resources. The library in particular shocked me-as it is empty! One book stuck out poignantly for me “Digital Technology” because there is no sign of technology here, not one computer. There is a photocopier caged in a wire shell from the hands that would rob the ink from your pen if they could.

But despite this there is definitely teaching and learning going on here. All the kids wanted their photos taken so we snapped away. The school is twined St. Endas in Limerick, through an agency called Amawele.