After heavy rains in the late afternoon and evening we had to head back to Cathcart to drive on tarred roads as the dirt road to Cofimvaba was very suspect as we did not want to take a chance of getting stuck. We met Portia at her home in the St James area and headed straight for Gando JSS in the St Marks area. The school was outside the Nciba district but formed part of the ICT4RED program and Portia had requested this as a special favour. This was to prove the correct for a number of reasons.
The first 30 minutes were used to train 3 teachers in the methodology of using the Lego Charity Boxes. Their enthusiasm was appreciated as they were eager learners. Esme and Johan watched on and accepted the challenge of taking on the responsibility of working with the Grades 4-6 learners. I am confident that they will recall these learning experiences with fond memories in years to come.
While they were busy I took on the remainder of the Grade 7 – 9. Having access to a suitable venue and electricity makes a significant difference to the depth one is able to achieve with the learners. From the start they were responsive and we managed to successfully cover all energy topic.
Gando JSS
Gr7 14 5
Gr8 10 13
Gr9 7 15
31 33 Total 64
Two boxes of Lego were donated to the Principal on behalf of the learners.
An early start provided the opportunity to leave the school by 11:00 to take on another session. We headed back toward Cofimvaba to visit Jongulwandle. We discovered that the locals do not attempt the river crossing after any rains. We managed to successfully navigate this only to be bogged down in some serious mud a little further on in sight of the school. Locals had to be called in to rock the car out of the mud not once but twice as we reversed into a second mud patch.
We called it a day and headed back to Cofimvaba to get road reports for the more remote schools. At that stage some of the teachers had managed to get through to these schools and the decision as to which schools were to be visited would be taken in the morning.