An Apology and a Memory.

I have to apologise for my failure to post. Due to a series of unfortunate events my most recent post is on hold. Saftey reasons!! In the mean time here is the 'memoey' I had to write for Uni. It annoyes me how i contradict myself at the bottom but its too late to care now! <3

My Memory.

It was the last day of what had been and month long adventure. Three of my leaders, my friends had left on what was to be the next step of their adventure quite early on. While everyone else was sleeping in their tents I ran out to say good bye and thank them for the opportunity they’d given me. As they left I watched the African sun rise from the river bank. The sun was a beautiful red colour, its reflection glistening in the water. As my fellow friends arose from their slumber, we reminisced about all we’d learnt, while sausages cooked on the open fire.

            The journey from England had been a long, stressful one. The unknown and homesickness drove the fear in all of us. We laughed, ironically, at how a month on none of us wanted to go home. Zambia had not only been our home but for the previous year and a half it had been our imagination, our excitement and our dreams. Now we were saying good bye.

            We ate our breakfast, put on our uniforms, and raised the flag for the last time. As the Zambian Scouts sang their national anthem we all held hands and took deep breaths. It’d being incredibly emotional and unbelievably demanding. We were all drained and exhausted, although we did enjoy our impressive arm muscles and tans. We had done our job and the school had two brand new, slightly wonky classrooms, which had literally been made from blood, sweat and tears.

            We walked for the last time, in sweltering heat, to the school. We were greeted with cheers and excitement and we began taking photographs so the final moments would always be preserved. Plus, we had all been very careful with our camera batteries knowing that there weren’t any plugs in the sand or on trees, so we could go a bit crazy with our photographs. We watched in awe as the final roof panels where put in place and the ‘handing over ceremony’ began. The school now had a new classroom so they older students didn’t have to walk five miles in order to carry on their education and slowly lift themselves out of the poverty they had grown up in.

            Poverty is such an over used word. The media had built up this image of how poor and unhappy the majority of African people are except the difference between Africa and the Western World was the media! I had spent the month expecting to feel bad and guilty of how I lived my life and although I learnt lessons about resources and how not to take things for granted, at no point did I feel guilt. The people of this village, and others we had travelled through saw as the ‘rich white people’ but that was it. They had no television or films to see what they were missing out on. As far as they were concerned they were rich.

            On this last day I gave them my old clothes and wished them well. For a group of Scouts and Girls Brigade we had accomplished more in a month than many do in a life time. We let the heat roll over our faces as we took one final look at what we had created.