Life’s not all tapdancing and toilet blocks!

Day 5 is already here. The momentum from the last 2 days has caught the team up to speed with the deadlines for the weekend. The toilet block needs to be painted ready for the inauguration, so 6 of the volunteers picked up their paint brushes and rollers and proceeded to paint the inside of the toilets. With the watery emulsion all over their heads and clothes, they got to work on the upper walls and ceilings. It’s a fun job in the messiest of ways, but you can always see a huge difference once the white paint is on.

In the bibliotheque URBOND’s representative in Guinea, Mac, was delivering a workshop on dental hygiene. Volunteers Patrycja and Basia did an incredible job providing 350 toothbrushes and toothpastes sets for the kids. It was fun to see the cartoon drawing of a cheesy grin on the whiteboard as Mac was explaining the different teeth to the kids. As always, it’s shocking yet heart-warming to see the reaction in the community to the URBOND workshops. The parents flocked in along with the children to learn about dental hygiene and collect sets for themselves yet another everyday item we take for granted!

In the classroom block, volunteer Abi made her own dance studio armed with a bag of donated tap shoes. With 6 sets of tap shoes to donate Abi, Andrew, and Carlos found suitable matches for the young girls at school. There was a real Cinderella moment where the shoes were trying to find their match. The last 2 pairs of tap shoes were proving the most difficult, with 5 or so girls feet being too big to fit them. Therefore, Andy looked for younger girls to try them on, but this time their feet were too small. After an extensive search Cinderella was found and the donated tap shoes had their new home, Abi presented a dance seminar to the 6 girls to teach them the basics of tap dance. It was incredible to witness with the booms of the tap shoes shaking the room. The young girls were fantastic and all picked up the dance moves easily, and best of all, they all had a huge smile on their face throughout the seminar.

To finish the day at school, Andrew and Martina presented an English lesson to adult community members to improve their basic knowledge. The English language, as mentioned in previous blogs, is absolutely key to future job opportunities, and lifting the community out of poverty.  The participants took turns introducing themselves in English to their partner so by the end of the class they could say important phrases, such as ‘hello’ and how to introduce themselves.