Tuesday 6th October

Now we were back up to a full strength team, it was all systems go to catch up on some lost time. The aim of today was to get the floor completely laid and the roof on the building. We worked really hard and managed to achieve this - but not without huge effort from everyone shift large amounts of sand and concrete. It was hot and hard work, so we worked in shifts pushing large wheelbarrows of sand, mixing concrete - and then moving this too, which was incredibly heavy. The other key ingredient was water - and lots of it. This meant long trips to the tap, filling the buckets and walking back to the concrete mixer. However, this activity did allow us to interact with the kids who were now all back in school (Monday was a teacher training day) who tended to congregate around the one working tap in the school.

The kids aged from 4 years old to around 13. The older kids weren't really too interested in talking, but the younger kids loved to sit and play and giggle at how old we were. I was most depressed when they always seemed to guess my age - but be much below many of the others!! Maybe it was because I had that air of authority about me - not!!

We also managed to get some of the side struts on the school before having a quick, but very cold shower under the basic shower facilities in the girls washing facilities. These were really needed as we were caked in concrete and sand dust.

We the returned to camp for what was our last night under canvas. I couldn't believe how quickly it had all come about and was definitely ready for a few nights more. One of the other trip members (coincidentally also a facilities manager) had his 50th Birthday so we were treated to a BBQ over the fire - and a small cup of some very drinkable sparkling wine.

We were then given some very exciting news. We were told that the Elephants were in the area and had been spotted approx 1km away - and that there was a very good chance that they may come into the area around our camp overnight, as they like the seed pods off one of the trees which was in the centre of our camp. They had ripened in the time that we had been there and were now falling to the ground...fingers crossed!!