Our final day in school

Today was the day for farewells! It was done with flamboyant African song, dance and music. It was a National Holiday in Sierra Leone but both Hope Prep and Nelson Mandela High School pupils came in to say our farewells. Miss Smith spent the morning at Hope Prep teaching the reminder of our British Council Connecting Classrooms Project - the topic was recycling.

Mr Power went to Nelson Mandela High also to speak about the Connecting Classrooms Project with the teachers. He emphasised the collaborative nature of the project. The teachers also met to discuss a return visit to the UK this month. We also visited a school under construction and paid for by The Waterloo Partnership in Lumpa Town with a view to using this as a prototype for the new classrooms we are going to fund at Nelson Mandela High. The town is about 10K away and people remember our names from a visit 3 years ago. Three people asked me 'where is Miss Yardley?'

And so we said our byes! It's hard to do this now more than ever - Waterloo feels like our very own bit of Africa. As I have mentioned we walk through a part of town and someone will ask about someone in our school. We met the group of African teachers who came to Liverpool last summer and when they knew we were from MTGS the first thing the mentioned was the concert last summer!

We exchanged our gifts and gave hugs and embraces and set off to spend the night on the coast before our flight on Tuesday morning.

See you all in school next week with lots more stories and pictures!

Mr Power & Miss Smith