If anyone is looking for saddled donkeys .....

.....   I know where to find them!  Woohoo.  Donkeys used to be a common sight around and in Arusha.  They were mostly used to bring in the charcoal.  However I believe that the authorities are now clamping down - but to be honest, I'm not 100% sure if they are clamping down on the charcoal or the donkeys, or both.  Never mind, on the way to Usa Campus this morning I saw some around the Impala roundabout and so I promised myself to get back this afternoon to photograph them. 

Our servers were down this morning, so my printout of this week's schedule didn't happen.  Instead I caught one of the school buses over to the Usa Campus.  Third form were in for a treat.  Their usual PE teacher is away for a week, and Carmel had volunteered to teach the classes Yoga.

This is the first time any of the kids have had anything to do with Yoga.  It's my second time - so I wasn't far behind the kids! - but having had a class yesterday, at least I did know what to expect and was ready for them.  The good part was that some of the girls recognised me from Saturday morning's outing to the Leprocy centre and so it helped knowing some of them in each PE class.  Classes were just over an hour, and there was much laughter all round with the exercises they were given. 

After lunch on Mondays is the Lower Primary assembly.  At school assemblies, they start with a prayer, and then the National Anthem is sung with much gusto.  There are a couple of kids on stage with recorders, and some more with drums and at times like this I wished I had a video camera.  Then they sing the school song, and this is accompanied by hand and arm movements.  I thought the National Anthem was loud - the school song outdid it.  It reminded me of our group in Myra, "singing" YMCA (in capitals!!!) with the hand movements.  The assembly takes a while - there are prizes given out for things like being helpful in class, having your homework done correctly, helping others in the playground - all the wonderful stuff in primary school.  The kids line up with their certificates and prizes (usually a few pens or coloured pencils, or a ruler, or an exercise book).  Then there are performances from the dance group, a class debate (this week it was 'Education is better than Money'), a prize for the best behaved class in the entire Lower Primary and then the big finale, which all the kids are waiting for - which coloured house was the winner this week.  We used to have house names for the colours, but they just have the colours - red, yellow, blue and green.  The kids have their house colours as piping in their collars of their tunics and jumpers.  There is even more noise when the winner is announced each week, it's bedlam and enormous fun.

I loved the fact that this girl's feet wouldn't touch the floor for a while - she was in Class 2 something - even though the benches were really low.  Her tunic when she stood would give her a few years growth, and it looked really cute.

 And don't you just love the hair do's?  Talk about easy maintenance, although I think it would take a bit of getting used to sleeping on it all.  As kids, they keep these styles for months on end.

Now a couple of photos from the Usa Campus' PE Yoga lessons - this time with 3rd form.  I am so used to the lower primary kids, that it felt strange to be with older school kids at first.  They can do the 'lotus' stand very easily of course, but this proved a bit more difficult and provided much laughter all round.

With these poses, the girls could do it far easier than the boys, which was quite surprising. 

And just to show that I do talk to adults as well, this is Agnes and her fiance Emmanuel.  Agnes is the dressmaker and the camera proved a wonderful ice breaker.

and finally,  ta da ......   a saddled donkey!!!

Since I still don't have a schedule, I managed to leave school with the kids on one of the school buses - I really did need a photo of the donkey (for one of their book projects) but I also needed to see Agnes, so this worked out perfectly.  I thought I might also get a photo of a veggie mamma but no luck this afternoon with that.  I did get to the fruit stall though before catching a dalla dalla back to school.  I called in to say a brief hi to Gemma and two hours later we were still talking and we didn't realise the time.  She had to cook dinner, and I was due at the Bondi kitchen as well so we'll catch up soon for more exciting possibilities ......

I notice from the comments that I seem to be talking to myself a lot with this blog.  I know 2 people are reading it, so that's good I guess.