It has been a delight to be back at Upendo this September, and great fun to have been able to bring some fantastic friends from home for their first visit.
We've had a lot of work to do in a very short amount of time on this trip, but there has still been time for important extra curricular activities!
A dala dala journey into Mwanza for some swimming lessons
As with any group of children who are rapidly growing up (!) the need to find entertainment outside of school that is sustaining and enjoyable is really important.
Art, additional classes and especially sports have always been important pass-times in this respect.
When we started Upendo only two of the kids could swim, but over the past 8 years we have consistently worked on water skills and safety with all of them, and swimming lessons always prove an enjoyable, if exhausting afternoon out in Mwanza.
Glad to say the kids didn't spent the whole afternoon sat on the side of the pool!
Swimming lessons over the years have always been an important project. A knowledge of the water is something many of us take for granted in the UK, but it's just not taught to children in Tanzania, and it means the kids take to water with differing levels of enthusiasm.
Nonetheless water-skills over the years have come far easier easier than cricketing ones!
Hammering stumps into ground baked by an equatorial sun (or attempting to)
But we got there...!
Still...Eddy decided to sit it out
