After our morning at Sizanani, we headed over to the school with our students to begin our third and last service project. This last project was a dual activity. Firstly, as I’ve mentioned before, we planned to clean up the campus. We bought 30 huge trash cans and a bunch of brightly-colored paint and had the kids write slogans and draw design on the cans to encourage the student body to actually USE them. A couple of them were actually kinda funny. One of the girls wrote, “If you don’t put it here, where else are you gonna put it?” Then we got the girls that lived in the dorms on campus to go around and pick up trash. In exchange for their hard work, we fed them all lunch. We also bought chalkboard paint and painted all the chalkboards. Lesson learned: chalkboard paint never comes off (3 days later and I still had it on my hands).

Our biggest project was what we called our “teacher appreciation project”. All 45 teachers in this school have ONE classroom to put all of their belongings and school prep. It was a DISASTER. Papers were stacked on the ground lining the walls 2-3 feet high. The tables were covered in clutter. I would have had a panic attack if I had to use that work space. So, in an attempt to make life a little bit easier for the teachers, we installed shelves literally all over all of the walls. In one corner we put a refrigerator, microwave, and cabinets and stocked them full of coffees, teas etc. Putting the shelves up took hours. Our biggest obstacle was the fact that the walls weren’t exactly level. I mean as you can imagine these schools are made of cinderblocks and concrete, and not by the most particular and detail-oriented craftsmen either. But we made do with what we had and I think it turned out better than when we found it so that’s always a plus.