Carnival Day!!!!

Yes, it was worthy of  excessive punctuation. :) We had 7 stations manned by volunteers: limbo dancing, hopskotch, balloon racing, egg and spoon racing (with potatos because they try to eat the eggs, although some also tried to eat the potatoes) ring toss, bowling and facepainting (yours truly.)

We started out smugly confident in our organisational skill, even employing an extra volunteer to parade around supervising and to ring a bell every 15 minutes to signal that it was time to rotate activities. I set myself up in one of the classrooms along with 2 local teachers and waited for the bell to ring...

It was insane. I was engulfed by hoards of tiny children squealing in delight, grabbing brushes, sticking their fingers in the paint, knocking over the water, grabbing my sleeve and screaming urgently, " SPIDAHMAN MADAM! SPIDAHMAN!".I painted like a demon, knocking out 3 spidermen and a lion in under ten minutes only to see the Kenyan teachers languidly doodling flowers on the cheeks of the kids I had just painted, still dripping from washing it off before sneaking back in for more. I managed to paint the same kid three times myself: as spiderman, half zebra half spiderman, then a lion.When I called him out he looked very affronted and attempted to convince me (with white and red paint still smeared across his forehead) that he had never been near a face painting stall in his life. Every time the bell rang I was beseiged by an influx of new children pressing against the crowd of those already waiting and sending them into a panic that they would be overlooked. At one point I was attempting to shoo the kids already painted out the door while ushering in those still waiting, tripped over a bench, ripped my trousers and smeared paint up my arm. I sat down (feeling just a tad flustered) and a smiling kindergartener began to poke me in the neck with a paintbrush.

I left the classroom dazed and covered in paint, children still swinging off me, to discover that no one had wanted to play hopskotch,the bowling pins kept blowing over in the wind, and the balloon races had come to a halt after 5 minutes due to the bursting of all the balloons. Limbo had been abandoned in favour of a high jump competition, and the majority of kindergarten were so overwhelmed by excitement and facepaint fumes that they were standing in their classroom screaming at the top of their not so tiny lungs. The yard was dotted with filthy, bewildered looking volunteers-and tons of laughing, smiling kids.

Some cliches are true. It was worth it for those smiles. :)

That being said, I cant wait for Easter break...:P

Ayub as Spiderman, courtesy of Madam Connie.