Another day in paradise, well school really

Wednesday 16^th June 2010

Joined for breakfast by a little bright yellow breasted bird (half the size of a sparrow); it stood on the end of my table then casually scuttled up to my side plate took a piece of bread and scuttled to the end of the table to eat it, didn’t even fly away until I threatened to introduce it to the local cat. For a couple of minutes I thought I was an extra in a Hitchcock movie.

Arrived at school at 9am, had assembly and before got to my room I was reminded by two students that I was working with them this morning (bless!). For the first half of the morning I worked with Danny as he wanted to type up the responses he got from his questionnaire, this information would eventually go on the students picture profile, I feel this has helped Danny with his confidence when starting a conversation with other people that he may not know too well. We then searched for information on Greece as he has just been told that his parents will let him go to the special Olympics in Greece next year, he was really excited when he saw the images.

After the students had a morning break I continued working with Kevin on the alphabet and some basic reading, then it was time for a well earned lunch break. The students are fed from a kitchen in the school and is quite wholesome (rice chicken stew etc); this ensures they get the necessary nourishment for their day in school.

As an aside I thought I would share a couple of photos from my visit to the Diamond Botanical Gardens. Below is a picture of the most sensitive flower, the Waxrose, I can hear you all going – aarrrr as I type; it grows to 2 m ( 6 feet ) height with open blossoms 12-17 cm (6-7 ins) across. I took this while going through the botanical gardens; apparently if you touch this flower it will die due to the oil from the human hand (I should be alright then), I did try to test this out but the security cameras turned my way instantly.

The Waxrose flower

Romancing the Stone Set

At the end of the gardens is a waterfall, which was used for some of the shots in the film Romancing the Stone (Michael Douglas). This island has been used as location for quite a few well known films; Marigot Bay was used for Doctor Doolittle, ‘I know’, I was too young to remember that film as wellJ. I looked all round but could not find any remains of a ‘push me pull you’; you would have needed to seen the film to get that one.

Marigot Bay

Meanwhile back at school, my afternoon was taken up with a meeting with Imran’s eldest brother, which went very well he is an extremely supportive brother. I have had yet another joyous day at school, halfway through my stint as a volunteer and although this is an amazing experience, I do miss Yorkshire Tea, haddock and chips and Andrea’s singingJ.