Day 17: Back to New Hope

Did I mention that I won the Melbourne Cup yesterday?  For the first time in my life I actually did, but sadly the winnings were donated to the three Globalteer projects. My “reward” is dinner with Alan, the head of Globalteer, in the roof top restaurant.  

We watched the race live on the Australia Network, sang the national anthem with Livvy, and cheered like there was no tomorrow – without even a sniff of champagne!

Back to reality today at New Hope, despite less than 50% of kids turning up.  Apparently it takes them a while to rev up and return to school after an extra long weekend.  Of course it does …  Still, those there were full of long snuggles, despite temperatures in the high thirties.  We volunteers were all dripping with sweat in a matter of minutes while several of the kids sported woolen jumpers and jackets.  It is their winter, after all. 

Today we introduced jewellery-making to the little ones who were surprisingly well behaved, patient and very enthusiastic.   Another lesson to be repeated, and lots of beautiful photos.

As for the older kids, it was math’s day – my specialty.  With Janet (a ‘real’ teacher from South Australia) on hand now we powered through addition, subtraction and the eleven times tables rewarding the sticker happy kids with millions of stickers which they proudly stick all over their school work and for the few who have them, their mobile phones.  Teenagers are definitely the same all over the world, regardless of their economic status.