7/13/2015 - Lobamba

We needed to arrive by 8, and in fact had some time to set up as the morning assembly took longer than usual. We were first expecting an hour each with three groups: form 5s, form 1s (requested by us to teach Sifiso's son, Boy-boy) and form 3s, but somewhere in the process of teaching two classrooms of form 5s (switching groups of demos in between), found out it was going to be a struggle even to get to teach form 1s.  We expressed we really wanted to, and were able to get it set up to at least do that.  I teamed up with Miles to talk about chemistry and space, but we had no electricity that morning and so presenting was a struggle, at best.  I tried to cover a lot of the concepts about the space telescopes instead, and then move on to the moon drop demo.  A lot of the students at this school were very frightened after the loud bang noise that came from the combustion engine demo. They were scared to volunteer for Miles' demos thereafter!

  
  

  

  

Meanwhile, Maria was determined to embarrass Boy-boy a little bit in good fun and insist he volunteer a few times in the form 1 class. When we switched, he turned away every time I tried to snap a picture in his direction, but I got him to pose with Miles on the way out:

  

  

We also had time to present the science department with various demo setups and gifts from U of R and NASA, explaining how some of the demos worked and giving instructions.  We were thanked by the principal thoroughly, whom we presented with a U of R pennant, which he proudly placed on some of his many trophies, and a copy of the The Jewel in the Crown.  

  

  

We quickly said our goodbyes and met Wawa outside to take us to our last meal at Malandela's before packing the van for the airport. We also said goodbye to everyone, including Roland, who discussed some other projects in the works with us to keep in mind, and we presented him with U of R t-shirts and lanyards for everyone at All Out Africa and Malandela's.