Wrapping up Sunday
Today is a slightly wet Sunday with little showers in the early morning and cloudy but warm afternoon till evening. Due to absence of work to do, most of us started entering the conference room around 8:30ish for breakfast. The main events for the day are the Art Festival and CYEC Talent show organized by WishVast, then the much anticipated Kenya Vs U.S.A soccer match.
Mr. Khanjan Mehta asked everyone to leave for CYEC where all the events are holding place at 11:00am. In one of the main classrooms at CYEC, lays varieties of paintings, shoes, necklaces, drums, horns and a lot of other anonymous things with their sellers smiling and talking to people. It was an organized event, with 10% of all the sales made going to CYEC. Everyone was passionate about buying art things, and having some of the money donated to CYEC. The giraffe paintings sold very fast, the place quickly turned into a busy market and bargaining atmosphere. A lady got a painting for about 3800 shillings, while another friend of mine got the same thing from the same seller for 800 shillings. Some of the Mashavu and Essential Design crew went up to the field for soccer practice.
By 2:14pm, the attention was turned to the CYEC main front yard for the talent show. There were plastic chairs and benches arranged and on the front main stage lay a big speaker and a DVD player. It was a great place to be with more than a hundred people there for one thing; CYEC and being the same and one. The opening act was by a girl from CYEC who danced to a popular African song titled “Yori Yori” by Bracket. Her performance was amazing. The second act was a dancing performance by a gentleman too who is from CYEC. His performance was applauded. Various people ranging from CYEC workers, to various volunteers performed ranging from singing to stand up comedy.
3:00pm didn’t ring when the interesting talent show ended and it was time for the Soccer match. The U.S team was given a red and white jersey to wear, while the CYEC team wore blue and red jerseys. There wasn’t specific control of the ball most of game, with the U.S team most of the time struggling to kick the ball out of their defense, or just having a right pass. A lot of substitutions went on with some of the U.S players going in about 4 or 5 times. It didn’t help a lot except soften the defense for easy Kenyan penetration. After two painful goals, with one from the mid field, Colin Andrews scored an amazing goal that sent the entire crowd into roars. Most of the U.S players got tired after then and the Kenyan machine scored 4 more easy goals. After the game was over at 5:20pm, everyone celebrated and it turned into a moral victory for everyone.
Everyone walked back and ordered dinner. At 8:30pm, fresh showers of rain mercilessly poured from the sky while everyone looked for shelter. Mr. Mehta then called for a final meeting which consisted of all the projects teams, and CYEC staff. Everyone talked about their experiences and what impacted them most, then the CYEC staff also talked about how much they appreciated having us and how important we are to the children. It was an emotional room when Mr. Mehta stated the final schedule of activities and thanked everyone. The meeting was dismissed at 11:05pm with most of us going to bed due to sore bodies from the soccer game.
