Wednesday 29th

This morning Raj had requested my presence at his house for breakfast so we could catch up on everything that had been going on and to discuss the next step in terms of my trip and what’s going on with the Fisherman Trust. I really looked forward to this because Raj and I had become quite distant over the last week due to VBS and myself being constantly exhausted. He had most graciously prepared a full English breakfast with beans, tomatoes, mushrooms, bacon, sausages, egg and tonnes of toast. It was a massive feast and pretty much the most ideal breakfast for an Englishman, with Raj constantly trying to feed me more and more. The toast literally did not stop coming. It was good to fellowship with Raj once again and just to catch on both our weeks and how we were feeling about things. After breakfast I was absolutely stuffed and felt like I had to sit down for about an hour. Luckily it was Raj’s plan to just relax and discuss about plans for the trust, talking about things like how to approach corporate businesses for funding; what to do about hiring Santosh and where to get his salary; and what my involvement is with TFT.
In the evening I had to go to a VBS feedback evening at the church, whereas Raj and the rest of the team had one last camp with People Pro to complete. I felt a bit guilty not going along to help, but Raj said it was important that I go to the meeting. The meeting was really laidback and more of a social that a meeting as such. It was really good to chat and get to know the rest of the VBS team because I hadn’t had much contact with the rest of the volunteers and teachers during last week sue to everyone being so busy. I got talking to some volunteers from WYWAM ministries that had also been helping. One lady called Gladys approached me and just got chatting about where we both from and how we got to where we were in life. I found the level of conversation got very deep, very fast which I really enjoyed, being one that dislikes small talk, and we talked about our past and how I was from the UK and used to be addicted to binge drinking and now I’m not, and how she is from Peru and tried to kill herself three times because of her life circumstances. Conversations lead on to how we came to be Christians and how it led us here. The openness was fantastic and I felt like I could really connect with these people even though there was a massive language barrier sometimes.
The evening started off with some silly games like charades and 4 teams and then progressed onto writing sound our feedback on different sheets about different items and how we felt about each for example, transport, mentors, teachers, the worship, the space; things like that. I wanted to be honest and my feedback was generally positive but I did feel the communication was lacking between the teachers and leaders and I often found myself not knowing what was going on when for example the almost surprise inspection of the class on the last day, which I wasn’t too pleased about and felt was a little unnecessary.
The night finished with a meal, which was flipping boiling and way too spicy for me. I am getting a little tired of rice if I’m honest and really crave a bacon, brie and cranberry baguette! Do they have brie out here?