(( operational father christmas - Day 4 ))
14 January 09 - 11:05
Day 4 – orphan care and the Father Christmas bandit
This is the big day
The last day
Everything is ready to go we were up early so we can catch the factory car going back to songani so we can catch a lift and take the food down to songani on it, shy went down with the car and the food and to organize bicycles to come with us to take the food to songani orphan care.
So everyone arrived and it was raining I put on my father Christmas outfit but I didn’t have a beard so I put a bandana round my face and made me look like a bandit cross with father Christmas. I think everyone was not going to let the rain put them off we were all really excited seeing as it’s the last day and everyone found it hilarious that I was dressed like father Christmas and it put everyone in a brilliant mood.
So we head off and 5 mins into the journey the rain stops and the sun comes out, someone’s on our side.
We were running round throwing out sweets and dancing and everything all the way to songani. It was boiling inside that outfit I felt like I was in an oven. But we kept on going and reached songani we had a rest and a quick drink then walked up to the orphan care centre which is about another hours walk, as we walked through the village to the centre we draw a very large crowd which followed us there.
Once we reached there I went into the directors office and we discussed how the centre ran and what they did there then he showed me round and I looked at the welding bay where they teach them skills and they also have a carpentry workshop and sewing workshop. Then we performed the nativity play again and sang a lot more songs, then chrispin and flossy distributed the food we had brought. The director for the orphanage informed me a lot of the time the kids are eating mangoes for breakfast and lunch because they can’t afford to feed them, so this donation has made a massive difference. The scouts then walked back to the campsite whilst me chrispin and Edward went into town quickly to get some things for Christmas then we had to rush back because we were distributing to the scouts and they were waiting for us.
Got back to the campsite, and made a little speech thanking the scouts for their help, then we distributed some rice and sugar to the scouts,
By this point it was pretty late and I just sat absolutely exhausted and just said job well done and collapsed id been running on pure adrenaline for the past week and my last energy sources were spent.
But it was so worth it
I could’ve gone on for 2 weeks straight with no sleep because the happiness it caused made everything worthwhile.
Now I suppose there is one very special thing about this food donation and that was that 100% of the money donated went to the operation father Christmas I heard a very disturbing statistic about Oxfam when I was discussing the food donations with Dave a good friend in Lilongwe he has been in Malawi 15 years and he says that of the money people donate to Oxfam only 1% actually filters through to whatever you donating to, the rest is absorbed in running costs for the charity in England and wherever else it disappears to. So if you donate £1 to Oxfam only 1p actually filters through, which is quite startling really. Of course if its true or not I don’t know because 95% of statistics are false. (Yeah I made that up, but I did hear something like that before as well)
