The morning was wet but we are happy that it soon stopped raining. Due to the heavy rain the night before, we decided that it was best to leave the remainder of the fencing work to the locals, as we were concerned with the safety of our students. Instead, we concentrated on painting the walls of the school and setting up a file cabinet for the local teachers.
The rain stopped in the morning. We prepared and bought some food, drinks and stationery for the primary students. Unfortunately on the way to the school and we were forced to turn back as the road was flooded. We were disappointed as we would like to interact more with the primary students and pass some gifts that we brought from Singapore to them.
It was raining overnight and the rain continued the next whole day as our spirit continued to soar. We learned making bracelet with color string and to be decorated by beads when we return to Singapore. We have planned to use them to raise fund for WWF later as HWA is having Marine Conservation Exhibition in November. We also prepared one of the dishes for lunch - spring rolls.
All of us did not know how appreciable our circumstances were before we exposed ourselves to Cambodia’s local school. We helped them by planting the trees and building the protections. In order to escape from the hot sun, we went into one classroom and I saw one unforgettable sentence written on the table. The message was “NOT WATER HERE”.
We did so much construction-related work today. We helped the community to construct concrete wall as fence for a primary school. We carried sand and bricks up a 50m slope to the school by wheelbarrow. We learned the method to mix sands, cement and water to produce mortar and later used it to lay the bricks. Now we know that all these construction work really requires a lot of skills.
After arriving at SAPA in the morning and having breakfast, we had a quick freshening up at the local hotel and started a 2h-trek to our homestay. Along the way, we saw many interesting sights and visited one of the villagers’ house. We saw the way they live - without modern facilities and very rustic. After reaching our homestay, the students settled into their accommodation.
We left Singapore on 08 Oct 2017, and reached Hanoi after a 2.5h flight where we met with our guide Mr John Phuoc. We soaked ourselves into the sight and sounds of Hanoi as we walked through the streets to our restaurant, where we had a great meal. Then we proceeded to Sapa on a sleeper bus. It was an unique experience - a bus with reclining seats that can house 46 passengers.
We departed from Changi Airport at 1.30pm and reached Hanoi Airport at 4pm. We queued up for almost an hour to get the visa and go through the immigration checkpoint. Later we embarked on a bus ride for about 4 hours to reach Mai Chau for a welcoming dinner and checking in at the homestay. On the ride to Mai Chau we managed to shop at a rest area and spent Vietnamese currency.
Over the last few weeks, Grade 10 produced different scamp drawings in pencil, think point fine-liner pen and permanent markers. Students learned to recognize ‘negative space’ (background) and ‘positive space’ (foreground) while practicing observation skills and ability to work in detail.
During this week (25th September to 29th September), the G11 and G12 DP Geography students completed their mid-semester assessments on their units “Population and Change” and “Patterns in Resource consumption” respectively.