Today was a much less sombre day than yesterday, but it certainly showed us more about the way people live here. We started with a bit of an introduction from some of the CCF people, who told us more about the organisation, before taking us on a bit of a tour of the facilities.
Near the satellite school
My group visited two of the centres, CCF5 and CCF6, plus a satellite school and the Bakery. The CCF centres are made up of classrooms (some open to the air, some more conventional to our way of thinking) and other areas like computer rooms, meeting rooms, dormitories and kitchens. The satellite school was in the old dumpsite area, in order to reach a greater number of students who otherwise couldn’t travel to the further away centres. The Bakery is a vocational school where older students can learn about food production and hospitality skills once they’ve left high school. The kids were really welcoming to us, calling out hellos, waving and giving us high fives as we walked past them.
Two gorgeous girls at CCF5
We stopped for lunch at Star Restaurant, a restaurant associated with CCF which provides work experience and job opportunities. The food was great, especially the stir fried Morning Glory with tofu (!) and the chicken curry.
Obligatory cat picture! Next door to Star restaurant
The afternoon was spent back in CCF6 where the kids from the CCF put on a bit of a show to welcome us. We found out more about what the CCF does and how it works, and the students (okay, maybe some teachers too) played some dancing games to get to know you. While dancing like a loony in front of students doesn’t faze me, I was happily surprised when one of the girls grabbed my and one of the other teacher’s hands to pull us into the circle to be part of the dancing together. While our students are all mature and lovely, this girl who looked about twelve (who was actually around 18) showed the community-mindedness that seems to characterise both children and adults alike here.
The founder of CCF, Scott Neeson arrived partway through the afternoon, much to the delight of the children who were palpably happy to see him, coming up for hugs and trading jokes.
Mangoes!
After a quick pitstop at the hotel, including a quick walk down to the shops (did I mention mangoes are really cheap and REALLY yummy???) we headed out for dinner at a restaurant down by the river, the Titanic. We had a much better ending to the evening than the original Titanic thankfully, with some really tasty food (water buffalo stir fried with eggplant anyone? Yum!! Other interesting meals were flambee’d eel and a chicken curry dish which arrived in a coconut!) and the usual raucous conversation amongst the staff. Highly recommended, even if they had trouble keeping up with us – bringing 33 orders out together is pretty tricky, but we all got our food and drink orders and settled down for a great evening.
coconut curry!
Two Weeks Away 
food sounds so much nicer than fried bugs! Mangoes do look yummy!
They were!