Day 10 Gayhurst to Woburn

Our walk resumed today after we had a rest day yesterday. This morning we left Derby at 4:35am and started our walk at 6:23am from Gayhurst. The walk was long and tough like as usual but we managed to do 11 miles to Woburn.

Sue Bentley, a World Development Advisor for Dunstable arranged for two schools to meet up with us - we first visited Kensworth Lower School (Bedfordshire, Dunstable) which has only 50 pupils and only three teachers but is over 150 years old!! On arrival we met the Vicar from opposite the school who took in and introduced us to the children who sang a song for us that they prepared. It was a very wonderful song about treating all human beings the same no matter how tall or short you are, what colour your are or which country you are from. Emmanuel told the children about his life in Africa and why he is doing a barefoot walk and they were really interested in what he was saying.

Afterward they were given the opportunity to ask some questions and most of them asked about the wild animals in Africa "Is it true that the cheetah is the fasted animal in the world?", "Can a cheetah climb a tree", "How many Elephants have you seen in Africa?". They also asked about how children lived in Africa. Tafi closed the visit by playing a song on his Mbira instrument.

We then left and Sue took us to Ashton Middle School in Dunstable. The headmaster of Ashton, Mr. Nick Sharpe was delighted to have us. He said they were having some lessons about commitment this week and he felt our walk was a good example of this to the children. There were 600 schoolchildren waiting to meet us when we arrived. They asked Emmanuel to explain why he is walking barefoot, so he explained how and why he left Africa for Italy and then finally England and why now he is doing the walk. They children were surprised to hear that someone could walk so far in bare feet. He finally told them how privileged they are to live in this part of the world compared to other children in some parts of the world. He said he believes that young people of today will make the world a better place in the future.

As time was running short, the headmaster allowed one pupil to ask a question. Again, Tafi finished the meeting by singing the Africa Anthem "Nkosi Sikelela' iAfrika" (God Bless Africa)

Today, our day co-ordinator was Lawrence. He did a very good job today because we have a long way to travel at the start and end of the day. He got up at 3:00am today to pick us all up from our homes to travel to the walk. He was really tired on the way back so we stopped for 15 minutes at a service station to rest. (But he deserved it!).

Thank you Sue, Lawrence and the two schools for your help today.