St Thomas School - Some Videos

I'd like to introduce this series of videos I found on Youtube the other day. The videos are from 2011. I can't believe I hadn't seen them before. They are from some American volunteers who came to visit St Thomas for at least one day. The videos were done on a flip camera and so it's a little shaky, but one can get a really good idea of what St Thomas is like. 

Which is to say: awesome.

From the videos you can see how polite and disciplined the students are, both when they talk to the Americans and when they are supposed to be walking quietly behind the teacher. From the videos we learn that St Thomas has roughly 380 students, out of which 210 are boarders.

A great moment comes when the cameraman says, to himself and with no one around, "I would want to go to a school like this in the States." I wrote to him to get some more impressions from him but I still haven't received a reply

Check them out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybQ9mGQooHE&list=PLE48AF7763F57F22F

Letter from Leboy

This is the letter that Leboy wrote to thank Emma for her hard work.
You will notice that there is also reference to a Cristiano Ronaldo poster. This is referring to a wonderful gift by graphic designer Dan Leydon, who back in December posted on his Tumblr that he would send one of his posters to children who needed it for Christmas. I got in touch with him and he agreed to send one of his Cristiano Ronaldo pieces to Arusha. Thank you so much, Dan. It seems like Leboy really liked it!

Cookiegrams a success!

I never wrote about the outstanding success that the cookiegrams ended up being. The Halloween cookies were so well received that we almost had to do a Christmas version. Between the two editions we ended up raising over 6300JPY which at current rates it's about 650 dollars. A total success! Thank you to everyone who bought a cookie. You have no idea how much you have helped.

Special thanks of course to Emiko "Emma" Nagashima, my group manager, who spent countless hours making the cookies. I sincerely could not have done this without her. Arigatougozaimashita. Otsukaresamadeshita!

I was able to convey to Leboy, via Laizer, about what we had managed to do. He wrote a very nice letter thanking Emma for her work. Here's a couple of pictures of Leboy holding a picture of Emma. Thank you to everyone for your support.

End of Standard 4

Another school year ends, and once again Leboy finishes at the top of the class.
Although he only managed to rank 5th this time, it is really encouraging to see that he achieved all As in his subjects.
The unfortunate part of news is that I received a letter from the headmaster saying that the school had suffered a fire earlier in the year. Fortunately none of the students were harmed, and it seems as though reconstruction was generally possible. I remember what amazing resources St Thomas had. I hope they haven't all disappeared.
Let's wish Leboy, and St Thomas School, all the best in Standard 5!!