We take a break from our travelling and return to Newport Primary School, more specifically Class 5 who we visited last week. We showed video clips of our time in the Himalayas and we talked about life on the sea. We were there to start a cultural exchange programme between the students of Newport and the students at Magno Vale Academy, a school in Darjeeling, India, set up by the MondoChallenge Foundation. The project is being coordinated by Class 5’s teacher Jude Savill, MondoChallenge representative Amy Pettipher, and ourselves. More on MondoChallenge later, in the meantime we just had to print and reply to these wonderful letters. Here are the first three:
Dear Nathan and Dafydd,
We’re so pleased you’re now thinking of sailing in the future. It’s a lot of fun and it helps keep you fit. We haven’t met any pirates but sometimes when we were at sea we saw boats that could have been pirates. We guess we’ll never know, but we can tell you now we don’t ever want to meet one on the high seas!
Dear Georgia and Harry,
Thanks for your kind wishes, they mean a lot to us. Right now Millie is living a very luxurious life on the boat in India whilst we are here in England. She is being looked after by two people who come onto the boat, feed her twice a day and pamper her. We think the most exotic fish we have ever caught is a dorado. When they are in the water they are green and yellow with flashes of blue. When you catch them and take them out the water, however, their colour fades very quickly, so you have to be quick to get a good picture of their beautiful colours. We also caught a parrot fish in Egypt, which Millie thought was very tasty!
Dear Drew and Brad,
Thank you for taking the time out to write to us. We’re so glad you enjoyed the video of Swapnil. Many of the children in the Himalayas live similar lives to him. Although life is hard it is beautiful scenery and their houses are very comfortable. The only thing we didn’t like was the salted tea they serve up! It’s horrible but it’s a tradition in northern India, especially in the mountains. For more stories just take a look through this website, there are plenty of pictures and stories. If you click here you’ll see a list of all the places we have visited.
More letters answered next time!
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Dear Liz and Jamie,
Namaste! Its superb.You have answered the questions so beautifully.It is so inspiring for me too.
Deven
Well done Jamie and Liz. To take time to broaden people’s, and especially children’s, minds is a fantastic thing to do. Not sure any pushy, career minded parents will thank you though!
Hi Gav. I hope those parents remember there are plenty of careers at sea, including the Navy, commercial shipping, fishing, coast guard, as well as charitable organisations like the RNLI who need career-minded people!
How fantastic of you to find time to reply! The children will be delighted – I’ll email them with a direct link, thanks again.
Jude x x
They were a real joy to talk to and so enthusiastic. Not only did they find their twinned school fascinating, many of the children have been inspired to think about sailing… read the next post out on Thursday