The art of 'Winging It'

One thing that Zimbabwe taught me was that planning in advance is often overrated. To begin with, we would meticulously organise our lessons and as a result they would rarely go to plan at all. Infact, one event that we completely 'wung' (the red squiggly line tells me that is grammatically wrong but you get the idea) turned out to be one of the most successful days of placement. After meeting with some village elders on the Wednesday, they suggested that we do a football tournament on Saturday in order to overcome our problem of centralising the youth. Slightly crazy with the thought that something constructive was actually going to come about so soon, we scribbled down some lines on coloured A4 paper: 'FOOTBALL AND NETBALL TOURNAMENT: SATURDAY. COME AND MEET THE KHIWAS FROM RESTLESS DEVELOPMENT. PRIZES' Little did we know what we had let ourselves in for. On that Saturday, after waiting for almost 4 hours for anyone to show up (we weren't yet accustomed to 'Africa Time'), the footballers, netballers and villagers turned up in their hundreds to see what these crazy khiwas were up to. And it was brilliant. After the initial panic, we suddenly realised that somehow we were in charge of all these people and therefore had to do something about that. So the games began, and we squinted into the dust as the sun lay lower in the sky- probably shrinking away from the all the bolshy competitiveness. People cheering, dancing, singing PRAISE THEEE LAWD for these marvelous games that had brought everyone together. We had completely wung it, and it was a giant success better than we could have ever anticipated. 

And so, as I embark on my next adventure across the world, I will be trying very hard to 'wing it' as much as possible and see what comes up (much to Mum's horror). The next couple of months I will continue trying to earn as much as I can so that money cannot limit me too much. My dream of the circus will have to be put on hold, as the thought of staying around Stroud for much longer is making me go slightly mad. (I will save it for a time when I have some uni exams I want to run away from).

Perhaps, by expecting less, you discover more. So until I have to be back for Leeds this September, I am going to be practicing the art of 'winging it' and find out if its as ridiculous an idea as it sounds.