Earth Hour

Saturday at 8.30pm was earth hour, although I'm not sure the message had reached Sapa. Here at Sapa O'Chau however we did try to tell the kids about it. Jenna one of the volunteer teachers tried to explain the principles behind Earth Hour and how we would be turning all the power off at the school on Saturday night and why. Does everyone understand? Nope. Oh well, we tried.

Sapa O'Chau Students

To make it more fun for the kids we decided that we would all spend Earth Hour together and tell spooky stories and play games by candlelight. Not entirely keeping up the environmental theme but it was fun for the kids (and us). This weekend was also some kind of holiday in Vietnam so it was especially busy here and there was a cultural show going on on the Saturday night, no chance of the lights going off then. Some of the kids from the school were involved and it was lovely to see them in their traditional clothes singing and playing instruments.

After the show we walked with the students back up to the school ready for Earth Hour activities. Our first issue was lighting the candles, no matches or a lighter. Fail! Once that problem was solved we pulled our chairs in close and started telling a scary story about students in a classroom late at night hearing noises outside and on the roof. They really got into the spirit of things with some of the braver ones going to look out of the windows to see what was there before we all SCRRRREEEEEEEEEAAAAAAMMMMEEED!! Very funny indeed! After that we talked about some of the beliefs about spirits in their culture which was really interesting, especially the water spirits, slightly scared of all forms of water now but don't worry I have washed today. We also played wink murder which was very much fun by candlelight, once we had established that everyone understood the rules that is!!

The candles are lit!

Water spirit tales

Earth Hour or not, it was a really cool way to spend an evening with the students and they really enjoyed it too. Whatever else happens in the week is always forgotten when you see them happy and smiling. I will probably always remember this night when I hear Earth Hour being talked about in the future. OK so it didn't have much to do with it other than we turned off the lights etc but it was a magical night and that is a memory to treasure.