The film festival was Simon and Else's baby. We divided all the kids up into 4 teams, each had to write a script, make a storyboard, design costumes and makeup, make movie posters and then film a short film. Every child had a part whether it was in front or behind the camera. Every team chose Zombies as their theme!
We had an amazing premiere night for the festival, complete with red velvet ropes along the entrance, a red carpet, popcorn and drinks for all. When the films were shown we could barely hear them as the kids were laughing and cheering so much. It was a fantastic evening.
Here is a link to the videos
http://blog.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mun2/1/1373329802/tpod.html
I took a few groups hiking up a mini mountain behind the centre. I made an ancient looking treasure map leading to a spot where I'd hidden snacks and another where we had some small presents (pens and notepads). I left it up to the kids to to find the landmarks and tried to promote teamwork where we all went together as one and it worked fantastic, the photos I have of them all gathered around the map make me smile a lot. The joy when they found the 'treasure' was priceless!
We were soon joined by extra volunteers Joey, Peter and Connor which gave us a great group to run other activities like arts and crafts, gardening, camping, touch football, music lessons just to name a few. A couple of us built a volleyball court which made way for some fun afternoons. Teaching bike maintenance was another of my activities, and by the way they rode the bikes we were never short of work!
One afternoon I went to the 'Black Market' and bought 15m of vinyl flooring and created possibly Mongolia's first ever slip n slide, best thjng I have ever spent money on!
