15.01.07 The African Way

First of all - thank you thank you for the emails and comments on the blog. Having travelled (soooo long ago) without all this communication I'm amazed at how lovely it is to log on and hear from you. Though anonymous "tidy room mate" there is no hiding! You would be amazed at how neat I'm being, although it has developed that Joyce is allowing me most of the table space.

I've been here just over a week now, and in some ways it seems longer. I'm excited about being able to get stuck into project work now and I have lots of ideas buzzing round my heat-addled brain. It has been so so hot that we have struggled for the last couple of days, and the Doxy (anti malarial) is making me quite sun sensitive, but hopefully that will settle down.

Last week's new volunteers, including me, went to the game park on Thursday. It was interesting but we only saw zebra and giraffe and the McDonalds of the bush here - impala (fast food for lions). Very tame after the Serengeti. The visit to the local village was interesting - more than I thought it would be as our driver from the project is part of the "royal family" of this tribe and he took us there. The village of 7000 people has 4 water taps which were installed by the UN 10 years ago. Before that the women had to walk 8km for water. The traditional houses are round with thatched roofs - the round walls mean that there are no hiding places for snakes and the thatch is cool in summer and warm in winter. The new fashion is now for square houses with tin roofs, so the incidents of snake bites have increased and the houses are stifling in summer and cold in winter. Hey - that's fashion for you. I will add a couple of photos to this post in the next day or so as I've just found out I can.

On Friday I taught a Grade 2 class in the morning - yes taught. I sat in with the teacher for a while and then she asked me to take the English lesson. It was a bit daunting to be honest - 40 or so 8 year old faces looking at me, part expectant, part puzzled. We all got through it successfully and they now have a grasp of the letter "T". The rubber hose was on the table but thankfully was not used. I'm not sure I could bear to see such small children (and they are small) being hit with this. I set them a wee test and walked round while they did it. One child, called Gift, wasn't writing. When I asked him why he said he didn't have a pencil. Another wee girl called Martha was writing with a pencil that had fallen apart so she was holding the bits together while she did the spelling test. Those that did have pencils were sharpening them with double sided razor blades, but they seem quite adept at this. The kids are sweet and enthusiastic and most of them do try so hard. They wear school uniforms at least 3 sizes too big for them so that they grow into them, or they are quite raggy as they are wearing hand me downs. Some of them are well fed and bright, but in the class of 40, I would say there were 3 or 4 of those. The first class lasted from 7am to 10.15, and then the second group come in at 10.15. The same happens in the afternoon, so each child only gets about 2 - 3 hours of schooling a day.

I spent Friday afternoon back at the farm. We were watering the pepper plants and I ended up being covered in mud. There is probably a bit of a clash of cultures going on at this project as when we arrive they all go and sit in the shade and watch us work, which is a bit annoying as the whole idea is that we supplement their resource. It was boiling on Friday and I wasn't too happy about this so we knocked off half an hour early. We had to anyway as the hose being used to bring the water up from the river kept on falling apart. No croc sightings.

I was back at the farm today, and I think they must have sensed something as there was about six people working with us. We were watering okra plants - they are tall and have scratchy leaves - and then cleared some more ground for planting. I'm going back tomorrow I think, but I haven't been to the orphanage for quite a few days now so I took the braids out as they were falling apart. I'm thinking about dreds......

Anyway, this morning was really interesting. I started work at the Livingstone College of Tourism Studies. This is a 6 month programme to teach prostitutes and others who have very poor prospects the skills necessary to work in the hotel industry. More hotels are being built here so there will be jobs coming. My class was 13 people - 10 women and 3 men - aged from 17 to 27. We have a room which is about 1.5m by 3m to sit in with 2 rickety benches and one desk, a very rough blackboard and bare breeze block walls. They looked quite surprised to see me and were not quite sure what to expect - to be honest neither was I. We did a 'break the ice' session which lasted about an hour and then I talked with them about oh, anything and everything. I talked for about an hour with the project leader - a lovely man called David, and the chap who is going to teach them computer skills - Innocent. I kept on asking what he wanted me to teach them, but apart from HIV awareness and personal hygiene, he had nothing specific in mind. So here are my ideas - we are going to have a topic of the week and every Wednesday we will have a discussion group. This is to get them used to talking to foreigners and making small talk and for them to learn a bit about diffent cultures. I am going to teach them to touch type. This evening I'm going to create a picture of the QWERTY keyboard, get it laminated and then give each person one so that they can practice typing exercises at home; there is only one PC at the project and it is not reliable. I'm going to talk to them about food and food hygiene - in fact this week's topic is food and this morning we discussed what they eat and what we eat (don't go there right now). I am going to teach them how to boil, scramble, poach and fry eggs!! And on Saturday we are going to visit a local hotel so that we can see how its done. There will be lots of role play! I want to make it interesting and fun but mostly I want to give them enough confidence and skills to get a job! We also need to look at the internet. They don't know what it is. One girl said "its just a word". I am looking forward to getting to know this group and building a relationship with each of them.

I miss the schools though and I don't want to leave that behind, so I'm thinking of maybe one morning a week to swap with one of the other teachers. We'll have to work out resources as the week progresses, but the plan is that I'll run the tourism course and try to set out a timetable for them.

I think what has concerned me most about all the teaching experiences so far is that there is no attempt to develop in pupils an ability to think. The children don't know how to work out the answers to questions and they are not told. If they can work it out themselves, they will progress. If they can't, they won't. Even the adults in my class today didn't know how to work out answers to questions. When I arrived this morning they were copying recipes from 'Microwave Cooking' to try to understand what we eat. I wonder what they really think! Having said all that, I am getting more into 'the African way'. Things are not going to go as I would like, certainly not as quickly as I would hope, and in this heat I am much more accepting of that. Having said that, the people are generally very open and nice to deal with, and are positive about what we can do. Everyone keeps saying that anything is better than what there was before so it almost doesn't matter what it is.

Day to day life is structured during the week - we all start work between 7 and 8, come back for a break at lunch time to sit out the heat and then work again between 3 and 5. There is much going out, but I'm trying to be careful budget wise as so far I've spent more than I thought I would. We also have to iron everything - I mean everything - as there is a type of fly that lays eggs in warm wet clothes and then the larvae burrow into your skin and, well, the rest is too gross to describe. Some people have become complacent about this, but one girl here has got this and she now has to wait until the inevitable happens. Alien#4 - yeuch.

At the weekend we snuck into one of the nice hotels here and lay by the pool. When I first got here and heard the other volunteers say they did this I was a bit sceptical, but the week's work is quite hard and emotionally demanding, and we all need the down time. On Saturday evening we had a cruise on the Zambezi and saw 3 elephants swimming across the river. It was an incredible sight, but I didn't have my camera with me. On Sunday we went to the amazing Royal Livingstone hotel and watched the sun go down on the river. See Nicky P - I am taking your advice!

Right, I know this is long enough already, and I need a shower and dinner (please no more pasta, I hate the stuff). I can't help it - I type quickly and there is so much to say. I feel like I've covered only half of it. All good things etc.

Love to you all.