Monday 8 October 2012

Getting into the swing of things

I wrote this whilst sitting on the swings in the playground outside our house yesterday afternoon. There was a church service going on inside the nursery building and it sounded amazing with all the drumming, clapping and singing. Maybe next week I'll pluck up the courage to go inside, even if I don't understand most of what's being said. I learned last week that 'Ambuye' means 'God', which is a good place to start.

In the latest email from home, my dad asked me if I feel like me project had really begun; do i feel like I'm helping people? Or am I still just getting into the swing of things?
Well, over the past week I've felt like it's just beginning. On Wednesday Catriona and I taught an English lesson about the plural of certain types of nouns, and then we taught the same lesson (although slightly more organised) to a different class in the afternoon. Even though it was a bit slap dash it reminded me of how much I really enjoyed teaching on my training and selection courses, and we both had a little giggle at how the kids all said "hair" like a Scouser and "book" like a Scot when we were getting them to repeat after us.

As for helping people, I don't feel like I've dona anything major yet but I feel confident now that we can make a difference over time.One of the older boys has said that he wants to go back to school, but didn't do too well on the assessment we gave him, so I'm going to try really hard to help him get to the level he needs to be at to go back to school. He came over to ask me for help the other day and he called me 'madame', which is what all students call female teachers. Being used to being addressed by my first name, or my nickname (wisdom (louise - wiz - wisdom)), or just 'azungu' when I'm at the nursery, it took my by surprise and made me feel really grown up.

And the third question? I am still getting into the swing of things (she writes, whilst rocking back and forth on the swing). There's still loads to learn about the kids (and from them - I had to reminded of the method for doing long subtraction when 'helping' with homework on Thursday) but I'm starting to feel like one of the family. Sitting outside with some of the girls on Friday, belting out Christmas songs in the middle of October and falling about laughing, reminded me that life over here doesn't always have to be so different to life at home. Not when you're a bit crazy, which a lot of people have told me you would have to be to do what I'm doing.

1 comment:

  1. ♥Lou! Aww it sweet what your doing :') Sounds like your having fun xx Miss you ♥

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