Tommy went to the football pitches this morning. He went for a morning walk and met up with some of the children from the project. They were very keen to show him where they played football and he went along. He was chatting away to them and covering all the usual football topics, including Darren Fletcher and Alex Ferguson and any other Scottish sporting connections the boys could remember. He then asked them about the project and they said how much they got from it and how they really enjoyed it. Tommy then asked them if they enjoyed Sundays and Daniel replied, “No, because we don’t get to eat on Sundays”.
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An early night on Sunday felt like being back in England, and similarly, Monday morning meant off to school. Tommy and I stood in the courtyard waiting for Gary, our driver, to collect us. We were both nervous about what the day had in store. We had met many of the beneficiaries already but were we ready for the classroom?
I began by reintroducing myself; I had the more advanced group who I knew had some grasp of English. I did not want to insult them by making the lessons too easy, but equally didn’t want to give them impossible tasks! We focused on conversation and how to get to know a stranger. They seemed to enjoy the work, particularly getting up at the front to show off their ability. For the last part of the session, I got out the school prospectus and showed them an English school. They were amazed and had many questions. I felt a pride in my own place of work, but also a terrible sadness. The nine boys in my class today would do anything to spend just a day in an English school.
After a tea break, we practised the new vocabulary a little more before getting out the songbooks. My friend Nick produced these in advance of the trip and I think will prove to be very popular. I have promised to teach them a new song each day, we sang “You Are My Sunshine” today, a song Cahal had already taught them. However, we learnt two new verses today. They wanted to keep singing and singing. I’ve also promised to get the guitar out tomorrow.
After a long lunch back at St Vincent’s we returned to Abba Gemichael’s (this is the name of the school for the street children project we found out). Gary very kindly took us back via the bank where we changed some Dollars into Birr. There was a massive queue downstairs, but we got taken to an upstairs office where the staff were incredibly friendly. They were asking us what we were doing in Mekele and even asked us if we wanted to stop for coffee! I now have a few thousand Birr in my pocket to pay for internet access and dinner out this evening with Seamus and Hilu from the Addis CAFOD office.
The afternoon class had around 30 students in it and was a lot more noisy and lively than the morning lessons. They were a little slower on the uptake and it was harder to work out which students were keeping up. I also had less time with the group, as the afternoon sessions are shorter. We went through basic introductions, where a few of the girls displayed more developed English showing off in front of the boys. Some things don’t change wherever you are in the world!
At the end, Sr. Fisseha introduced me to some of the music group. These were some of the success stories of the street children project, Isaac who I had met before is a guitarist in the band and has recently completed an IT course. Another of the students is training to be an art and design teacher. Having these kind of role models must be inspirational to other beneficiaries. There is a way to escape the poverty and hardship of being a street child and these students, through hard work, are an example of that. Hopefully some of the students we work with over the next five weeks will go on to such successes and I feel honoured to be a part of that.
It was not as tough as I thought it might be. I still feel a great need to impress and be the most effective teacher I can be. Tedros seemed very pleased and basically told us they are so grateful that anything we do is fantastic. I set myself high standards and hope that the children can progress a great deal in the next 5 weeks. It is going to be hard and I am still finding it difficult to get to terms with the lack of writing that goes on, however Tedros says that from tomorrow he will make sure they have notebooks to at least jot some things down. One thing I am really looking forward to is getting through my “Europe to Ethiopia” songbook!
The rain today has been torrential. All afternoon we have had the most heavy of rain. Luckily I have escaped getting too soaked but this is the rainy season here. It makes the usually dusty and dry unmade roads into mini-rivers and incredibly muddy. For the last few days there has only been brief showers followed by beautiful hot sunshine. However, not today: it is early evening and still it pours.
Also, the sister have said that if we want to receive post we can send it to their PO box. Nothing of value should be sent, as security is poor and often things get opened (Mekele postal workers apparently shrug their shoulders and say it arrived like that!). It’s “PO Box 69, Mekele, Tigray, Ethiopia” and mark with Andy or ‘Endreas’ as I seem to be know these days!
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An early night on Sunday felt like being back in England, and similarly, Monday morning meant off to school. Tommy and I stood in the courtyard waiting for Gary, our driver, to collect us. We were both nervous about what the day had in store. We had met many of the beneficiaries already but were we ready for the classroom?
I began by reintroducing myself; I had the more advanced group who I knew had some grasp of English. I did not want to insult them by making the lessons too easy, but equally didn’t want to give them impossible tasks! We focused on conversation and how to get to know a stranger. They seemed to enjoy the work, particularly getting up at the front to show off their ability. For the last part of the session, I got out the school prospectus and showed them an English school. They were amazed and had many questions. I felt a pride in my own place of work, but also a terrible sadness. The nine boys in my class today would do anything to spend just a day in an English school.
After a tea break, we practised the new vocabulary a little more before getting out the songbooks. My friend Nick produced these in advance of the trip and I think will prove to be very popular. I have promised to teach them a new song each day, we sang “You Are My Sunshine” today, a song Cahal had already taught them. However, we learnt two new verses today. They wanted to keep singing and singing. I’ve also promised to get the guitar out tomorrow.
After a long lunch back at St Vincent’s we returned to Abba Gemichael’s (this is the name of the school for the street children project we found out). Gary very kindly took us back via the bank where we changed some Dollars into Birr. There was a massive queue downstairs, but we got taken to an upstairs office where the staff were incredibly friendly. They were asking us what we were doing in Mekele and even asked us if we wanted to stop for coffee! I now have a few thousand Birr in my pocket to pay for internet access and dinner out this evening with Seamus and Hilu from the Addis CAFOD office.
The afternoon class had around 30 students in it and was a lot more noisy and lively than the morning lessons. They were a little slower on the uptake and it was harder to work out which students were keeping up. I also had less time with the group, as the afternoon sessions are shorter. We went through basic introductions, where a few of the girls displayed more developed English showing off in front of the boys. Some things don’t change wherever you are in the world!
At the end, Sr. Fisseha introduced me to some of the music group. These were some of the success stories of the street children project, Isaac who I had met before is a guitarist in the band and has recently completed an IT course. Another of the students is training to be an art and design teacher. Having these kind of role models must be inspirational to other beneficiaries. There is a way to escape the poverty and hardship of being a street child and these students, through hard work, are an example of that. Hopefully some of the students we work with over the next five weeks will go on to such successes and I feel honoured to be a part of that.
It was not as tough as I thought it might be. I still feel a great need to impress and be the most effective teacher I can be. Tedros seemed very pleased and basically told us they are so grateful that anything we do is fantastic. I set myself high standards and hope that the children can progress a great deal in the next 5 weeks. It is going to be hard and I am still finding it difficult to get to terms with the lack of writing that goes on, however Tedros says that from tomorrow he will make sure they have notebooks to at least jot some things down. One thing I am really looking forward to is getting through my “Europe to Ethiopia” songbook!
The rain today has been torrential. All afternoon we have had the most heavy of rain. Luckily I have escaped getting too soaked but this is the rainy season here. It makes the usually dusty and dry unmade roads into mini-rivers and incredibly muddy. For the last few days there has only been brief showers followed by beautiful hot sunshine. However, not today: it is early evening and still it pours.
Also, the sister have said that if we want to receive post we can send it to their PO box. Nothing of value should be sent, as security is poor and often things get opened (Mekele postal workers apparently shrug their shoulders and say it arrived like that!). It’s “PO Box 69, Mekele, Tigray, Ethiopia” and mark with Andy or ‘Endreas’ as I seem to be know these days!
1 comment:
Another lovely post. I particularly loved the idea of you teaching them
"You Are My Sunshine" - it's a lovely song :)
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