Funication

I wrote this post from inside a bush taxi. Was sat waiting for 2 hours before it moved. It´s so African! They never move til they´re full. Could´ve been spending my time doing more productive things on the net but nevermind!

Apart from the transport everything´s going well. Teaching wise, it´s getting a bit easier teaching grade six. We´ve been making plane and solid shapes with some of the resources I brought. Those are noisy lessons! Fun though. We´re now measuring the students heights and plotting graphs. All a lot more enjoyable for the kids than doing sums from a text book. PVA glue and muller yoghurt pots make teaching so much easier! I was never quite sure what resources to bring from home but without some of them I would be very stuck. I´ve bought maths sets for the school whilst the other volunteer has supplied more rulers. I´ve used a few of my resources at the nursery but their resource cupboard is a goldmine of stuff! They´ve had so many donations. Progress at the Nursery is still slow but at least the teachers have at least cut down on beating the kids. One makes the kids kneel down for part of the lesson if they misbehave. It´s a start! The main problem with the nursery is that it´s often closed! There has been a big court case involving many people from Makumbaya, including the father of one of the teachers. They´ve been held in custody over a land dispute with a neighbouring village so the teachers often go to attend court. As well as teaching at the school and the nursery when it´s open, I´m teaching a few more people how to use computers at the internet cafe I use in Lamin. The other volunteer teaches basic English to some of the women in the village. I help some of the women to practice and develop their English outside of the classes. The personal tuition is what I enjoy most and I feel this is where I am most beneficial.

I´ve spent some of my time away from the village at the beach. I took my host family last Sunday. It was the first time any of the kids had even seen the sea so they were a bit nervous! They loved it though. We´re going to go again and have a proper Gambian party!! I will be doing more travelling when my Gambian namesake finishes his exams. You´ll probably wonder why I´ve got no tan when I get back to England. It´s mostly too hot to be out in the sun so I stay in the shade as much as possible. I went a bit overboard when I bought suncream! I also have no idea why I brought a mosquito head net. Who would use one except maybe Ray Mears? Some of the personal items I´ve brought have have saved my life here though. The mobile solar charger being top of my list. An absolute lifesaver in a village with no electricity.

I´m still progressing with my djembe playing. The lessons are such a great way of learning more about Gambian and African culture. Djembe means ´talking drum´ and all the rhythms that I´m learning have phonetic names. I´m also teaching the new volunteer! She unfortunately finds my teacher Cosmos far too unpleasant. He´s managed to fall out with everyone else we were drumming with annoyingly. I still have lessons with him but his mouth gets him in trouble. Many people in the village have amusing ways of phrasing things in English but I could write a book of all the things Cos says. He got a bit muddled with the meanings for adultery and having fun. The result: Funication!!

For those of you without access to Facebook, here´s the link to my other photo album.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2289305&id=61108717&l=3baa4b007b