Week 12- Personal 20/4/12

Week 12- Personal 20/4/12

Before writing our final blogs, Harriet and I spent some time reading our previous blogs and we found ourselves reminding each other of the experiences we’ve had and the people we’ve met. It’s strange how quickly you forget some of the random things that happen and it was really nice to go back and remember them. We have so many stories from our time here in Livingstone and I hope we will both still be telling them in many years to come. Blogging has been a brilliant way of sharing some of our experiences, and there are many more funny, happy, sad, emotional and amazing stories to be told, and also some which are best kept until I am safely back in Northern Ireland and my parents have stopped worrying about me being away!

When it actually came to saying goodbye to Livingstone this week, I expressed quite a lot of emotions. I went from feeling sad about saying goodbye to people, to stressed out about getting everything to fit in my rucksack, to being a little in denial and deciding that I was actually not going to leave, but also feeling excited for the next part of our journey.

On first arrival in Jollyboys I remember thinking back to how much the girls from last year had loved staying there, and for about the first week I just kept thinking there was no way I would reach that point with Jollyboys. But once we got to know our way around properly, got into a routine and started getting to know the staff better, it really did become like home. The staff at Jollyboys became like our family out here and we built up brilliant relationships throughout our stay, with the barman handing me my lunchtime Sprite before I even needed to ask, the cleaning ladies leaving empty toilet rolls outside our hut to use at school and the orphanage to make things with the children, buying a birthday cake for the daughter of one of the staff, going to yoga with one of the owners, and the other owner even proof-reading my dissertation for me. Jollyboys was such a major part of my enjoyment of Livingstone and I think the fact that we crept out at 6am on our day of leaving, to catch the bus to Lusaka was a good thing. At this time of morning none of the staff had started work and I think having a big send-off would definitely have caused some tears.

Leaving our 'family' at Jollyboys

I was quite impressed with how well I dealt with my emotions of leaving; as I am known for being a very emotional person, it was quite surprising that I managed not to cry. Time spent here has helped me to ‘toughen-up’ a bit and apart from one very emotional day of tears (started by watching a sad film), nearly crying during a phone call with my little sister, getting a bit emotional after a farewell song from a girl at school, and being on the verge of tears when trying to pack on our final night in Livingstone, my mood has general been very happy throughout my time here. This may be the good influence of Harriet who admitted to being called a ‘cold fish’ before. She has also been very good at dealing with her emotions, apart from a difficult day when the internet not working nearly drove her to tears (but I think this may have really been due to a stressful week of dissertation writing).

When I thought about coming to Zambia I honestly didn’t really know what to expect. Having never been to Africa, my expectations were mainly based on what you see on outreach adverts on TV asking people to donate money to the African people. Time spent here has shown that there is definitely a lot of need in Zambia, but those adverts, showing crying, malnourished children and struggling adults, do not even nearly capture the nature of the people who live here. It is very tempting to write a lot about how little the people here have, and although that may be true in terms of material things, I feel it is unnecessary to refer to this so much since I don’t think this is the attitude that the people themselves have. I rarely heard the local people complaining or feeling sorry for themselves; most always greeted you with a happy smile, and just got on with their lives, working and providing for their families.

Some pictures of the local people who we met in the street and also in one of the villages.

Spending time here has dramatically changed my impressions of Africa, and has shown me the pride, determination, patience, kindness and hope in the people of the Zambian nation. As well as becoming more independent, doing a lot of growing up, and ‘toughening-up’ a bit, I hope that my time here will have helped me to integrate the qualities that I now associate with the Zambian people, into my own life when I return to Northern Ireland.

After leaving Jollyboys, we immediately started a new adventure, making it much easier to get over our initial missing of Livingstone. A sleepy six hour bus ride to Lusaka, funny/unlucky taxi drive to the airport, scary/exciting journey in the first small plane I’ve ever been in, and bumpy but enjoyable Safari truck ride, eventually brought us to South Luangwa. The incident in the taxi was unlucky as it involved us losing $15 but I couldn’t help but laugh, and Harriet did see the funny side after getting over her initial annoyance. Basically it began with me trying to be very prepared and having the money to pay the taxi man ready in advance. One of our Livingstone friends taught us a random, fun thing to do where you put down the window in the car and wave your hand around when it’s travelling really fast, so when I saw Harriet doing it, I decided I would join in. Unfortunately, when I rolled down my window, the wind caught through the car between the two open windows and out went our money. Harriet’s immediate reaction was to leap across the car, put up my window and laugh at the ‘paper’ which had blown out the window; however, she was less impressed when I told her that the paper was actually our money. I assured her this was something we would laugh about later (which we did).

South Luangwa did not disappoint and the four nights we spent there will no doubt be another highlight of the trip. I think my favourite part was being woken up on our first night there by elephants blowing bubbles outside our tent. At 4am we were both standing on the toilet seat stretching to try and catch a glimpse of the herd of elephants that had wandered into the camp during the night. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence and there were even watchmen who walked you to and from your tent in the evenings just in case you came across an elephant or hippo on the way. It is also amazing how quickly things become normal, since on the third day we were walking back from lunch when we saw elephants on the path, and we simply walked on, taking a different route!

The mention of our accommodation being a ‘tent’ is used in the loosest possible meaning of the word, since it was certainly the most luxurious tent I’ve ever seen; being at least twice the size of our Jollyboys hut, having an en suite, and extremely comfortable beds. Having our beds turned down and our mosquito nets put up in the evenings for us was another touch of luxury, alongside the extremely attentive staff and the tasty food.

Chilling by the South Luangwa river with a buffalo skull!

On top of all this, there was of course the actual safari part. We were very lucky on our four game drives; seeing elephants, giraffes, zebra, four types of antelope, hippos, hyenas, wild dogs, warthogs, lions and a leopard (plus lots of random little small animals and some of the most beautiful birds). Our safari group was made up of Harriet and me, our guide Robert who was a fountain of knowledge knowing everything about everything and teaching me a lot, and some honeymooners. When we first met the honeymooners we were a bit worried about how ‘coupley’ they may be and also that we might be intruding on their romantic honeymoon, but over the three days we all became very close, and we are even planning to meet them in Malawi. The bride even told us that if they had have had to choose from a list of a thousand people to spend their honeymoon with, they would still have chosen us!

Just a couple of our MANY safari snaps!

Unfortunately we had to leave the bliss of South Luangwa but again the good experiences continued. After an evening spent in the local village where we ate our last Zambian nshima and chatted with our last Zambian locals, we made our way to Chipata, via what must be the bumpiest road in the world. Luckily, we chose a ‘strong’ bus, which got the whole way to Chipata without any flat tyres; this is apparently very rare and we heard about some girls who had five flat tyres making the six-hour journey last fourteen hours!

Leaving Chipata marked the end of our stay in Zambia and after almost a twelve week stay, I have grown very attached to the country, its culture and its people. I would easily spend more time here (other than the fact that our visas only allow for three months!) but it is time to start a new adventure and hopefully fall in love with another African country. Hello Malawi!

Week 11- Cultural 13/4/12

Unbelievably, this is my penultimate blog. Our time here really is flying by, especially now in our final weeks. This week I decided to reflect on what I have learnt about the Zambian culture whilst being here. Strangely, this took a lot of thought and because we have settled in to life here so well, I almost feel like the cultural differences are difficult to identify now. But something which I have been meaning to write about since the beginning of our time here is the place of religion in the Zambian culture.

Throughout our stay in Livingstone, it has become very clear that religion is a huge part of the Zambian culture. Almost everyone here will ask you about your religious beliefs and are quick to share their own with you. I found this quite surprising as in Northern Ireland religion isn’t such a talked about topic, and it is almost surprising to some people if you attend church on a regular basis, whereas here it is quite the opposite, with the local people being appalled if you say you aren’t a church-goer.

I was excited to get an African experience of church and throughout my stay here I have attended quite a few different denominations. As with churches at home, there are a lot of differences between denominations and some of the churches I visited I felt very much at home in, whereas in others I didn’t really know what was going on most of the time. Most of the churches advertise the fact that all services are in English which makes visitors very welcome, and all of the churches I went to invited ‘visitors’ to the front to tell the congregation where they were from and a little about themselves and their time in Livingstone. Although I tried to avoid these situations, since standing up at the front of the church made me very nervous, it was quite difficult since I usually stuck out as one of the few white people there!

The churches I have visited here in Livingstone. 

The major difference that I found between our churches at home and churches here in Livingstone is the worship. Praise here is just so much more active and you can tell that people just let themselves go and praise in whatever way they feel comfortable, from jumping up and down, to shouting out and making a sound which I can only describe as yodelling. It is amazing to see this; people really enjoying themselves, and I found myself being a lot less reserved than I would be at home.

My favourite church service here was when I attended the local Presbyterian church (my home denomination) on Easter Sunday. The service was brilliant, from the extended worship, to the minister’s witty remarks during the sermon, to the children’s contribution which was a short drama about the life of Jesus; I barely saw two and a half hours pass by! The focus on Easter here seems to be a bit less than it is at home but I think this is just because of the absence of chocolate eggs and the ‘Easter bunny’. There isn’t the commercial side of Easter and the only Easter eggs we had were ones that came from Northern Ireland in preparation for Easter. This is quite nice in some ways as it makes it easier to focus on the true meaning of Easter.

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my experiences of church here in Livingstone. It has opened my eyes to the differences between denominations and also the core values which are integral to the Christian faith. I hope that I’ll have some more positive experiences as we travel on through Africa!

As we near the end of our stay here in Livingstone, we are suddenly trying to pack everything in to too little time. When we arrived here we were overwhelmed by how much there was to do and as time has passed we have gotten to do many of the things we planned and also much, much more. The best thing I think we learnt here was to not try to plan every minute of every day, because it was the spur of the moment decisions and meeting random people that got us the best opportunities (like seeing the cheetahs!). We have been very lucky with the things we have gotten to do and our ‘to-do list’ has been very well ticked off so far and we hope to tick off a few more during our last weeks in Africa.

We didn’t have much of a social life this week as it was taken over by our dissertation, so the highlight of our Friday night was popcorn, and our highlight of Saturday night was a feast of crisps, crackers and cheese and peanuts (we really do enjoy our food over here!). I indulged in a day off from writing on Saturday and had a nice day watching a movie and then doing some shopping at the Curio Markets. The markets are always quite an experience since everyone is trying to draw you into their shop because they are so desperate for the business. It is hard to believe they all do business since everyone basically sells the same items. I was quite impressed with my bargaining skills and anytime you ask how much something is you are told a ridiculously high price, but “prices are negotiable” so it is then up to you to suggest a price and then together come to a compromise. At first I was quite bad at this and you know you’ve failed when the seller agrees to the first price that you suggest. The best bargain of the day was paying $30 for something which had initially been $70.

Harriet and Patrick checking out the
damage caused by the elephants. 

We also visited the college this week and were shown the damage which had been done by the wild elephants at the end of last year. Stranmillis had collected some money for us to take over as a way of hopefully repairing some of the damage done. Patrick showed us where the walls had been broken down and together we made a plan of how the money could be used to repair these walls, since they are currently causing problems with local people having access to the college grounds and trespassing. Through this meeting with Patrick it became clear just how difficult it is to get a job done here. He spoke about the problem of getting people to do the labour- you can’t just look up the yellow pages and find a builder, and even when you do find someone you don’t know how reliable they will be. There seems to be major problems when it comes to money; ensuring the right amount is paid and that the money is deserved, which means that it could be a long time until the walls are actually fixed but Patrick has assured us that he will keep us updated on the situation.

Saying our goodbyes to Patrick!

Aside from still working hard at our dissertations in an effort to get them finished as soon as possible, we are now thinking about saying goodbye to people, shopping for presents from Livingstone for people at home, revisiting our favourite eating places, doing our favourite activities for the ‘last time’, and even packing. It seems ridiculous that it is nearly time to pack everything up again and say goodbye to ‘Giraffe’- our little hut, since in many ways it feels like just yesterday that Amazon delivered my rucksack and I assured my Mum that there was ‘NO WAY’ I was going to fit all of my stuff into it!

Our goodbyes have already started with us saying our final farewells to the children at school, the teachers, and also the children at the orphanage. All of these goodbyes were hard, especially when saying goodbye to the children, but we have both managed to not get too emotional! We left the orphanage with some brilliant news which gave us a happy ending rather than a sad one. One of our ‘favourites’- a little boy called Danny who was from the Congo, has now left the orphanage when his mother came to get him. We were both so pleased to hear this news and very glad to see such a beautiful, intelligent little boy getting home to his family.

 

 Saying goodbye to the children at the orphanage.  

I think it is very clear to anyone I have spoken to, that I have fallen in love with Africa, and have thoroughly enjoyed my time here in Livingstone. This weekend will no doubt be an emotional one as we say our goodbyes but at the same time, we are very excited for the next part of our adventure! Next stop- South Luangwa for safari! 

Week 10- Personal 6/4/12

From a suspected rat in the roof of our hut (which turned out to just be a lizard), to having to deal with my fear of the dark, this week I felt a little bit out of my comfort zone at times and I had a bit of personal development (and growing up) to do!

We took a little ‘time out’ this week and went to Bovu Island; a trip that we’d been meaning to take since we arrived here but just hadn’t gotten around to it. Bovu is an island in the Zambezi River, about an hour and a half from Livingstone and the big selling point of it is its focus on just relaxing and doing absolutely nothing! This meant that the trip came as a nice break from dissertation writing. Bovu has no electricity, internet connection or phone reception and this was actually quite exciting for us and we were looking forward to getting away from everything.

Day time at Bovu wasn’t a problem and I was able to deal very well without my phone or the internet, which I am usually quite addicted to when I have access to them. Although, in saying that, we were only away for three days so given a longer period of time I may not deal with it just as well! I was reminded of how much I rely on people at home, and even though I am coping much better than I thought I would with being away from home, I am still very much in constant contact with home and I think that’s what makes it easier.

Our room at Bovu and our spectacularly put up mosquito nets!

Quite stupidly, the fact that no electricity meant no lights at night didn’t register with me, and I was actually quite shocked when it came to night time and the island was in darkness apart from candles, torches and the moonlight. Being afraid of the dark has never been a huge problem for me, just the odd time I get a little scared by it, but being at Bovu really heightened my fear and along with my overactive imagination, I managed to make myself dread nightfall! In the end, nothing terrible happened (unsurprisingly) and I was forced to face my fear (although I wouldn’t say I’ve overcome it!).

Before coming to Zambia I had been told about Bovu Island and was warned that I shouldn’t go there if Harriet and I weren’t getting on well, since you could end up alone on the island and with very few other people to talk to. I remember wondering/worrying at the time about how good the relationship between the two of us might be, and having only ever had Africa-related conversations before coming, I really didn’t know what to expect. Now, after spending ten weeks with each other, we have become pretty much inseparable. Living and teaching together were a choice beyond our control but it has turned out that we choose to spend pretty much every minute of the day together! Most of our socialising is done together, we dissertation write side by side- if Harriet goes to our room I usually follow closely after, we eat all our meals at the same time, and pretty much everything else too! Activities done separately, like if I go to do the shopping or to church, or Harriet goes out for a run, feel strange and we really have become so dependent on each other- even to point where we always checking with each other before making decisions and always talk about things using the plural terms of ‘we’ or ‘our’.

Spending some time chilling out on our balcony at Bovu.

If I had been sharing this experience with someone who I didn’t get along with I know that it would have been very different and surely not even half as enjoyable. I am so glad that I ended up coming to Zambia with Harriet and I already know that when she leaves Africa two weeks earlier than me at the end of our trip, I am going to feel a bit lost without her!

Before we had our little trip away, we had a very exciting and luxurious weekend. After attending a party on Friday night and then having a relaxed day on Saturday, we then spent Sunday in luxury at the Zambezi Sun and Royal Livingstone (the fancy hotels!). We started off the day with our second complimentary all-you-can-eat breakfast at the Zambezi Sun after being invited by the head chef (again!); we couldn’t quite believe our luck at being invited for a second time. We enjoyed it as much, if not more, than the first one, especially since this time it was just the two of us which meant we could really take advantage of the ‘all-you-can-eat’ and not feel embarrassed, since we both know how ridiculous each other’s appetite can be!

After breakfast we were able to chill out by the pool and pretend we were residents staying at the hotel, although we did feel a bit like we stuck out like sore thumbs with our rucksacks, Northern Irish accents, and shorts and t-shirts, while most of the other guests were wearing designer brands and speaking in very posh accents. The luxury of it all was highlighted when I got up from my lounger to go get a Sprite from the bar and about three waiters and waitresses practically ran at me to take my order, seemingly appalled that I had actually gotten up off my seat to order for myself.

Having a look over the edge of the Falls!

Once we felt like we had outstayed our welcome at the Zambezi Sun, we then moved on to The Royal Livingstone where we chilled out in their gardens for a little while before getting picked up in the boat to be taken for our second visit to Livingstone Island. Our last visit to the island was for breakfast and this time we went for high tea, and the best part was that we managed to get another great bargain, paying a seriously discounted price! Swimming at the top of the Falls was again an amazing experience and the water was much higher and more powerful than it had been on our last visit. We were again reminded of our love of the Falls and although the locals say the novelty does eventually wear off, we both think it would take a very long time for us to get over the amazingness of it! Cocktails and watching the sunset from the deck at The Royal Livingstone finished off our brilliant day.

The African sunset

The other highlight of this week was also Falls-related, and that was seeing the lunar rainbow. The lunar rainbow happens once a month; at the full moon, and this time we finally got around to going to see it. It really is awesome to see a rainbow at night time and the Falls were as beautiful as ever, if not more beautiful, at night time. My only disappointment was that the rainbow didn’t come out in any photos since it was too dark, but it’s a sight I don’t think either of us will forget in a hurry. After some contemplation we decided that we would go to the bridge and have a ‘Falls shower’, even though it was pitch dark and quite a bit colder than it is during the day, but since it is possibly our last visit to the Falls we thought it had to be done. The Falls didn’t disappoint as usual and apart from being absolutely freezing on the journey home, it was absolutely worth it. Ending the night with another little visit to our furry friends at the cheetah and lion enclosure topped off a great night, and we have both also fallen in love with Simba the white lion!

Simba- our favourite guy in Livingstone!

Enjoying the lunar rainbow after our night time shower at the Falls. 

 It feels so strange to be trying to fit everything in to the remainder of our time here, since in some ways it feels like we only just arrived in Livingstone. Ten weeks have flown in and it seems like only yesterday we were beginning our teaching, but now we are finished school and almost nearing the end of our dissertations too. The week ahead will no doubt bring more exciting experiences and it is only when we get home that I think we will truly appreciate all the amazing things we have done here and how good Livingstone has been to us! 

Week 9- Professional 30/3/12

This week has involved stolen chocolate, a middle of the night mosquito attack, a diagnosis of ringworm, hanging out with some cheetahs, our second rafting experience, gorge walking, our first African sunset, an emotional goodbye, a scary visit to immigration with our out-of-date visas, and plenty of singing! But our main activity this week has been dissertation writing.

In an attempt to get really into our work this week we decided to find a new work place which turned out to be the other Jollyboys which is much quieter and a lovely working environment. This has led to us having a very productive week and making a lot of headway with our dissertations.

Introducing my Grade 6 class to
Where the Wild Things Are- my
favourite picture book.

The topic I have chosen to write about for my study is the use of stories within the classroom and this idea came about after I did a module in Children’s Literature last semester and became quite interested in this area of study. Researching the topic has been really interesting and although I have always thought of myself as a ‘maths person’, I am becoming more and more interested in literacy and creative ways of teaching it in the classroom. This is definitely a positive development since “literacy is an essential life skill”, and allows pupils access to the rest of the curriculum (APPG for Education, 2011, p. 4).

My research is helping me to think about how I can teach more creatively and incorporating stories seems to be a very useful approach in teaching literacy, but also the rest of the curriculum areas as well. In our teaching here, Harriet and I tried using stories in the classroom as a way of settling the children, to teach literacy and also just for the enjoyment of the pupils. We had brought storybooks from home, had access to some more within the school library, and bought some in a local bookshop. The way the children responded to the storybooks really surprised me; they were so excited and really couldn’t get enough of them! Reading stories aloud to the whole class was quite effective, although follow-up questions showed that not all the children had understood the stories; this was probably due to the language being too difficult or our accents. But the best outcomes were when we let the children have ‘free-time’ with the books. Some of the children would read together, others would leaf through the book by themselves, and some others would want us to read to them or they would read the book to us, which was a really lovely experience.

Having some silent reading time.

What these interactions with story books have shown me, is just how much of a difference resources can have on pupil learning. For many of the pupils, using the storybooks meant higher levels of motivation, effort and enthusiasm, more positive behaviour and overall a better attitude towards the learning. Holt and Mooney (1996, p. 149) agree with these observations, saying that using stories “builds a positive attitude towards learning”.

It is just a shame that it is so difficult for teachers here to gain access to resources; so many of us take this for granted at home. The Ministry of Education in Zambia make reference to this point noting how “The individual today is precipitated into a world abounding with resources but marred by their misuse, rich in products but impoverished by their uneven distribution” (1992, p. 212). It is really eye-opening coming to a developing country and seeing how little they have, and how few resources teachers have to use.

I am hoping that my teaching will have benefitted from this placement in the sense that I have been able to make lessons more interesting and interactive using very basic resources, rather than relying heavily on things like whiteboards, computers, and expensive, mass-produced teaching resources.

Trying to make the most of the resources we have- 

a science lesson on food nutrients and our home made maths games!

As I mentioned in the opening to this blog, we have had a busy week of exciting, surreal, scary and some negative experiences! The worst part of my week was the diagnosis of ringworm- a quite unsightly, itchy, but not serious, skin infection which has made me highly infectious to both myself and everyone else. At the moment it is only on my arm though which I can cope with, so hopefully it won’t spread anywhere else, although I keep waking up in the middle of the night resting my face on my arm! Harriet’s low of the week came in the middle of the night when she woke up from a nightmare about a mosquito biting her face and found an actual mosquito in her net, who had been feasting ferociously on her face! After finding and killing the mosquito she looked in the mirror to find quite a few bites on her face which luckily went down by the next morning. I slept through this whole drama and unfortunately didn’t offer much support the next day, only to mention the fact that mosquitoes definitely like her better than me, since aside from my many bites when I didn’t use insect repellent, I very rarely get bitten!

On a more positive note, we have had a couple of brilliant experiences this week, and I am always surprised at how Africa seems to continuously amaze us. Our second experience of rafting was very different to the first, and after not flipping or falling out of the raft at all the first time, this time I was thrown out on the first rapid. This scared me and I spent much of the rest of the experience absolutely terrified, while also loving it, and Harriet spent most of the time laughing at the expression on my face which must have summed up how I was feeling pretty well. In the end, I absolutely loved every moment and although I wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as Harriet was at the time for the huge waves, I will definitely look back on it as one of the best (and scariest) experiences of the trip.

Another ‘wow’ experience was getting to visit the cheetahs and lions, and it was a bonus since we got it for free, avoiding the $110 charge. It definitely helps when you get friendly with the locals, and everyone here is so willing to help out the two muzungo teachers! The experience was a bit surreal and although my favourite was Simba the white lion, being able to sit beside the cheetahs and pet them as though they were just a cat or dog, was an amazing experience and will be another highlight of the trip.

A bit of an emotional part of the week was saying goodbye to our best friends at Jollyboys- our adopted Grandparents Pat and Gordon. After being here for the whole duration of our stay, it will be quite strange not having them around to talk to, and it was always nice to come home from somewhere and have someone who cared about how your day had been, asking us about school, dissertation or our exciting weekend plans. That’s one of the difficult things about being here, you meet so many amazing people but goodbyes are always difficult, especially when the reality is you probably won’t see them again, but then again they bring something to your trip and will always be part of the memories.

References

APPG for Education, (2011) ‘Report of the Inquiry into Overcoming the Barriers to Literacy’, July 2011.

Holt, D. & Mooney, B. (1996) The Storyteller’s Guide. Arkansas: August House Inc.

Ministry of Education (1992) ‘The Role of Education’. IN. M. J. Kelly. The Origins and Development of Education in Zambia (2^nd Edition). Lusaka: Image Publishers Ltd.

Week 8- Personal 23/3/12

“You can play a tune of sorts on the white keys, and you can play a tune of sorts on the black keys, but for harmony you must use both the black and white keys”. James E. K. Aggrey.

This quote by Ghanaian James E. K. Aggrey sums up something which has been on my mind for a few weeks now, but specifically this past week. Aggrey wanted to empower black people and ensure that, children in particular, knew how important they were and the important place they had in the world, regardless of their colour or what other people told them.

Livingstone is a town with many different cultures within it and there are people from many of the various Zambian tribes, as well as the white community, living in close proximity. Over the past number of weeks we have spent time socialising with the local muzungus (white people) and every time we do this I am forced to look at the relationship between the black locals and the white locals. It seems that it is very unlikely that the whites and blacks would socialise together and the relationship between the two races is usually a working one; most, if not all, of the white locals have at least one maid, a gardener, and sometimes a security guard, working for them. My experience of the interactions between the two has shown that there doesn’t seem to be much respect for the black people by the whites, although the blacks are very respectful towards the whites, but this appears to be more like respect for someone of a higher status rather than mutual respect of a peer. The worlds in which each live can be very different and in some cases I think wealth is the issue; where there are many black people living together in the communities around the outskirts of town, in very basic accommodation and with very little resources to live on, I think it would be highly unlikely to find a white person living like this. The white locals all seem to have their own houses and although they may live out of town, this is usually because they own land and have built their own property. However, I don’t think wealth is always the issue, as there are many black locals who are quite well-off but there is still a very clear barrier between the two skin colours.

It is not fair for me to make judgements on this matter since I don’t know much about life here, only what I have seen in eight weeks, but I do know that I am being encouraged to think about my own views on the matter.

I was brought up to think of everyone as an equal and my faith has also encouraged me to adopt this attitude, and I hope that I have practiced this view throughout my life, but I must say that previously to coming here I had given little thought to racial issues. As well as being right in the middle of a culture with whites and blacks living side by side, I think reading the book The Help whilst being here has also heightened my interest in this area. I do fear that being in the centre of this, and being made more aware of the differences between white and black, could influence my views in a negative way. However, I am trying to ensure that rather than just sticking to spending time with the white people I have met, that I am also immersing myself in the black community, speaking to locals from the town that approach us and also seeing what life is like in the villages.

I am very grateful that this experience is challenging me to think about my own views and also develop an interest in this area, as it is one which I haven’t previously explored in much detail. I hope that I will always hold and practice the attitude expressed by Aggrey in the quote at the beginning of this blog; that for this world to work, it requires every single person in it, regardless of their colour!

Aside from thinking about my views on race, I have also done some work this week! We have now finished our first week of dissertation writing and our spirits have been somewhat dampened by the thought of having to read literature, gather ideas, form arguments, collect data, make conclusions, and ultimately write a whole dissertation!

Our positivity and socialising before dissertation began...

It has been a difficult week trying to get into a working mode which doesn’t involve lesson plans and teaching for five hours each day; I think we would both like to go back six weeks and just be teaching again! An added pressure was that we were still going to school every morning this week, although only for an hour, we still found ourselves coming home needing to do preparation for school while also having the thought of having to do the dissertation in the back of our minds. Fortunately, we are now finished, a week after we were really meant to stop going to school. Some of the residents at Jollyboys have been telling us that we just made extra work for ourselves this week, which is true, but I think both of us were feeling quite attached to the literacy programme that we had been implementing and we didn’t want to feel like we’d only half done the job, so the extra week has now settled us.

    

Taking some time out of writing to visit the orphanage. 

We have been quite anti-social this week and aside from a braai last weekend we haven’t done much involving other people. In relation to braais, although it seemed like we were here such a long time until we eventually got one, I think I have now reached my limit of how many I will enjoy. The problem is that braais aren’t quite like BBQs at home, well not like the ones I have anyway. When I imagine a BBQ I think of hot dogs, burgers, maybe some chicken or a kebab, but here it’s all about steak and since I don’t like steak this means that braais aren’t really a hit for me. I am all for trying new things whilst being here and I have eaten steak (out of politeness and sometimes I was just too hungry to care what I was eating!) but I think it is safe to say that once I leave Africa I will not have any desire to eat steak again!

We have found that we appreciate the simple things out here, usually coming in the form of food! Hopefully that will keep us going through dissertation writing. This is me having one of our "celebratory three weetabix" which is kept for special occasions! 

Our plans for the week ahead involve dissertation writing, dissertation writing and some more dissertation writing. We are both hoping for a spurt of motivation which will just send us in the right direction; somewhere nearer to the end of writing. If only dissertation writing was as easy as writing emails or even blogs! 

 

Week 7- Professional 16/3/12

With our Grade 6 class on our last day teaching.

Unbelievably we have now finished our six weeks of teaching in Zambezi Basic School. This has been a very different placement to those we have had a home, and there were everyday challenges such as using a blackboard rather than a whiteboard, writing lesson plans by hand, teaching where English isn’t the first language, co-teaching, trying to discipline the children and trying to make lessons interesting with the blackboard being your only resource. There have also been some more random challenges, for example, this week I ended up running out of school after one of the pupils, and having to convince him to come back to school after he was pinched on the cheek by the class teacher! I think both Harriet and I embraced all these challenges and although we didn’t get it right all the time, this is all part of the learning process!

 

One of the huge differences with being in a school here is that you feel like a qualified teacher and teachers look to you for guidance, whereas at home you are the student and you get guidance from the class teacher. At first I found this very difficult because I felt like we had no one we could go to for advice and help when things went wrong, and this problem intensified during the past two weeks since our class teacher left us to cover another Grade 6 class. However, it is great to get this kind of experience because I always feel that I rely too heavily on the class teacher when they are in the room especially for discipline issues.

Harriet and I with the class teacher.

Obviously I have had Harriet and although initially I was quite nervous about co-teaching, I have really enjoyed the experience. I think I will now find it easier to guide the work of other adults (referring to competency sixteen, GTCNI, 2004), as Harriet and I are constantly giving each other guidance on what we need the other to do depending on who is doing the main teaching at the time. Another benefit of co-teaching is that the workload isn’t quite as heavy and I found it really beneficial to plan with another person, especially since mine and Harriet’s ideas usually complemented each other and when one of us was struggling with ideas the other was usually able to come up with something. I think I will really miss having another person alongside me on teaching practice next year!

The GTCNI (2004) refers to behaviour management in competencies seven and twenty-two, and obviously being able to cope with negative behaviour, enforce strategies for positive behaviour and control behaviours in the classroom is a hugely important part of my professional development. Unfortunately this is an area that I don’t feel very confident in and I know I still have a lot of learning to do. I feel that rather than improving my behaviour management skills, this placement has really just shown me how loudly I can shout (not very) and taught me how to cope with a sore throat! Behaviour management is very difficult because the children have never been taught that hitting each other, jumping off tables, talking over the top of someone else, or interrupting are behaviours which aren’t appropriate, so when me or Harriet try to stop them they usually just look at us with a confused expression!

An interactive science lesson based on 'food labelling'.

Overall, teaching in Zambezi Basic has been a really enjoyable practice and although I am always sad to see the end of teaching practice, I feel particularly attached to this placement and now find myself feeling like I want to keep going. We have implemented a lot of new strategies such as daily spellings, mental maths starters, maths games, interactive activities, and streamed literacy classes, which seem to have had really positive effects judging by feedback from pupils, teachers and even parents, and I am worried that things will just go back to normal now that we have left. All we can hope for is that we made a positive impact on the pupils over the past six weeks and that the teachers have learnt some positive teaching methods from us. I know that I have learnt a lot and I am certain that my time here will have a lasting impact on my professional development.

Playing our favourite maths game, 'super fingers'.

Teaching was very much our main focus this week and we spent quite a lot of time preparing our final lessons, talking with the teachers about continuing some of the implemented strategies, beginning dissertation preparation, sorting out resources to give to the school, finding presents for the children and just doing all the general ‘finishing up’. This means that our social life was not quite as hectic as it has been in previous weeks! But this wasn’t a problem as both of us are the type who definitely need our sleep and we both get very excited when we are in bed by 10pm knowing we will get a good eight hours of sleep!

We got paid a huge compliment this week when one of the workers at Jollyboys, whose son is in our class at school, spoke to the owner of Jollyboys saying how much his son’s attitude toward school had changed over the past weeks with us teaching. He mentioned how much his son was enjoying our classes; he was now getting excited for school in the mornings and most importantly, he understood a lot more of what he was being taught. This was such a boost for both of us and it really is the ultimate motivation for any teacher- that you could encourage a child to have a positive attitude towards learning and give them an enjoyable, beneficial education where they really are learning something.

Enjoying a free trip to the Falls!

Last weekend we had another public holiday on the Monday, this time for Youth Day so we got a long weekend! We had a brilliant Saturday and thanks to us now knowing some of the locals we were treated to a complimentary all you can eat breakfast and also a free trip to the Falls! We met the head chef of the Zambezi Sun, one of the upmarket hotels in Livingstone, and he was really eager to have breakfast with us, free of charge on his Saturday morning off. Harriet and I were a bit overwhelmed by the luxuriousness of it all, we aren’t used to being waited on and the staff were all so attentive because they were serving their boss! There was far too much to choose from and as usual we both ate much more than we needed; fruit, cereal, omelette, sausages, bacon, croissants, waffles and juice. Afterwards we were all in need of a good walk to walk off our huge breakfast and we got into the Falls free of charge because of the relationship between the hotel and the park. A shower at the Falls was a great activity on a Saturday morning and again I just fell even more in love with the spectacular views all around us. On our way back we got stopped by some people filming for Lonely Planet and got interviewed on our experience of the Falls. It was all very embarrassing and awkward but good fun at the same time, so if it ever airs I’m sure we will have a laugh at ourselves as we were soaking wet and I’m sure our accents will sound terrible! Then on Sunday we went on the African Queen Cruise which was a really lovely, relaxing experience and we both just love doing anything that involves being out on the river.

Relaxing on the African Queen. 

This week we start into our dissertation work which neither of us are really looking forward to because of the lack of literature out here for us to do the research, but I think we just need to get started and get stuck in! We are also going to be attending school for the first hour every morning (not losing the 6am starts just yet!) to continue our implementation of a streamed literacy concept, but this will be a good way to get us out of bed early and working! 

Week 6- Cultural 9/3/12

Zambezi Basic School's Woman's Day group.

This week we got to take part in a brilliant cultural celebration for International Women’s Day. Woman’s Day is a very big deal in Zambia, it is a public holiday so that all the women can come together to take part in a huge parade which involves groups of women from businesses, schools, churches and other organisations parading down the main street. The traffic is stopped, children are off school, people come out to the street to watch, all the women have outfits made from the same material within each group, and there is an event organised at the end where some of the women perform, and there are speeches and prayers. As we experienced this day I couldn’t help but think there is no way that this would happen in Northern Ireland!

A group of policewomen parading.

The day started off a bit stressful when we couldn’t find any of the teachers from our school and we started to panic because we were twenty minutes after the 8am meeting time and thought maybe they had already started parading. However, when the first and second teacher arrived just after 9am (an hour late) we were asked “ohh did you come early?” Luckily we haven’t had too many bad experiences with ‘African time’ but I don’t think being here is going to help my punctuality!

Getting ready for Woman's Day!

The day was really empowering for women and the women greeted each other saying “happy women’s day” and they are all told to enjoy THEIR day. It is a day which allows women to feel important and one of the speeches noted how women are able to do everything that men can do (this seems to be quite a big issue here as we have also seen motivational signs in the school playground encouraging girls to compete with boys). The atmosphere was really lovely and there was a real togetherness and I was again reminded how proud a culture the Zambian one is. Many of the locals seemed excited to see ‘muzungus’ in the parade and we were embraced into the tradition with people shaking our hand and waving at us as though we were famous!

With our two 'favourite' teachers and
some policewomen!

Women’s Day also opened my eyes to what is seen as respectful in terms of dress in this culture. The print was chosen by the teachers and then we were given a number of styles to choose from. All the styles that we were shown ensured covered shoulders and knees and one of the other teachers who opted for a dress which went just below her knees was told it was a bit too short. I also found the teachers pulling my dress down over my knees when I sat down, always ensuring that I was well covered. This shows a very reserved culture and the way a person dresses can have a big reaction from other locals. Another example of this was when we were travelling on the bus to the orphanage this week and a man started shouting at a woman who was on the bus with her young children. They were speaking in different languages so apart from the odd sentence shouted in English we didn’t really know what was going on, but it seemed like something major and the arguing went on for at least twenty minutes. After asking another local we were informed that the man had been telling the woman how much of a disgrace she was for wearing make-up, that she was setting a bad example for her children and there was a lot of reference to the Bible and how the woman was sinning. This was quite shocking as at home a young woman wearing make-up would never have such a reaction from a stranger on a bus!

Signs in the school playground emphasising equality between boys and girls.

The day finished off with a teacher’s lunch, very different to one at home; we all sat together on the grass in the Civic Centre and ate chicken and chips from the local fast food restaurant ‘The Hungry Lion’ (the Zambian equivalent of KFC!). Overall, it was a lovely day and it was lovely to be a part of such an important day in the Zambian culture.

The teacher's lunch at the end of the celebration.

This week we had very little planned but this turned out to be a great thing since it allowed us to take any opportunity that came to us resulting in us attending our first Braai (and also another three!), spending some time getting to know local muzungus, going to ‘Margarita Wednesday’, and getting to do jet boating! Braais are a really common thing here and we were getting quite annoyed that after five weeks here we hadn’t had any braais, but we certainly made up for it this week attending four. It was also brilliant having someone else cooking for us five nights this week and definitely made our shopping bill much cheaper! After meeting one of the white muzungus we have now started socialising a lot more and meeting many more people other than just travellers passing through Jollyboys. It is good to meet people who are going to be staying around because it can be a bit sad when we meet someone that we get on with really well but then three days later they leave, and me and Harriet have discovered that we are both very alike in that we get attached to people very quickly!

Today we started off our weekend with some jet boating after school; not a bad way to spend a Friday afternoon! We got a discounted rate too which was definitely a bonus (it pays to make friends with the locals!) and both really enjoyed the afternoon. We both get very excited about spending time in the river whether it’s to go swimming, rafting, jet boating, or just to sail on it for a cruise, so any opportunity to go and we are there!

Jet boating!

We have a nice long weekend ahead of us due to another bank holiday on Monday for Youth Day and then we are into our last four days at school. It’s hard to believe just how fast it is going and we have really settled into school life now so I think we will both be very sad to see the end of our placement next Friday. The time really is just flying in and we are now half way through our time in Livingstone! But we are really making the most of every opportunity here, loving every experience and we are definitely going by the quote given to me before I left by my Mum- “don’t count the days, make the days count”!