Week 4- Personal 24/2/12

It’s hard to believe that another week in Livingstone has passed and we have now been away from home for almost a month. When I got offered my place to come to Africa it was a bit of a shock, especially since I had spent all summer getting excited for going to Holland on Erasmus. One of the major worries for me (and for some of those close to me!) was that I wouldn’t deal very well with being on my own so far from home.  All of a sudden I had to start thinking about going somewhere where I would be getting a major culture shock, be a long, long way from home, not see any of those I am closest to for a full four months, and also I was going with someone that I barely knew. It was a big step for me to take and I knew everything would be new to me, but I am so glad that I decided to take this opportunity.

From the moment I’ve arrived here I have enjoyed every moment (well most of them- there was that ‘bad day’ with me slipping out of my flip flops in the mud!) and I really have surprised myself (and possibly those at home) with how well I have adapted and embraced the Zambian life. Every experience that I’ve had here so far has been a positive one and a big part of that is the good relationship that has formed between me and Harriet. I am constantly being surprised by how alike we are, from the huge amount of food we eat to our agreement on pretty much every activity that we do here.

A beautiful quote which pretty much sums up Zambian culture- "stay positive because life is beautiful"

The culture here is obviously very different to home but it hasn’t been difficult to settle here. I am coping well with the slower pace of life, the positive attitudes and the more simplistic lifestyle- it really isn’t a hard culture to like! It is very easy to fill a day here and with school, the orphanage, lesson planning, communicating with Patrick, socialising, shopping, going to aerobics, swimming, eating, contacting home, chilling out and our Saturday adventures, it feels like no time at all before another week has passed. 

Lesson planning outside at the golf club and spending time at Lubasi Children's Home. 

On arrival I did have a few minor worries about food after seeing the kitchen and realising we didn’t have an oven or grill. Then we went to the local supermarket which was nothing like what I’m used to (I’m used to a 24hour Tescos!) and had very little food I liked! But luckily we have since found a much bigger supermarket and it is amazing all the things you can cook with just a stove and a microwave! I have widened my food boundaries and while at home I usually stick to what I like, I am trying to be a little more adventurous with my eating habits here, which has turned out quite positively since I have grown quite accustomed to the local food Nshima.

I can always get a taste of home with a good old burger and chips!

After finding some free WiFi this week Harriet and I were able to catch up on some of the blogs of our fellow students who are studying abroad all over the world. It is amazing to see all the different experiences people are having and to think of how different each of our adventures is. I feel so lucky to have been given this opportunity and I do find myself stopping to think about how amazing it is that this is part of my degree! All in all I am very happy and at home in Zambia and am so grateful that I ended up here for my semester abroad!

Some highlights of this week included a walking safari and our first sighting of one of ‘the big 5’- rhino, Pancake Tuesday (it involved food so we were both majorly excited for this- the idea of pancakes kept us going all day!), and celebrating Harriet’s birthday. Our adopted Grandparents Pat and Gordon came with us when we treated ourselves to pizza for Harriet’s birthday. Since Harriet does much of the cooking here I thought she deserved a night off, and of course I would never turn down pizza. Pat and Gordon really have become like our family here along with the staff at the hostel and most of them know us quite well now. Harriet even got the traditional Zambian soaking since it was her birthday! I had to get her into the bar area and then she was brought up to dance before having water poured all over her- a lovely birthday treat!

Our adopted Grandparents!

It really is nice to have people who are here constantly so you begin to build up relationships, rather than only meeting new people every few days as people pass through. Although it is amazing to meet people from all over the world and there are many interesting conversations to be had here in Jollyboys! 

Our first safari- standing very close to three REAL rhinos!  

Week 3- Professional 17/2/12

It is now the end of our second week as ‘Teacher Melissa’ and ‘Teacher Harriet’ and I feel we are settling into the school environment well. During our first two weeks of teaching we have had some great lessons, such as the children making their own role plays, a PE lesson based on ‘games’, a science lesson on ‘fats’ which involved a class experiment, and a mathematics lesson on ‘addition’ where the children completely surprised both of us with their knowledge. However, there have also been some less successful lessons which left us feeling a bit deflated, but it is these learning experiences that are helping us both to develop as teachers!

 

The school’s mission statement sets out its aims as being to “provide quality inclusive education aimed at producing healthy pupils who will serve the nation in all aspects of life”. This backs up the Zambian curriculum which incorporates most of the same subject areas that appear in the Northern Ireland Curriculum, and pushes them together into the main subjects of maths, literacy, English, science, Creative and Technology Studies (CTS), Social Development Studies (SDS), and cultural studies (CS). The main teaching language within the school is English, so all lessons apart from Zambian language and literacy, which combine both English and the local language Chitonga, are taught in English.

The children doing a reading activity where they have to read a storybook in groups and then retell the story using puppets. 

Our lessons are English and maths every day, science four times a week and CTS twice a week. Throughout these past two weeks it has become very apparent to us that although English is taught from Grade 1, there are many children who still cannot read, greatly hindering their access to the curriculum. At the beginning I found myself becoming frustrated when children weren’t able to answer a science or maths questions which seemed like a simple task of reading the answer from the board. Now I keep reminding myself of how difficult it must be for these children who are not only having to learn all their subjects in a language which is not their first language, but also trying to understand our accent! This has reinforced to me just how important it is that children are able to read, because if they cannot read then all other areas of the curriculum become inaccessible to them. For example, there are many pupils who are weak in other subject areas but are strong in maths where they don’t have to read words to answer the questions. As a response to this we have started to put a greater emphasis on reading and we are constantly having the children participate in individual reading and shared reading of the information we put on the board so that we can be sure that all children are at least hearing what we are talking about.

A lovely recount written by Precious in Grade 6!

Another area which we have put emphasis on is spelling. After we got the children to do some writing for us it became apparent that even those who were very capable readers, didn’t have very good writing skills and were constantly asking us to spell even simple words such as ‘want’ or ‘who’. The challenge here is getting the children motivated so that they actually go home and learn the spellings. There isn’t much emphasis on homework here and there doesn’t seem to be consequences if homework isn’t done, so some children have become quite complacent about it.  

I have now settled into the school routine and although the 6am starts are a bit horrible and the teaching can be very challenging, I wouldn’t want swap Zambezi Basic School for any other school right now!

We got a taste of luxury this week when we visited Livingstone Island and the five star hotel, the Royal Livingstone. We had an amazing day being waited on hand and foot on Livingstone Island and getting some great food after swimming at the top of the Falls, and then relaxing in the grounds of the hotel, but we both decided that we’d much rather have Jollyboys! Although it was lovely to experience that for a day, if you stayed there for too long you really would be missing out on the ‘true African experience’. Being within the hotel grounds you really could have been anywhere else in the world…it was just a fancy hotel! Being in Jollyboys and having new people from everywhere in the world passing through every day, being able to organise trips to see the true Zambia, and having the centre of Livingstone right on your doorstep is a much better experience in my opinion. Although in saying that, I’m sure we will be back at the Royal Livingstone for cocktails and high tea at some point in the next eight weeks!

The other highlight of this week was Zambia winning the African Cup of Nations which was an amazing achievement for the country. Last Sunday night Livingstone was thriving as Zambia played in the final and we went to our favourite local bar ‘Limpo’s’ where we had been for all the other matches. We were right in the middle of the celebrating as Zambia won after a full ninety-four minutes, then thirty minutes extra time, and nine sets of penalties! We felt like real Zambians as we celebrated alongside the locals, and I felt very proud of my current home country!

Week 2- Professional 10/2/12

Week 2- Professional

“Education is a bridge to the future so, go girls go!”

This week we finally visited the college after not being able to the previous week because of student protests. The quote above is the welcoming sign to DALICE (David Livingstone College of Education), and although it makes it seem that the college is particularly for females, I was in fact quite shocked by the number of male students and would say that the ratio of males to females would probably be higher than it is in Stranmillis.

DALICE currently doesn’t offer a primary course but we went along to some classes anyway to see how teaching and learning is structured over here. Just like anywhere else we go in Livingstone, we were welcomed by everyone we met and got shown around the campus and taken to classes by some of the students.

One of the major differences that became apparent fairly quickly was the fact that the college is really lacking in resources. In Stranmillis we may complain when we are in a classroom which is missing a SMART board, but here they don’t even have enough desks and chairs to fill every room, which means that you have to go and get your desk and chair and bring it with you to lectures!

We attended a PE class which was structured quite similarly to those that we would have at home, with the students actually doing the lesson as though they were the class, while other students had the chance to teach (we even got to join in with some netball although I wasn’t properly dressed in my skirt and flip flops!). The other classes we attended were lectures so they were similar to Stranmillis in that there were a lot of students in a large room and the lecturer did the majority of the talking. The classes were quite interesting and the content wasn’t very different to what we hear about at home; one of the topics was motivation, intrinsic and extrinsic and how teachers could motivate their learners. It was really good to see these similarities since teaching is obviously the same job no matter what culture you are in, so it is important that trainees are getting similar training.

During the lectures the lecturer dictated notes to the students. There was little discussion or student input but perhaps within a smaller class this would have been a more popular teaching strategy. This idea of dictating notes evidently has an impact on how the students then work as teachers because the notion that it is important to have lots of notes written down is a big part of the primary classroom here in Zambia.

We have also now completed our first week of teaching in Zambezi Basic School. We had two days observation last week before we started teaching on Monday. The use of ability groups, questioning, lesson structure of introduction/main activity/ plenary, differentiation, staff meetings and staff workshops all made the school seem not that far from what I am used to with our schools in Northern Ireland. However, as time has gone on and we have gotten to observe and teach some of the older classes it has become apparent that there are also a lot of differences. This week has been quite a challenge; attempting to overcome some of these differences, and also having to admit that there are some things we won’t be able to change. In the coming weeks we will continue to try and make a positive impact on the children we are teaching, and I have no doubt that this experience is going to have a great impact on my professional development.

The challenges this week did get us down at some points and there were definitely times when we were a bit fed up. My lowest point was after a morning of school where two out of three of our lessons just didn’t go the way we hoped, then I made myself a very unappetising lunch, we waited ages for the bus to take us to the orphanage and then a thunderstorm came just as we were about to leave the orphanage again which made the road very, very slippy! Just as I walked right out of my flip flop which got caught in the mud and nearly fell right over with lots of locals laughing at me, a local man turned to me smiling, shrugged and said “It’s Africa!”. This simple statement made me remember to appreciate every moment that I have here because after all, it’s not every day I get to be studying in Africa!

Outside of our ‘work’ hours we also had lots more fun this week! Last weekend we went white water rafting which has to be one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done. The scenery, adrenaline and great people made for an excellent day. Apart from some bruising we both survived and it will be difficult being in Livingstone for another ten weeks and not wanting to go again, but there is just too much to do and it all adds up in price! We are trying to make the most of our Saturdays as our ‘day off’ so this weekend we have planned to go to Livingstone Island and then spend the afternoon in the Royal Livingstone which is the 5* hotel. Also, Zambia beat Ghana in the semi-finals of the African Cup of Nations to make the final, so this is an exciting weekend to be in Zambia with the final on Sunday!

Supporting Zambia in our new football shirt in the semi-final against Ghana!

I am really settled here now, and my biggest indication of this was that when I had a bad day I just couldn’t wait to get home to Jollyboys and into my hut. I was surprised that I didn’t just want to go home at that point, but I guess Africa is really starting to make its lasting impression on me. I am looking forward to what will no doubt be another interesting, and enjoyable week in Livingstone!

Week 1- Cultural 3/2/12

From the very moment our plane landed in Zambia, I realised what a different experience this was going to be from anything I’ve ever done before. Our plane, which wasn’t even a quarter full, landed in this tiny little airport, where a big group of airport workers lay on the grass watching the plane coming in. Inside the airport, immigration, passport control, baggage collection, the toilets and the exit were all enclosed in one room. It was so different to any bustling airport I’ve ever been in before. And so our adventure in Livingstone began!

From then on it has been a constant stream of new and interesting experiences’, from sharing the shower with a grasshopper, to fifty-eight mosquito bites in one night, to eating ‘nshima’, suspected bed bugs, and the overwhelming heat, Livingstone is very different to what I am used to. However, it hasn’t been too difficult to get settled in and this is mainly due to the friendliness of the Zambian people. Our host, Patrick, told us a well-known saying in Zambia; “treat a stranger with kindness and they will leave a little bit of their heart in your home”, and I am already certain that I will be leaving a little bit of my heart in Livingstone. Every time we walk down the street people greet us; it’s unbelievable how many times a day you are asked “how are you?” because this is the normal ‘street-greeting’.

At first I thought our accommodation was ‘typical Africa’ with its laid back attitude, cushioned ‘chill-out’ areas, and huts for accommodation but Patrick explained that Jollyboys is more “a part of Northern Ireland in Zambia!” At first I didn’t quite understand this (although we felt pretty close to home when we ate breakfast in the bar area and Sky News was on with Eamonn Holmes presenting) but with every day we spend here I am learning more about ‘true African culture’.

One of our first real insights into the Zambian culture was going to a local bar to watch a football match in which Zambia were competing. The atmosphere when the team scored and won the match was just amazing, with clapping, shouting, cheering, dancing, singing, hugging, car horns and alarms were sounding, and there was a real sense of pride for their country. This success was shared by males, females and children, and the taxi driver who took us home was even shouting “GO ZAMBIA!” out the window!

Getting around here is quite different to home. The quality of the roads makes for some very bumpy journeys and I will never again complain about potholes in the roads at home! It is not uncommon for cars/buses to swerve onto the other side of the road to avoid a huge hole, even when there are other cars coming, and the lack of traffic lights, or ‘robots’ as they are called here, makes it interesting when you reach a junction in terms of who has right of way. But we have been promised that it is in fact none of these things that make for a rather crazy journey- it is in fact that some of the cars are defect so it is not the drivers’ faults!

Although every day has been exciting, my favourite day so far has to be mine and Harriet’s first trip to Victoria Falls. We set out on our hired bikes and cycled the six and a half miles to the Falls at 8.30am. It was nice to leave behind the bustling town area which is full of people buying and selling on the streets and taxis pumping their horns constantly, and get out into the ‘countryside’ where all we could see was green landscapes for miles around. From our very first glimpse of the Falls right up until we left I couldn’t stop taking pictures of the beautiful sights, even when Harriet kept warning me my camera was going to get very wet! We are excited to go back to the Falls and it can be a very nice, relaxing change from being right in the centre of life in Livingstone.

Every day here is bringing new challenges and I can’t wait to see what else our new home has in store for us. 

Our first visit to the amazing Victoria Falls