The stifling morning air churns with excitement, energy and the sweet smell of homemade hooch. The road is coated with drunken pilgrims seeking refuge, dancing and chaos inside the gates. A sea of blue and green monitors the scene ready with cattle-herder’s sticks and AK-47s to beat any civil unrest – which might be detrimental to the elite minority -into the muddy dust at our feet.
Filed under Observations
There’s a strong and unmistakable feeling of pride that one gains as a teacher. The feeling when you teach a student a new concept and watch them apply it. It’s truly wonderful and one of the greatest perks of the job. However, with training teachers, I experienced something even greater. The feeling when you teach a teacher a new concept and watch them apply it. You can then watch the students become more engaged in the lesson and learn more. It is a truly rewarding experience and one that I find incomparable.
Filed under Observations
I awake as the morning sun flows across the room and pools on the concrete floor. My eyes, though unaccustomed, still welcome the light after a night of darkness. Darkness which was broken only by the piercing light of the torch I used to read. In a house without electricity sleep patterns become dictated by the movements of the sun and the high equatorial-moon. I brush the sleeps from my eyes and my morning routine begins.
Filed under Uncategorized
The nineteen year old headmaster – with a second level qualification – leads me to our shelter from the morning sun. We sit in the shade of a pine tree, around a locally-produced wooden table and chairs. I am warmly greeted by the other members of staff, a man in his late-teens and an eighteen year old mother nursing her baby boy, as I take a sit at the rather delicately-placed table. The school – a cobbled concoction of mud, concrete and bricks – sits almost apologetically beside some eavesdropping cows and goats. This was my first experience of being a ‘teacher-trainer’ last week.
Filed under Observations
Scribblings and Broken Glass 