Village life - part 1

For the last two weeks we have been working in village called  Kalanamu, at a small school called 'Centre of Hope' teaching English and doing games and PE with the children. It is a school of about 60 children ranging from baby class to Primary 4. The classes are baby, P1, P2, P3, P4 and the age of the pupils range from about 2 - 9. The classes are quite small and we noticed that within each class the abilities are very mixed. 

The school building

The school has 4 classrooms and a small office. The walls are brick and the roof is corrugated iron. The structure is good compared to some places we have seen made of wood or mud, the outside walls have been painted with pictures and inside the classrooms there are lots of posters and displays which the teachers have made. This décor really brightens the school, however it was still lacking in many basic things our schools take for granted. There is no power, so no lights or sockets or anything electrical. Definitely no computers, no whiteboards, or even chairs - only wooden benches - the toilets were holes in the ground and there was a pump tap on the site but no running water otherwise. The school day lasted from 8 to about 4 so it was a long day for the children but they never complained. They were so well behaved and really wanted to learn, they also loved asking us questions about the UK.

The P3 and P4 classroom

English lesson with P4

We taught the children English using text books and blackboards. With the younger children (P1, P2) we did a lot of pronunciation work, so in each lesson we would focus in a certain letter or sound and show them how to say words and how to put them in sentences. For example one of the lessons I did was the 'r' sound, however I had noticed that most people in the village interchanged the sounds 'r' and 'l', so the lesson was a quite challenging for them. A big hindrance to the children's English is that most of the adults and teachers around them often have improper english or bad pronunciation and so the children naturally developed the same problems. With the older classes (P3, P4) we did more advanced reading and comprehension tasks. With P3, they would read a set text in small groups - depending on how many books were available - and we would help them pronounce hard words or explain the meanings of new words to them. Then one of us would read the text aloud - when I first did this they found my accent very funny! Then they answered questions about the text to check their understanding. Some of them did this no problem whereas others kept getting very simple questions wrong, we would correct their work and some seemed to improve over the time we were there. I hope that they will continue to improve and hopefully we can return in future to see their progress. P4 was the oldest class so we did quite a lot of reading with them as well as a few lessons teaching them harder words and their meanings and where they would be used. For example I did two lessons on 'good behaviour' and 'bad behaviour' so we explained and used words such as polite, excuse, abuse, borrow, unkind, please, thank you etc. I enjoyed the lessons with the older classes the most because you could teach them more complicated words and harder reading, but also because they were smaller classes and by the second week you start to learn their personalities and understand them as individuals. I wished we could have stayed longer just because we had started getting to know them by the time we left! We may get to return which would be really great. 

Relay races with P1 and P2

Rounders with P1

We also did games lessons and PE with the 4 classes every day which was a good work out for us! We took resources for games from the Smile Centre so we used hoops, tunnels, footballs, tennis balls and bats. We also introduced some English games to them - they really enjoyed duck, duck, goose but they kept picking us to chase them! We also taught them Simon says or as we called it Teacher Ken/Kathryn/Ruth says. They also loved the hokey cokey, especially running into the middle shouting 'woooahh the hokey cokey'. Other games included relay races which were fun as they were so enthusiastic, rounders and piggy in the middle. Games were really fun and the children seemed to really enjoy them too. We left some of the balls and bats there as they have no PE resources, so hopefully that will be enjoyable and encouraging for them. 

Hoop games with P4

Relay races with tunnels, P1, P2

There are about 8 teachers at the school, one man and the rest women, who were so welcoming to us. The headmistress was lovely and there were some young trainee teachers there who we made friends with too. They were all great fun and most had good English. We had lunch with them a few times and we tried some more local foods like posho (made from maize flower, quite starchy and plain tasting), porriage (which was quite thin and needed a lot of sugar) and matoke (green bananas which are cooked and often eaten with beans and rice).

Having lunch with the teachers

Me with some of the teachers

On our last day we took some aid from the Smile Centre and gave it to the teachers, it included maths sets, pens, pencils, colouring pens, chalks etc. along with some sports equipment. Also, Kathryn and I had the idea of making loom band bracelets for all the children, and, with the help of Ken and Innocent, we made about 70 bracelets and gave them all out on the last day. The children loved them and we had enough for the teachers as well. We had such a lovely time and hopefully Smile will be able to help them further in the future.

The supplies we gave the teachers on our last day

Some of the girls with their bracelets

Overall it was great to get experience with teaching as well as getting to know the kids and teachers. Although we were only there a short time I think we were an encouragement and hopefully a blessing to them. It did hit me how different their lives are and how hard in comparison to ours. The teachers work all day in the extreme heat which on its own was exhausting to us, they have their own children and babies to look after, food to cook on charcoal or wood fires which takes ages and is hot and dirty. They hand wash all of their clothes which get dirty easily in all the dust and mud and have no electricity or easily accessible water to make their jobs easier. I have huge admiration for the teachers there, and they were so welcoming and grateful to us which was very humbling for me. 

The children LOVED the cameras!