Back to School

However, Gideon, Moffat and I did fight our way through the torrential rain to get to the school that they support in this area. The school is just basically a disused outhouse building. Which if it had been in this country would long since have been knocked down and new flats built on it! (Well maybe not given the area it is in!).

 

The kids are all in this one large room and put in to different groups, based more on where they are in the education cycle than on age. In terms of equipment – well there’s not a lot. Only benches, which double up as desks and only two makeshift blackboards. Some of the kids have to sit on the floor so they rotate them round the benches and blackboards during the day!

 

The books I brought went down a storm as you can imagine, both the new Teejay Maths books and the ones donated by Castlepark Primary in Irvine. Although initially I think they were as fascinated by me as the books. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the first time some of them had seen a white person up close and for real!

 

The teachers (all volunteers) thought I was just great for bringing the books over and were getting excited when they came across things they were teaching at the moment. The arithmetic Xs table poster went down really well (courtesy of Carol’s sister at Greenwich Library) as they are obviously working through them just now.  And as ever the most important observation – they were all well behaved!

 

Work felt slightly neglected yesterday so will need to make up for it today although I did set up some new spreadsheets!  However getting back in do the work did prove to be a bit of a challenge!
 

 

 

 

Feel a bit guilty though as I have taken their electric kettle away from them, which is no doubt deemed a bit of a luxury. Come to that, I now feel guilty I am in Jedone’s room when he is not well. I assume he is sharing with one of the boys, not sure which or if more than one! And as sorry for him as I feel I am not offering to swap!!

So the morning is usually when I have all the little conversations in my head (yep, it’s official I am now going slightly bonkers). It’s the time when I think I didn’t really sign up for this part of it and I don’t really need to wash out of a bucket to do my job!