Thursday (Day 6) Time to be a teacher!

OK, the time had come for my teaching practice at Model School. Ginger and I had given much thought to what I was going to teach....Maths was an option but neither of us were any good and I didn't want to be shown up by a bunch of kids, English would be ok, but even better would be music! We got together some simple instruments from her stores and headed off to see if this is where my future lay. Sol had decided to go and hang out with his family until summoned by a text.

We arrived at the school to a scene of absolute chaos. Their headmaster is critically ill at the moment, fighting 4 deadly diseases and the teachers are trying so hard to carry on without him but the odds are stacked against them. The government had decided this would be a great time to take several of them away for hours each day on a training course, as well as that it was time for everyone to sit exams. When we arrived the teachers were all crammed into the small overheated office trying to figure out why the laptop (donated by a sponsor) was totally dead. The kids were having their break outside, waiting to be called to sit their exams and the questions were still in longhand on sheets of paper waiting to be processed!!!

We immediately leapt in to action and figured out the computer was plugged in to an extension lead with a dodgy socket so we did some rearranging and thankfully the laptop sprung back in to life. Now the pressure was on to enter 10-15 pages, get 30 odd copies of each printed off and settle the kids to work.. no time for maraca's then...

Ginger quickly finished and printed out the first set of questions and the teachers and I distributed them among the 4 classes. The Gambia school system is very different the the UK one. Kids only start school when their parents or sponsors can pay the fee and are immediately suspended if the fee's are not forthcoming. This means it is not unusual to have children ranging from five years to twelve in the same class, and if a child shows particular promise he or she can be moved up a year or in exceptional cases two.

As I patrolled the class assigned to me, being careful only to help with reading the questions, not giving the answers I kept an eye on a lad of about 10 who was drawing a beautiful diagram of the female reproductive system but was horrified when he labelled the ovaries 'apples'...should I step in and put him right or was that helping too much? In the end I wandered over and tapped 'apple' a few times and shook my head, unfortunately I didn't get the chance to see what he did as another teacher came to relieve me.

I dashed back to the office to see how Headmistress Badgie was getting on, amazingly she was nearing the end of the pile so I help by dictating for a while then took over while she printed and collated.

By now the nursery school next door were on their break so I went to find my L'il Fattie, she came running over and took my hand to drag me off to meet her friends, once more introducing me as 'her toubab'. After a few minutes her teacher came over and I was able to explain the misunderstanding of earlier in the week. She was a little shocked to learn that in fact I was a cook in a nursing home, not a teacher but didn't ask me to leave so I think all was ok.

When I got back to the office Sol had turned up with extra paper (mobile phones are a wonderful thing) and we were ready to leave. Ginger had been given more exams to transcribe and this she promised to do by the following morning, and drop them back on a memory stick. 

 Now we could go collect Sidat, more for my benefit by now than any toe protection duties as it was looking much better. The outlying village we were due to visit was where his mother came from and he explained to be he would be highly thought of for bringing such wealth to the village. On the way we would pass a small school that had 4 sponsor children attending so the plan was to check on their progress and distribute some lovely exercise books to them, with some not so nice (but very much needed) books going to the other kids.

This school was fairly new and had just 4 small classes all with the obligatory tin roofs, as was the custom we were treated to their whole repertoire of English songs but these little guys didn't sing them but shouted as loud as they could, Ginger and I smiled and clapped after the first four but they then went on to sing their National Anthem, complete

with salutes. After the 2 chorus I had to make my excuses and leave before my ears started to bleed and I joined Sidat and Sol who were deep in conversation with the headmaster, admiring his tiled floor. Ginger explained later that all the money the school had from fees had been used on the classrooms and toilets so the office was just a rough shed like room complete with dirt floor but eventually he had saved up enough for the 15 or so floor tiles he needed and he had laid it himself just recently so no wonder he was proud. On the way back to base I got the chance to snap an advert on the side of a van that had been making me giggle every time we passed.

For some reason I have no record of what we did for the rest of Thursday so I will just say I am sure it was hot and we did something amazing......and carry on with Friday x