There's no denying it, these bloggers are bound to make you jealous. Whether it's their guts, their energy or their tan you admire, overseas volunteers have got plenty to share with you about their remarkable work in fascinating countries. Read on to find out what you could be missing.

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Monday Sep 25, 2006

Teaching and working - the fun

 

Again, this post is late, oops. I do have an excuse though – we've been so busy since we started work, I only have time now because our first edition of the Buchter News is at the printers, so we have nothing to do til it gets back. Well, nothing newspaper-linked, but our other jobs are still taking up a lot of time. We've really taken to working at the secondary school though. It's so good to work individually with the pupils, we can already see improvement in some of them because it's much easier to know what they need. Comparing them within the group, some of them seem like they barely need help, but when you put it in the context that all their lessons are being taught in this foreign language, we can see how much work we have to do!

I'm starting choir at the primary school tomorrow, I'm actually really nervous. I'm not quite sure if I have enough charisma to keep a group of children entertained and interested for an hour – and then another group straight after them. I've found already that if I'm too nice as a classroom assistant the children won't listen to me, so pretty much after the first day I've been concentrating on being stricter (no matter how cute the kids are). I've also realised I really need to learn my 12 times table... I don't know how but I never quite learnt it at school, and now I'm marking work in front of the kids I can't afford to sit and count up slowly! Remembering being in primary school myself, I know that if a teacher doesn't know something your faith in them is shaken forever. Though fortunately we've been doing about weather, and the kids think it's amazing that I come from somewhere where it hails and snows every year, it seems so exotic to them. I did have a hard time convincing one boy that hail was real, because it seemed so illogical to him. Little balls of ice? In a cloud? Some people will believe anything...

Another thing which is odd but you always need to keep in mind at school is what to do when a kid hurts themselves. This would be obvious if they were badly hurt, but it's important to put plasters over even tiny cuts, and make sure never to touch the blood yourself. It's a sad fact that 1 in 4 Namibians are HIV positive, so you can never be too careful about covering up cuts and making sure the kids know not to touch anyone else's grazes or cuts. As children the world over have apparently no fear about throwing themselves off things and running at great speed into stationary objects, the school gets through a considerable supply of plasters.

Time to go again – we're washing bed sheets and getting them wrung out and hung up is going to be a bit of a hassle. Doing all our washing in the bath is still a bit of a novelty, but I'm sure that'll wear off after a while!

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 5:05 PM )
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Monday Sep 18, 2006

3 & a half months!

well, only 3 and a bit months left, and Im getting so excited. Just had a minor panic with some paper work that I wouldnt be home in time to start uni, but it was just a typing error...thank God. And I refuse to be scared by the health booklet thats thicker than most normal books i read! there are whole pages about Bilharzia, S.T.I's, rabies and Dengue fever. Half the stuff I've never heard of before, and the other stuff I think i caught in Ghana. I've never been a hypochodriac (mostly because I cant spell it!) but now I starting to think I have every possible symptom. Luckily I've already got most of the immunisations, so wont have to have too many needles stabbed into me.

Fund raising is still very slow, got a possible idea, but need to clear it with one of the richest men in the world...Philip Green, the owner of arcadia, because I've been thinking of being a "Live maniquin" in the shop window where I work but obviously in huge companies I've got to have clearance from every level, and my manager is so busy at the moment it might never get any further. Just been writing to the proper HUGE companies for sponsorship, like IBM etc, who with many my dad has 'connections' . My fundraising was set back by a massive £50 last week with a snide little man putting a parking ticket on my car for 5 minutes over my time and me running back as fast as possible when I saw him! but thats a bit off track.

hopefully some more interesting things to write about will start soon on the fundraisng front, but at the moment its all just stress, oh except my Swahilli is improving, and I can now propose marriage, and order a chicken sandwich!

Posted by Emily ( 9:56 AM )
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Wednesday Sep 13, 2006

signs

OK. So when signs like this started appearing in my email, I figured maybe it was time to just jump and accept the spot at Lakeside even though I have some reservations. Check it out:

Imagine my surprise. For the briefest of moments, I thought 'Holy heck....!' Then, I thought about the friend who sent it my way and knew she had to be in on it. But, at least it made me smile and reconsider about Cumbria.

So, I've accepted the position and now it's just a matter of getting visas and orientation and plane tickets sorted! Hopefully that won't be too difficult or take too long as I'm really missing the UK. Even had one from the lovely young man I've spoken about (someone i befriended) previously write to say that he can't wait for me to get back into the country so we can catch up on all the gossip.

Well, I'll hopefully be updating this more and more as things start to really get rolling.

Posted by Dana ( 6:41 PM )
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Sunday Sep 10, 2006

Namibia - early mornings, ant genocide and eating crocodile

This is the first post I'm writing from my project, where I'm going to be for the next year. Eek. It seems like a long time but I think I'm going to like it here, Luderitz seems like a great town. I started this post on Tuesday, but things have been so mad I haven't had a chance to finish it, so I apologise for how late this is! We only arrived here on Monday afternoon, but we got into Namibia on Thursday – we got to stay in Windhoek, the capital, while we waited for our flight down. It looked so different and so amazing when we flew in over the desert, and ten minutes drive out of the airport we had to slow down to let three baboons across the road!Staying in Windhoek was really fun, as on the first night all 6 of the Namibia volunteers were there, and we went out for a meal at the world-famous (apparently) Joe's Beerhouse. Me and Bozena got right into the adventurous spirit, eating animals we'd never even seen before! I had gemsbok steak and she had a kebab with zebra, crocodile, ostrich and kudu on it. That's been our only experience of eating out so far, as that was a bit of a luxury; we're meant to spend the equivalent of a tenner a week on food here.

The flight down to Luderitz was great, the plane was tiny. We were 2 of about 12 passengers, and as the plane was so small it flew relatively low, right over the desert. The landscape out here is completely amazing, just miles of sand and windswept dunes as far as the eye can see. When we took off from Windhoek (which is pretty small for a capital, the population of Namibia is only 2 million), we soon left it behind us. I remember thinking, as this endless, beautiful desert stretched out all around us, with not a single sign of human settlements anywhere... "If the plane breaks down, we're so dead."

When our host, Lindsay (who is lovely and has been incredibly helpful), picked us up from the airport, she said, "Welcome to the moon!" It really does look like a lunar landscape here, but more colourful and hotter. It rained last year, which is a big event in Lüderitz, and the desert flowers have come out which barely ever happens. I think it's beautiful here, but people keep warning us about the wind – apparently it's always a shock to visitors. I'm a little bit worried about how strong it's going to be!

The volunteer accommodation is actually really nice. The only problem so far has been that one of the last volunteers (inadvertently, I hope) left a bag of sugar partially open, so there are a fair few ants to be dealt with. They're living behind the bath tap, so me and Bozena got to work with our DOOM insect killer – to be honest, it was quite fun! We committed ant genocide, by the time we were finished nearly the whole of the bottom of the bath was covered in dead ants. We still see a few lurking about the place, but we keep our DOOM close at hand (yes, it is really called that, and I think it looks better to keep it in capitals). I've only seen one cockroach the whole time we've been here so hopefully that's not an issue. There are a few things it'll take a while getting used to, like hand washing clothes and having no hot water in the kitchen, but all in all we've got it pretty easy.

The poverty has been surprising – not so much in the main town but the township of Benguela is quite poor, then the shanty town, 'Sand Hotel', is in a shocking state. There are people living without running water or sewers, in houses built from scrap metal and wood. The council are building a kind of estate, called Area 7, to try and move the people from the shanty town into, but aside from the fact that it has water and sewers it's not that much of an improvement. It's just very different from England. I knew it would be, but you can't help noticing that some kids walk the streets in bare feet because shoes are too expensive, and hang around outside food shops begging for bread.

I've started work at various places. We do two mornings a week at Brightstart, a Montessori primary school, which is very different to any school I've ever been to, but the kids are cute so it's fun. So far I've mainly just been observing, but I'm starting to do reading with the kids and in a while I'm going to be able to give lessons. We're also working at the secondary school, as one-on-one English tutors; the lessons are mainly taught in English, but kids are allowed to be schooled in the mother tongue up to a certain age. The kids who don't speak English at home are at a massive disadvantage when suddenly all their lessons are taught in a different language. Many of the children speak Afrikaans, which some of the lessons are taught in, but a couple of the kids I'm working with speak Oshiwambo, so both the languages are new to them. The biggest shock about working at the schools has been how early we have to be there; the schools start at half 7 here so we have to be up at 6, it's horrible!

We've also started on our first issue of the monthly 'Buchter News' paper – it's great how friendly and helpful everyone is here. As the project has been running for nearly 20 years, everyone knows 'the Buchter girls', and people volunteer stories for us at the most unexpected times – me and Bozena have both learnt that we need to have pen and paper with us whenever and wherever we are!

The other big change from England is how racist quite a few of the white people are. I know there's little point in trying to argue when it's something I can't hope to change their mind on, but it really annoyed me last night, when one man warned me, "Don't get colourblind." At first I didn't know what he meant, but it's always a warning sign that he started with, "I'm not a racist, but..." I just couldn't believe that someone would 'warn' me about making friends with someone because of their skin colour. Fortunately most people don't think like that, but racism is evidently still a massive issue in southern Africa.

Right, I should go do the washing up – I've just been eating 'mealie', a kind of maize porridge, because it's cheap, but if you leave it too long it welds to the bowl! Hopefully my next post will be in a week, like it's meant to be – maybe I should start it tomorrow...

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 5:57 PM )
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Saturday Sep 02, 2006

usual update

wow, its seems I'm a bit behind in my blogs. Recently has been a bit of a whirl-wind. I got my results...which were good enough for birmingham uni. (BBB) after that I went to Momentum, which is a christian camp thing....its part of soul survivor, which is much better known. Got back from that about a week ago, and its been all go, saying goodbye to all my friends off to uni. Oh and plus....completly not volunteer related but I've just been chosen to be a model of sorts for Evans (where I work) so there are now  trips up to london to be done.

Volunteer wise I'm not much futher Im afraid, except worry and upset. My family and friends are all really supportive of my trip to Tanzania, and my ambitions in life, but people are still upset, mainly just two people; my mum and my best mate Hannah. When I traveled to Ghana my mum nearly had a nervous breakdown about me...shes not obsesivly protective, if anything shes the opposite, but her youngest daughter of 17 was in Africa alone with little communication, and she found out on the second day that I wasnt where she thought I was, because I got moved, and I was the first volunteer there. I can completly understand how she felt and I hate putting her through it, but i think she has much more confidence in me this time, and she knows she has to leave me to it now. But she is worried about my health because I came down with salmanela (cant spell) in Ghana, and got really ill. My best friend hannah, well shes a different matter...she wants to work in africa as a nurse once she's qualified and we are so close its impossible to say; we are like sisters and hardly miss a day of seeing each other, ...ok, babbling now! but shes really worried about me leaving, and how she's going to cope.

Looking at it from my way of course I will be completly home-sick...Im a country bumkin homey kind of girl who hates not having her own space and fields around her and I take a long time to make true friends, but I am confident in myself, and in God ( or whatever name different people call him/her/it!) I am expecting a rollercoaster of emotion, but I also think i am better prepared than many because of Ghana.  And surely thats half the point of the experience....volunteering benefits both parties, and my time in Tanzania will hopefully make me more confident and more flexible with things like where I live and being away from the good old south downs!

well I have to go, as work is beconing...and work means money for Tanzania.

Posted by Emily ( 8:14 PM )
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