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 Jul 16, 2007

The play is over!

 

It's strange how soon I'm going to be back in England; before I left a year sounded like a long time but it's gone ridiculously fast. Probably because I've been doing so much, but it just seems weird that in less than a month I'll be back in the frozen north – or flooded north, as I hear.

Work has been mad recently. Bozena was away when we were finishing the last edition of the paper, and after she left various complications appeared, the day before we had to go to print. This resulted in me staying up working on it til 3 in the morning when I had to be up at 6 to go and teach. The next morning I was rushing to get out of the house, being loudly exasperated at the blocked toilet and hunting around for any hair grip as I appeared to have lost them all, and I managed to snap my toothbrush in half. I sighed, "Come on. I know I'm having one of those days, but HOW do you snap a toothbrush?" Oddly enough, I later found my hair grips – I'd put them all in a bag to be organised (so that I wouldn't always lose them, haha) which had somehow then fallen down the toilet, thus blocking it. Don't you love it when these little things all join up together.

We've just finished with the primary school play, which has given me a newfound respect for all my teachers who ever organised that kind of thing when I was little. Marcel went to pick up his sister Claudia, who's coming to visit, last Tuesday. He was meant to be back to help out on Friday, but then rang on Wednesday saying he was too ill to make it home. I find it REMARKABLY convenient that he fell ill while staying in the capital in a backpackers with a pool... Not that I'm implying anything...

But anyway, there was so much to do in so little time on Friday that it was quite funny. In the morning a shriek from the kitchen announced that troops of our ever-intrepid ants had made it into the fridge. Bozena has a black belt in kickboxing, is unfazed by things like bungee jumping and skydiving, but for some reason has an intense fear of ants. Other bugs she's fine with. It's inexplicable, to be honest. So I put a stop to the ant's polar expedition before we began running to and from school with props and whatever This was made all the more interesting by our broken gate. It jammed a while ago and a friend tried to open it, then came climbing over the fence sadly announcing, "I used a bit many power..." When we managed to get it open we saw that he'd snapped the outside handle clean off. So now if it blows shut when you're outside there's no way to open it.

 

 On Friday, I came home to find myself locked out with no one to come and open it for me. A street kid was sat in the road playing with a bit of scrap metal, and looked completely baffled at this mad white woman as I swore and kicked the gate, threw all my bags on the floor and scaled the fence. As I came down the other side I heard ripping noise behind, and slowly realised that my mended jeans were no longer mended, and my underwear was a lot more visible than I would have liked.

We got a local hotel to give us their function room for free for the play, and we pretty much had everything sorted by the time the kids got there that evening. There's one kid who's the coolest thing ever, he's 6, Congolese, and has an afro that adds about a foot to his height. He turned up in his own clothes, and when I asked, "Johnny, chick, where's your uniform?" He looked up at me with his huge eyes beneath this mad nest of hair, grinned and went, "It's at home." "Why is it at home?" *pause* "I left it there." "But you have to wear it for the start of the concert!" "The what?" "The concert! The play!" *pause* "What?"

Oh dear god, I would never have enough patience to be a teacher for the rest of my life. Even so, the kids were great and I couldn't help feeling a glow of pride that the hours of rehearsing and hair-tearing were paying off as the audience were genuinely amused by each sketch, rather than just sitting bored as a duty to their own kid. I did a quick thankyou speech at the end, and just when I was about to go offstage the kids swarmed on and mobbed me. I disappeared under an avalanche of hugs, and it took me a minute to realise they were all thrusting goodbye and thankyou cards they'd made themselves into my hands. When I emerged I was completely coated in the charcoal and cocoa we'd used for chimney sweep soot in the absence of face paint. But still, it was sweet. I'll miss my kids.

Anyway, I've rambled more than long enough, so I'll sign off for now.

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 9:45 PM )
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Friday Jul 13, 2007

ewan mcgregor is close!

sorry for the long delay in writting. had a great holiday with my mum, we saw lions and elephants and everyother animal immaginable! and i got to eat very english food in dar es salam...including a full all you can eat fry up! my first bacon in 6months! now back to village life and teaching. the primary school started this week, and seconday starts monday. we have just seen our targets at the office and with only six weeks of placement left we have 87% of secondary school lessons still to complete! could be an interesting few weeks!  after spending a week or so with lots of fellow volunteers the shock going back to vilage was almost as bad as when we first arrived, it was heightened by the lack of ANYTHING to do! but there was one thing that got me through the last week, and thats the knowledge that ewan mcgregor  (sorry for the spelling!) will be riding past my vilalge soon! how exciting! unfortunatly i got such an issolated vilage that  im 2-3 hours off the main road. but two of my fellow volunteers are on the main road, and are making signs like the "santa stop here" signs but with his name on, and offering free food! im so jealous, but i just think the idea of it is awsome, we are in the middle of africa in little tiny villages, with no contact with the outside world, yet a world famous actor will be riding right past me!

life continues as normal, spending all my day talking about sex, std's, hiv and other thoughrully pleasant topics, my kiswahilli is getting there slowley, but wouldnt say im fluent.
as usual miss timed my writing, as firstly ive run out of time on the compuer and secondly i chose to write just after the holday, so i havnt got much to say, but sure soon i will have some more info about volunteering rather than holidays and ewan mcgregor!

em x

Posted by Emily ( 9:39 AM )
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Sunday Jul 08, 2007

My partners are great

 

So, what have I been up to... The week after I last wrote there were memorial services for the two friends I talked about, Christine and Dolf, as the actual funerals were actually held elsewhere. The amount of people that came showed how loved both of them had been. Christine had taught at Brightstart (one of the schools I work at) and so a lot of the kids knew her; the headteacher requested I get them to sing Amazing Grace at the mass. It was a really nice service and the kids were good, for once.

It seems strange how soon I'm leaving, it comes up so often when I'm talking to Bozena and Marcel. I'm really thankful that I got such cool partners. Ok, there are occasional spats because we're all human, but as a rule we get on really well. As an example, yesterday I sat down to work on my community report for Project Trust. I started chatting to Bozena as she was sat at the table too, then Marcel came in and joined what became a massive debate about everything from whether the prison system should be for punishment or rehabilitation, to the different social expectations of men and women when dating, to the existence of the soul. I ended up sat in front of my work for a good three or four hours and wrote about one sentence.

It's going to be really odd to go from being with two people practically all the time – we live together, work together, eat together, socialise together – to barely ever seeing them at all. Of course I'm going to stay in touch with both of them, but going from being with someone constantly for nearly 12 months to seeing them maybe in holidays will be a big shock to the system.

So, this is turning into something of a eulogy to my partners, but I do have a point to make. When I was thinking about working with Project Trust one of the things that really worried me was whether I'd end up stuck with someone I couldn't stand, for an entire year. Perhaps in a normal situation, like at university or if we worked together but didn't live together, the three of us wouldn't be good friends. We're all very different people, but I think one of the things we've all gained from this year is more of an ability to make accommodation for someone else – I'll remember to put the lid back on the toothpaste if Marcel remembers to rinse out the bath after he's showered, type of thing. But we've been lucky. Yes, if you put your mind to it you could get through a year living with practically anyone, but we've actually all become really good friends and it's been a lot of fun. Forcing three dissimilar people into one small flat for twelve months can sometimes have a positive outcome!

Marcel's leaving in two weeks time, and his sister, Claudia, is first coming to visit then they're going to travel round Namibia before flying back to Holland. She's going to arrive next Thursday, just in time to see me in insanely panicked mode about the Brightstart play on Friday. I hope I don't make too much of a horrific impression as a stressed maniac, or at least manage to redeem myself after the play... But it should be fun!

 

Posted by Lucy Hayes ( 9:13 AM )
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