Long time no post

Hello folks. Sorry for the recent lack of posting. We were actually reasonably busy with the build up to Christmas. Happy New Year to you!! I suppose I should recap the last couple of months. Here it goes . . .

Paul is pretty much in the full swing of things at work now. He visits the same schools every day for a week (usually two in one week – one in the morning and one in the afternoon) to train one teacher in the school in Jolly Phonics, with the idea being that they will eventually be able to teach it well themselves as well as being able to train and monitor other teachers in the school, the head teacher is also supposed to be fully involved in all the training. On the first day he observes a Jolly Phonics lesson by the teacher. On the second day Paul teaches a lesson himself, with the teacher helping with any translation/communication issues. On the third day they team-teach a lesson and on the fourth day the teacher teaches again and Paul observes, with hopefully some improvement from the first observation. On the final visit the teacher and head teacher are given guidance on how to train and monitor other teachers in the school, future training needs are assessed, and extra support planned. Paul and Emma are both doing this training at schools across our region (North Bank Region 3).

Why Jolly Phonics? Well, the official language of the Gambia is English, but most households (certainly up-country anyway) speak a different language at home – Mandinka, Woolof, fula, etc. The official language at school after Grade 3 is English, so text books are in English as are lessons, etc. Therefore, in order for the students to be able to learn in their other subjects, they really must be proficient in English. At present, this is not really the case. So, Paul and Emma are carrying on the Jolly Phonics work done by previous vSOs in the hopes that it will have an impact on the rest of the children’s education.

As for me, I have not been successful in finding regular, organized work with an NGO as I had originally hoped – but not for lack of trying I might add. So, instead, I have been doing lots of bits and pieces – mostly working with women. I have been conducting an IT class for some female employees at the local government office, co-teaching a class with a Peace Corps volunteer for women with microenterprises, serving as the secretary of a funding body, reading and commenting on various drafted funding proposals, and working with Paul to do some capacity building with an area women’s group. I have also had a good amount of time to practice Mandinka, take photographs, read, etc, so I have been keeping busy.

We celebrated Christmas with the other volunteers at a handful of parties in the weeks before Christmas. Then, to try to beat the Christmas blues, we booked ourselves into a hotel for Christmas Eve. We spent most of the 24th, 25th and 26th in our swimming costumes, but we did manage to fit in some traditional activities like eating significantly too much food and even seeing and talking to family (via telephone and skype! – definitely the highlight of the holiday!). After going all out on Christmas we returned to our village for a slow post-holiday week (the schools were closed) ending with an understated but absolutely perfect New Years Eve around a campfire under the stars on the pier at the river in our village.

So, to sum it all up, we are doing well and work is coming along slowly slowly. Have a look at my flickr site (there is a link on the right hand side) to see our most recent photos.