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Published: November 15th 2013
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Firstly, apologies that I have not recorded a travel blog for well over a month- life here has been amazing over the last month and a half, but also very busy! I left Baobab on the 29
th September to move into a beautiful apartment near the beach, with Francisco. He has also brought over some lovely pieces of furniture- most of them made by him- and we have loved creating a temporary home here for a couple of months! I can’t believe how quickly the time is going, and that I’ll actually be back in the UK in a few weeks for my Christmas visit, before returning to Vilankulos again in January.
I feel extremely lucky to have discovered this wonderful community, as well as having the stunning beach on my doorstep, and teaching here is great. I have been teaching four lessons a week in town, as well as running some private lessons and going to two of the local businesses (including Baobab) to teach the workers there. My students are doing so well, and they really enjoy having the opportunity to apply the basic English they learnt at school in practical situations, as well as expanding
their vocabulary and learning correct pronunciation and grammar- I am amazed at the progress that many of them have already made!
Lessons are often a lot of fun, too, and very different from my experience of teaching in the UK! I am definitely refining my skills at drawing and writing clearly using chalk and blackboard (no interactive whiteboards here!) My afternoon lessons in town are in an open bungalow space at a friend’s house, too, so I am usually contending with small children playing around the compound or wanting to come and sit at the back and watch my lesson. For those of you who have visited Vilankulos, you will also know that there is always music playing somewhere- through large speakers- so there is always some good background music to my lessons coming from one of the local stalls or houses!
I also love the freedom I have to plan my lessons and adapt them to what the students want to learn. In England, we are extremely lucky to have such a good infrastructure and free education system (until the age of 16), which I definitely benefited from and feel very privileged to
have had access to; it just seems such a shame that the bureaucracy surrounding current issues in UK education makes the job so hard for teachers, and for some I have spoken to I know it distracts them from the simple joy of teaching and making a difference.
A couple of weekends ago Francisco and I made a trip to Tofo- a beautiful beach town about 4 hours from Vilankulos- to see our friends Chamussdine and Joy (that is actually his name, and it’s very appropriate!) We had a great time catching up with them, and we all went to a music festival on Saturday night at Barra (a town just along the coast from Tofo). There was some brilliant African music, and we enjoyed a night of drinking, dancing on the beach and partying into the morning to see the beautiful sunrise over the beach :o)
Francisco and I are making big plans for next year, and I hope to start teaching at the school as it will be a great opportunity. I’ll also have free accommodation, so we can really start saving for buying a piece of land! I will, however, want
to continue with my own classes because they are so important for people in the community on a lower income. Another priority is finding some yard space for Francisco to begin his own carpentry business; he is so skilled and creates beautiful pieces of furniture and small woodwork. He is currently working for someone else, but he has so much interest from local lodges etc. in his work, so it will be great for him to be more independent next year.
So, all in all, my first three months here have been great and this move was definitely the right decision; I have become very settled in Vilankulos. It will be lovely to be back in the UK to see everyone and share all your news, as well as enjoying the usual Christmas traditions and celebrations with my family, but for me now and the life I see myself having, I don’t think I could go back to life in England... at least for the foreseeable future!
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