Cow in a Pickup

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It was SO hard to get up and get motivated for teaching today. Even Jim, the most perky and keen of all of us, was on a go slow. Today is our last day of teaching and we are all starting to feel ready to come home. The last couple of days have felt like we are here just for the sake of it rather than here to really get something out of it. I’m not sure if that’s because we are starting to feel a little home sick for things like hot showers and real food or if it’s because we’ve had so little freedom to do what we what to do whilst we are here that we are just craving normality. It’s not the fault of the school or anyone else for that matter that we have so little freedom it’s just the fact that we are white chicks in the jungle! The group dynamic is also breaking down a little with one member of the group being a constantly grumpy douchebag and other members of the Oynibo tribe having to really bite their tongue! They say that if you are in a group and you can’t think of a single tool in that group then the tool is probably you! Luckily we are all very aware of who the tool in our group is! The other three of us get on really well though so the 22 hour journey home on Saturday/Sunday should be a laugh! (I might not be saying that 19 hours into that journey though!)

On my way into school this morning I saw one of the strangest sights of my life. On my way up from
Lagos there was talk of a goat being pushed across a highway in a wheelbarrow but not even that prepared me for what I saw today; a cow in a pickup truck. I don’t mean a dead cow being transported away, I mean a cow lying down, just chillin’ out, chewing its cud, admiring the view as it was chauffeured around the school grounds. The cow was big and the pickup was small and I have NO idea how you would even get a cow in a pickup but maybe that’s just another mystery of Nigeria?

In my year 7 Maths lesson today I developed quite a crowd of teachers wanting to watch what the crazy white woman would do next. Those of you who know me know I’m not the shy and retiring type and I try and make my lessons as colourful as possible. This is in total contrast to the Nigerian way. The text books over here do not contain a single picture and are printed in just one colour. I’ve been using loads of bright poster paper and coloured pencils and they are loving it! I brought some coloured paper over to the Maths department this morning and already Mrs Aveira has squirrelled off with most of it into her room making sure that she will have the best classroom in the school!!

The teachers were crowded round the windows and taking loads of pictures of me. The teacher whose class I was teaching had my big camera and thought he was David Bailey. He was getting down low, getting up high, with flash, without flash, right in my face and from far far away! It’s just a shame that he couldn’t really use the camera and out of 86 pictures he took only about 8 of them are in focus!

After our school day, Jade and I legged it to the pool to try and catch some of this beautiful sunshine. There was a massive football tournament going on in the sports arena. Only two players on the winning team had boots or trainers and the rest were bare foot. Plus it’s in the high forties again today and those boys were sprinting around for an hour and a half. After an hour by the pool Jade and I had pretty much melted!

I’m going to have to leave it there for today, we have just been invited to the King’s palace for dinner tonight and we need to get ready


Hope everyone is well
Kate xx


myf

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Comments

[Paula sistersloth]

Cow in a pick up
Decided I want one of them there mascots for my jeesylessy jeep, please could you fetch me one back from Nigeria please ? Gracias