few days at Ho

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Ok its been a while again....

School: the Children are so sweet! most of them are really nice and friendly but they know we wouldn't cain them so they run circles around us! We have discovered if we threaten to sen them to Master they hush up quite quick! Although it didn't work when he went away for the afternoon.....
Harriet and I are usually paired together and we start each lesson constructively but it does deteriorate into just playing and messing about! We've taught in P6,5,3,2 and 1at different times that is! At least one teacher doen't turn up everyday resulting in us taking their place but we have no clue what subject we're actually covering or how many children there are, what equipment they have and to what standard they understand English. When I was in P6 there was a 17 year old boy in a class supposedly for 12-14 year olds who couldn't read. It was distressing and no matter how hard I tried to teach him the other kids would become too interested in what we were doing and interupt or help him unneccessarily.... Its very difficult when there are at least 40 children in intense heat and no where we could actually sit quietly and work. There was another boy of 16 in P3 a class for 8-10 year olds who also couldn't read. What I think was hardest to understand was how they'd managed to move up through the school to get to the point where they just couldn't read but were in classes with children who clearly could.... We found the answer to that when we invigulated the exams with the teacher, the kids just cheat. outright. the teachers try a little to stop it but they honestly couldn't care its too hard to try to stop kids walking past the 'windows' chatting and the children within the class itself! The teacher for some reason decided it would wise to leave me alone with the class, as hard as i tried the children were old enough to back chat so it was a little bit of torture! Harriets teacher made her actually mark the exam and one child scored 0 but for some unknown reason 5% was added to each childs score!
We don't mean to diss the teachers at all, they try hard but at times they could improve. We did suggest this to the headmaster when he made us stay 2 hours after school! He said he did mention to the teachers regularly but to no avail.....
Regardless of this the children are extremely bright and clever and even spent a few hours trying to teach us Ewe the local language. Even though we could barely hear them over the din of the other classes we learnt a few things and were very grateful! We've had our final day with the kids and it was very sad as we had to say bye to a lot of our favourites (Faelis! Acos! Peace! Bright! Mark! Suglo! and many many many more!) but we made them all posters and tried to give each one a sweet (massive error as they went CRAZY! We got thoroughly abused reaulting in Harriet just breaking down and screaming at the top of her voice and me just batting the children away as they tried to pinch and hit me to get the sweets....!) but it was worth it slightly! We also said goodbye to the kindergarten children which was more heartwrenching but i'm sure they'll fall in love with some more 'Yevu's' (white people...) and we'll find more precious children around!

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Comments

[FJ]

very inspiring
I hope that your experiences make you realise how blessed we are here, and yet how much we are lacking....

[Jo Stevenson]

Angels you two are !
Sounds tough but rewarding, very interesting also. patience is a virtue, I think I would have been up for murder by now......sorry it's the short fuse that I have been given.... XXXX