Godfrey takes me out!

Godfrey was more thana driver. He really looked out for me. On Friday afternoon he arrived at the hotel with his sister Joy. They took me to places around Owerri. We looked at a very splendid hotel. Later we walked around the GRA which was good as I had been stuck in the hotel all week.

 Then we went to the farm. I saw lots of fruit trees-mangoes, paw paws and plantains growing. Joy gave me some palm oil kernels to try and grow back home.

This is the fish farm. They really jumped high when the food was thown in.

This is a plantain tree!

Pine kernels.

It was so good to see thigs growing in Nigeria and so much green. Godfrey and Joy were so welcoming.

They took me for a traditional Nigerian meal. I failed miserably. I really couldn't eat the cat fish in the ochre soup and found the wheat difficult too. However I think the staff were quite pleased when I took their photo!

It was a great end to a very successful week.

Numeracy Training Highlights

The teachers were great. They loved the counting songs. Here we are singing 'Five Little Ducks'.

We made dice, number lines and lots of numeracy resources.

The teachers were keen to come out and demonstrate lessons.

This is me with Caroline! We are now sisters because of our shared name!

 Group photo! They also enjoyed playing maths games-especially 'Find a Friend' and Bingo!

They made place value cards.

The Director of SUBEB gave me a lesson in Igbo pronunciation!

Stella and Patrick were a great help. They said I looked very white in this photo!!!

Caroline returns to Nigeria!

I was asked by Stepping Stones to do some Maths training in Imo. Now that I have resigned from my school in the UK I was able to say, 'Yes'. It is only for a week but I am very excited to be going back!

Crazy but wonderful. Nigeria I had forgotten how you make me smile! Seven hours waiting for a delayed Arik plane from Abuja to Owerri on a hard metal seat I wondered what I was doing. Necessity drove me to the toilet which was clean but had no lock! I was constantly informed of flights taking off to places such as Lagos, Enugu, Maidguru by a very dramatic female voice who ended every announcement with a very throaty drawn out ‘Thank you’. As more and more flights left with Arik I wondered about my suitcase (or I should say ‘load’) and hoped it had not been put on any of those planes by mistake. I was amazed it had got this far without any comments as it was full of scissors, dowel, bottle tops for my maths training. With no phone card or Nigerian money all I could do was sit and wait. Finally I heard the word Owerri and leapt to my feet. We walked out to the plane, dodging passenger buses and walking round planes. I need not have worried- there was my load by the plane. I indicated it was mine and got on the plane. I was the only white person on the plane but there was a distinguished visitor on board so I escaped much attention. The usual juice and cake were served and in no time we landed. Owerri seemed so green compared to Kwara and there were many trees and crops growing. As we walked to the terminal I followed the distinguished visitor until I realised I was about to go out the exit. As a mere mortal I had to go back for my load. Outside I waited as the truck brought the loads to where we all stood. There was then a scuffle to get the bags as it was hard to see which part of the truck they were in! I then went to the exit where my luggage receipt was checked-foolproof system I need not have worried.

Godfrey, my driver, was waiting. What a great, kind person he was. He took me to some Hausa people so I could change my money and then phoned a friend to arrange for me to get a sim card for my phone. I had a tour of Owerri. It felt like I had never been away. The bright colours, the bargaining, the dusty roads, the ditches, all the churches and the heat all greeted me. There were a lot of tuc tucs , drivers with no respect for any driving rules and the ‘road safety’ police were busy taking money.

In my hotel I was very grateful for a nice clean room. The phone rang a lot but the line was empty when I answered-it took a while for me to realise it was the phone in the bathroom and the one by my bed didn’t work! I went to investigate the conference room and was told the training had started at 8 and finished at 4 last week (actually it had started at 9). I was also told they knew nothing about card, masking tape, etc. A frantic call to Naomi and I was told these things were in a cupboard. I gradually relaxed and got into Nigerian mode-everything works out in the end! Mr Fred came to visit me-he was to be my assistant the next day. Then I met the chef (pronounced ‘shef’). He said he would make me food other than on the buffet if required.  I helped myself to ‘potato’ soup(tasted suspiciously like chicken but the waitress assured me it had no meat-she did not like the look of it, she said but white people ate it!). Then I had beans and vegetables which were nice and paw paw. Finally after 24 hours I slept!

The next morning the teachers arrived at 10am! However all seemed to go quite well. I had to slow down a lot as they found it hard to follow my accent. We had a lot of fun singing counting songs and making dice. They have a lovely uniform which is a dark blue suit, white shirt and red flower. On Fridays they are allowed to wear their own clothes.

After the training I tried to buy a slice of cake from the bakery-I ended up with enough cake to feed a family of eight. It was good to have a cup of coffee-even with powdered milk. I have a hotel porter outside my room all the time which is very reassuring and everyone is very polite and smiley-even when telling me there is no internet connection. After another meal of beans (Simon, the chef is going to make me spaghetti tomorrow) I left the restaurant. My waitress asked me if I could teach her to spell! She wrote out the alphabet on a scrap of paper and looked at me expectantly. What could I do? She is going to write a story about herself for me to check tomorrow.

It is quite noisy as the hotel is near a roundabout but somehow it doesn’t matter. The smiling, the greeting, the happy faces and the rousing ‘God’ music makes it impossible to be down or anxious for long! I would like the internet to come back though......

Books for Kwara

I have not forgotten Nigeria! I am doing a fundraising this Saturday so if you live near me in the UK please come!

Enjoy a cake and coffee and help a child to read!

£1 is all we need to give a child a book to read!      

These children live in Kwara, one of the poorest states in Nigeria. School buildings are often falling apart and children have to sit on broken benches in classes of up to 100. We have taught the teachers how to teach reading which will help the children get a better education and a job. Being able to read gives them a future. At the moment most children only have a textbook to read. They need proper reading books. Just £1 buys a reading book written and published in Nigeria.

                                      These children are learning to read but have no reading books!

Your contribution of £1 will go straight to Nigeria where a Nigerian team of School Improvement Officers will then buy books from a Macmillan warehouse and take them straight out to the schools where they are urgently needed.

You are invited to cakes and coffee (or tea) on Saturday July 21^st at 13 Kendal Close, Bebington. Drop in any time from 10am – 4pm. All I ask is a donation for ‘Books for Kwara’!                                    Many thanks, Caroline.

              

Afterwards

I have been back four weeks now. I am glad to be with my family and it is good to have hot showers, constant electricity and running water. It is also good to be able to sleep without having to worry about rats or insects crawling on my face. However I really miss Nigeria. Life was so much simpler there. Here I am faced with materialism on a massive scale and pressure to conform is strong. For the first time in ages I put on make-up. Going to the shops was a big shock as prices seemed to have shot up. Worst was going out for a meal and discovering the cost was the same as a month's wages for a teacher in Nigeria. Being told I'll soon get used to it again is small comfort.
It was not easy being a volunteer and I did struggle a lot at times but it was an amazing experience and I am so glad I did it. It is one of the major achievements of my life. Just before I left the tables I helped to design were being put into schools. It is also amazing to think that my training is now being used in other states. Even more mind blowing is thinking of all the teachers who are now teaching reading using a group method. I was so lucky to have been given the freedom to do these things and really appreciate the SSIT who willingly put my ideas into practice. The appreciation I received from the teachers will stay with me for the rest of my life.
I hope to go back to Nigeria and continue my work with story books so I may post every now and then but for now it is goodbye. Thank you to everyone who has read this. If you are thinking of volunteering then I would advise you to go for it! It may not be easy and you may have to face fears and obstacles but you won't regret it! If I can do it then anyone can!

Leaving

The last few days were the hardest of all. Walking out of the ESSPIN office for the last time was hard. My desk was so tidy and bare. I will no longer have to sit there editing lesson plans while keeping an eye on the waste paper bin in case the rat has decided to climb in there again! I said my last 'odabo' to the guard, walked downstairs and had my last pronunciation lesson from the guard on the desk and a final wave to Abdulai, the man who lifts the barrier at the gate. I have had some amazing conversations with that man-mostly completely beyond my understanding but he always seemed happy with my replies!

Clearing out our house and packing up took a lot of time as we had acquired so much stuff over fourteen months. We 'dashed' most of it. I asked the guards to put some stuff in the bin for me but not much ended up there. Very little of it was rubbish in their eyes. Even my worn out shoes could fetch a few naira apparently-very humbling. Lea made a certificate of excellent teaching for Buki, the girl in the photo,  who tried to teach us a phrase in Yoruba every week. She would also test us on previous phrases and was quite strict! She brought her brothers round for the final farewell.

Then there was another party. Sue is relocating to Abuja so we were both leaving. Here the chefs are getting ready.

All the ESSPIN staff came in outfits made from the same fabric! Here is Ife-I will never forget making mincepies with her or going to the market.

This is Kola who I worked with and sat next to in the ESSPIN office.

Then came Katherine, the deputy team leader who is a grandma like me and took us to the cantata at her church last Christmas.

As a surprise the ESSPIN staff had outfits made from the same fabric for Lea and I and Sue and Mesbah. Here I am with two of the SSIT members- Eunice and Yunus (both pronounced the same!).

Funmi was in charge of the agenda. He also made a very nice speech about me as did Sherrife.

Emma' the state team leader organised a pub quiz!

My dress was made from 4 yards of fabric!. Funmi bought Lea some 'palms' (sandals) to complete his outfit.

Even Sue's children had an outfit. I loved the flower on Bike's dress.

Sue was given special Yoruba cloth from SUBEB.

On the actual day we left Ilorin, Uzzar and Funmi and Sharon came round. We weren't sure when the plane was leaving-neither was the airline company Arik! As we left our neighbours were cheering and waving to us from the balcony and all the kids in the street came out to say goodbye. The woman from the tomato shop stopped the v an and gave us a mug and a calendar.

We finally left five hours later than scheduled. We l;eft Abuja early the following morning and were back in Heathrow at 3pm. I wore the lovely clothes the SSIT gave me all the way home.

Here I am at Heathrow. Fortunately when we arrived at Manchester airport James had brought a coat and a blanket as it was rather cooler there than in Nigeria!

Story books

I should have posted this ages ago so ignore the date! Just four weeks before I left Nigeria I got a grant of 100,000 naira from VSO. It was a bit of a mad scramble but I managed to buy 500 story books from Macmillan at a special rate of 200 naira per book and out of my allowance I bought plastic crates to  pack the books in. The best part was taking the books to the schools! I had already funded schools in Ilorin, Asa and Oro so decided to take books to another LGEA called Moro which does not do as well as other areas. The schools are also linked to a university there where David, our Canadian friend works. He is trying to help the communities and got some children into schools by finding funds to buy school uniforms and pay the PTA levy. Despite the claim that all children have acces to education lots of children still don't attend school because of having to pay the levy and have a uniform which is compulsory.So I went with the SSIT to deliver the books. At each school a child came to collect them and take them to the teachers. All the teachers in Kwara have now been trained in the new reading methods so it was good to observe them in practice.

At the start of each literacy lesson pupils in these schools can now enjoy reading real story books with Nigerian themes.

Some of the children had never seen a book apart from a text book and we had to tell them that they were allowed to open them. The teachers did a good job of introducing the books to the children-this was part of the training. It was very rewarding to see the children so absorbed. Even the children who couldn't read much were able to take part as the books are graded to include books for beginners with lots of pictures.

The children are in groups. At a training one teacher asked what to do about children who couldn't read at all. My response would have been to ability group them but Philip had a much better solution-he said the ones who could read would help the ones who couldn't. It is so much better to let them come up with their own solutions. Their solutions are based on experience in teaching in Nigeria where 'ofsted' ideals have to be greatly modified-this has been a real learning curve for me!

I wish all children could have access to these books. I am hoping to continue raising money for this. Less than £1 would buy a book for a child. My dream is to provide books for every child in public schools in Kwara state.

Reading is the key to so many things and should be the right of every child.