How long is a piece of string?

A ball of Plastic string

It is great having a husband who is very practical and good with his hands.  I have learnt so far in my married life of three years that he finds nothing more exciting than fixing things with odd pieces of anything he can find and even better if he has been storing in some out-of-the-way place known as justincase.  I find it amusing but also very handy as I can say things like “make me a door knocker”  (that sounds like a command actually) or “I really need somewhere to store my ….” And he is off and away in pursuit of a solution.

So I was glad to find him some little jobs to do in Sudan.  My mother always said “a man needs a hobby” especially if it is mutually beneficial.

The first task was a washing line.  “Martin I need a washing line”.  This was while we were staying with Tanya and Susannah.  It was perfect.  

We brought the remains of the red ball of plastic string and this is what he has done with it so far.

“I need a washing line.  No make them further apart.  I need more.”

Double washing line

Extra line space needed

It's holding up well

“What do we do about the mosquito net?”

A careful design to avoid tangling the mozzy net with the fan

“We need a toilet roll holder.”

Perfect

"And a Towel rail."

His and Hers Towel rail

Our home 

 A view of the gardens

My husband is a lovely bloke.

First Day at School

Assembly time at Madani Girls' School

 We had already visited both the boys’ and girls’ schools and met the teachers and had a quick look around but today we actually started at the girls’ school properly.  Martin was in the girls’ school on the first floor and I was placed in the girls’ school on the ground floor.  Until June this was one school but the decision was made to create two schools on the same site but with different administration and staff. The smaller of the schools, upstairs has around 400 pupils and has smaller classrooms and higher ability students, whereas the downstairs school has around 800 pupils and larger classroom sizes and are lower ability students.  I was amazed to observe a class of 84 students crammed into a classroom without any room to move.  You couldn’t get a fag paper between them.  We were told that the classes upstairs were small – around 30 to a class but the classes Martin saw were 40 to 50.  High schools consist of only 3 years of students, 1^st years are aged 14, 2^nd years are 15 and 3^rd years are 16.  The 3^rd years are being prepared for exams and so we will not be working with them in the class, just with 1^st and 2^nd years.

They were very excited to have me there

Singing and saying prayers

Lined up ready to say their bit

The day started at 7:30 with assembly and a group of girls led the assembly with a mixture of poems, pop songs and prayers in both Arabic and English, presumably for my benefit.  A couple of the girls were really nervous and tears welled up in me for them and I gave encouraging smiles as best I could.  The head teacher asked me to say a few words which was a little daunting as I had to use a microphone and I hadn’t prepared anything.  But I just told them my name and that I was from London and I had come here with my husband to work with their teachers to help them with listening and speaking English.  I then said “and as I look around at all you beautiful and talented young women, I look forward to getting to know you all” They let out a big “whoooo” at the word beautiful!

Hard to tell them apart in their uniform but their footwear shows their individuality!

I only got to observe a 3^rd year class and as I said they were crammed in tightly. As you would imagine, a few students were particularly active and most of the students didn’t fully participate.  It would be impossible to move around the classroom and check on student’s understanding.  Similarly there would be no moving around for the students and so the only thing to do would be to group the students into 6, with 3 in front turning around to the 3 behind and working together.  Ideally, there would be a seating plan so that the groups were mixed ability and the better students could support the weaker students.  I discussed these thoughts with the teachers in the staffroom and  they we happy enough to try them out. 

One teacher has worked in Saudi and had already been exposed to these ideas and was very interested in trying them.  The other teachers were a little negative but I understand that.  The truth is that my ideas are theoretical as I have never worked with such large classes and the ideas may need refining.  But what they are looking for from me is to show them how to incorporate modern teaching methods and expand listening and speaking skills into the curriculum.  We were led to believe we would definitely not be doing that but instead working with the teachers and improving their language skills.  The conflict arises where the teachers have a deadline to complete the curriculum and therefore do not have time to take a leisurely approach and spent time on developing speech.  Not forgetting of course the broad range of ability in the class and the fact that probably half the class are way below the ability of what what is being taught.

However, as it turned out we didn’t try anything out and were whisked away by the Ministry to attend a workshop on introducing a Debating Society in school.  This was very interesting and I look forward to the possibility of getting involved.

Our Permanent Home!

Proud owner of a book shelf

 On Sunday we moved to our new place which will be our permanent home in Wad Medani.  It is the Teacher’s Union which is a conference centre for ‘educational stuff’ and has a block of en-suite rooms for people who have to travel a distance.  We are on the ground floor and are the only people living there.  It is set in some pleasant gardens and is very close the two boys’ schools and two girls’ schools we will be teaching in and so very convenient.  The shops are in reasonable distance but it feels quite far when walking in the heat so we have used a rakshar (tuk-tuk) to get there.  We think there are some nearer shops in a different direction but we have yet to explore.

The walls were crusty brown before we scrubbed all day

Thrilled to have a wardrobe and to be able to unpack everything

Martin playing ghosties behind the mozzy net

The room is a reasonable size but it is like a hotel room with nowhere to sit other than on the bed which is fine if you are on holiday but not so convenient when you are living and working there.  The Ministry of Education however have been more than helpful and have said they will find us a table and a couple of chairs plus a bookcase which will be very helpful.  We had to scrub the whole place as it was really filthy! But we are making it our own and are very happy to have unpacked finally after living out of suitcases since June 15^th!

We have had to buy a few things though. We have a fridge in our room, but decided we needed some bowls for food for the fridge.  Basic stuff like plates and cutlery plus plastic bowls for washing our clothes and a little and iron.  There is no kitchen attached to our room, but we have been given authority to use the Teacher’s Union’s kitchen when they give us a key he he.  This will be another adventure I suspect.

Getting Started

The Anglican church

The maize field belonging to the church

We arrived but this was the first part of the process and things move slowly.  Having come from Khartoum, Medani is a pleasant sight.   There are trees!  And we saw some grass!  Our temporary apartment block is a couple of hundred yards from the River Nile which is lined by green parks with swings and slides for children and seating areas for relaxing.  Across the road are rows of tea ladies and juice bars and people sit around chatting and relaxing with friends.  It has a real seaside feel and is very pleasant.

We took a little walk around early evening the day after we arrived and found an Anglican church.  We had a look around and met the Bishop and had a good chat with him about his visits to England and the work they were doing here.  He showed us around the place which consists of a few small buildings one of which houses five computers.  I am quite excited about this as it is an opportunity to teach skills and English at the same time and so my brain starts doing somersaults thinking about what I can do here.  However, what hit me like a bolt was seeing blackboards fixed to various points on the outside of the buildings with seats arranged under nearby trees.  These informal outside classrooms are where young people come for English lessons after they have been at school or university.  They hang around the church because they know that this is where they can learn and practice their English.  They come because they need to and the Church meets that need.

Makeshift Classroom

Jessica was an SVP volunteer in Wad Medani before us and she had given us the names of some people from an English School that she volunteered at and we asked the Bishop if he knew them.  Of course he did and so Rose came over when she finished teaching and took us to the English Institute.  We met Doris, a German woman married to a Sudanese man and had lived all over Africa but came to settle here when her husband retired.   (My description does not do justice to this very interesting woman who has done some amazing stuff)  We met James as well; both he and Rose run the little English Language Institute.  It had a lovely atmosphere, like an oasis of calm.

We then met up with Christine who is doing her 3^rd year of her language degree in Sudan and is due back to the UK next week.  We all went along to Nile street, ate pizza and drank tea.

In fact this is all we seem to do all day.  We go over to the Ministry of Education, sit around and drink tea and chat, hand over a piece of paper.  Then we go somewhere else and do the same.  Patience, patience.