Jack:

I've now decided to abandon theory lessons for this term, so as to get the children practicing on the computers for two periods a week. I think next term once all the children are more familiar with how to use a computer the theory lessons will become more useful. The lessons I have been doing are going really well, with all the kids super keen to come and learn (every time I walk in the school they swamp me shouting “Sir! Sir! ICT today?”).

All the classes can now move, click, and drag with the mouse, and they know where to hold their hands on the keyboard, and how to type with the “home row” keys (the keys over which your fingers should rest). Its amazing the difference it makes if you learn to type correctly from the off, it took me ages to retrain myself two finger typing, but the children are picking it up really quickly.

Last Wednesday I watched the Champions league final, my first televised game in Africa. The game was rubbish (unless you supported Barcelona) but the atmosphere was super lively. It was shown in the community hall which has this huge open air courtyard where they projected the game onto one of the walls. I went with the house cook, Simon, and most of the boys from the house, they advised to get there early so as to get seats and its a good job we did as by kick off the whole courtyard was packed.

There was lots of betting, and shouting about betting, before the match, and when the lineup was announced everybody was whooping and chanting as if they were in the stadium. Early on the crowd seemed to be quite balanced, but when Barcelona scored their supporters either became more vocal or some people switched allegiances, I suspect a bit of both. By the end it was positively partisan.

We were watching the game on the American channel ESPN and a personal highlight of the whole experience was seeing Shaka Hislop and Robbie Mustoe as the half time “experts”. Of course neither could match the insightful analysis and charisma of Alan Shearer - still it's good to see these two former Goliaths of the Premiership have gone to a good home.

We had PTA meeting last Friday after which all the parents and committee members came to see the computer room, they were so impressed with the computers and everything they can do. People were coming up and shaking my hand, slapping each others backs etc. After they had all seen the room everyone came back in and said a prayer of thanks for the computers and the opportunity for their children.

This week is sports week for all the schools in this area of Ejura. We were told at the last minute that this would mean no classes for the whole schools, as everybody would be going to the fields to watch. It was frustrating to hear that, one because we were given no notice and two because the school seems to have only done one full week in the month since we arrived. But them it was even more frustrating to arrive at school on Monday to find that there would be school every morning after all!

When I first arrived here I thought a major problem was the lack of communication, now I'm starting to think its more just that no one knows whats going on in the first place. This seems incomprehensible to us volunteers from a European/American perspective, where something like an inter-school sports week would have been planned and timetabled months in advance. Here its much more the case that people arrive in the morning and decide from there whats going to happen, and somehow amid a general sense of chaos thing do generally happen. Still I don't think four and a half months here will be enough for me to get used to this system – whats wrong with setting a time in advance and sticking to it!!!

Holly will write in a few days, and hopefully upload a few photos too.