It’s been a hectic couple of weeks since the Kabba weekend. Another volunteer, Heather, has moved to Jos so I have had a good excuse to eat out more than usual to show her the best places! She considers that Jos has practically artic conditions since she has been living in Delta state for the past few months, but I pointed out that although the temperature has admittedly dropped recently it’s still around 26 degrees or so. Hardly freezing, but then I felt a bit chilly the other day and needed a few layers on so perhaps I am succumbing to the local view of the climate!
Anyway, I am gathering a few more people to come with me to the samba and tango lessons I have started going to…which is necessary as the timings are rather casual , as are the other dance participants. Different people tend to come each time. Generally I end up texting the teacher before the class to remind her to come. That seems to work, although she was still 25 minutes late the other day, even after the text. I wouldn’t mind, but as it’s only for an hour….! Anyway, now we have a few definite regulars things should improve! I have been told that my waist needs to be more flexible in no uncertain terms, but at least I seem to be able to get the steps so that’s a start. And its all good fun which is the main thing.
The country pictures are of another hike in Jos with a few friends. I promised that I would take them to a place with boulders to climb and I don’t think I disappointed them! It was a beautiful day and even though I have seen the landscape in that area a few times now, I haven’t got tired of it yet!!
And moving to school matters...well, its all going quite well at the moment. I have been so pleased that many of the things that I had suggested and try to set up have actually happened. We managed to get external funding to create a partition in the physio room to make a small dark room area as a basic sensory room. I spotted a disco ball in the main “supermarket” in Jos ( not exactly Tesco sized…more like your average convenience store) and I couldn’t believe it as I hadn’t seen anything like that here before. So we bought that, and along with some light up toys I brought out with me, we have been able to create an atmosphere of flashing lights and spinning light up balls etc. We have also rigged up a ball pool using a paddling pool and a bag of small plastic balls we found in town. It makes a great waiting area for physio!
You may think this has nothing to do with speech therapy but actually I have been trying to get the non-verbal children to ask what toy they want using pictures, or a make-shift switch with a recordable message such as “I want toy!” If they press the switch, they get the toy! The switch I have got is tiny though as it is just a basic toy as part of a telephone set, so we are hoping to get funding to get some decent switches and “ talking machine” type technology ( AAC for those of you in the know) so I am more hopeful about that as I really think it will work.
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